Chapter 1

death, were placed by Dr. Castell's niece in a room so little regarded, that scarcely one complete copy escaped the rats, and "the whole load of learned rags sold only for seven pounds." The work at this moment would find purchasers, I believe, at forty or fifty pounds.--The learned SALE, who first gave the world a genuine version of the Koran, and who had so zealously laboured in forming that "Universal History" which was the pride of our country, pursued his studies through a life of want--and this great orientalist (I grieve to degrade the memoirs of a man of learning by such mortifications), when he quitted his studies too often wanted a change of linen, and often wandered in the streets in search of some compassionate friend who would supply him with the meal of the day!

[129] The following are extracts from Ockley's letters to the Earl of Oxford, which I copy from the originals:--

"_Cambridge Castle, May 2, 1717._

"I am here in the prison for debt, which must needs be an unavoidable consequence of the distractions in my family. I enjoy more repose, indeed, here, than I have tasted these many years, but the circumstance of a family obliges me to go out as soon as I can."

"_Cambridge, Sept. 7, 1717._

"I have at last found leisure in my confinement to finish my Saracen history, which I might have hoped for in vain in my perplexed circumstances."

DANGER INCURRED BY GIVING THE RESULT OF LITERARY INQUIRIES.

An author occupies a critical situation, for, while he is presenting the world with the result of his profound studies and his honest inquiries, it may prove pernicious to himself. By it he may incur the risk of offending the higher powers, and witnessing his own days embittered. Liable, by his moderation or his discoveries, by his scruples or his assertions, by his adherence to truth, or by the curiosity of his speculations, to be persecuted by two opposite parties, even when the accusations of the one necessarily nullify the other; such an author will be fortunate to be permitted to retire out of the circle of the bad passions; but he crushes in silence and voluntary obscurity all future efforts--and thus the nation loses a valued author.

This case is exemplified by the history of Dr. COWEL'S curious work "The Interpreter." The book itself is a treasure of our antiquities, illustrating our national manners. The author was devoted to his studies, and the merits of his work recommended him to the Archbishop of Canterbury; in the Ecclesiastical Court he practised as a civilian, and became there eminent as a judge.[130]

Cowel gave his work with all the modesty of true learning; for who knows his deficiencies so well in the subject on which he has written as that author who knows most? It is delightful to listen to the simplicity and force with which an author in the reign of our first James opens himself without reserve.

"My true end is the advancement of knowledge; and therefore have I published this poor work, not only to impart the good thereof to those young ones that want it, but also to draw from the learned the supply of my defects. Whosoever will charge these my travels [labours] with many oversights, he shall need no solemn pains to prove them. And upon the view taken of this book sithence the impression, I dare assure them that shall observe most faults therein, that I, by gleaning after him, will gather as many omitted by him, as he shall show committed by me. What a man saith well is not, however, to be rejected because he hath some errors; reprehend who will, in God's name, that is, with sweetness and without reproach. So shall he reap hearty thanks at my hands, and thus more soundly help in a few months, than I, by tossing and tumbling my books at home, could possibly have done in many years."

This extract discovers Cowel's amiable character as an author. But he was not fated to receive "sweetness without reproach."

Cowel encountered an unrelenting enemy in Sir Edward Coke, the famous Attorney-General of James I., the commentator of Littleton. As a man, his name ought to arouse our indignation, for his licentious tongue, his fierce brutality, and his cold and tasteless genius. He whose vileness could even ruffle the great spirit of Rawleigh, was the shameless persecutor of the learned Cowel.

Coke was the oracle of the common law, and Cowel of the civil; but Cowel practised at Westminster Hall as well as at Doctors' Commons. Coke turned away with hatred from an advocate who, with the skill of a great lawyer, exerted all the courage. The Attorney-General sought every occasion to degrade him, and, with puerile derision, attempted to fasten on Dr. Cowel the nickname of _Dr. Cowheel_. Coke, after having written in his "Reports" whatever he could against our author, with no effect, started a new project. Coke well knew his master's jealousy on the question of his prerogative; and he touched the King on that nerve. The Attorney-General suggested to James that Cowel had discussed "too nicely the mysteries of his monarchy, in some points derogatory to the supreme power of his crown; asserting that the royal prerogative was in some cases limited." So subtly the serpent whispered to the feminine ear of a monarch, whom this vanity of royalty startled with all the fears of a woman. This suggestion had nearly occasioned the ruin of Cowel--it verged on treason; and if the conspiracy of Coke now failed, it was through the mediation of the archbishop, who influenced the King; but it succeeded in alienating the royal favour from Cowel.

When Coke found he could not hang Cowel for treason, it was only a small disappointment, for he had hopes to secure his prey by involving him in felony. As physicians in desperate cases sometimes reverse their mode of treatment, so Coke now operated on an opposite principle. He procured a party in the Commons to declare that Cowel was a betrayer of the rights and liberties of the people; that he had asserted the King was independent of Parliament, and that it was a favour to admit the consent of his subjects in giving of subsidies, &c.; and, in a word, that he drew his arguments from the Roman Imperial Code, and would make the laws and customs of Rome and Constantinople those of London and York. Passages were wrested to Coke's design. The prefacer of Cowel's book very happily expresses himself when he says, "When a suspected book is brought to the torture, it often confesseth all, and more than it knows."

The Commons proceeded criminally against Cowel; and it is said his life was required, had not the king interposed. The author was imprisoned, and the book was burnt.

On this occasion was issued "a proclamation touching Dr. Cowel's book called 'The Interpreter.'" It may be classed among the most curious documents of our literary history. I do not hesitate to consider this proclamation as the composition of James I.

I will preserve some passages from this proclamation, not merely for their majestic composition, which may still be admired, and the singularity of the ideas, which may still be applied--but for the literary event to which it gave birth in the appointment of a royal licenser for the press. Proclamations and burning of books are the strong efforts of a weak government, exciting rather than suppressing public attention.

"This later age and times of the world wherein we are fallen is so much given to verbal profession, as well of religion as of all commendable royal virtues, but wanting the actions and deeds agreeable to so specious a profession; as it hath bred such an unsatiable curiosity in many men's spirits, and such an itching in the tongues and pens of most men, as nothing is left unsearched to the bottom both in talking and writing. For from the very highest mysteries in the Godhead and the most inscrutable counsels in the Trinity, to the very lowest pit of hell and the confused actions of the devils there, there is nothing now unsearched into by the curiosity of men's brains. Men, not being contented with the knowledge of so much of the will of God as it hath pleased him to reveal, but they will needs sit with him in his most private closet, and become privy of his most inscrutable counsels. And, therefore, it is no wonder that men in these our days do not spare to wade in all the deepest mysteries that belong to the persons or state of kings and princes, that are gods upon earth; since we see (as we have already said) that they spare not God himself. And this licence, which every talker or writer now assumeth to himself, is come to this abuse; that many Phormios will give counsel to Hannibal, and many men that never went of the compass of cloysters or colleges, will freely wade, by their writings, in the deepest mysteries of monarchy and politick government. Whereupon it cannot otherwise fall out but that when men go out of their element and meddle with things above their capacity, themselves shall not only go astray and stumble in darkness, but will mislead also divers others with themselves into many mistakings and errors; the proof whereof we have lately had by a book written by Dr. Cowel, called 'The Interpreter.'"

The royal reviewer then in a summary way shows how Cowel had, "by meddling in matters beyond his reach, fallen into many things to mistake and deceive himself." The book is therefore "prohibited; the buying, uttering, or reading it;" and those "who have any copies are to deliver the same presently upon this publication to the Mayor of London," &c., and the proclamation concludes with instituting licensers of the press:--

"Because that there shall be better oversight of books of all sorts before they come to the press, we have resolved to make choice of commissioners, that shall look more narrowly into the nature of all those things that shall be put to the press, and from whom a more strict account shall be yielded unto us, than hath been used heretofore."

What were the feelings of our injured author, whose integrity was so firm, and whose love of study was so warm, when he reaped for his reward the displeasure of his sovereign, and the indignation of his countrymen--accused at once of contradictory crimes, he could not be a betrayer of the rights of the people, and at the same time limit the sovereign power. Cowel retreated to his college, and, like a wise man, abstained from the press; he pursued his private studies, while his inoffensive life was a comment on Coke's inhumanity more honourable to Cowel than any of Coke's on Littleton.

Thus Cowel saw, in his own life, its richest labour thrown aside; and when the author and his adversary were no more, it became a treasure valued by posterity! It was printed in the reign of Charles I., under the administration of Cromwell, and again after the Restoration. It received the honour of a foreign edition. Its value is still permanent. Such is the history of a book, which occasioned the disgrace of its author, and embittered his life.

A similar calamity was the fate of honest STOWE, the Chronicler. After a long life of labour, and having exhausted his patrimony in the study of English antiquities, from a reverential love to his country, poor Stowe was ridiculed, calumniated, neglected, and persecuted. One cannot read without indignation and pity what Howes, his continuator, tells us in his dedication. Howes had observed that--

"No man would lend a helping hand to the late aged painful Chronicler, nor, after his death, prosecute his work. He applied himself to several persons of dignity and learning, whose names had got forth among the public as likely to be the continuators of Stowe; but every one persisted in denying this, and some imagined that their secret enemies had mentioned their names with a view of injuring them, by incurring the displeasure of their superiors and risking their own quiet. One said, 'I will _not flatter_, to scandalise my posterity;' another, 'I cannot see how a man should spend his labour and money worse than in that which acquires no regard nor reward except _backbiting_ and _detraction_.' One swore a great oath and said, 'I thank God that I am not yet so mad to waste my time, spend two hundred pounds a-year, trouble myself and all my friends, only to give assurance of endless reproach, loss of liberty, and bring all my days in question.'"

Unhappy authors! are such then the terrors which silence eloquence, and such the dangers which environ truth? Posterity has many discoveries to make, or many deceptions to endure! But we are treading on hot embers.

Such too was the fate of REGINALD SCOT, who, in an elaborate and curious volume,[131] if he could not stop the torrent of the popular superstitions of witchcraft, was the first, at least, to break and scatter the waves. It is a work which forms an epoch in the history of the human mind in our country; but the author had anticipated a very remote period of its enlargement. Scot, the apostle of humanity, and the legislator of reason, lived in retirement, yet persecuted by religious credulity and legal cruelty.

SELDEN, perhaps the most learned of our antiquaries, was often led, in his curious investigations, to disturb his own peace, by giving the result of his inquiries. James I. and the Court party were willing enough to extol his profound authorities and reasonings on topics which did not interfere with their system of arbitrary power; but they harassed and persecuted the author whom they would at other times eagerly quote as their advocate. Selden, in his "History of Tithes," had alarmed the clergy by the intricacy of his inquiries. He pretends, however, to have only collected the opposite opinions of others, without delivering his own. The book was not only suppressed, but the great author was further disgraced by subscribing a gross recantation of all his learned investigations--and was compelled to receive in silence the insults of Courtly scholars, who had the hardihood to accuse him of plagiarism, and other literary treasons, which more sensibly hurt Selden than the recantation extorted from his hand by "the Lords of the High Commission Court." James I. would not suffer him to reply to them. When the king desired Selden to show the right of the British Crown to the dominion of the sea, this learned author having made proper collections, Selden, angried at an imprisonment he had undergone, refused to publish the work. A great author like Selden degrades himself when any personal feeling, in literary disputes, places him on an equality with any king; the duty was to his country.--But Selden, alive to the call of rival genius, when Grotius published, in Holland, his _Mare liberum_, gave the world his _Mare clausum_; when Selden had to encounter Grotius, and to proclaim to the universe "the Sovereignty of the Seas," how contemptible to him appeared the mean persecutions of a crowned head, and how little his own meaner resentment!

To this subject the fate of Dr. HAWKESWORTH is somewhat allied. It is well known that this author, having distinguished himself by his pleasing compositions in the "Adventurer," was chosen to draw up the narrative of Cook's discoveries in the South Seas. The pictures of a new world, the description of new manners in an original state of society, and the incidents arising from an adventure which could find no parallel in the annals of mankind, but under the solitary genius of Columbus--all these were conceived to offer a history, to which the moral and contemplative powers of Hawkesworth only were equal. Our author's fate, and that of his work, are known: he incurred all the danger of giving the result of his inquiries; he indulged his imagination till it burst into pruriency, and discussed moral theorems till he ceased to be moral. The shock it gave to the feelings of our author was fatal; and the error of a mind, intent on inquiries which, perhaps, he thought innocent, and which the world condemned as criminal, terminated in death itself. Hawkesworth was a vain man, and proud of having raised himself by his literary talents from his native obscurity: of no learning, he drew all his science from the Cyclopaedia; and, I have heard, could not always have construed the Latin mottos of his own paper, which were furnished by Johnson; but his sensibility was abundant--and ere his work was given to the world, he felt those tremblings and those doubts which anticipated his fate. That he was in a state of mental agony respecting the reception of his opinions, and some other parts of his work, will, I think, be discovered in the following letter, hitherto unpublished. It was addressed, with his MSS., to a peer, to be examined before they were sent to the press--an occupation probably rather too serious for the noble critic:--

"_London, March 2, 1761._

"I think myself happy to be permitted to put _my MSS. into your Lordship's hands_, because, though it increases my anxiety and my fears, yet it will at least secure me from what I should think _a far greater misfortune_ than any other that can attend my performance, _the danger of addressing to the King any sentiment, allusion, or opinion_, that could make such an address _improper_. I have now the honour to submit the _work_ to your Lordship, with the dedication; from which the duty I owe to his Majesty, and, if I may be permitted to add anything to that, the duty I owe to myself, have concurred to exclude the servile, extravagant, and indiscriminate adulation which has so often disgraced alike those by whom it has been given and received.

"I remain, &c. &c."

This elegant epistle justly describes that delicacy in style which has been so rarely practised by an indiscriminate dedicator; and it not less feelingly touches on that "far greater misfortune than any other," which finally overwhelmed the fortitude and intellect of this unhappy author!

FOOTNOTES:

[130] Cowel's book, "The Interpreter," though professedly a mere explanation of law terms, was believed to contain allusions or interpretations of law entirely adapted to party feeling. Cowel was blamed by both parties, and his book declared to infringe the royal prerogative or the liberties of the subject. It was made one of the articles against Laud at his trial, that he had sanctioned a new edition of this work to countenance King Charles in his measures. Cowel had died long before this (October, 1611); he had retired again to collegiate life as soon as he got free of his political persecutions.--ED.

[131] "The Discoverie of Witchcraft, necessary to be known for the undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the Preservation of Poor People." Third edition, 1665. This was about the time that, according to Arnot's Scots Trials, the expenses of burning a witch amounted to ninety-two pounds, fourteen shillings, Scots. The unfortunate old woman cost two trees, and employed two men to watch her closely for thirty days! One ought to recollect the past follies of humanity, to detect, perhaps, some existing ones.

A NATIONAL WORK WHICH COULD FIND NO PATRONAGE.

The author who is now before us is DE LOLME!

I shall consider as an English author that foreigner, who flew to our country as the asylum of Europe, who composed a noble work on our Constitution, and, having imbibed its spirit, acquired even the language of a free country.

I do not know an example in our literary history that so loudly accuses our tardy and phlegmatic feeling respecting authors, as the treatment De Lolme experienced in this country. His book on our Constitution still enters into the studies of an English patriot, and is not the worse for flattering and elevating the imagination, painting everything beautiful, to encourage our love as well as our reverence for the most perfect system of governments. It was a noble as well as ingenious effort in a foreigner--it claimed national attention--but could not obtain even individual patronage. The fact is mortifying to record, that the author who wanted every aid, received less encouragement than if he had solicited subscriptions for a raving novel, or an idle poem. De Lolme was compelled to traffic with booksellers for this work; and, as he was a theoretical rather than a practical politician, he was a bad trader, and acquired the smallest remuneration. He lived, in the country to which he had rendered a national service, in extreme obscurity and decay; and the walls of the Fleet too often enclosed the English Montesquieu. He never appears to have received a solitary attention,[132] and became so disgusted with authorship, that he preferred silently to endure its poverty rather than its other vexations. He ceased almost to write. Of De Lolme I have heard little recorded but his high-mindedness; a strong sense that he stood degraded beneath that rank in society which his book entitled him to enjoy. The cloud of poverty that covered him only veiled without concealing its object; with the manners and dress of a decayed gentleman, he still showed the few who met him that he cherished a spirit perpetually at variance with the adversity of his circumstances.

Our author, in a narrative prefixed to his work, is the proud historian of his own injured feelings; he smiled in bitterness on his contemporaries, confident it was a tale reserved for posterity.

After having written the work whose systematic principles refuted those political notions which prevailed at the era of the American revolution,--and whose truth has been so fatally demonstrated in our own times, in two great revolutions, which have shown all the defects and all the mischief of nations rushing into a state of freedom before they are worthy of it,--the author candidly acknowledges he counted on some sort of encouragement, and little expected to find the mere publication had drawn him into great inconvenience.

"When my enlarged English edition was ready for the press, had I acquainted ministers that I was preparing to boil my tea-kettle with it, for want of being able to afford the expenses of printing it;" ministers, it seems, would not have considered that he was lighting his fire with "myrrh, and cassia, and precious ointment."

In the want of encouragement from great men, and even from booksellers, De Lolme had recourse to a subscription; and his account of the manner he was received, and the indignities he endured, all which are narrated with great simplicity, show that whatever his knowledge of our Constitution might be, "his knowledge of the country was, at that time, very incomplete." At length, when he shared the profits of his work with the booksellers, they were "but scanty and slow." After all, our author sarcastically congratulates himself, that he--

"Was allowed to carry on the above business of selling my book, without any objection being formed against me, from my not having served a regular apprenticeship, and without being molested by the Inquisition."

And further he adds--

"Several authors have chosen to relate, in writings published after death, the personal advantages by which their performances had been followed; as for me, I have thought otherwise--and I will see it printed while I am yet living."

This, indeed, is the language of irritation! and De Lolme degrades himself in the loudness of his complaint. But if the philosopher lost his temper, that misfortune will not take away the dishonour of the occasion that produced it. The country's shame is not lessened because the author who had raised its glory throughout Europe, and instructed the nation in its best lesson, grew indignant at the ingratitude of his pupil. De Lolme ought not to have congratulated himself that he had been allowed the liberty of the press unharassed by an inquisition: this sarcasm is senseless! or his book is a mere fiction!

FOOTNOTES:

[132] Except by the hand of literary charity; he was more than once relieved by the Literary Fund. Such are the authors only whom it is wise to patronise.

THE MISERIES OF SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS.

HUME is an author so celebrated, a philosopher so serene, and a man so extremely amiable, if not fortunate, that we may be surprised to meet his name inscribed in a catalogue of literary calamities. Look into his literary life, and you will discover that the greater portion was mortified and angried; and that the stoic so lost his temper, that had not circumstances intervened which did not depend on himself, Hume had abandoned his country and changed his name!

"The first success of most of my writings was not such as to be an object of vanity." His "Treatise of Human Nature" fell dead-born from the press. It was cast anew with another title, and was at first little more successful. The following letter to Des Maiseaux, which I believe is now first published, gives us the feelings of the youthful and modest philosopher:--

"DAVID HUME TO DES MAISEAUX.

"SIR,--Whenever you see my name, you'll readily imagine the subject of my letter. A young author can scarce forbear speaking of his performance to all the world; but when he meets with one that is a good judge, and whose instruction and advice he depends on, there ought some indulgence to be given him. You were so good as to promise me, that if you could find leisure from your other occupations, you would look over my system of philosophy, and at the same time ask the opinion of such of your acquaintance as you thought proper judges. Have you found it sufficiently intelligible? Does it appear true to you? Do the style and language seem tolerable? These three questions comprehend everything; and I beg of you to answer them with the utmost freedom and sincerity. I know 'tis a custom to flatter poets on their performances, but I hope philosophers may be exempted; and the more so that their cases are by no means alike. When we do not approve of anything in a poet we commonly can give no reason for our dislikes but our particular taste; which not being convincing, we think it better to conceal our sentiments altogether. But every error in philosophy can be distinctly markt and proved to be such; and this is a favour I flatter myself you'll indulge me in with regard to the performance I put into your hands. I am, indeed, afraid that it would be too great a trouble for you to mark all the errors you have observed; I shall only insist upon being informed of the most material of them, and you may assure yourself will consider it as a singular favour. I am, with great esteem

"Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, "_Aprile 6, 1739._ "DAVID HUME.

"Please direct to me at Ninewells, near Berwick-upon-Tweed."

Hume's own favourite "Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" came unnoticed and unobserved in the world. When he published the first portion of his "History," which made even Hume himself sanguine in his expectations, he tells his own tale:--

"I thought that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and, as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment! All classes of men and readers united in their rage against him who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford." "What was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion, and in a twelvemonth not more than forty-five copies were sold."

Even Hume, a stoic hitherto in his literary character, was struck down, and dismayed--he lost all courage to proceed--and, had the war not prevented him, "he had resolved to change his name, and never more to have returned to his native country."

But an author, though born to suffer martyrdom, does not always expire; he may be flayed like St. Bartholomew, and yet he can breathe without a skin; stoned, like St. Stephen, and yet write on with a broken head; and he has been even known to survive the flames, notwithstanding the most precious part of an author, which is obviously his book, has been burnt in an _auto da fe_. Hume once more tried the press in "The Natural History of Religion." It proved but another martyrdom! Still was the _fall_ (as he terms it) of the first volume of his History haunting his nervous imagination, when he found himself yet strong enough to hold a pen in his hand, and ventured to produce a second, which "helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother." But the third part, containing the reign of Elizabeth, was particularly obnoxious, and he was doubtful whether he was again to be led to the stake. But Hume, a little hardened by a little success, grew, to use his own words, "callous against the impressions of public folly," and completed his History, which was now received "with tolerable, and but tolerable, success."

At length, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, our author began, a year or two before he died, as he writes, to see "many _symptoms_ of my literary reputation breaking out _at last_ with additional lustre, though I know that I can have but few years to enjoy it." What a provoking consolation for a philosopher, who, according to the result of his own system, was close upon a state of annihilation!

To Hume, let us add the illustrious name of DRYDEN.

It was after preparing a second edition of Virgil, that the great Dryden, who had lived, and was to die in harness, found himself still obliged to seek for daily bread. Scarcely relieved from one heavy task, he was compelled to hasten to another; and his efforts were now stimulated by a domestic feeling, the expected return of his son in ill-health from Rome. In a letter to his bookseller he pathetically writes--"If it please God that _I must die of over-study_, I cannot spend my life better than in preserving his." It was on this occasion, on the verge of his seventieth year, as he describes himself in the dedication of his Virgil, that, "worn out with study, and oppressed with fortune," he contracted to supply the bookseller with 10,000 verses at sixpence a line!

What was his entire dramatic life but a series of vexation and hostility, from his first play to his last? On those very boards whence Dryden was to have derived the means of his existence and his fame, he saw his foibles aggravated, and his morals aspersed. Overwhelmed by the keen ridicule of Buckingham, and maliciously mortified by the triumph which Settle, his meanest rival, was allowed to obtain over him, and doomed still to encounter the cool malignant eye of Langbaine, who read poetry only to detect plagiarism. Contemporary genius is inspected with too much familiarity to be felt with reverence; and the angry prefaces of Dryden only excited the little revenge of the wits. How could such sympathise with injured, but with lofty feelings? They spread two reports of him, which may not be true, but which hurt him with the public. It was said that, being jealous of the success of Creech, for his version of Lucretius, he advised him to attempt Horace, in which Dryden knew he would fail--and a contemporary haunter of the theatre, in a curious letter[133] on _The Winter Diversions_, says of Congreve's angry preface to the _Double Dealer_, that--

"The critics were severe upon this play, which gave the author occasion to lash them in his epistle dedicatory--so that 'tis generally thought _he has done his business and lost himself_; a thing he owes to Mr. Dryden's _treacherous friendship_, who being _jealous of the applause_ he had got by his _Old Bachelor deluded him_ into a foolish imitation of his own way of writing angry prefaces."

This lively critic is still more vivacious on the great Dryden, who had then produced his _Love Triumphant_, which, the critic says,

"Was damned by the universal cry of the town, _nemine contradicente_ but the _conceited poet_. He says in his prologue that 'this is the last the town must expect from him;' he had done himself a kindness had he taken his leave before." He then describes the success of Southerne's _Fatal Marriage, or the Innocent Adultery_, and concludes, "This kind usage will encourage desponding minor poets, and _vex huffing Dryden and Congreve to madness_."

I have quoted thus much of this letter, that we may have before us a true image of those feelings which contemporaries entertain of the greater geniuses of their age; how they seek to level them; and in what manner men of genius are doomed to be treated--slighted, starved, and abused. Dryden and Congreve! the one the finest genius, the other the most exquisite wit of our nation, are to be _vexed to madness_!--their failures are not to excite sympathy, but contempt or ridicule! How the feelings and the language of contemporaries differ from that of posterity! And yet let _us_ not exult in our purer and more dignified feelings--_we_ are, indeed, the _posterity_ of Dryden and Congreve; but we are the _contemporaries_ of others who must patiently hope for better treatment from our sons than they have received from the fathers.

Dryden was no master of the pathetic, yet never were compositions more pathetic than the Prefaces this great man has transmitted to posterity! Opening all the feelings of his heart, we live among his domestic sorrows. Johnson censures Dryden for saying _he has few thanks to pay his stars that he was born among Englishmen_.[134] We have just seen that Hume went farther, and sighed to fly to a retreat beyond that country which knew not to reward genius.--What, if Dryden felt the dignity of that character he supported, dare we blame his frankness? If the age be ungenerous, shall contemporaries escape the scourge of the great author, who feels he is addressing another age more favourable to him?

Johnson, too, notices his "Self-commendation; his diligence in reminding the world of his merits, and expressing, with very little scruple, his high opinion of his own powers." Dryden shall answer in his own words; with all the simplicity of Montaigne, he expresses himself with the dignity that would have become Milton or Gray:--

"It is a vanity common to all writers to overvalue their own productions; and it is better for me to own this failing in myself, than the world to do it for me. _For what other reason have I spent my life in such an unprofitable study? Why am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame?_ The same parts and application which have made me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of the gown, which are often given to men of as little learning, and less honesty, than myself."

How feelingly Whitehead paints the situation of Dryden in his old age:--

Yet lives the man, how wild soe'er his aim, Would madly barter fortune's smiles for fame? Well pleas'd to shine, through each recording page, The hapless Dryden of a shameless age!

Ill-fated bard! where'er thy name appears, The weeping verse a sad memento bears; Ah! what avail'd the enormous blaze between Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene! When sinking nature asks our kind repairs, Unstrung the nerves, and silver'd o'er the hairs; When stay'd reflection came uncall'd at last, And gray experience counts each folly past!

MICKLE'S version of the Lusiad offers an affecting instance of the melancholy fears which often accompany the progress of works of magnitude, undertaken by men of genius. Five years he had buried himself in a farm-house, devoted to the solitary labour; and he closes his preface with the fragment of a poem, whose stanzas have perpetuated all the tremblings and the emotions, whose unhappy influence the author had experienced through the long work. Thus pathetically he addresses the Muse:--

----Well thy meed repays thy worthless toil; Upon thy houseless head pale want descends In bitter shower; and taunting scorn still rends And wakes thee trembling from thy golden dream: In vetchy bed, or loathly dungeon ends Thy idled life----

And when, at length, the great and anxious labour was completed, the author was still more unhappy than under the former influence of his foreboding terrors. The work is dedicated to the Duke of Buccleugh. Whether his Grace had been prejudiced against the poetical labour by Adam Smith, who had as little comprehension of the nature of poetry as becomes a political economist, or from whatever cause, after possessing it for six weeks the Duke had never condescended to open the volume. It is to the honour of Mickle that the Dedication is a simple respectful inscription, in which the poet had not compromised his dignity,--and that in the second edition he had the magnanimity not to withdraw the dedication to this statue-like patron. Neither was the critical reception of this splendid labour of five devoted years grateful to the sensibility of the author: he writes to a friend--

"Though my work is well received at Oxford, I will honestly own to you, some things have hurt me. A few grammatical slips in the introduction have been mentioned; and some things in the notes about Virgil, Milton, and Homer, have been called the arrogance of criticism. But the greatest offence of all is, what I say of blank verse."

He was, indeed, after this great work was given to the public, as unhappy as at any preceding period of his life; and Mickle, too, like Hume and Dryden, could feel a wish to forsake his native land! He still found his "head houseless;" and "the vetchy bed" and "loathly dungeon" still haunted his dreams. "To write for the booksellers is what I never will do," exclaimed this man of genius, though struck by poverty. He projected an edition of his own poems by subscription.

"Desirous of giving an edition of my works, in which I shall bestow the utmost attention, which, perhaps, will be my final farewell to that blighted spot (worse than the most bleak mountains of Scotland) yclept Parnassus; after this labour is finished, if Governor Johnstone cannot or does not help me to a little independence, _I will certainly bid adieu to Europe, to unhappy suspense, and perhaps also to the chagrin of soul which I feel to accompany it_."

Such was the language which cannot now be read without exciting our sympathy for the author of the version of an epic, which, after a solemn devotion of no small portion of the most valuable years of life, had been presented to the world, with not sufficient remuneration or notice of the author to create even hope in the sanguine temperament of a poet. Mickle was more honoured at Lisbon than in his own country. So imperceptible are the gradations of public favour to the feelings of genius, and so vast an interval separates that author who does not immediately address the tastes or the fashions of his age, from the reward or the enjoyment of his studies.

We cannot account, among the lesser calamities of literature, that of a man of genius, who, dedicating his days to the composition of a voluminous and national work, when that labour is accomplished, finds, on its publication, the hope of fame, and perhaps other hopes as necessary to reward past toil, and open to future enterprise, all annihilated. Yet this work neglected or not relished, perhaps even the sport of witlings, afterwards is placed among the treasures of our language, when the author is no more! but what is posthumous gratitude, could it reach even the ear of an angel?

The calamity is unavoidable; but this circumstance does not lessen it. New works must for a time be submitted to popular favour; but posterity is the inheritance of genius. The man of genius, however, who has composed this great work, calculates his vigils, is best acquainted with its merits, and is not without an anticipation of the future feeling of his country; he

But weeps the more, because he weeps in vain.

Such is the fate which has awaited many great works; and the heart of genius has died away on its own labours. I need not go so far back as the Elizabethan age to illustrate a calamity which will excite the sympathy of every man of letters; but the great work of a man of no ordinary genius presents itself on this occasion.

This great work is "The Polyolbion" of MICHAEL DRAYTON; a poem unrivalled for its magnitude and its character.[135] The genealogy of poetry is always suspicious; yet I think it owed its birth to Leland's magnificent view of his intended work on Britain, and was probably nourished by the "Britannia" of Camden, who inherited the mighty industry, with out the poetical spirit, of Leland; Drayton embraced both. This singular combination of topographical erudition and poetical fancy constitutes a national work--a union that some may conceive not fortunate, no more than "the slow length" of its Alexandrine metre, for the purposes of mere delight. Yet what theme can be more elevating than a bard chanting to his "Fatherland," as the Hollanders called their country? Our tales of ancient glory, our worthies who must not die, our towns, our rivers, and our mountains, all glancing before the picturesque eye of the naturalist and the poet! It is, indeed, a labour of Hercules; but it was not unaccompanied by the lyre of Apollo.

This national work was ill received; and the great author dejected, never pardoned his contemporaries, and even lost his temper.[136] Drayton and his poetical friends beheld indignantly the trifles of the hour overpowering the neglected Polyolbion.

One poet tells us that

--------------------they prefer The fawning lines of every pamphleter. GEO. WITHERS.

And a contemporary records the utter neglect of this great poet:--

Why lives Drayton when the times refuse Both means to live, and matter for a muse, Only without excuse to leave us quite, And tell us, durst we act, he durst to write? W. BROWNE.

Drayton published his Polyolbion first in eighteen parts; and the second portion afterwards. In this interval we have a letter to Drummond, dated in 1619:--

"I thank you, my dear sweet Drummond, for your good opinion of Polyolbion. I have done twelve books more, that is, from the 18th book, which was Kent (if you note it), all the east parts and north to the river of Tweed; _but it lieth by me, for the booksellers and I are in terms_; they are a company of base knaves, whom I scorn and kick at."

The vengeance of the poet had been more justly wreaked on the buyers of books than on the sellers, who, though knavery has a strong connexion with trade, yet, were they knaves, they would be true to their own interests. Far from impeding a successful author, booksellers are apt to hurry his labours; for they prefer the crude to the mature fruit, whenever the public taste can be appeased even by an unripened dessert.

These "knaves," however, seem to have succeeded in forcing poor Drayton to observe an abstinence from the press, which must have convulsed all the feelings of authorship. The second part was not published till three years after this letter was written; and then without maps. Its preface is remarkable enough; it is pathetic, till Drayton loses the dignity of genius in its asperity. In is inscribed, in no good humour--

"TO ANY THAT WILL READ IT!

"When I first undertook this poem, or, as some have pleased to term it, this Herculean labour, I was by some virtuous friends persuaded that I should receive much comfort and encouragement; and for these reasons: First, it was a new clear way, never before gone by any; that it contained all the delicacies, delights, and rarities of this renowned isle, interwoven with the histories of the Britons, Saxons, Normans, and the later English. And further, that there is scarcely any of the nobility or gentry of this land, but that he is some way or other interested therein.

"But it hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort which my noble friends proposed as my due, I have met with barbarous ignorance and base detraction; such a cloud hath the devil drawn over the world's judgment. Some of the stationers that had the selling of the first part of this poem, because _it went not so fast away in the selling_ as some of their beastly and abominable trash (a shame both to our language and our nation), have despightfully left out the epistles to the readers, and so have cousened the buyers with imperfected books, which those that have undertaken the second part have been forced to amend in the first, for _the small number that are yet remaining in their hands_.

"And some of our outlandish, unnatural English (I know not how otherwise to express them) stick not to say that there is nothing in this island worth studying for, and take a great pride to be ignorant in anything thereof. As for these cattle, _odi profanum vulgus, et arceo_; of which I account them, be they never so great."

Yet, as a true poet, whose impulse, like fate, overturns all opposition, Drayton is not to be thrown out of his avocation; but intrepidly closes by promising "they shall not deter me from going on with Scotland, if means and time do not hinder me to perform as much as I have promised in my first song." Who could have imagined that such bitterness of style, and such angry emotions, could have been raised in the breast of a poet of pastoral elegance and fancy?

Whose bounding muse o'er ev'ry mountain rode, And every river warbled as it flow'd. KIRKPATRICK.

It is melancholy to reflect that some of the greatest works in our language have involved their authors in distress and anxiety: and that many have gone down to their grave insensible of that glory which soon covered it.

FOOTNOTES:

[133] A letter found among the papers of the late Mr. Windham, which Mr. Malone has preserved.

[134] There is an affecting _remonstrance_ of Dryden to Hyde, Earl of Rochester, on the state of his poverty and neglect--in which is this remarkable passage:--"It is enough for one age to have _neglected_ Mr. Cowley and _starved_ Mr. Butler."

[135] The author explains the nature of his book in his title-page when he calls it "A Chorographicall Description of tracts, rivers, mountaines, forests, and other parts of this renowned Isle of Great Britaine, with intermixture of the most remarquable stories, antiquities, wonders, rarityes, pleasures, and commodities of the same; digested in a Poem." The maps with which it is illustrated are curious for the impersonations of the nymphs of wood and water, the sylvan gods, and other characters of the poem; to which the learned Selden supplied notes. Ellis calls it "a wonderful work, exhibiting at once the learning of an historian, an antiquary, a naturalist, and a geographer, and embellished by the imagination of a poet."--ED.

[136] In the dedication of the first part to Prince Henry, the author says of his work, "it cannot want envie: for even in the birth it alreadie finds that."--ED.

THE ILLUSIONS OF WRITERS IN VERSE.

Who would, with the awful severity of Plato, banish poets from the Republic? But it may be desirable that the Republic should not be banished from poets, which it seems to be when an inordinate passion for writing verses drives them from every active pursuit. There is no greater enemy to domestic quiet than a confirmed versifier; yet are most of them much to be pitied: it is the _mediocre_ critics they first meet with who are the real origin of a populace of _mediocre_ poets. A young writer of verses is sure to get flattered by those who affect to admire what they do not even understand, and by those who, because they understand, imagine they are likewise endowed with delicacy of taste and a critical judgment. What sacrifices of social enjoyments, and all the business of life, are lavished with a prodigal's ruin in an employment which will be usually discovered to be a source of early anxiety, and of late disappointment![137] I say nothing of the ridicule in which it involves some wretched Maevius, but of the misery that falls so heavily on him, and is often entailed on his generation. Whitehead has versified an admirable reflection of Pope's, in the preface to his works:--

For wanting wit be totally undone, And barr'd all arts, for having fail'd in one?

The great mind of BLACKSTONE never showed him more a poet than when he took, not without affection, "a farewell of the Muse," on his being called to the bar. DRUMMOND, of Hawthornden, quitted the bar from his love of poetry; yet he seems to have lamented slighting the profession which his father wished him to pursue. He perceives his error, he feels even contrition, but still cherishes it: no man, not in his senses, ever had a more lucid interval:--

I changed countries, new delights to find; But ah! for pleasure I did find new pain; Enchanting pleasure so did reason blind, That father's love and words I scorn'd as vain. I know that all the Muses' heavenly lays, With toil of spirit which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds of few or none are sought, That there is nothing lighter than vain praise; Know what I list, this all cannot me move, But that, alas! I both must write and love!

Thus, like all poets, who, as Goldsmith observes, "are fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future," he talks like a man of sense, and acts like a fool.

This wonderful susceptibility of praise, to which poets seem more liable than any other class of authors, is indeed their common food; and they could not keep life in them without this nourishment. NAT. LEE, a true poet in all the excesses of poetical feelings--for he was in such raptures at times as to lose his senses--expresses himself in very energetic language on the effects of the praise necessary for poets:--

"Praise," says Lee, "is the greatest encouragement we chamelions can pretend to, or rather the manna that keeps soul and body together; we devour it as if it were angels' food, and vainly think we grow immortal. There is nothing transports a poet, next to love, like commending in the right place."

This, no doubt, is a rare enjoyment, and serves to strengthen his illusions. But the same fervid genius elsewhere confesses, when reproached for his ungoverned fancy, that it brings with itself its own punishment:--

"I cannot be," says this great and unfortunate poet, "so ridiculous a creature to any man as I am to myself; for who should know the house so well as the good man at home? who, when his neighbour comes to see him, still sets the best rooms to view; and, if he be not a wilful ass, keeps the rubbish and lumber in some dark hole, where nobody comes but himself, to mortify at melancholy hours."

Study the admirable preface of POPE, composed at that matured period of life when the fever of fame had passed away, and experience had corrected fancy. It is a calm statement between authors and readers; there is no imagination that colours by a single metaphor, or conceals the real feeling which moved the author on that solemn occasion, of collecting his works for the last time. It is on a full review of the past that this great poet delivers this remarkable sentence:--

"_I believe, if any one, early in his life, should contemplate the dangerous fate of AUTHORS, he would scarce be of their number on any consideration._ The life of a wit is a warfare upon earth; and to pretend to serve the learned world in any way, one must have the constancy of a martyr, and a resolution to suffer for its sake."

All this is so true in literary history, that he who affects to suspect the sincerity of Pope's declaration, may flatter his sagacity, but will do no credit to his knowledge.

If thus great poets pour their lamentations for having devoted themselves to their art, some sympathy is due to the querulousness of a numerous race of _provincial bards_, whose situation is ever at variance with their feelings. These usually form exaggerated conceptions of their own genius, from the habit of comparing themselves with their contracted circle. Restless, with a desire of poetical celebrity, their heated imagination views in the metropolis that fame and fortune denied them in their native town; there they become half-hermits and half-philosophers, darting epigrams which provoke hatred, or pouring elegies, descriptive of their feelings, which move derision: their neighbours find it much easier to ascertain their foibles than comprehend their genius; and both parties live in a state of mutual persecution. Such, among many, was the fate of the poet HERRICK; his vein was pastoral, and he lived in the elysium of the west, which, however, he describes by the sullen epithet, "Dull Devonshire," where "he is still sad." Strange that such a poet should have resided near twenty years in one of our most beautiful counties in a very discontented humour. When he quitted his village of "Deanbourne," the petulant poet left behind him a severe "farewell," which was found still preserved in the parish, after a lapse of more than a century. Local satire has been often preserved by the very objects it is directed against, sometimes from the charm of the wit itself, and sometimes from the covert malice of attacking our neighbours. Thus he addresses "Deanbourne, a rude river in Devonshire, by which, sometime, he lived:"--

Dean-bourn, farewell! Thy rockie bottom that doth tear thy streams, And makes them frantic, e'en to all extremes. Rockie thou art, and rockie we discover Thy men,-- O men! O manners!-- O people currish, churlish as their seas--

He rejoices he leaves them, never to return till "rocks shall turn to rivers." When he arrives in London,

From the dull confines of the drooping west, To see the day-spring from the pregnant east,

he, "ravished in spirit," exclaims, on a view of the metropolis--

O place! O people! manners form'd to please All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!

But he fervently entreats not to be banished again:--

For, rather than I'll to the west return, I'll beg of thee first, here to have mine urn.

The Devonians were avenged; for the satirist of the _English Arcadia_ was condemned again to reside by "its rockie side," among "its rockie men."

Such has been the usual chant of provincial poets; and, if the "silky-soft Favonian gales" of Devon, with its "Worthies," could not escape the anger of such a poet as Herrick, what county may hope to be saved from the invective of querulous and dissatisfied poets?

In this calamity of authors I will show that a great poet felicitated himself that poetry was not the business of his life; and afterwards I will bring forward an evidence that the immoderate pursuit of poetry, with a very moderate genius, creates a perpetual state of illusion; and pursues grey-headed folly even to the verge of the grave.

Pope imagined that PRIOR was only fit to make verses, and less qualified for business than Addison himself. Had Prior lived to finish that history of his own times he was writing, we should have seen how far the opinion of Pope was right. Prior abandoned the Whigs, who had been his first patrons, for the Tories, who were now willing to adopt the political apostate. This versatility for place and pension rather shows that Prior was a little more "qualified for business than Addison."

Johnson tells us "Prior lived at a time when the rage of party detected all which was any man's interest to hide; and, as little ill is heard of Prior, it is certain that not much was known:" more, however, than Johnson supposes. This great man came to the pleasing task of his poetical biography totally unprepared, except with the maturity of his genius, as a profound observer of men, and an invincible dogmatist in taste. In the history of the times, Johnson is deficient, which has deprived us of that permanent instruction and delight his intellectual powers had poured around it. The character and the secret history of Prior are laid open in the "State Poems;"[138] a bitter Whiggish narrative, too particular to be entirely fictitious, while it throws a new light on Johnson's observation of Prior's "propensity to sordid converse, and the low delights of mean company," which Johnson had imperfectly learned from some attendant on Prior.

A vintner's boy, the wretch was first preferr'd To wait at Vice's gates, and pimp for bread; To hold the candle, and sometimes the door, Let in the drunkard, and let out----. But, as to villains it has often chanc'd, Was for his wit and wickedness advanc'd. Let no man think his new behaviour strange, No metamorphosis can nature change; Effects are chain'd to causes; generally, The rascal born will like a rascal die. His Prince's favours follow'd him in vain; They chang'd the circumstance, but not the man. While out of pocket, and his spirits low, He'd beg, write panegyrics, cringe, and bow; But when good pensions had his labours crown'd, His panegyrics into satires turn'd; O what assiduous pains does Prior take To let great Dorset see he could mistake! Dissembling nature false description gave, Show'd him the poet, but conceal'd the knave.

To us the poet Prior is better known than the placeman Prior; yet in his own day the reverse often occurred. Prior was a State Proteus; Sunderland, the most ambiguous of politicians, was the _Erle Robert_ to whom he addressed his _Mice_; and Prior was now Secretary to the Embassy at Ryswick and Paris; independent even of the English ambassador--now a Lord of Trade, and, at length, a Minister Plenipotentiary to Louis XIV.

Our business is with his poetical feelings.

Prior declares he was chiefly "a poet by accident;" and hints, in collecting his works, that "some of them, as they came singly from the first impression, have lain long and quietly in Mr. Tonson's shop." When his party had their downfall, and he was confined two years in prison, he composed his "Alma," to while away prison hours; and when, at length, he obtained his freedom, he had nothing remaining but that fellowship which, in his exaltation, he had been censured for retaining, but which he then said he might have to live upon at last. Prior had great sagacity, and too right a notion of human affairs in politics, to expect his party would last his time, or in poetry, that he could ever derive a revenue from rhymes!

I will now show that that rare personage, a sensible poet, in reviewing his life in that hour of solitude when no passion is retained but truth, while we are casting up the amount of our past days scrupulously to ourselves, felicitated himself that the natural bent of his mind, which inclined to poetry, had been checked, and not indulged, throughout his whole life. Prior congratulated himself that he had been only "a poet by accident," not by occupation.

In a manuscript by Prior, consisting of "An Essay on Learning," I find this curious and interesting passage entirely relating to the poet himself:--

"I remember nothing farther in life than that I made verses; I chose Guy Earl of Warwick for my first hero, and killed Colborne the giant before I was big enough for Westminster School. But I had two accidents in youth which hindered me from being quite possessed with the Muse. I was bred in a college where prose was more in fashion than verse,--and, as soon as I had taken my first degree, I was sent the King's Secretary to the Hague; there I had enough to do in studying French and Dutch, and altering my Terentian and Virgilian style into that of Articles and Conventions; so that _poetry, which by the bent of my mind might have become the business of my life, was, by the happiness of my education, only the amusement of it_; and in this, too, having the prospect of some little fortune to be made, and friendships to be cultivated with the great men, I did not launch much into _satire_, which, however agreeable for the present to the writers and encouragers of it, does in time do neither of them good; considering the uncertainty of fortune, and the various changes of Ministry, and that every man, as he resents, may punish in his turn of greatness and power."

Such is the wholesome counsel of the Solomon of Bards to an aspirant, who, in his ardour for poetical honours, becomes careless of their consequences, if he can but possess them.

I have now to bring forward one of those unhappy men of rhyme, who, after many painful struggles, and a long querulous life, have died amid the ravings of their immortality--one of those miserable bards of mediocrity whom no beadle-critic could ever whip out of the poetical parish.

There is a case in Mr. Haslam's "Observations on Insanity," who assures us that the patient he describes was insane, which will appear strange to those who have watched more poets than lunatics!

"This patient, when admitted, was very noisy, and importunately talkative--reciting passages from the Greek and Roman poets, or talking of his own literary importance. He became so troublesome to the other madmen, who were sufficiently occupied with their own speculations, that they avoided and excluded him from the common room; so that he was at last reduced to the mortifying situation of being the sole auditor of his own compositions. He conceived himself very nearly related to Anacreon, and possessed of the peculiar vein of that poet."

Such is the very accurate case drawn up by a medical writer. I can conceive nothing in it to warrant the charge of insanity; Mr. Haslam, not being a poet, seems to have mistaken the common orgasm of poetry for insanity itself.

Of such poets, one was the late PERCIVAL STOCKDALE, who, with the most entertaining simplicity, has, in "The Memoirs of his Life and Writings," presented us with a full-length figure of this class of poets; those whom the perpetual pursuits of poetry, however indifferent, involve in a perpetual illusion; they are only discovered in their profound obscurity by the piteous cries they sometimes utter; they live on querulously, which is an evil for themselves, and to no purpose of life, which is an evil to others.

I remember in my youth Percival Stockdale as a condemned poet of the times, of whom the bookseller Flexney complained that, whenever this poet came to town, it cost him twenty pounds. Flexney had been the publisher of Churchill's works; and, never forgetting the time when he published "The Rosciad," which at first did not sell, and afterwards became the most popular poem, he was speculating all his life for another Churchill, and another quarto poem. Stockdale usually brought him what he wanted--and Flexney found the workman, but never the work.

Many a year had passed in silence, and Stockdale could hardly be considered alive, when, to the amazement of some curious observers of our literature, a venerable man, about his eightieth year, a vivacious spectre, with a cheerful voice, seemed as if throwing aside his shroud in gaiety--to come to assure us of the immortality of one of the worst poets of the time.

To have taken this portrait from the life would have been difficult; but the artist has painted himself, and manufactured his own colours; else had our ordinary ones but faintly copied this Chinese grotesque picture--the glare and the glow must be borrowed from his own palette.

Our self-biographer announces his "Life" with prospective rapture, at the moment he is turning a sad retrospect on his "Writings;" for this was the chequered countenance of his character, a smile while he was writing, a tear when he had published! "I know," he exclaims, "that this book will live and _escape the havoc that has been made of my literary fame_." Again--"Before I die, I _think my literary fame may be fixed on an adamantine foundation_." Our old acquaintance, Blas of Santillane, at setting out on his travels, conceived himself to be _la huitieme merveille du monde_; but here is one, who, after the experience of a long life, is writing a large work to prove himself that very curious thing.

What were these mighty and unknown works? Stockdale confesses that all his verses have been received with negligence or contempt; yet their mediocrity, the absolute poverty of his genius, never once occurred to the poetical patriarch.

I have said that the frequent origin of bad poets is owing to bad critics; and it was the early friends of Stockdale, who, mistaking his animal spirits for genius, by directing them into the walks of poetry, bewildered him for ever. It was their hand that heedlessly fixed the bias in the rolling bowl of his restless mind.

He tells us that while yet a boy of twelve years old, one day talking with his father at Branxton, where the battle of Flodden was fought, the old gentleman said to him with great emphasis--

"You may make that place remarkable for your birth, if you take care of yourself. My father's understanding was clear and strong, and he could penetrate human nature. He already saw that _I had natural advantages above those of common men_."

But it seems that, at some earlier period even than his twelfth year, some good-natured Pythian had predicted that Stockdale would be "a poet." This ambiguous oracle was still listened to, after a lapse of more than half a century, and the decree is still repeated with fond credulity:--"Notwithstanding," he exclaims, "_all that is past_, O thou god of my mind! (meaning the aforesaid Pythian) I still hope that my future fame will decidedly _warrant the prediction_!"

Stockdale had, in truth, an excessive sensibility of temper, without any control over it--he had all the nervous contortions of the Sybil, without her inspiration; and shifting, in his many-shaped life, through all characters and all pursuits, "exalting the olive of Minerva with the grape of Bacchus," as he phrases it, he was a lover, a tutor, a recruiting officer, a reviewer, and, at length, a clergyman; but a poet eternally! His mind was so curved, that nothing could stand steadily upon it. The accidents of such a life he describes with such a face of rueful simplicity, and mixes up so much grave drollery and merry pathos with all he says or does, and his ubiquity is so wonderful, that he gives an idea of a character, of whose existence we had previously no conception, that of a sentimental harlequin.[139]

In the early part of his life, Stockdale undertook many poetical pilgrimages; he visited the house where Thomson was born; the coffee-room where Dryden presided among the wits, &c. Recollecting the influence of these local associations, he breaks forth, "Neither the unrelenting coldness, nor the repeated insolence of mankind, can prevent me from thinking that _something like this enthusiastic devotion may hereafter be paid to ME_."

Perhaps till this appeared it might not be suspected that any unlucky writer of verse could ever feel such a magical conviction of his poetical stability. Stockdale, to assist this pilgrimage to his various shrines, has particularised all the spots where his works were composed! Posterity has many shrines to visit, and will be glad to know (for perhaps it may excite a smile) that "'The Philosopher,' a poem, was written in Warwick Court, Holborn, in 1769,"--"'The Life of Waller,' in Round Court, in the Strand."--A good deal he wrote in "May's Buildings, St. Martin's Lane," &c., but

"In my lodgings at Portsmouth, in St. Mary's Street, I wrote my 'Elegy on the Death of a Lady's Linnet.' It will not be uninteresting to sensibility, to thinking and elegant minds. It deeply interested me, and therefore produced not one of my weakest and worst written poems. It was directly opposite to a noted house, which was distinguished by the name of _the green rails_; where the riotous orgies of Naxos and Cythera contrasted with my quiet and purer occupations."

I would not, however, take his own estimate of his own poems; because, after praising them outrageously, he seems at times to doubt if they are as exquisite as he thinks them! He has composed no one in which some poetical excellence does not appear--and yet in each nice decision he holds with difficulty the trepidations of the scales of criticism--for he tells us of "An Address to the Supreme Being," that "it is distinguished throughout with a natural and fervid piety; it is flowing and poetical; it is not without its pathos." And yet, notwithstanding all this condiment, the confection is evidently good for nothing; for he discovers that "this flowing, fervid, and poetical address" is "not animated with that vigour which gives dignity and impression to poetry." One feels for such unhappy and infected authors--they would think of themselves as they wish at the moment that truth and experience come in upon them and rack them with the most painful feelings.

Stockdale once wrote a declamatory life of Waller. When Johnson's appeared, though in his biography, says Stockdale, "he paid a large tribute to the abilities of Goldsmith and Hawkesworth, yet _he made no mention of my name_." It is evident that Johnson, who knew him well, did not care to remember it. When Johnson was busied on the Life of Pope, Stockdale wrote a pathetic letter to him _earnestly imploring_ "a generous tribute from his authority." Johnson was still obdurately silent; and Stockdale, who had received many acts of humane kindness from him, adds with fretful _naivete_,

"In his sentiments towards me he was divided between a benevolence to my interests, and a _coldness to my fame_."

Thus, in a moment, in the perverted heart of the scribbler, will ever be cancelled all human obligation for acts of benevolence, if we are _cold to his fame_!

And yet let us not too hastily condemn these unhappy men, even for the violation of the lesser moral feelings--it is often but a fatal effect from a melancholy cause; that hallucination of the intellect, in which, if their genius, as they call it, sometimes appears to sparkle like a painted bubble in the buoyancy of their vanity, they are also condemned to see it sinking in the dark horrors of a disappointed author, who has risked his life and his happiness on the miserable productions of his pen. The agonies of a disappointed author cannot, indeed, be contemplated without pain. If they can instruct, the following quotation will have its use.

Among the innumerable productions of Stockdale, was a "History of Gibraltar," which might have been interesting, from his having resided there: in a moment of despair, like Medea, he immolated his unfortunate offspring.

"When I had arrived at within a day's work of its conclusion, in consequence of some immediate and mortifying accidents, _my literary adversity_, and all my other misfortunes, took _fast hold of my mind; oppressed it extremely; and reduced it to a stage of the deepest dejection and despondency_. In this unhappy view of life, I made a sudden resolution--_never more to prosecute the profession of an author_; to retire altogether from the world, and read only for consolation and amusement. _I committed to the flames my History of Gibraltar and my translation of Marsollier's Life of Cardinal Ximenes_; for which the bookseller had refused to pay me the fifty guineas, according to agreement."

This claims a tear! Never were the agonies of literary disappointment more pathetically told.

But as it is impossible to have known poor deluded Stockdale, and not to have laughed at him more than to have wept for him--so the catastrophe of this author's literary life is as finely in character as all the acts. That catastrophe, of course, is his last poem.

After many years his poetical demon having been chained from the world, suddenly broke forth on the reports of a French invasion. The narrative shall proceed in his own inimitable manner.

"My poetical spirit excited me to write my poem of 'The Invincible Island.' I never found myself in a happier disposition to compose, nor ever wrote with more pleasure. I presumed warmly to hope that unless _inveterate prejudice and malice_ were as invincible as our island itself, it would have _the diffusive circulation_ which I earnestly desired.

"Flushed with this idea--borne impetuously along _by ambition and by hope, though they had often deluded me_, I set off in the mail-coach from Durham for London, on the 9th of December, 1797, at midnight, and in a severe storm. On my arrival in town my poem was advertised, printed, and published with great expedition. It was printed for Clarke in New Bond-street. For several days the sale was very promising; and my bookseller as well as myself entertained sanguine hopes; _but the demand for the poem relaxed gradually_! From this last of many literary misfortunes, I inferred that _prejudice_ and _malignity_, in my fate as an _author_, seemed, indeed, to be invincible."

The catastrophe of the poet is much better told than anything in the poem, which had not merit enough to support that interest which the temporary subject had excited.

Let the fate of Stockdale instruct some, and he will not have written in vain the "Memoirs of his Life and Writings." I have only turned the literary feature to our eye; it was combined with others, equally striking, from the same mould in which that was cast. Stockdale imagined he possessed an intuitive knowledge of human nature. He says, "everything that constituted my nature, my acquirements, my habits, and my fortune, conspired to let in upon me a complete knowledge of human nature." A most striking proof of this knowledge is his parallel, after the manner of Plutarch, between Charles XII. and himself! He frankly confesses there were some points in which he and the Swedish monarch did not exactly resemble each other. He thinks, for instance, that the King of Sweden had a somewhat more fervid and original genius than himself, and was likewise a little more robust in his person--but, subjoins Stockdale,

"Of our reciprocal fortune, achievements, and conduct, some parts will be to _his_ advantage, and some to _mine_."

Yet in regard to _Fame_, the main object between him and Charles XII., Stockdale imagined that his own

"Will not probably take its fixed and immoveable station, and shine with its expanded and permanent splendour, till it consecrates his ashes, till it illumines his tomb!"

POPE hesitated at deciding on the durability of his poetry. PRIOR congratulates himself that he had not devoted all his days to rhymes. STOCKDALE imagines his fame is to commence at the very point (the tomb) where genius trembles its own may nearly terminate!

To close this article, I could wish to regale the poetical Stockdales with a delectable morsel of fraternal biography; such would be the life, and its memorable close, of ELKANAH SETTLE, who imagined himself to be a great poet, when he was placed on a level with Dryden by the town-wits, (gentle spirits!) to vex genius.

Settle's play of _The Empress of Morocco_ was the very first "adorned with sculptures."[140] However, in due time, the Whigs despising his rhymes, Settle tried his prose for the Tories; but he was a magician whose enchantments never charmed. He at length obtained the office of the city poet, when lord mayors were proud enough to have laureates in their annual pageants.

When Elkanah Settle published any _party poem_, he sent copies round to the chiefs of the party, accompanied with addresses, to extort pecuniary presents. He had latterly one standard _Elegy_ and _Epithalamium_ printed off with blanks, which, by the ingenious contrivance of filling up with the names of any considerable person who died or was married, no one who was going out of life or entering it _could pass scot-free_ from the _tax levied by his hacknied muse_. The following letter accompanied his presentation copy to the Duke of Somerset, of a poem, in Latin and English, on the Hanover succession, when Elkanah wrote for the Whigs, as he had for the Tories:--

"SIR,--Nothing but the greatness of the subject could encourage my presumption in laying the enclosed Essay at your Grace's feet, being, with all profound humility, your Grace's most dutiful servant,

"E. SETTLE."

In the latter part of his life Settle dropped still lower, and became the poet of a booth at Bartholomew Fair, and composed drolls, for which the rival of Dryden, it seems, had a genius!--but it was little respected--for two great personages, "Mrs. Mynns and her daughter, Mrs. Leigh," approving of their great poet's happy invention in one of his own drolls, "St. George for England," of a green dragon, as large as life, insisted, as the tyrant of old did to the inventor of the brazen bull, that the first experiment should be made on the artist himself, and Settle was tried in his own dragon; he crept in with all his genius, and did "act the dragon, enclosed in a case of green leather of his own invention." The circumstance is recorded in the lively verse of Young, in his "Epistle to Pope concerning the authors of the age."

Poor Elkanah, all other changes past, For bread in Smithfield dragons hiss'd at last, Spit streams of fire to make the butchers gape, And found his manners suited to his shape; Such is the fate of talents misapplied, So lived your prototype, and so he died.

FOOTNOTES:

[137] An elegant poet of our times alludes, with due feeling, to these personal sacrifices. Addressing Poetry, he exclaims--

"In devotion to thy heavenly charms, I clasp'd thy altar with my infant arms; For thee neglected the wide field of wealth; The toils of interest, and the sports of health."

How often may we lament that poets are too apt "to clasp the altar with infant arms." Goldsmith was near forty when he published his popular poems--and the greater number of the most valued poems were produced in mature life. When the poet begins in "infancy," he too often contracts a habit of writing verses, and sometimes, in all his life, never reaches poetry.

[138] Vol. ii. p. 355.

[139] My old favourite cynic, with all his rough honesty and acute discrimination, Anthony Wood, engraved a sketch of Stockdale when he etched with his aqua-fortis the personage of a brother:--"This Edward Waterhouse wrote a rhapsodical, indigested, whimsical work; and not in the least to be taken into the hand of any sober scholar, unless it be to make him laugh or wonder at the simplicity of some people. He was a cock-brained man, and afterwards took orders."

[140] It was published in quarto in 1673, and has engravings of the principal scene in each act, and a frontispiece representing the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens, where it was first acted publicly; it had been played twice at court before this, by noble actors, "persons of such birth and honour," says Settle, "that they borrowed no greatness from the characters they acted." The prologues were written by Lords Mulgrave and Rochester, and the utmost _eclat_ given to the five long acts of rhyming bombast, which was declared superior to any work of Dryden's. As City Poet afterwards Settle composed the pageants, speeches, and songs for the Lord Mayor's Shows from 1691 to 1708. Towards the close of his career he became impoverished, and wrote from necessity on all subjects. One of his plays, composed for Mrs. Mynns' booth in Bartholomew Fair, has been twice printed, though both editions are now uncommonly rare. It is called the "Siege of Troy;" and its popularity is attested by Hogarth's print of Southwark Fair, where outside of Lee and Harper's great theatrical booth is exhibited a painting of the Trojan horse, and the announcement "The Siege of Troy is here."--ED.

QUARRELS OF AUTHORS;

OR,

SOME MEMOIRS FOR OUR LITERARY HISTORY.

"The use and end of this Work I do not so much design for curiosity, or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning, but chiefly for a more grave and serious purpose: which is, that it will _make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning_."--LORD BACON, "Of Learning."

PREFACE.

THE QUARRELS OF AUTHORS may be considered as a continuation of the CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS; and both, as some Memoirs for Literary History.

These Quarrels of Authors are not designed to wound the Literary Character, but to expose the secret arts of calumny, the malignity of witty ridicule, and the evil prepossessions of unjust hatreds.

The present, like the preceding work, includes other subjects than the one indicated by the title, and indeed they are both subservient to a higher purpose--that of our Literary History.

There is a French work, entitled "Querelles Litteraires," quoted in "Curiosities of Literature," many years ago. Whether I derive the idea of the present from the French source I cannot tell. I could point out a passage in the great Lord BACON which might have afforded the hint. But I am inclined to think that what induced me to select this topic was the interest which JOHNSON has given to the literary quarrels between _Dryden_ and _Settle_, _Dennis_ and _Addison_, &c.; and which Sir WALTER SCOTT, who, amid the fresh creations of fancy, could delve for the buried truths of research, has thrown into his narrative of the quarrel of _Dryden_ and _Luke Milbourne_.

From the French work I could derive no aid; and my plan is my own. I have fixed on each literary controversy to illustrate some principle, to portray some character, and to investigate some topic. Almost every controversy which occurred opened new views. With the subject, the character of the author connected itself; and with the character were associated those events of his life which reciprocally act on each other. I have always considered an author as a human being, who possesses at once two sorts of lives, the intellectual and the vulgar: in his books we trace the history of his mind, and in his actions those of human nature. It is this combination which interests the philosopher and the man of feeling; which provides the richest materials for reflection; and all those original details which spring from the constituent principles of man. JOHNSON'S passion for literary history, and his great knowledge of the human heart, inspired at once the first and the finest model in this class of composition.

The Philosophy of Literary History was indeed the creation of BAYLE. He was the first who, by attempting a _critical dictionary_, taught us to think, and to be curious and vast in our researches. He ennobled a collection of facts by his reasonings, and exhibited them with the most miscellaneous illustrations; and thus conducting an apparently humble pursuit with a higher spirit, he gave a new turn to our studies. It was felt through Europe; and many celebrated authors studied and repeated BAYLE. This father of a numerous race has an English as well as a French progeny.

JOHNSON wrote under many disadvantages; but, with scanty means, he has taught us a great end. Dr. BIRCH was the contemporary of JOHNSON. He excelled his predecessors; and yet he forms a striking contrast as a literary historian. BIRCH was no philosopher, and I adduce him as an instance how a writer, possessing the most ample knowledge, and the most vigilant curiosity--one practised in all the secret arts of literary research in public repositories and in private collections, and eminently skilled in the whole science of bibliography--may yet fail with the public. The diligence of BIRCH has perpetuated his memory by a monument of MSS., but his, touch was mortal to genius! He palsied the character which could never die; heroes sunk pusillanimously under his hand; and in his torpid silence, even MILTON seemed suddenly deprived of his genius.

I have freely enlarged in the _notes_ to this work; a practice which is objectionable to many, but indispensable perhaps in this species of literary history.

The late Mr. CUMBERLAND, in a conversation I once held with him on this subject, triumphantly exclaimed, "You will not find a single note through the whole volume of my 'Life.' I never wrote a note. The ancients never wrote notes; but they introduced into their text all which was proper for the reader to know."

I agreed with that elegant writer, that a fine piece of essay-writing, such as his own "Life," required notes no more than his novels and his comedies, among which it may be classed. I observed that the ancients had no literary history; this was the result of the discovery of printing, the institution of national libraries, the general literary intercourse of Europe, and some other causes which are the growth almost of our own times. The ancients have written history without producing authorities.

Mr. CUMBERLAND was then occupied on a review of Fox's History; and of CLARENDON, which lay open before him,--he had been complaining, with all the irritable feelings of a dramatist, of the frequent suspensions, and the tedious minuteness of his story.

I observed that _notes_ had not then been discovered. Had Lord CLARENDON known their use, he had preserved the unity of design in his text. His Lordship has unskilfully filled it with all that historical furniture his diligence had collected, and with those minute discussions which his anxiety for truth, and his lawyer-like mode of scrutinising into facts and substantiating evidence, amassed. Had these been cast into _notes_, and were it now possible to pass them over in the present text, how would the story of the noble historian clear up! The greatness of his genius will appear when disencumbered of its unwieldy and misplaced accompaniments.

If this observation be just, it will apply with greater force to literary history itself, which, being often the mere history of the human mind, has to record opinions as well as events--to discuss as well as to narrate--to show how accepted truths become suspicious--or to confirm what has hitherto rested in obscure uncertainty, and to balance contending opinions and opposite facts with critical nicety. The multiplied means of our knowledge now opened to us, have only rendered our curiosity more urgent in its claims, and raised up the most diversified objects. These, though accessories to the leading one of our inquiries, can never melt together in the continuity of a text. It is to prevent all this disorder, and to enjoy all the usefulness and the pleasure of this various knowledge, which has produced the invention of _notes_ in literary history. All this forms a sort of knowledge peculiar to the present more enlarged state of literature. Writers who delight in curious and rare extracts, and in the discovery of new facts and new views of things, warmed by a fervour of research which brings everything nearer to our eye and close to our touch, study to throw contemporary feelings in their page. Such rare extracts and such new facts BAYLE eagerly sought, and they delighted JOHNSON; but all this luxury of literature can only be produced to the public eye in the variegated forms of _notes_.

WARBURTON, AND HIS QUARRELS;

INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS LITERARY CHARACTER

The name of Warburton more familiar to us than his Works--declared to be "a Colossus" by a Warburtonian, who afterwards shrinks the image into "a human size"--Lowth's caustic retort on his Attorneyship--motives for the change to Divinity--his first literary mischances--Warburton and his Welsh Prophet--his Dedications--his mean flatteries--his taste more struck by the monstrous than the beautiful--the effects of his opposite studies--the SECRET PRINCIPLE which conducted Warburton through all his Works--the _curious_ argument of his Alliance between Church and State--the _bold_ paradox of his Divine Legation--the demonstration ends in a conjecture--Warburton lost in the labyrinth he had ingeniously constructed--confesses the harassed state of his mind--attacked by Infidels and Christians--his SECRET PRINCIPLE turns the poetical narrative of AEneas into the Eleusinian Mysteries--Hurd attacks Jortin; his Attic irony translated into plain English--Warburton's paradox on Eloquence; his levity of ideas renders his sincerity suspected--Leland refutes the whimsical paradox--Hurd attacks Leland--Leland's noble triumph--Warburton's SECRET PRINCIPLE operating in Modern Literature: on Pope's Essay on Man--Lord Bolingbroke the author of the Essay--Pope received Warburton as his tutelary genius--Warburton's systematic treatment of his friends and rival editors--his literary artifices and little intrigues--his Shakspeare--the whimsical labours of Warburton on Shakspeare annihilated by Edwards's "Canons of Criticism"--Warburton and Johnson--Edwards and Warburton's mutual attacks--the concealed motive of his edition of Shakspeare avowed in his justification--his SECRET PRINCIPLE further displayed in Pope's Works--attacks Akenside; Dyson's generous defence--correct Ridicule is a test of Truth, illustrated by a well-known case--Warburton a literary revolutionist; aimed to be a perpetual dictator--the ambiguous tendency of his speculations--the Warburtonian School supported by the most licentious principles--specimens of its peculiar style--the use to which Warburton applied the Dunciad--his party: attentive to raise recruits--the active and subtle Hurd--his extreme sycophancy--Warburton, to maintain his usurped authority, adopted his system of literary quarrels.

The name of WARBURTON is more familiar to us than his works: thus was it early,[141] thus it continues, and thus it will be with posterity! The cause may be worth our inquiry. Nor is there, in the whole compass of our literary history, a character more instructive for its greatness and its failures; none more adapted to excite our curiosity, and which can more completely gratify it.

Of great characters, whose actions are well known, and of those who, whatever claim they may have to distinction, are not so, ARISTOTLE has delivered a precept with his accustomed sagacity. If _Achilles_, says the Stagirite, be the subject of our inquiries, since all know what he has done, we are simply to indicate his actions, without stopping to detail; but this would not serve for _Critias_; for whatever relates to him must be fully told, since he is known to few;[142]--a critical precept, which ought to be frequently applied in the composition of this work.

The history of Warburton is now well known; the facts lie dispersed in the chronological biographer;[143] but the secret connexion which exists between them, if there shall be found to be any, has not yet been brought out; and it is my business to press these together; hence to demonstrate principles, or to deduce inferences.

The literary fame of Warburton was a portentous meteor: it seemed unconnected with the whole planetary system through which it rolled, and it was imagined to be darting amid new creations, as the tail of each hypothesis blazed with idle fancies.[144] Such extraordinary natures cannot be looked on with calm admiration, nor common hostility; all is the tumult of wonder about such a man; and his adversaries, as well as his friends, though differently affected, are often overcome by the same astonishment.

To a Warburtonian, the object of his worship looks indeed of colossal magnitude, in the glare thrown about that hallowed spot; nor is the divinity of common stature; but the light which makes him appear so great, must not be suffered to conceal from us the real standard by which only his greatness can be determined:[145] even literary enthusiasm, delightful to all generous tempers, may be too prodigal of its splendours, wasting itself while it shines; but truth remains behind! Truth, which, like the asbestos, is still unconsumed and unaltered amidst these glowing fires.

The genius of Warburton has called forth two remarkable anonymous criticisms--in one, all that the most splendid eloquence can bring to bear against this chief and his adherents;[146] and in the other, all that taste, warmed by a spark of Warburtonian fire, can discriminate in an impartial decision.[147] Mine is a colder and less grateful task. I am but a historian! I have to creep along in the darkness of human events, to lay my hand cautiously on truths so difficult to touch, and which either the panegyrist or the writer of an invective cover over, and throw aside into corners.

Much of the moral, and something too of the physical dispositions of the man enter into the literary character; and, moreover, there are localities--the place where he resides, the circumstances which arise, and the habits he contracts; to all these the excellences and the defects of some of our great literary characters may often be traced. With this clue we may thread our way through the labyrinth of Genius.

Warburton long resided in an obscure provincial town, the articled clerk of a country attorney,[148] and then an unsuccessful practising one. He seems, too, once to have figured as "a wine-merchant in the Borough," and rose into notice as "the orator of a disputing club;" but, in all his shapes, still keen in literary pursuits, without literary connexions; struggling with all the defects of a desultory and self-taught education, but of a bold aspiring character, he rejected, either in pride or in despair, his little trades, and took Deacon's orders--to exchange a profession, unfavourable to continuity of study, for another more propitious to its indulgence.[149] In a word, he set off as a literary adventurer, who was to win his way by earning it from patronage.

His first mischances were not of a nature to call forth that intrepidity which afterwards hardened into the leading feature of his character. Few great authors have begun their race with less auspicious omens, though an extraordinary event in the life of an author happened to Warburton--he had secured a patron before he was an author.

The first publication of his which we know, was his "Translations in Prose and Verse from Roman Poets, Orators, and Historians." 1724. He was then about twenty-five years of age. The fine forms of classic beauty could never be cast in so rough a mould as his prose; and his turgid unmusical verses betrayed qualities of mind incompatible with the delicacy of poetry. Four years afterwards he repeated another bolder attempt, in his "Critical and Philosophical Inquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles." After this publication, I wonder Warburton was ever suspected of infidelity or even scepticism.[150] So radically deficient in Warburton was that fine internal feeling which we call taste, that through his early writings he acquired not one solitary charm of diction,[151] and scarcely betrayed, amid his impurity of taste, that nerve and spirit which afterwards crushed all rival force. His translations _in imitation of Milton's style_ betray his utter want of ear and imagination. He attempted to suppress both these works during his lifetime.

When these unlucky productions were republished by Dr. Parr, the _Dedications_ were not forgotten; they were both addressed to the same opulent baronet, not omitting "the virtues" of his lady the Countess of Sunderland, whose marriage he calls "so divine a union." Warburton had shown no want of judgment in the choice of his patrons; for they had more than one living in their gift--and perhaps, knowing his patrons, none in the dedications themselves. They had, however, this absurdity, that in freely exposing the servile practices of dedicators, the writer was himself indulging in that luxurious sin, which he so forcibly terms "Public Prostitution." This early management betrays no equivocal symptoms of that traffic in _Dedications_, of which he has been so severely accused,[152] and of that paradoxical turn and hardy effrontery which distinguished his after-life. These dedications led to preferment, and thus hardily was laid the foundation-stone of his aspiring fortunes.

Till his thirtieth year, Warburton evinced a depraved taste, but a craving appetite for knowledge. His mind was constituted to be more struck by the Monstrous than the Beautiful, much like that Sicilian prince who furnished his villa with the most hideous figures imaginable:[153] the delight resulting from harmonious and delicate forms raised emotions of too weak a nature to move his obliquity of taste; roused, however, by the surprise excited by colossal ugliness. The discovery of his intellectual tastes, at this obscure period of his life, besides in those works we have noticed, is confirmed by one of the most untoward accidents which ever happened to a literary man; it was the chance-discovery of a letter he had written to one of the heroes of the Dunciad, forty years before. At the time that letter was written, his literary connexions were formed with second-rate authors; he was in strict intimacy with Concanen and Theobald, and other "ingenious gentlemen who made up our last night's conversation," as he expresses himself.[154] This letter is full of the heresies of taste: one of the most anomalous is the comment on that well-known passage in Shakspeare, on "the genius and the mortal instruments;" Warburton's is a miraculous specimen of fantastical sagacity and critical delirium, or the art of discovering meanings never meant, and of illustrations the author could never have known. Warburton declares to "the ingenious gentlemen," (whom afterwards with a Pharaoh's heart he hanged by dozens to posterity in the "Dunciad,") that "Pope borrowed for want of genius;" that poet, who, when the day arrived, he was to comment on as the first of poets! His insulting criticisms on the popular writings of Addison,--his contempt for what Young calls "sweet elegant Virgilian prose,"--show how utterly insensible he was to that classical taste in which Addison had constructed his materials. But he who could not taste the delicacy of Addison, it may be imagined might be in raptures with the rant of Lee. There is an unerring principle in the false sublime: it seems to be governed by laws, though they are not ours; and we know what it will like, that is, we know what it will mistake for what ought not to be liked, as surely as we can anticipate what will delight correct taste. Warburton has pronounced one of the raving passages of poor Nat "to contain not only the most sublime, but the most judicious imagery that poetry could conceive or paint." JOSEPH WARTON, who indignantly rejects it from his edition of Pope, asserts that "we have not in our language a more striking example of true turgid expression, and genuine fustian and bombast."[155] Yet such was the man whom ill-fortune (for the public at least) had chosen to become the commentator of our greater poets! Again Churchill throws light on our character:--

He, with an all-sufficient air Places himself in the critic's chair, And wrote, to advance his Maker's praise, Comments on rhymes, and notes on plays-- A judge of genius, though, confest, With not one spark of genius blest: Among the first of critics placed, Though free from every taint of taste.

Not encouraged by the reception his first literary efforts received, but having obtained some preferment from his patron, we now come to a critical point in his life. He retreated from the world, and, during a seclusion of near twenty years, persevered in uninterrupted studies. The force of his character placed him in the first order of thinking beings. This resolution no more to court the world for literary favours, but to command it by hardy preparation for mighty labours, displays a noble retention of the appetite for fame; Warburton scorned to be a scribbler!

Had this great man journalised his readings, as Gibbon has done, we should perhaps be more astonished at his miscellaneous pursuits. He read everything, and, I suspect, with little distinction, and equal delight.[156] Curiosity, even to its delirium, was his first passion; which produced those new systems of hypothetical reasoning by which he startled the world; and his efforts to save his most ingenious theories from absurdity resembled, to use his own emphatic words applied to the philosophy of Leibnitz, "a contrivance against Fatalism," for though his genius has given a value to the wildest paradoxes, paradoxes they remain.

But if Warburton read so much, it was not to enforce opinions already furnished to his hands, or with cold scepticism to reject them, leaving the reader in despair. He read that he might write what no one else had written, and which at least required to be refuted before it was condemned. He hit upon a SECRET PRINCIPLE, which prevails through all his works, and this was INVENTION; a talent, indeed, somewhat dangerous to introduce in researches where Truth, and not Fancy, was to be addressed. But even with all this originality he was not free from imitation, and has even been accused of borrowing largely without hinting at his obligations. He had certainly one favourite model before him: Warburton has delineated the portrait of a certain author with inimitable minuteness, while he caught its general effect; we feel that the artist, in tracing the resemblance of another, is inspired by all the flattery of a self-painter--he perceived the kindred features, and he loved them!

This author was BAYLE! And I am unfolding the character of Warburton, in copying the very original portrait:--

"Mr. Bayle is of a quite different character from these Italian sophists: a writer, whose strength and clearness of _reasoning_ can be equalled only by the gaiety, easiness, and delicacy of his _wit_; _who, pervading human nature with a glance, STRUCK INTO THE PROVINCE OF PARADOX, as an exercise for the restless vigour of his mind_: who, with a soul superior to the sharpest attacks of fortune, and a heart practised to the best philosophy, had _not yet enough of real greatness to overcome that last foible of superior geniuses_, the temptation of honour, which the ACADEMIC EXERCISE OF WIT is conceived to bring to its professors."[157]

Here, then, we discover the SECRET PRINCIPLE which conducted Warburton through all his works, although of the most opposite natures. I do not give this as an opinion to be discussed, but as a fact to be demonstrated.

The faculties so eminent in Bayle were equally so in Warburton. In his early studies he had particularly applied himself to logic; and was not only a vigorous reasoner, but one practised in all the _finesse_ of dialectics. He had wit, fertile indeed, rather than delicate; and a vast body of erudition, collected in the uninterrupted studies of twenty years. But it was the SECRET PRINCIPLE, or, as he calls it, "_the Academic exercise of Wit_," on an enlarged system, which carried him so far in the new world of INVENTION he was creating.

This was a new characteristic of investigation; it led him on to pursue his profounder inquiries beyond the clouds of antiquity; for what he could not _discover_, he CONJECTURED and ASSERTED. Objects, which in the hands of other men were merely matters resting on authentic researches, now received the stamp and lustre of original invention. Nothing was to be seen in the state in which others had viewed it; the hardiest paradoxes served his purpose best, and this licentious principle produced unlooked-for discoveries. He humoured his taste, always wild and unchastised, in search of the monstrous and the extravagant; and, being a wit, he delighted in finding resemblances in objects which to more regulated minds had no similarity whatever. _Wit_ may exercise its ingenuity as much in combining _things_ unconnected with each other, as in its odd assemblage of _ideas_; and Warburton, as a literary antiquary, proved to be as witty in his combinations as BUTLER and CONGREVE in their comic images. As this principle took full possession of the mind of this man of genius, the practice became so familiar, that it is possible he might at times have been credulous enough to have confided in his own reveries. As he forcibly expressed himself on one of his adversaries, Dr. STEBBING, "Thus it is to have to do with a head whose _sense is all run to system_." "His Academic Wit" now sported amid whimsical theories, pursued bold but inconclusive arguments, marked out subtile distinctions, and discovered incongruous resemblances; but they were maintained by an imposing air of conviction, furnished with the most prodigal erudition, and they struck out many ingenious combinations. The importance or the curiosity of the topics awed or delighted his readers; the principle, however licentious, by the surprise it raised, seduced the lovers of novelties. Father HARDOUIN had studied as hard as Warburton, rose as early, and retired to rest as late, and the obliquity of his intellect resembled that of Warburton--but he was a far inferior genius; he only discovered that the classical works of antiquity, the finest compositions of the human mind, in ages of its utmost refinement, had been composed by the droning monks of the middle ages; a discovery which only surprised by its tasteless absurdity--but the absurdities of Warburton had more dignity, were more delightful, and more dangerous: they existed, as it were, in a state of illusion, but illusion which required as much genius and learning as his own to dissipate. His spells were to be disturbed only by a magician, great as himself. Conducted by this solitary principle, Warburton undertook, as it were, a magical voyage into antiquity. He passed over the ocean of time, sailing amid rocks, and half lost on quicksands; but he never failed to raise up some _terra incognita_; or point at some scene of the _Fata Morgana_, some earthly spot, painted in the heaven one knows not how.

In this secret principle of resolving to _invent_ what no other had before conceived, by means of _conjecture_ and _assertion_, and of maintaining his theories with all the pride of a sophist, and all the fierceness of an inquisitor, we have the key to all the contests by which this great mind so long supported his literary usurpations.

The first step the giant took showed the mightiness of his stride. His first great work was the famous "Alliance between Church and State." It surprised the world, who saw the most important subject depending on a mere _curious_ argument, which, like all political theories, was liable to be overthrown by writers of opposite principles.[158] The term "Alliance" seemed to the dissenters to infer that the _Church_ was an independent power, forming a contract with the _State_, and not acknowledging that it is only an integral part, like that of the _army_ or the _navy_.[159] Warburton had not probably decided, at that time, on the principle of ecclesiastical power: whether it was paramount by its divine origin, as one party asserted; or whether, as the new philosophers, Hobbes, Selden, and others, insisted, the spiritual was secondary to the civil power.[160]

The intrepidity of this vast genius appears in the plan of his greater work. The omission of a future state of reward and punishment, in the Mosaic writings, was perpetually urged as a proof that the mission was not of divine origin: the ablest defenders strained at obscure or figurative passages, to force unsatisfactory inferences; but they were looking after what could not be found. Warburton at once boldly acknowledged it was not there; at once adopted all the objections of the infidels: and roused the curiosity of both parties by the hardy assertion, that this very _omission_ was a _demonstration_ of its divine origin.[161]

The first idea of this new project was bold and delightful, and the plan magnificent. Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity, the three great religions of mankind, were to be marshalled in all their pomp, and their awe, and their mystery. But the procession changed to a battle! To maintain one great paradox, he was branching out into innumerable ones. This great work was never concluded: the author wearied himself, without, however, wearying his readers; and, as his volumes appeared, he was still referring to his argument, "as far as it is yet advanced." The _demonstration_ appeared in great danger of ending in a _conjecture_; and this work, always beginning and never ending, proved to be the glory and misery of his life.[162] In perpetual conflict with those numerous adversaries it roused, Warburton often shifted his ground, and broke into so many divisions, that when he cried out, Victory! his scattered forces seemed rather to be in flight than in pursuit.[163]

The same SECRET PRINCIPLE led him to turn the poetical narrative of AEneas in the infernal regions, an episode evidently imitated by Virgil from his Grecian master, into a minute description of the initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries. A notion so perfectly new was at least worth a commonplace truth. Was it not delightful to have so many particulars detailed of a secret transaction, which even its contemporaries of two thousand years ago did not presume to know anything about? Father Hardouin seems to have opened the way for Warburton, since he had discovered that the whole AEneid was an allegorical voyage of St. Peter to Rome! When Jortin, in one of his "Six Dissertations," modestly illustrated Virgil by an interpretation inconsistent with Warburton's strange discovery, it produced a memorable quarrel. Then Hurd, the future shield, scarcely the sword, of Warburton, made his first sally; a dapper, subtle, and cold-blooded champion, who could dexterously turn about the polished weapon of irony.[164] So much our _Railleur_ admired the volume of Jortin, that he favoured him with "A Seventh Dissertation, addressed to the Author of the Sixth, on the Delicacy of Friendship," one of the most malicious, but the keenest pieces of irony. It served as the foundation of a new School of Criticism, in which the arrogance of the master was to be supported by the pupil's contempt of men often his superiors. To interpret Virgil differently from the modern Stagirite, was, by the aggravating art of the ridiculer, to be considered as the violation of a moral feeling.[165] Jortin bore the slow torture and the teasing of Hurd's dissecting-knife in dignified silence.

At length a rising genius demonstrated how Virgil could not have described the Eleusinian Mysteries in the sixth book of the AEneid. One blow from the arm of Gibbon shivered the allegorical fairy palace into glittering fragments.[166]

When the sceptical Middleton, in his "Essay on the Gift of Tongues," pretended to think that "an inspired language would be perfect in its kind, with all the purity of Plato and the eloquence of Cicero," and then asserted that "the style of the New Testament was utterly rude and barbarous, and abounding with every fault that can possibly deform a language," Warburton, as was his custom, instantly acquiesced; but hardily maintained that "_this very barbarism was one certain mark of a divine original_."[167]--The curious may follow his subtile argument in his "Doctrine of Grace;" but, in delivering this paradox, he struck at the fundamental principles of eloquence: he dilated on all the abuses of that human art. It was precisely his utter want of taste which afforded him so copious an argument; for he asserted that the principles of eloquence were arbitrary and chimerical, and its various modes "mostly fantastical;" and that, consequently, there was no such thing as a good taste,[168] except what the _consent of the learned_ had made; an expression borrowed from Quintilian. A plausible and a consolatory argument for the greater part of mankind! It, however, roused the indignation of Leland, the eloquent translator of Demosthenes, and the rhetorical professor at Trinity College, in Dublin, who has nobly defended the cause of classical taste and feeling by profounder principles. His classic anger produced his "Dissertation on the Principles of Human Eloquence;" a volume so much esteemed that it is still reprinted. Leland refuted the whimsical paradox, yet complimented Warburton, who, "with the spirit and energy of an ancient orator, was writing against eloquence," while he showed that the style of the New Testament was defensible on surer grounds. Hurd, who had fleshed his polished weapon on poor Jortin, and had been received into the arms of the hero under whom he now fought, adventured to cast his javelin at Leland: it was dipped in the cold poison of contempt and petulance. It struck, but did not canker, leaves that were immortal.[169] Leland, with the native warmth of his soil, could not resist the gratification of a reply; but the nobler part of the triumph was, the assistance he lent to the circulation of Hurd's letter, by reprinting it with his own reply, to accompany a new edition of his "Dissertation on Eloquence."[170]

We now pursue the SECRET PRINCIPLE, operating on lighter topics; when, turning commentator, with the same originality as when an author, his character as a literary adventurer is still more prominent, extorting double senses, discovering the most fantastical allusions, and making men of genius but of confined reading, learned, with all the lumber of his own unwieldy erudition.

When the German professor CROUSAZ published a rigid examen of the doctrines in POPE'S "Essay on Man," Warburton volunteered a defence of Pope. Some years before, it appears that Warburton himself, in a literary club at Newark, had produced a dissertation against those very doctrines! where he asserted that "the Essay was collected from the worst passages of the worst authors." This probably occurred at the time he declared that Pope had no genius! BOLINGBROKE really WROTE the "Essay on Man," which Pope _versified_.[171] His principles may be often objectionable; but those who only read this fine philosophical poem for its condensed verse, its imagery, and its generous sentiments, will run no danger from a metaphysical system they will not care to comprehend.

But this serves not as an apology for Warburton, who now undertook an elaborate defence of what he had himself condemned, and for which purpose he has most unjustly depressed Crousaz--an able logician, and a writer ardent in the cause of religion. This commentary on the "Essay on Man," then, looks much like the work of a sophist and an adventurer! Pope, who was now alarmed at the tendency of some of those principles he had so innocently versified, received Warburton as his tutelary genius. A mere poet was soon dazzled by the sorcery of erudition; and he himself, having nothing of that kind of learning, believed Warburton to be the Scaliger of the age, for his gratitude far exceeded his knowledge.[172] The poet died in this delusion: he consigned his immortal works to the mercy of a ridiculous commentary and a tasteless commentator, whose labours have cost so much pains to subsequent editors to remove. Yet from this moment we date the worldly fortunes of Warburton.--Pope presented him with the entire property of his works; introduced him to a blind and obedient patron, who bestowed on him a rich wife, by whom he secured a fine mansion; till at length, the mitre crowned his last ambition. Such was the large chapter of accidents in Warburton's life!

There appears in Warburton's conduct respecting the editions of the great poets which he afterwards published, something systematic; he treated the several editors of those very poets, THEOBALD, HANMER, and GREY, who were his friends, with the same odd sort of kindness: when he was unknown to the world, he cheerfully contributed to all their labours, and afterwards abused them with the liveliest severity.[173] It is probable that he had himself projected these editions as a source of profit, but had contributed to the more advanced labours of his rival editors, merely as specimens of his talent, that the public might hereafter be thus prepared for his own more perfect commentaries.

Warburton employed no little art[174] to excite the public curiosity respecting his future Shakspeare: he liberally presented Dr. BIRCH with his MS. notes for that great work the "General Dictionary," no doubt as the prelude of his after-celebrated edition. Birch was here only a dupe: he escaped, unlike Theobald, Hanmer, and Grey, from being overwhelmed with ridicule and contempt. When these extraordinary specimens of emendatory and illustrative criticism appeared in the "General Dictionary," with general readers they excited all the astonishment of perfect novelty. It must have occurred to them, that no one as yet had understood Shakspeare; and, indeed, that it required no less erudition than that of the new luminary now rising in the critical horizon to display the amazing erudition of this most recondite poet. Conjectural criticism not only changed the words but the thoughts of the author; perverse interpretations of plain matters. Many a striking passage was wrested into a new meaning: plain words were subtilised to remove conceits; here one line was rejected, and there an interpolation, inspired alone by critical sagacity, pretended to restore a lost one; and finally, a source of knowledge was opened in the notes, on subjects which no other critic suspected could, by any ingenuity, stand connected with Shakspeare's text.

At length the memorable edition appeared: all the world knows its chimeras.[175] One of its most remarkable results was the production of that work, which annihilated the whimsical labours of Warburton, Edwards's "Canons of Criticism," one of those successful facetious criticisms which enliven our literary history. Johnson, awed by the learning of Warburton, and warmed by a personal feeling for a great genius who had condescended to encourage his first critical labour, grudgingly bestows a moderated praise on this exquisite satire, which he characterises for "its airy petulance, suitable enough to the levity of the controversy." He compared this attack "to a fly, which may sting and tease a horse, but yet the horse is the nobler animal."[176] Among the prejudices of criticism, is one which hinders us from relishing a masterly performance, when it ridicules a favourite author; but to us, mere historians, truth will always prevail over literary favouritism. The work of Edwards effected its purpose, that of "laughing down Warburton to his proper rank and character."[177]

Warburton designates himself as "a critic by profession;" and tells us, he gave this edition "to deter the _unlearned writer_ from wantonly trifling with an art he is a stranger to, at the expense of the integrity of the text of established authors." Edwards has placed a N.B. on this declaration:--"A writer may properly be called _unlearned_, who, notwithstanding all his other knowledge, does not understand the subject which he writes upon." But the most dogmatical absurdity was Warburton's declaration, that it was once his design to have given "a body of canons for criticism, drawn out in form, with a glossary;" and further he informs the reader, that though this has not been done by him, if the reader will take the trouble, he may supply himself, as these canons of criticism lie scattered in the course of the notes. This idea was seized on with infinite humour by Edwards, who, from these very notes, has framed a set of "Canons of Criticism," as ridiculous as possible, but every one illustrated by authentic examples, drawn from the labours of our new Stagirite.[178]

At length, when the public had decided on the fact of Warburton's edition, it was confessed that the editor's design had never been to explain Shakspeare! and that he was even conscious he had frequently imputed to the poet meanings which he never thought! Our critic's great object was to display his own learning! Warburton wrote for Warburton, and not for Shakspeare! and the literary imposture almost rivals the confessions of Lander or Psalmanazar!

The same SECRET PRINCIPLE was pursued in his absurd edition of Pope. He formed an unbroken Commentary on the "Essay on Criticism," to show that that admirable collection of precepts had been constructed by a systematical method, which it is well known the poet never designed; and the same instruments of torture were here used as in the "Essay on Man," to reconcile a system of fatalism to the doctrines of Revelation.[179] Warton had to remove the incumbrance of his Commentaries on Pope, while a most laborious confederacy zealously performed the same task to relieve Shakspeare. Thus Warburton pursued ONE SECRET PRINCIPLE in all his labours; thus he raised edifices which could not be securely inhabited, and were only impediments in the roadway; and these works are now known by the labours of those who have exerted their skill in laying them in ruins.

Warburton was probably aware that the SECRET PRINCIPLE which regulated his public opinions might lay him open, at numerous points, to the strokes of ridicule. It is a weapon which every one is willing to use, but which seems to terrify every one when it is pointed against themselves. There is no party or sect which have not employed it in their most serious controversies: the grave part of mankind protest against it, often at the moment they have been directing it for their own purpose. And the inquiry, whether ridicule be a test of truth, is one of the large controversies in our own literature. It was opened by Lord Shaftesbury, and zealously maintained by his school. Akenside, in a note to his celebrated poem, asserts the efficacy of ridicule as a test of truth: Lord Kaimes had just done the same. Warburton levelled his piece at the lord in the bush-fighting of a note; but came down in the open field with a full discharge of his artillery on the luckless bard.[180]

Warburton designates Akenside under the sneering appellative of "The Poet," and alluding to his "sublime account" of the use of ridicule, insultingly reminds him of "his Master," Shaftesbury, and of that school which made morality an object of taste, shrewdly hinting that Akenside was "a man of taste;" a new term, as we are to infer from Warburton, for "a Deist;" or, as Akenside had alluded to Spinoza, he might be something worse. The great critic loudly protested against the practice of ridicule; but, in attacking its advocate, he is himself an evidence of its efficacy, by keenly ridiculing "the Poet" and his opinions. Dyson, the patron of Akenside, nobly stepped forwards to rescue his Eagle, panting in the tremendous gripe of the critical Lion. His defence of Akenside is an argumentative piece of criticism on the nature of ridicule, curious, but wanting the graces of the genius who inspired it.[181]

I shall stop one moment, since it falls into our subject, to record this great literary battle on the use of ridicule, which has been fought till both parties, after having shed their ink, divide the field without victory or defeat, and now stand looking on each other.

The advocates for the use of RIDICULE maintain that it is a natural sense or feeling, bestowed on us for wise purposes by the Supreme Being, as are the other feelings of beauty and of sublimity;--the sense of beauty to detect the deformity, as the sense of ridicule the absurdity of an object: and they further maintain, that no real virtues, such as wisdom, honesty, bravery, or generosity, can be ridiculed.

The great Adversary of Ridicule replied that they did not dare to ridicule the virtues openly; but, by overcharging and distorting them they could laugh at leisure. "Give them other names," he says, "call them but Temerity, Prodigality, Simplicity, &c., and your business is done. Make them ridiculous, and you may go on, in the freedom of wit and humour (as Shaftesbury distinguishes ridicule), till there be never a virtue left to laugh out of countenance."

The ridiculers acknowledge that their favourite art may do mischief, when _dishonest men obtrude circumstances foreign to the object_. But, they justly urge, that the use of reason itself is full as liable to the same objection: grant Spinoza his false premises, and his conclusions will be considered as true. Dyson threw out an ingenious illustration. "It is so equally in the mathematics; where, in reasoning about a circle, if we join along with its real properties others that do not belong to it, our conclusions will certainly be erroneous. Yet who would infer from hence that _the manner of proof_ is defective or fallacious?"

Warburton urged the strongest _case_ against the use of ridicule, in that of Socrates and Aristophanes. In his strong and coarse illustration he shows, that "by clapping a fool's coat on the most immaculate virtue, it stuck on Socrates like a San Benito, and at last brought him to his execution: it made the owner resemble his direct opposite; that character he was most unlike. The consequences are well known."

Warburton here adopted the popular notion, that the witty buffoon Aristophanes was the occasion of the death of the philosopher Socrates. The defence is skilful on the part of Dyson; and we may easily conceive that on so important a point Akenside had been consulted. I shall give it in his own words:--

"The Socrates of Aristophanes is as truly ridiculous a character as ever was drawn; but it is not the character of Socrates himself. The object was perverted, and the mischief which ensued was owing to the dishonesty of him who persuaded the people that that was the real character of Socrates, not from any error in the faculty of ridicule itself."--Dyson then states the fact as it concerned Socrates. "The real intention of the contrivers of this ridicule was not so much to mislead the people, by giving them a bad opinion of Socrates, as to sound what was at the time the general opinion of him, that from thence they might judge whether it would be safe to bring a direct accusation against him. The most effectual way of making this trial was by ridiculing him; for they knew, if the people saw his character in its true light, they would be displeased with the misrepresentation, and not endure the ridicule. On trial this appeared: the play met with its deserved fate; and, notwithstanding the exquisiteness of the wit, was absolutely _rejected_. A second attempt succeeded no better; and the abettors of the poet were so discouraged from pursuing their design against Socrates, that it was not till ABOVE TWENTY YEARS after _the publication of the play_ that they brought their accusation against him! It was not, therefore, ridicule that did, or could destroy Socrates: he was rather sacrificed for the right use of it himself, against the Sophists, who could not bear the test."

Thus, then, stands the argument.--Warburton, reasoning on the abuses of ridicule, has opened to us all its dangers. Its advocate concedes that Ridicule, to be a test of Truth, must not impose on us circumstances which are foreign to the object. No object can be ridiculed that is not ridiculous. Should this happen, then the ridicule is false; and, as such, can be proved as much as any piece of false reasoning. We may therefore conclude, that ridicule is a taste of congruity and propriety not possessed by every one; a test which separates truth from imposture; a talent against the exercise of which most men are interested to protest; but which, being founded on the constituent principles of the human mind, is often indulged at the very moment it is decried and complained of.

But we must not leave this great man without some notice of that peculiar style of controversy which he adopted, and which may be distinguished among our LITERARY QUARRELS. He has left his name to a school--a school which the more liberal spirit of the day we live in would not any longer endure. Who has not heard of THE WARBURTONIANS?

That SECRET PRINCIPLE which directed Warburton in all his works, and which we have attempted to pursue, could not of itself have been sufficient to have filled the world with the name of Warburton. Other scholars have published reveries, and they have passed away, after showing themselves for a time, leaving no impression; like those coloured and shifting shadows on a wall, with which children are amused; but Warburton was a literary Revolutionist, who, to maintain a new order of things, exercised all the despotism of a perpetual dictator. The bold unblushing energy which could lay down the most extravagant positions, was maintained by a fierce dogmatic spirit, and by a peculiar style of mordacious contempt and intolerant insolence, beating down his opponents from all quarters with an animating shout of triumph, to encourage those more serious minds, who, overcome by his genius, were yet often alarmed by the ambiguous tendency of his speculations.[182]

The Warburtonian School was to be supported by the most licentious principles; by dictatorial arrogance,[183] by gross invective, and by airy sarcasm;[184] the bitter contempt which, with its many little artifices, lowers an adversary in the public opinion, was more peculiarly the talent of one of the aptest scholars, the cool, the keen, the sophistical Hurd. The lowest arts of confederacy were connived at by all the disciples,[185] prodigal of praise to themselves, and retentive of it to all others; the world was to be divided into two parts, the _Warburtonians_ and the _Anti_.

To establish this new government in the literary world, this great Revolutionist was favoured by Fortune with two important aids; the one was a _Machine_, by which he could wield public opinion; and the other a _Man_, who seemed born to be his minister or his viceroy.

The _machine_ was nothing less than the immortal works of Pope; as soon as Warburton had obtained a royal patent to secure to himself the sole property of Pope's works, the public were compelled, under the disguise of a Commentary on the most classical of our Poets, to be concerned with all his literary quarrels, and have his libels and lampoons perpetually before them; all the foul waters of his anger were deposited here as in a common reservoir.[186]

Fanciful as was the genius of Warburton, it delighted too much in its eccentric motions, and in its own solitary greatness, amid abstract and recondite topics, to have strongly attracted the public attention, had not a party been formed around him, at the head of which stood the active and subtle Hurd; and amid the gradations of the votive brotherhood, the profound BALGUY,[187] the spirited BROWN,[188] till we descend--

To his tame jackal, parson TOWNE.[189] _Verses on Warburton's late Edition._

This Warburtonian party reminds one of an old custom among our elder poets, who formed a kind of freemasonry among themselves, by adopting younger poets by the title of their _sons_.--But that was a domestic society of poets; this, a revival of the Jesuitic order instituted by its founder, that--

By him supported with a proper pride, They might hold all mankind as fools beside. Might, like himself, teach each adopted son, 'Gainst all the world, to quote a Warburton.[190] CHURCHILL'S "Fragment of a Dedication."

The character of a literary sycophant was never more perfectly exhibited than in Hurd. A Whig in principle, yet he had all a courtier's arts for Warburton; to him he devoted all his genius, though that, indeed, was moderate; aided him with all his ingenuity, which was exquisite; and lent his cause a certain delicacy of taste and cultivated elegance, which, although too prim and artificial, was a vein of gold running through his mass of erudition; it was Hurd who aided the usurpation of Warburton in the province of criticism above Aristotle and Longinus.[191] Hurd is justly characterised by Warton, in his Spenser, vol. ii. p. 36, as "the _most sensible_ and _ingenious_ of modern critics."--He was a lover of his studies; and he probably was sincere, when he once told a friend of the literary antiquary Cole, that he would have chosen not to quit the university, for he loved retirement; and on that principle Cowley was his favourite poet, which he afterwards showed by his singular edition of that poet. He was called from the cloistered shades to assume the honourable dignity of a Royal Tutor. Had he devoted his days to literature, he would have still enriched its stores. But he had other more supple and more serviceable qualifications. Most adroit was he in all the archery of controversy: he had the subtlety that can evade the aim of the assailant, and the slender dexterity, substituted for vigour, that struck when least expected. The subaltern genius of Hurd required to be animated by the heroic energy of Warburton; and the careless courage of the chief wanted one who could maintain the unguarded passages he left behind him in his progress.

Such, then, was WARBURTON, and such the quarrels of this great author. He was, through his literary life, an adventurer, guided by that secret principle which opened an immediate road to fame. By opposing the common sentiments of mankind, he awed and he commanded them; and by giving a new face to all things, he surprised, by the appearances of discoveries. All this, so pleasing to his egotism, was not, however, fortunate for his ambition. To sustain an authority which he had usurped; to substitute for the taste he wanted a curious and dazzling erudition; and to maintain those reckless decisions which so often plunged him into perils, Warburton adopted his _system of Literary Quarrels_. These were the illegitimate means which raised a sudden celebrity, and which genius kept alive, as long as that genius lasted; but Warburton suffered that literary calamity, too protracted a period of human life: he outlived himself and his fame. This great and original mind sacrificed all his genius to that secret principle we have endeavoured to develope--it was a self-immolation!

The learned SELDEN, in the curious little volume of his "Table-Talk," has delivered to posterity a precept for the learned, which they ought to wear, like the Jewish phylacteries, as "a frontlet between their eyes." _No man is the wiser for his learning: it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man._ Sir THOMAS HANMER, who was well acquainted with Warburton, during their correspondence about Shakspeare, often said of him:--"The only use he could find in Mr. Warburton was _starting the game_; he was not to be trusted in _running it down_." A just discrimination! His fervid curiosity was absolutely creative; but his taste and his judgment, perpetually stretched out by his system, could not save him from even inglorious absurdities!

Warburton, it is probable, was not really the character he appears. It mortifies the lovers of genius to discover how a natural character may be thrown into a convulsed unnatural state by some adopted system: it is this system, which, carrying it, as it were, beyond itself, communicates a more than natural, but a self-destroying energy. All then becomes reversed! The arrogant and vituperative Warburton was only such in his assumed character; for in still domestic life he was the creature of benevolence, touched by generous passions. But in public life the artificial or the acquired character prevails over the one which nature designed for us; and by that all public men, as well as authors, are usually judged by posterity.

FOOTNOTES:

[141] One of his lively adversaries, the author of the "Canons of Criticism," observed the difficulty of writing against an author whose reputation so much exceeded the knowledge of his works. "It is my misfortune," says EDWARDS, "in this controversy, to be engaged with a person who is better known by his _name_ than his _works_; or, to speak more properly, whose _works are more known than read_."--_Preface to the Canons of Criticism._

[142] Aristotle's Rhetoric, B. III. c. 16.

[143] The materials for a "Life of Warburton" have been arranged by Mr. NICHOLS with his accustomed fidelity.--_See his Literary Anecdotes._

[144] It is probable I may have drawn my meteor from our volcanic author himself, who had his lucid moments, even in the deliriums of his imagination. Warburton has rightly observed, in his "Divine Legation," p. 203, that "_Systems_, _Schemes_, and _Hypotheses_, all bred of heat, in the warm regions of _Controversy_, like meteors in a troubled sky, have each its turn to _blaze_ and _fly_ away."

[145] It seems, even by the confession of a Warburtonian, that his master was of "a human size;" for when Bishop LOWTH rallies the Warburtonians for their subserviency and credulity to their master, he aimed a gentle stroke at Dr. BROWN, who, in his "Essays on the Characteristics," had poured forth the most vehement panegyric. In his "Estimate of Manners of the Times," too, after a long _tirade_ of their badness in regard to taste and learning, he thus again eulogizes his mighty master:--"Himself is abused, and his friends insulted for his sake, by those who never read his writings; or, if they did, could neither taste nor comprehend them; while every little aspiring or despairing scribbler eyes him as Cassius did Caesar: and whispers to his fellow--

'Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.'

No wonder, then, if the malice of the Lilliputian tribe be bent against this dreaded GULLIVER; if they attack him with poisoned arrows, whom they cannot subdue by strength."

On this Lowth observes, that "this Lord Paramount in his pretensions _doth bestride the narrow world_ of literature, and has cast out his shoe over all the regions of science." This leads to a ludicrous comparison of Warburton, with King Pichrochole and his three ministers, who, in URQUHART'S admirable version of the French wit, are Count Merdaille, the Duke of Smalltrash, and the Earl Swashbuckler, who set up for universal monarchy, and made an imaginary expedition through all the quarters of the world, as Rabelais records, and the bishop facetiously quotes. Dr. Brown afterwards seemed to repent his panegyric, and contrives to make his gigantic hero shrink into a moderate size. "I believe still, every little aspiring fellow continues thus to eye him. For myself, I have ever considered him as _a man_, yet considerable among his species, as the following part of the paragraph _clearly demonstrates_. I speak of him here as _a Gulliver_ indeed; yet still of _no more than human size_, and only apprehended to be of _colossal magnitude_ by certain of his Lilliputian enemies." Thus subtilely would poor Dr. Brown save appearances! It must be confessed that, in a dilemma, never was a giant got rid of so easily!--The plain truth, however, was, that Brown was then on the point of quarrelling with Warburton; for he laments, in a letter to a friend, that "he had not avoided all personal panegyric. I had thus saved myself the trouble of setting right a character which I far over-painted." A part of this letter is quoted in the "Biographia Britannica."

[146] "Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the collections of their respective works," itself a collection which our shelves could ill spare, though maliciously republished by Dr. PARR. The dedication by Parr stands unparalleled for comparative criticism. It is the eruption of a volcano; it sparkles, it blazes, and scatters light and destruction. How deeply ought we to regret that this Nazarite suffered his strength to be shorn by the Delilahs of spurious fame. Never did this man, with his gifted strength, grasp the pillars of a temple, to shake its atoms over Philistines; but pleased the childlike simplicity of his mind by pulling down houses over the heads of their unlucky inhabitants. He consumed, in local and personal literary quarrels, a genius which might have made the next age his own. With all the stores of erudition, and all the eloquence of genius, he mortified a country parson for his politics, and a London accoucheur for certain obstetrical labours performed on Horace; and now his collected writings lie before us, volumes unsaleable and unread. His insatiate vanity was so little delicate, as often to snatch its sweetmeat from a foul plate; it now appears, by the secret revelations in Griffith's own copy of his "Monthly Review," that the writer of a very elaborate article on the works of Dr. Parr, was no less a personage than the Doctor himself. His egotism was so declamatory, that it unnaturalized a great mind, by the distortions of Johnsonian mimicry; his fierceness, which was pushed on to brutality on the unresisting, retreated with a child's terrors when resisted; and the pomp of petty pride in table triumphs and evening circles, ill compensated for the lost century he might have made his own!

Lord o'er the greatest, to the least a slave, Half-weak, half-strong, half-timid, and half-brave; To take a compliment of too much pride, And yet most hurt when praises are denied. Thou art so deep discerning, yet so blind, So learn'd, so ignorant, cruel, yet so kind; So good, so bad, so foolish, and so wise;-- By turns I love thee, and by turns despise. MS. ANON. (said to be by the late Dr. HOMER.)

[147] The "Quarterly Review," vol. vii. p. 383.--So masterly a piece of criticism has rarely surprised the public in the leaves of a periodical publication. It comes, indeed, with the feelings of another age, and the reminiscences of the old and vigorous school. I cannot implicitly adopt all the sentiments of the critic, but it exhibits a highly-finished portrait, enamelled by the love of the artist.--This article was written by the late Dr. Whitaker, the historian of Craven, &c.

[148] When Warburton, sore at having been refused academical honours at Oxford, which were offered to Pope, then his fellow-traveller, and who, in consequence of this refusal, did himself not accept them--in his controversy with Lowth (then the Oxford Professor), gave way to his angry spirit, and struck at the University itself, for its political jesuitism, being a place where men "were taught to distinguish between _de facto_ and _de jure_," caustic was the retort. Lowth, by singular felicity of application, touched on Warburton's original designation, in a character he hit on in Clarendon. After remonstrating with spirit and dignity on this petulant attack, which was not merely personal, Lowth continues:--"Had I not your lordship's example to justify me, I should think it a piece of extreme impertinence to inquire where YOU were bred; though one might justly plead, in excuse for it, a natural curiosity to know _where_ and _how_ such a phenomenon was produced. It is commonly said that your lordship's education was of that particular kind, concerning which it is a remark of that great judge of men and manners, Lord Clarendon (on whom you have, therefore, with a wonderful happiness of allusion, justness of application, and elegance of expression, conferred 'the unrivalled title of the Chancellor of Human Nature'), that it peculiarly disposes men to be proud, insolent, and pragmatical." Lowth, in a note, inserts Clarendon's character of Colonel Harrison: "He had been bred up in the place of a clerk, under a lawyer of good account in those parts; which kind of education introduces men into the language and practice of business; and if it be not resisted by the great ingenuity of the person, inclines young men to more pride than any other kind of breeding, and disposes them to be pragmatical and insolent." "Now, my lord (Lowth continues), as you have in your whole behaviour, and in all your writings, remarkably distinguished yourself by your humility, lenity, meekness, forbearance, candour, humanity, civility, decency, good manners, good temper, moderation with regard to the opinions of others, and a modest diffidence of your own, this unpromising circumstance of your education is so far from being a disgrace to you, that it highly redounds to your praise."--_Lowth's Letter to the Author of the D. L._ p. 63.

Was ever weapon more polished and keen? This Attic style of controversy finely contrasts with the tasteless and fierce invective of the Warburtonians, although one of them is well known to have managed too adroitly the cutting instrument of irony; but the frigid malignancy of Hurd diminishes the pleasure we might find in his skill. Warburton ill concealed his vexation in the contempt he vented in a letter to Hurd on this occasion. "All you say about Lowth's pamphlet breathes the purest spirit of friendship. His _wit_ and his _reasoning_, God knows, and I also, (as a certain critic said once in a matter of the like great importance), are much below the qualities that deserve those names."--He writes too of "this man's boldness in publishing his letters."--"If he expects an answer, he will certainly find himself disappointed; though I believe I could make _as good sport with this devil of a vice_, for the public diversion, as ever was made with him in the old Moralities."--But Warburton did reply! Had he ever possessed one feeling of taste, never would he have figured the elegant Lowth as this grotesque personage. He was, however, at that moment sharply stung!

This circumstance of _Attorneyship_ was not passed over in Mallet's "Familiar Epistle to the Most Impudent Man Living." Comparing, in the Spirit of "familiarity," Arnall, an impudent scribbling attorney and political scribe, with Warburton, he says, "You have been an attorney as well as he, but a little more impudent than he was; for Arnall never presumed to conceal his turpitude under the gown and the scarf." But this is mere invective!

[149] I have given a tempered opinion of his motive for this sudden conversion from Attorneyship to Divinity; for it must not be concealed, in our inquiry into Warburton's character, that he has frequently been accused of a more worldly one. He was so fierce an advocate for some important causes he undertook, that his sincerity has been liable to suspicion; the pleader, in some points, certainly acting the part of a sophist. Were we to decide by the early appearances of his conduct, by the rapid change of his profession, by his obsequious servility to his country squire, and by what have been termed the hazardous "fooleries in criticism, and outrages in controversy," which he systematically pursued, he looks like one not in earnest; and more zealous to maintain the character of his own genius, than the cause he had espoused. Leland once exclaimed, "What are we to think of the writer and his intentions? Is he really sincere in his reasonings?" Certain it is, his paradoxes often alarmed his friends, to repeat the words of a great critic, by "the absurdity of his criticism, the heterodoxy of his tenets, and the brutality of his invectives." Our Juvenal, who, whatever might be the vehemence of his declamation, reflected always those opinions which floated about him, has drawn a full-length figure. He accounts for Warburton's early motive in taking the cassock, as being

"------------thereto drawn By some faint omens of the Lawn, And on the truly Christian plan, To make himself a gentleman: A title, in which Form arrayed him, Tho' Fate ne'er thought of when she made him. To make himself a man of note, He in defence of Scripture wrote: So long he wrote, and long about it, That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it. He wrote too of the Holy Ghost; Of whom, no more than doth a post, He knew; nor, should an angel show him, Would he or know, or choose to know him." CHURCHILL'S "Duellist."

I would not insinuate that Warburton is to be ranked among the class he so loudly denounced, that of "Free-thinkers;" his mind, warm with imagination, seemed often tinged with credulity. But from his want of sober-mindedness, we cannot always prove his earnestness in the cause he advocated. He often sports with his fancies; he breaks out into the most familiar levity; and maintains, too broadly, subtile and refined principles, which evince more of the political than the primitive Christian. It is certain his infidelity was greatly suspected; and Hurd, to pass over the stigma of Warburton's sudden conversion to the Church, insinuates that "_an early seriousness of mind_ determined him to the ecclesiastical profession."--"It may be so," says the critic in the "Quarterly Review," no languid admirer of this great man; "but the symptoms of that _seriousness were very equivocal afterwards_; and the _certainty of an early provision, from a generous patron in the country_, may perhaps be considered by those who are disposed to assign human conduct to ordinary motives, as quite adequate to the effect."

Dr. Parr is indignant at such surmises; but the feeling is more honourable than the decision! In an admirable character of Warburton in the "Westminster Magazine" for 1779, it is acknowledged, "at his outset in life he was suspected of being inclined to infidelity; and it was not till many years had elapsed, that the orthodoxy of his opinions was generally assented to." On this Dr. Parr observes, "Why Dr. Warburton was _ever_ suspected of secret infidelity I know not. What he was _inclined to think_ on subjects of religion, before, perhaps, he had leisure or ability to examine them, depends only upon obscure surmise, or vague report." The words _inclined to think_ seems a periphrase for _secret infidelity_. Our critic attributes these reports to "an English dunce, whose blunders and calumnies are now happily forgotten, and repeated by a French buffoon, whose morality is not commensurate with his wit."--_Tracts_ by Warburton, &c., p. 186.

"The English Dunce" I do not recollect; of this sort there are so many! Voltaire is "the French buffoon;" who, indeed, compares Warburton in his bishopric, to Peachum in the Beggar's Opera--who, as Keeper of Newgate, was for hanging all his old accomplices!

[150] Warburton was far more extravagant in a later attempt which he made to expound the odd visions of a crack-brained Welshman, a prophesying knave; a knave by his own confession, and a prophet by Warburton's. This commentary, inserted in Jortin's "Remarks on Ecclesiastical History," considerably injured the reputation of Jortin. The story of Warburton and his Welsh Prophet would of itself be sufficient to detect the shiftings and artifices of his genius. RICE or ARISE EVANS! was one of the many prophets who rose up in Oliver's fanatical days; and Warburton had the hardihood to insert, in Jortin's learned work, a strange commentary to prove that Arise Evans, in Cromwell's time, in his "Echo from Heaven," had manifestly _prophesied the Hanoverian Succession_! The Welshman was a knave by his own account in subscribing with his _right_ hand the confession he calls his prophecy, before a justice, and with his _left_, that which was his recantation, signed before the recorder, adding, "I know the bench and the people thought I recanted; but, alas! they were deceived;" and this Warburton calls "an uncommon fetch of wit," to save the truth of the prophecy, though not the honour of the prophet. If Evans meant anything, he meant what was then floating in all men's minds, the probable restoration of the Stuarts. By this prelude of that inventive genius which afterwards commented, in the same spirit, on the AEneid of Virgil, and the "Divine Legation, itself," and made the same sort of discoveries, he fixed himself in this dilemma: either Warburton was a greater impostor than Arise Evans, or he was more credulous than even any follower of the Welsh prophet, if he really had any. But the truth is, that Warburton was always writing for a present purpose, and believed, and did not believe, as it happened. "Ordinary men believe _one_ side of a contradiction at a time, whereas his lordship" (says his admirable antagonist) "frequently believes, or at least defends _both_. So that it would have been no great wonder if he should maintain that Evans was both a real prophet and an impostor." Yet this is not the only awkward attitude into which Warburton has here thrown himself. To strain the vision of the raving Welshman to events of which he could have no notion, Warburton has plunged into the most ludicrous difficulties, all which ended, as all his discoveries have done, in making the fortune of an adversary who, like the Momus of Homer, has raised through the skies "inextinguishable laughter," in the amusing tract of "Confusion worse Confounded, Rout on Rout, or the Bishop of G----'s Commentary on Arise Evans; by Indignatio," 1772. The writer was the learned Henry Taylor, the author of Ben Mordecai's Apology.

[151] The correct taste of Lowth with some humour describes the last sentence of the "Enquiry on Prodigies" as "the Musa Pedestris got on horseback in a high prancing style." He printed it in measured lines, without, however, changing the place of a single word, and it produced blank verse. Thus it reads--

"Methinks I see her like the mighty Eagle renewing her immortal youth, and purging her opening sight at the unobstructed beams of our benign meridian Sun," &c.

Such a glowing metaphor, in the uncouth prose of Warburton, startled Lowth's classical ear. It was indeed "the Musa Pedestris who had got on horseback in a high prancing style;" for as it has since been pointed out, it is a well-known passage towards the close of the Areopagitica of Milton, whose prose is so often purely poetical. See Birch's Edition of Milton's Prose Works, I. 158. Warburton was familiarly conversant with our great vernacular writers at a time when their names generally were better known than their works, and when it was considered safe to pillage their most glorious passages. Warburton has been convicted of snatching their purple patches, and sewing them into his coarser web, without any acknowledgment; he did this in the present remarkable instance, and at a later day, in the preface to his "Julian," he laid violent hands on one of Raleigh's splendid metaphors.

[152] When Warburton was considered as a Colossus of literature, RALPH, the political writer, pointed a severe allusion to the awkward figure he makes in these Dedications. "The Colossus himself creeps between the legs of the late Sir Robert Sutton; in what posture, or for what purpose, need not be explained."

CHURCHILL has not passed by unnoticed Warburton's humility, even to weakness, combined with pride which could rise to haughtiness.

"He was so proud, that should he meet The twelve apostles in the street, He'd turn his nose up at them all, And shove his Saviour from the wall."

Yet this man

----"Fawned through all his life For patrons first, then for a wife; Wrote _Dedications_, which must make The heart of every Christian quake." _The Duellist._

It is certain that the proud and supercilious Warburton long crouched and fawned. MALLET, at least, well knew all that passed between Warburton and Pope. In the "Familiar Epistle" he asserts that Warburton was introduced to Pope by his "nauseous flattery." A remarkable instance, besides the dedications we have noticed, occurred in his correspondence with Sir Thomas Hanmer. He did not venture to attack "The Oxford Editor," as he sarcastically distinguishes him, without first demanding back his letters, which were immediately returned, from Sir Thomas's high sense of honour. Warburton might otherwise have been shown strangely to contradict himself, for in these letters he had been most lavish of his flatteries and encomiums on the man whom he covered with ridicule in the preface to his Shakspeare. See "An Answer to certain Passages in Mr. W.'s Preface to Shakspeare," 1748.

His dedication to the plain unlettered Ralph Allen of Bath, his greatest of patrons, of his "Commentary on Pope's Essay on Man," is written in the same spirit as those to Sir Robert Sutton; but the former unlucky gentleman was more publicly exposed by it. The subject of this dedication turns on "the growth and progress of _Fate_, divided into four principal branches!" There is an episode about _Free-will_ and _Nature_ and _Grace_, and "a _contrivance_ of Leibnitz about _Fatalism_." Ralph Allen was a good Quaker-like man, but he must have lost his temper if he ever read the dedication! Let us not, however, imagine that Warburton was at all insensible to this violation of literary decorum; he only sacrificed _propriety_ to what he considered a more urgent principle--his own personal interest. No one had a juster conception of the true nature of _dedications_; for he says in the famous one "to the Free-thinkers:"--"I could never approve the custom of dedicating books to men whose professions made them strangers to the subject. A Discourse on the Ten Predicaments to a Leader of Armies, or a System of Casuistry to a Minister of State, always appeared to me a high absurdity."

All human characters are mixed--true! yet still we feel indignant to discover some of the greatest often combining the most opposite qualities; and then they are not so much mixed as the parts are naturally joined together. Could one imagine that so lofty a character as Warburton could have been liable to have incurred even the random stroke of the satirist? whether true or false, the events of his life, better known at this day than in his own, will show. Churchill says that

"He could cringe and creep, be civil, And hold a stirrup to the devil, If, _in a journey to his mind_, He'd let him mount, and ride behind."

The author of the "Canons of Criticism," with all his sprightly sarcasm, gives a history of Warburton's later Dedications. "The first edition of 'The Alliance' came out without a dedication, but was presented to the bishops; and when nothing came of that, the second was addressed to both the Universities; and when nothing came of that, the third was dedicated to a noble Earl, and nothing has yet come of that." Appendix to "Canons of Criticism," seventh edit. 261.

[153] The palace here alluded to is fully described in a volume of "Travels through Sicily and Malta," by P. Brydone, F.R.S., in 1770. He describes it as belonging to "the Prince of Palermo, a man of immense fortune, who has devoted his whole life to the study of monsters and chimeras, greater and more ridiculous than ever entered into the imagination of the wildest writers of romance and knight-errantry." He tells us this palace was surrounded by an army of statues, "not one made to represent any object in nature. He has put the heads of men to the bodies of every sort of animal, and the heads of every other animal to the bodies of men. Sometimes he makes a compound of five or six animals that have no sort of resemblance in nature. He puts the head of a lion on the neck of a goose, the body of a lizard, the legs of a goat, the tail of a fox; on the back of this monster he puts another, if possible still more hideous, with five or six heads, and a bush of horns. There is no kind of horn in the world he has not collected, and his pleasure is to see them all flourishing upon the same head." The interior of the house was decorated in the same monstrous style, and the description, unique of its kind, occupies several pages of Mr. Brydone's book.--ED.

[154] This letter was written in 1726, and first found by Dr. Knight in 1750, in fitting up a house where Concanen had probably lodged. It was suppressed, till Akenside, in 1766, printed it in a sixpenny pamphlet, entitled "An Ode to Mr. Edwards." He preserved the curiosity, with "all its peculiarities of grammar, spelling, and punctuation." The insulted poet took a deep revenge for the contemptuous treatment he had received from the modern Stagirite. The "peculiarities" betray most evident marks of the self-taught lawyer; the orthography and the double letters were minted in the office. [Thus he speaks of Addison as this "exact _Mr._ of propriety," and of his own studies of the English poets "to trace them to their sources; and observe what _oar_, as well as what slime and gravel they brought down with them."] When I looked for the letter in _Akenside's Works_, I discovered that it had been silently dropped. Some interest, doubtless, had been made to suppress it, for Warburton was humbled when reminded of it. Malone, fortunately, has preserved it in his Shakspeare, where it may be found, in a place not likely to be looked into for it, at the close of _Julius Caesar_: this literary curiosity had otherwise been lost for posterity; its whole history is a series of wonderful escapes.

By this document we became acquainted with the astonishing fact, that Warburton, early in life, was himself one of those very dunces whom he has so unmercifully registered in their Doomsday-book; one who admired the genius of his brothers, and spoke of Pope with the utmost contempt! [Thus he says, "Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius!"]

[155] Lee introduces Alexander the Great, saying,

"When Glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood Perch'd on my beaver in the Granic flood, When Fortune's self my standard trembling bore, And the pale Fates stood frighted on the shore; When the Immortals on the billows rode, And I myself appear'd the leading god!"

In the province of taste Warburton was always at sea without chart or compass, and was as unlucky in his panegyric on Milton as on Lee. He calls the "Paradise Regained" "a charming poem, _nothing inferior_ in the _poetry_ and the _sentiments_ to the Paradise Lost." Such extravagance could only have proceeded from a critic too little sensible to the essential requisites of poetry itself.

[156] Such opposite studies shot themselves into the most fantastical forms in his rocket-writings, whether they streamed in "The Divine Legation," or sparkled in "The Origin of Romances," or played about in giving double senses to Virgil, Pope, and Shakspeare. CHURCHILL, with a good deal of ill-nature and some truth, describes them:--

"A curate first, he read and read, And laid in, while he should have fed The souls of his neglected flock, Of rending, such a mighty stock, That he o'ercharged the weary brain With more than she could well contain; More than she was with spirit fraught To turn and methodise to thought; And which, _like ill-digested food, To humours turn'd, and not to blood_."

The opinion of BENTLEY, when he saw "The Divine Legation," was a sensible one. "This man," said he, "has a monstrous appetite, with a very bad digestion."

The Warburtonians seemed to consider his great work, as the Bible by which all literary men were to be sworn. LOWTH ridicules their credulity. "'The Divine Legation,' it seems, contains in it all knowledge, divine and human, ancient and modern: it is a perfect Encyclopaedia, including all history, criticism, divinity, law, politics, from the law of Moses down to the Jew bill, and from Egyptian hieroglyphics to modern Rebus-writing, &c."

"In the 2014 pages of the unfinished 'Divine Legation,'" observes the sarcastic GIBBON, "four hundred authors are quoted, from St. Austin down to Scarron and Rabelais!"

Yet, after all that satire and wit have denounced, listen to an enlightened votary of Warburton. He asserts that "The 'Divine Legation' has taken its place at the head, not to say of English theology, but almost of English literature. To the composition of this prodigious performance, HOOKER and STILLINGFLEET could have contributed the erudition, CHILLINGWORTH and LOCKE the acuteness, TAYLOR an imagination even more wild and copious, SWIFT, and perhaps, EACHARD, the sarcastic vein of wit; but what power of understanding, except WARBURTON'S, could first have amassed all these materials, and then compacted them into a bulky and elaborate work, so consistent and harmonious."--_Quarterly Review._ vol. vii.

[157] "The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated," vol. i. sec. iv. Observe the remarkable expression, "that last foible of superior genius." He had evidently running in his mind Milton's line on Fame--

"That last infirmity of noble minds."

In such an exalted state was Warburton's mind when he was writing this, his own character.

[158] The author of "The Canons of Criticism" addressed a severe sonnet to Warburton; and alludes to the "Alliance":--

"Reign he sole king in paradoxal land, And for Utopia plan his idle schemes Of _visionary leagues, alliance vain 'Twixt_ Will _and_ Warburton--"

On which he adds this note, humorously stating the grand position of the work:--"The whole argument by which the _alliance between Church and State_ is established, Mr. Warburton founds upon this supposition--'That people, considering themselves in a religious capacity, may contract with themselves, considered in a civil capacity.' The conceit is ingenious, but is not his own. _Scrub_, in the _Beaux Stratagem_, had found it out long ago: he considers himself as acting the different parts of all the servants in the family; and so _Scrub_, the coachman, ploughman, or justice's clerk, might contract with _Scrub_, the butler, for such a quantity of ale as the other assumed character demanded."--Appendix, p. 261.

[159] "Monthly Review," vol. xvi. p. 324, the organ of the dissenters.

[160] See article HOBBES, for his system. The great Selden was an _Erastian_; a distinction extremely obscure. _Erastus_ was a Swiss physician of little note, who was for restraining the ecclesiastical power from all temporal jurisdiction. Selden did him the honour of adopting his principles. Selden wrote against the _divine right_ of tithes, but allowed the _legal_ right, which gave at first great offence to the clergy, who afterwards perceived the propriety of his argument, as Wotton has fully acknowledged.

[161] It does not always enter into the design of these volumes to examine those great works which produced _literary quarrels_. But some may be glad to find here a word on this original project.

The grand position of the _Divine Legation_ is, that the knowledge of the immortality of the soul, or a future state of reward and punishment, is absolutely necessary in the moral government of the universe. The author shows how it has been inculcated by all good legislators, so that no religion could ever exist without it; but the Jewish could, from its peculiar government, which was theocracy--a government where the presence of God himself was perpetually manifested by miracles and new ordinances: and hence temporal rewards and punishments were sufficient for that people, to whom the unity and power of the Godhead were never doubtful. As he proceeded, he would have opened a new argument, viz., that the Jewish religion was only the _part_ of a revelation, showing the necessity of a further one for its _completion_, which produced Christianity.

When Warburton was in good spirits with his great work (for he was not always so), he wrote thus to a friend:--"You judge right, that the _next_ volume of the D. L. will not be the _last_. I thought I had told you that I had divided the work into three parts: the first gives you a view of Paganism; the second, of Judaism; and the third, of Christianity. _You will wonder_ how this last inquiry can come into _so simple an argument_ as that which I undertake to enforce. I have not room to tell you more than this--that after I have proved a future state not to be, _in fact_ in the Mosaic dispensation, I next show that, if Christianity be true, _it could not possibly be there_; and this necessitates me to explain the nature of Christianity, with which the whole ends. But this _inter nos_. If it be known, I should possibly have somebody writing against _this part too_ before it appears."--Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," vol. v. p. 551.

Thus he exults in the true tone, and with all the levity of a sophist. It is well that a true feeling of religion does not depend on the quirks and quibbles of human reasonings, or, what are as fallible, on masses of fanciful erudition.

[162] Warburton lost himself in the labyrinth he had so ingeniously constructed. This work harassed his days and exhausted his intellect. Observe the tortures of a mind, even of so great a mind as that of Warburton's, when it sacrifices all to the perishable vanity of sudden celebrity. Often he flew from his task in utter exhaustion and despair. He had quitted the smooth and even line of truth, to wind about and split himself on all the crookedness of paradoxes. He paints his feelings in a letter to Birch. He says--"I was so disgusted with an old subject, that I had deferred it from month to month and year to year." He had recourse to "an expedient;" which was, "to set the press on work, and so oblige himself to supply copy." Such is the confession of the author of the "Divine Legation!" this "encyclopaedia" of all ancient and modern lore--all to proceed from "a simple argument!" But when he describes his sufferings, hard is the heart of that literary man who cannot sympathise with such a giant caught in the toils! I give his words:--"Distractions of various kinds, inseparable from human life, joined with a naturally melancholy habit, contribute greatly to increase my indolence. This makes my reading wild and desultory; and I seek refuge from _the uneasiness of thought_, from any book, let it be what it will. _By my manner of writing upon subjects, you would naturally imagine they afford me pleasure, and attach me thoroughly. I will assure you_, No!"--Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," vol. v. p. 562.

Warburton had not the cares of a family--they were merely literary ones. The secret cause of his "melancholy," and his "indolence," and that "want of attachment and pleasure to his subjects;" which his friends "naturally imagined" afforded him so much, was the controversies he had kindled, and the polemical battles he had raised about him. However boldly he attacked in return, his heart often sickened in privacy; for how often must he have beheld his noble and his whimsical edifices built on sands, which the waters were perpetually eating into!

At the last interview of Warburton with Pope, the dying poet exhorted him to proceed with "The Divine Legation." "Your reputation," said he, "as well as your duty, is concerned in it. People say you can get no farther in your proof. Nay, Lord Bolingbroke himself bids me expect no such thing." This anecdote is rather extraordinary; for it appears in "Owen Ruffhead's Life of Pope," p. 497, a work written under the eye of Warburton himself; and in which I think I could point out some strong touches from his own hand on certain important occasions, when he would not trust to the creeping dulness of Ruffhead.

[163] His temerity had raised against him not only infidels, but Christians. If any pious clergyman now wrote in favour of the opinion that God's people believed in the immortality of the soul--which can we doubt they did? and which Menasseh Ben Israel has written his treatise, "De Resurrectione Mortuorum," to prove--it was a strange sight to behold a bishop seeming to deny so rational and religious a creed! Even Dr. Balguy confessed to Warburton, that "there was one thing in the argument of the 'Divine Legation' that stuck more with candid men than all the rest--how a religion without a future state could be worthy of God!" This Warburton promised to satisfy, by a fresh appendix. His volatile genius, however, was condemned to "the pelting of a merciless storm." Lowth told him--"You give yourself out as _demonstrator_ of the _divine legation_ of Moses; it has been often demonstrated before; a young student in theology might undertake to give a better--that is, a more satisfactory and irrefragable demonstration of it in five pages than you have done in five volumes."--Lowth's "Letter to Warburton," p. 12.

[164] Hurd was the son of a Staffordshire farmer, and was placed by him at Rugely, from whence he was removed to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. At the age of twenty-six he published a pamphlet entitled "Remarks on a late Book entitled 'An Inquiry into the Rejection of the Christian Miracles by the Heathens, by William Weston,'" which met with considerable attention. In 1749, on the occasion of publishing a commentary on Horace's "Ars Poetica," he complimented Warburton so strongly as to ensure his favour. Warburton returned it by a puff for Hurd in his edition of Pope, and the two became fast friends. It was a profitable connexion to Hurd, for by the intercession of Warburton he was appointed one of the Whitehall preachers, a preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and Archdeacon of Gloucester. He repaid Warburton by constant praises in print, and so far succeeded with that vain man, that when he read the dedication he made to him of his "Commentary on the Epistle to Augustus," he wrote to him with mock humility--"I will confess to you how much satisfaction the groundless part of it, that which relates to myself, gave me." When Dr. Jortin very properly spoke of Warburton with less of subserviency than the overbearing bishop desired, Hurd at once came forward to fight for Warburton in print, in a satirical treatise on "The Delicacy of Friendship," which highly delighted his patron, who at once wrote to Dr. Lowth, stating him to be "a man of very superior talents, of genius, learning, and virtue; indeed, a principal ornament of the age he lives in." Hurd was made Bishop of Lichfield in 1775, and of Winchester in 1779. He died in the year 1808.--ED.

[165] The Attic irony was translated into plain English, in "Remarks on Dr. Warburton's Account of the Sentiments of the Early Jews," 1757; and the following rules for all who dissented from Warburton are deduced:--"You must not write on the same subject that he does. You must not glance at his arguments, even without naming him or so much as referring to him. If you find his reasonings ever so faulty, you must not presume to furnish him with better of your own, even though you prove, and are desirous to support his conclusions. When you design him a compliment, you must express it in full form, and with all the circumstance of panegyrical approbation, without impertinently qualifying your civilities by assigning a reason why you think he deserves them, as this might possibly be taken for a hint that you know something of the matter he is writing about as well as himself. You must never call any of his _discoveries_ by the name of _conjectures_, though you allow them their full proportion of elegance, learning, &c.; for you ought to know that this capital genius never proposed anything to the judgment of the public (though ever so new and uncommon) with diffidence in his life. Thus stands the decree prescribing our demeanour towards this sovereign in the Republic of Letters, as we find it promulged, and bearing date at the palace of Lincoln's Inn, Nov. 25, 1755."--From whence Hurd's "Seventh Dissertation" was dated.

[166] Gibbon's "Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the AEneid." Dr. Parr considers this clear, elegant, and decisive work of criticism, as a complete refutation of Warburton's discovery.

[167] It is curious enough to observe that Warburton himself, acknowledging this to be a paradox, exultingly exclaims, "Which, _like so many others_ I have had the ODD FORTUNE to advance, will be seen to be only another name for Truth." This has all the levity of a sophist's language! Hence we must infer that some of the most important subjects could not be understood and defended, but by Warburton's "_odd fortune_!" It was this levity of ideas that raised a suspicion that he was not always sincere. He writes, in a letter, of "living in mere spite, to rub another volume of the 'Divine Legation' in the noses of bigots and zealots." He employs the most ludicrous images, and the coarsest phrases, on the most solemn subjects. In one of his most unlucky paradoxes with Lowth, on the age and style of the writings of Job, he accuses that elegant scholar of deficient discernment; and, in respect to style, as not "distinguishing partridge from horseflesh;" and in quoting some of the poetical passages, of "paying with an old song," and "giving rhyme for reason." Alluding to some one of his adversaries, whom he calls "the weakest, as well as the wickedest of all mankind," he employs a striking image--"I shall hang him and his fellows, as they do vermin in a warren, and leave them to posterity, to stink and blacken in the wind."

[168] Warburton, in this work (the "Doctrine of Grace,") has a curious passage, too long to quote, where he observes, that "The Indian and Asiatic eloquence was esteemed hyperbolic and puerile by the more phlegmatic inhabitants of Rome and Athens: and the Western eloquence, in its turn, frigid or insipid, to the hardy and inflamed imaginations of the East. The same expression, which in one place had the utmost simplicity, had in another the utmost sublime." The jackal, too, echoes the roar of the lion; for the polished Hurd, whose taste was far more decided than Warburton's, was bold enough to add, in his Letter to Leland, "That which is thought supremely _elegant_ in one country, passes in another for _finical_; while what in this country is accepted under the idea of _sublimity_, is derided in that other as no better than _bombast_." So unsettled were the _no-taste_ of Warburton, and the _prim-taste_ of Hurd!

[169] The Letter to Leland is characterised in the "Critical Review" for April, 1765, as the work of "a preferment-hunting toad-eater, who, while his patron happened to go out of his depth, tells him that he is treading good ground; but at the same time offers him the use of a cork-jacket to keep him above water."

[170] Dr. Thomas Leland was born in Dublin in 1722, and was educated in Trinity College, in that city. Having obtained a Fellowship there, he depended on that alone, and devoted a long life to study, and the production of various historical and theological works; as well as a "History of Ireland," published in 1773. He died in 1785.--ED.

[171] In a rough attack on Warburton, respecting Pope's privately printing 1500 copies of the "Patriot King" of Bolingbroke, which I conceive to have been written by Mallet, I find a particular account of the manner in which the "Essay on Man" was written, over which Johnson seems to throw great doubts.

The writer of this angry epistle, in addressing Warburton, says: "If you were as intimate with Mr. Pope as you pretend, you must know the truth of a fact which several others, as well as I, who never had the honour of a personal acquaintance with Lord Bolingbroke or Mr. Pope, have heard. The fact was related to me by a certain Senior Fellow of one of our Universities, who was very intimate with Mr. Pope. He started some objections, one day, at Mr. Pope's house, to the doctrine contained in the Ethic Epistles: upon which Mr. Pope told him that he would soon convince him of the truth of it, by laying the argument at large before him; for which purpose he gave him _a large prose manuscript_ to peruse, telling him, at the same time, the author's name. From this perusal, whatever other conviction the doctor might receive, he collected at least this: that Mr. Pope had from his friend not only the _doctrine_, but even the _finest and strongest ornaments of his Ethics_. Now, if this fact be true (as I question not but you know it to be so), I believe no man of candour will attribute such merit to Mr. Pope as you would insinuate, for acknowledging the wisdom and the friendship of the man who was his instructor in philosophy; nor consequently that this acknowledgment, and the _dedication of his own system, put into a poetical dress by Mr. Pope_, laid his lordship under the necessity of never resenting any injury done to him by the poet afterwards. Mr. Pope told no more than literal truth, in calling Lord Bolingbroke his _guide, philosopher, and friend_." The existence of this very manuscript volume was authenticated by Lord Bathurst, in a conversation with Dr. Blair and others, where he said, "he had read the MS. in Lord Bolingbroke's handwriting, and was at a loss whether most to admire the elegance of Lord Bolingbroke's prose, or the beauty of Mr. Pope's verse."--See the letter of Dr. Blair in "Boswell's Life of Johnson."

[172] Of many instances, the following one is the most curious. When Jarvis published his "Don Quixote," Warburton, who was prompt on whatever subject was started, presented him with "A Dissertation on the Origin of the Books of Chivalry." When it appeared, it threw Pope, their common friend, into raptures. He writes, "I knew you as certainly as the ancients did the gods, by the first pace and the very gait." True enough! Warburton's strong genius stamped itself on all his works. But neither the translating painter, nor the simple poet, could imagine the heap of absurdities they were admiring! Whatever Warburton here asserted was false, and whatever he conjectured was erroneous; but his blunders were quite original.--The good sense and knowledge of Tyrwhitt have demolished the whole edifice, without leaving a single brick standing. The absurd rhapsody has been worth preserving, for the sake of the masterly confutation: no uncommon result of Warburton's literary labours!

It forms the concluding note in Shakspeare's _Love's Labour Lost_.

[173] Of THEOBALD he was once the companion, and to Sir THOMAS HANMER he offered his notes for his edition. [Hanmer's Shakspeare was given in 1742 to the University of Oxford, for its benefit, and was printed at the University Press, under the management of Dr. Smith and Dr. Shippon. Sir Thomas paid the expenses of the engravings by Gravelot prefixed to each play. The edition was published in 4to. in 1744, it was printed on the "finest royal paper," and does not warrant the severity of Pope, whose editing was equally faulty.] Sir Thomas says he found Warburton's notes "sometimes just, but mostly wild and out of the way." Warburton paid a visit to Sir Thomas for a week, which he conceived was to assist him in perfecting his darling text; but hints were now dropped by Warburton, that _he_ might publish the work corrected, by which a greater sum of money might be got than could be by that plaything of Sir Thomas, which shines in all its splendour in the Dunciad; but this project did not suit Hanmer, whose life seemed greatly to depend on the magnificent Oxford edition, which "was not to go into the hands of booksellers." On this, Warburton, we are told by Hanmer, "flew into a great rage, and there is an end of the story." With what haughtiness he treats these two friends, for once they were such! Had the Dey of Algiers been the editor of Shakspeare, he could not have issued his orders more peremptorily for the decapitation of his rivals. Of Theobald and Hanmer he says, "the one was recommended to me as a poor man, the other as a poor critic: and to each of them at different times I communicated a great number of observations, which they managed, as they saw fit, to the relief of their several distresses. Mr. Theobald was naturally turned to industry and labour. What he read he could transcribe; but as to what he thought, if ever he did think, he could but ill express, so he read on: and by that means got a character of learning, without risking to every observer the imputation of wanting a better talent."--See what it is to enjoy too close an intimacy with a man of wit! "As for the Oxford Editor, he wanted nothing (alluding to Theobald's want of money) but what he might very well be without, the reputation of a critic," &c. &c.--_Warburton's Preface to Shakspeare._

His conduct to Dr. GREY, the editor of Hudibras, cannot be accounted for by any known fact. I have already noticed their quarrels in the "Calamities of Authors." Warburton cheerfully supplied Grey with various notes on Hudibras, though he said he had thought of an edition himself, and they were gratefully acknowledged in Grey's Preface; but behold! shortly afterwards they are saluted by Warburton as "an execrable heap of nonsense;" further, he insulted Dr. Grey for the _number_ of his publications! Poor Dr. Grey and his "Coadjutors," as Warburton sneeringly called others of his friends, resented this by "A Free and Familiar Letter to that Great Preserver of Pope and Shakspeare, the Rev. Mr. William Warburton." The doctor insisted that Warburton had had sufficient share in those very notes to be considered as one of the "Coadjutors." "I may venture to say, that whoever was the _fool of the company_ before he entered (or _the fool of the piece_, in his own diction) he was certainly so after he engaged in that work; for, as Ben Jonson observes, 'he that _thinks_ himself the _Master-Wit_ is commonly the _Master-Fool_.'"

[174] Warburton certainly used little intrigues: he trafficked with the obscure Reviews of the times. He was a correspondent in "The Works of the Learned," where the account of his first volume of the Divine Legation, he says, is "a nonsensical piece of stuff;" and when Dr. Doddridge offered to draw up an article for his second, the favour was accepted, and it was sent to the miserable journal, though acknowledged "to be too good for it." In the same journal were published all his specimens of Shakspeare, some years after they had appeared in the "General Dictionary," with a high character of these wonderful discoveries.--"The Alliance," when first published, was announced in "The Present State of the Republic of Letters," to be the work of a gentleman whose capacity, judgment, and learning deserve some eminent dignity in the Church of England, of which he is "now an inferior minister."--One may presume to guess at "the gentleman," a little impatient for promotion, who so much cared whether Warburton was only "now an inferior minister."

These are little arts. Another was, that Warburton sometimes acted Falstaff's part, and ran his sword through the dead! In more instances than one this occurred. Sir Thomas Hanmer was dead when Warburton, then a bishop, ventured to assert that Sir Thomas's letter concerning their intercourse about Shakspeare was "one continued falsehood from beginning to end." The honour and veracity of Hanmer must prevail over the "liveliness" of Warburton, for Hurd lauds his "_lively_ preface to his Shakspeare." But the "Biographia Britannica" bears marks of Warburton's violence, in a cancelled sheet. See the _Index_, art. HANMER; [where we are told "the sheet being castrated at the instance of Mr., now Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, it has been reprinted as an appendix to the work," it consisted in the suppression of one of Hanmer's letters.] He did not choose to attack Dr. Middleton in form, during his lifetime, but reserved his blow when his antagonist was no more. I find in Cole's MSS. this curious passage:--"It was thought, at Cambridge, that Dr. Middleton and Dr. Warburton did not cordially esteem one another; yet both being keen and thorough sportsmen, they were mutually afraid to engage to each other, for fear of a fall. If that was the case, the bishop judged prudently, however fairly it may be looked upon, to stay till it was out of the power of his adversary to make any reply, before he gave his answer." Warburton only replied to Middleton's "Letter from Rome," in his fourth edition of the "Divine Legation," 1765.--When Dyson firmly defended his friend Akenside from the rude attacks of Warburton, it is observed, that he bore them with "prudent patience:" he never replied!

[175] These critical _extravaganzas_ are scarcely to be paralleled by "Bentley's Notes on Milton." How Warburton turned "an allegorical mermaid" into "the Queen of Scots;"--showed how Shakspeare, in one word, and with one epithet "the majestic world," described the _Orbis Romanus_, alluded to the Olympic Games, &c.; yet, after all this discovery, seems rather to allude to a story about Alexander, which Warburton happened to recollect at that moment;--and how he illustrated Octavia's idea of the fatal consequences of a civil war between Caesar and Antony, who said it would "cleave the world," by the story of Curtius leaping into the chasm;--how he rejected "_allowed_, with absolute power," as not English, and read "_hallowed_," on the authority of the Roman Tribuneship being called _Sacro-sancta Potestas_; how his emendations often rose from puns; as for instance, when, in _Romeo and Juliet_, it is said of the Friar, that "the city is much obliged to _him_," our new critic consents to the sound of the word, but not to the spelling, and reads _hymn_; that is, to laud, to praise! These, and more extraordinary instances of perverting ingenuity and abused erudition, would form an uncommon specimen of criticism, which may be justly ridiculed, but which none, except an exuberant genius, could have produced. The most amusing work possible would be a real Warburton's Shakspeare, which would contain not a single thought, and scarcely an expression, of Shakspeare's!

[176] Had Johnson known as much as we do of Warburton's opinion of his critical powers, it would have gone far to have cured his amiable prejudice in favour of Warburton, who really was a critic without taste, and who considered literature as some do politics, merely as a party business. I shall give a remarkable instance. When Johnson published his first critical attempt on _Macbeth_, he commended the critical talents of Warburton; and Warburton returned the compliment in the preface to his Shakspeare, and distinguishes Johnson as "a man of parts and genius." But, unluckily, Johnson afterwards published his own edition; and, in his editorial capacity, his public duty prevailed over his personal feelings: all this went against Warburton; and the opinions he now formed of Johnson were suddenly those of insolent contempt. In a letter to Hurd, he writes: "Of _this Johnson_, you and I, I believe, think alike!" And to another friend: "The remarks he makes, in every page, on _my Commentaries_, are full of _insolence and malignant reflections_, which, had they not in them _as much folly as malignity_, I should have reason to be offended with." He consoles himself, however, that Johnson's notes, accompanying his own, will enable even "the trifling part of the public" not to mistake in the comparison.--NICHOLS'S "Literary Anecdotes," vol. v. p. 595.

And what became of Johnson's noble Preface to Shakspeare? Not a word on that!--Warburton, who himself had written so many spirited ones, perhaps did not like to read one finer than his own,--so he passed it by! He travelled through Egypt, but held his hands before his eyes at a pyramid!

[177] Thomas Edwards chiefly led the life of a literary student, though he studied for the Bar at Lincoln's-Inn, and was fully admitted a member thereof. He died unmarried at the age of 58. He descended from a family of lawyers; possessed a sufficient private property to ensure independence, and died on his own estate of Turrick, in Buckinghamshire. Dr. Warton observes, "This attack on Mr. Edwards is not of weight sufficient to weaken the effects of his excellent 'Canons of Criticism,' all impartial critics allow these remarks to have been decisive and judicious, and his book remains unrefuted and unanswerable."--ED.

[178] Some grave dull men, who did not relish the jests, doubtless the booksellers, who, to buy the _name of Warburton_, had paid down 500_l._ for the edition, loudly complained that Edwards had injured both him and them, by stopping the sale! On this Edwards expresses his surprise, how "a little twelvepenny pamphlet could stop the progress of eight large octavo volumes;" and apologises, by applying a humorous story to Warburton, for "puffing himself off in the world for what he is not, and now being discovered."--"I am just in the case of a friend of mine, who, going to visit an acquaintance, upon entering his room, met a person going out of it:--'Prythee, Jack,' says he, 'what do you do with that fellow?' 'Why, 'tis Don Pedro di Mondongo, my Spanish master.'--'Spanish master!' replies my friend; 'why, he's an errant Teague; I know the fellow well enough: 'tis Rory Gehagan. He may possibly have been in Spain; but, depend on't, he will sell you the Tipperary brogue for pure Castilian.' Now honest Rory has just the same reason of complaint against this gentleman as Mr. Warburton has against me, and I suppose abused him as heartily for it; but nevertheless the gentleman did both parties justice."

Some secret history is attached to this publication, so fatal to Warburton's critical character in English literature. This satire, like too many which have sprung out of literary quarrels, arose from _personal motives_! When Edwards, in early life, after quitting college, entered the army, he was on a visit at Mr. Allen's, at Bath, whose niece Warburton afterwards married. Literary subjects formed the usual conversation. Warburton, not suspecting the red coat of covering any Greek, showed his accustomed dogmatical superiority. Once, when the controversy was running high, Edwards taking down a Greek author, explained a passage in a manner quite contrary to Warburton. He did unluckily something more--he showed that Warburton's mistake had arisen from having used a French translation!--and all this before Ralph Allen and his niece! The doughty critic was at once silenced, in sullen indignation and mortal hatred. To this circumstance is attributed Edwards's "Canons of Criticism," which were followed up by Warburton with incessant attacks; in every new edition of Pope, in the "Essay on Criticism," and the Dunciad. Warburton asserts that Edwards is a very dull writer (witness the pleasantry that carries one through a volume of no small size), that he is a libeller (because he ruined the critical character of Warburton)--and "a libeller (says Warburton, with poignancy), is nothing but a Grub-street critic run to seed."--He compares Edwards's wit and learning to his ancestor Tom Thimble's, in the _Rehearsal_ (because Edwards read Greek authors in their original), and his air of good-nature and politeness, to Caliban's in the _Tempest_ (because he had so keenly written the "Canons of Criticism").--I once saw a great literary curiosity: some _proof-sheets_ of the Dunciad of Warburton's edition. I observed that some of the bitterest notes were _after-thoughts_, written on those proof-sheets after he had prepared the book for the press--one of these additions was his note on Edwards. Thus Pope's book afforded renewed opportunities for all the personal hostilities of this singular genius!

[179] In the "Richardsoniana," p. 264, the younger Richardson, who was admitted to the intimacy of Pope, and collated the press for him, gives some curious information about Warburton's Commentary, both upon the "Essay on Man" and the "Essay on Criticism." "Warburton's discovery of the 'regularity' of Pope's 'Essay on Criticism,' and 'the whole scheme' of his 'Essay on Man,' I happen to _know_ to be mere absurd refinement in creating conformities; and this from Pope himself, though he thought fit to adopt them afterwards." The genius of Warburton might not have found an invincible difficulty in proving that the "Essay on Criticism" was in fact an Essay on Man, and the reverse. Pope, before he knew Warburton, always spoke of his "Essay on Criticism" as "an irregular collection of thoughts thrown together as Horace's 'Art of Poetry' was." "As for the 'Essay on Man,'" says Richardson, "I _know_ that he never dreamed of the scheme he afterwards adopted; but he had taken terror about the clergy, and Warburton himself, at the general alarm of its fatalism and deistical tendency, of which my father and I talked with him frequently at Twickenham, without his appearing to understand it, or ever thinking to alter those passages which we suggested."--This extract is to be valued, for the information is authentic; and it assists us in throwing some light on the subtilty of Warburton's critical impositions.

[180] The postscript to Warburton's "Dedication to the Freethinkers," is entirely devoted to Akenside; with this bitter opening, "The Poet was too full of the subject and of himself."

[181] "An Epistle to the Rev. Mr. Warburton, occasioned by his Treatment of the Author of 'The Pleasures of the Imagination,'" 1744. While Dyson repels Warburton's accusations against "the Poet," he retorts some against the critic himself. Warburton often perplexed a controversy by a subtile change of a word; or by breaking up a sentence; or by contriving some absurdity in the shape of an inference, to get rid of it in a mock triumph. These little weapons against the laws of war are insidiously practised in the war of words. Warburton never replied.

[182] The paradoxical title of his great work was evidently designed to attract the unwary. "The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated--_from the omission of a future state_!" It was long uncertain whether it was "a covert attack on Christianity, instead of a defence of it." I have here no concern with Warburton's character as a polemical theologist; this has been the business of that polished and elegant scholar, Bishop Lowth, who has shown what it is to be in Hebrew literature "a Quack in Commentatorship, and a Mountebank in Criticism." He has fully entered into all the absurdity of Warburton's "ill-starred Dissertation on Job." It is curious to observe that Warburton in the wild chase of originality, often too boldly took the bull by the horns, for he often adopted the very reasonings and objections of infidels!--for instance, in arguing on the truth of the Hebrew text, because the words had no points when a living language, he absolutely prefers the Koran for correctness! On this Lowth observes: "You have been urging the same argument that _Spinoza_ employed, in order to destroy the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to introduce infidelity and atheism." Lowth shows further, that "this was also done by 'a society of gentlemen,' in their 'Sacerdotism Displayed,' said to be written by 'a select committee of the Deists and Freethinkers of Great Britain,' whose author Warburton himself had represented to be 'the forwardest devil of the whole legion.'" Lowth, however, concludes that all the mischief has arisen only from "your lordship's undertaking to treat of a subject with which you appear to be very much unacquainted."--LOWTH'S _Letter_, p. 91.

[183] Lowth remonstrated with Warburton on his "supreme authority:"--"I did not care to protest against the authoritative manner in which you proceeded, or to question _your investiture in the high office of Inquisitor General and Supreme Judge of the Opinions of the Learned_, which you had long before assumed, and had _exercised with a ferocity and a despotism without example in the Republic of Letters, and hardly to be paralleled among the disciples of Dominic_; exacting their opinions to the standard of your infallibility, and prosecuting with implacable hatred every one that presumed to differ from you."--LOWTH'S _Letter to W._, p. 9.

[184] Warburton had the most cutting way of designating his adversaries, either by the most vehement abuse or the light petulance that expressed his ineffable contempt. He says to one, "Though your teeth are short, what you want in teeth you have in venom, and know, as all other creatures do, where your strength lies." He thus announces in one of the prefaces to the "Divine Legation" the name of the author of a work on "A Future State of Rewards and Punishments," in which were some objections to Warburton's theory:--"I shall, therefore, but do what indeed would be justly reckoned the cruellest of all things, _tell my reader the name of this miserable_; which we find to be J. TILLARD." "Mr. Tillard was first condemned (says the author of 'Confusion Worse Confounded,') as a ruffian that stabs a man in the dark, because he did _not_ put his name to his book against the 'Divine Legation;' and afterwards condemned as lost to shame, both as a man and a writer, because he _did_ put his name to it." Would not one imagine this person to be one of the lowest of miscreants? He was a man of fortune and literature. Of this person Warburton says in a letter, "This is a man of fortune, and it is well he is so, for I have spoiled his trade as a writer; and as he was very abusive, free-thinking, and anonymous, I have not spared to expose his ignorance and ill faith." But afterwards, having discovered that he was a particular friend to Dr. Oliver, he makes awkward apologies, and declares he would not have _gone so far_ had he known this! He was often so vehement in his abuse that I find he confessed it himself, for, in preparing a new edition of the "Divine Legation," he tells Dr. Birch that he has made "several omissions of passages which were thought _vain_, _insolent_, and _ill-natured_."

It is amusing enough to observe how he designates men as great as himself. When he mentions the learned Hyde, he places him "at the head of a rabble of lying orientalists." When he alludes to Peters, a very learned and ingenious clergyman, he passes by him as "The Cornish Critic." A friend of Peters observed that "he had given Warburton 'a Cornish hug,' of which he might be sore as long as he lived." Dr. Taylor, the learned editor of Demosthenes, he selects from "his fellows," that is, other dunces: a delicacy of expression which offended scholars. He threatens Dr. Stebbing, who had preserved an anonymous character, "to catch this Eel of Controversy, since he hides his head by the tail, the only part that sticks out of the mud, more dirty indeed than slippery, and still more weak than dirty, as passing through a trap where he was forced at every step to leave part of his skin--that is, his system." Warburton has often true wit. With what provoking contempt he calls Sir Thomas Hanmer always "The Oxford Editor!" and in his attack on Akenside, never fails to nickname him, in derision, "The Poet!" I refer the reader to a postscript of his "Dedication to the Freethinkers," for a curious specimen of supercilious causticity in his description of Lord Kaimes as a critic, and Akenside as "The Poet!" Of this pair he tells us, in bitter derision, "they are both men of taste." Hurd imitated his master successfully, by using some qualifying epithet, or giving an adversary some odd nickname, or discreetly dispensing a little mortifying praise. The antagonists he encounters were men sometimes his superiors, and these he calls "sizeable men." Some are styled "insect blasphemers!" The learned Lardner is reduced to "the laborious Dr. Lardner;" and "Hume's History" is treated with the discreet praise of being "the most readable history we have." He carefully hints to Leland that "he had never read his works, nor looked into his translations; but what he has _heard_ of his writings makes him think favourably of him." Thus he teases the rhetorical professor by mentioning the "elegant translation which, _they say_, you have made of Demosthenes!" And he understands that he is "a scholar, who, _they say_, employs himself in works of learning and taste."

Lowth seems to have discovered this secret art of Warburton; for he says, "You have a set of names always at hand, a kind of infamous list, or black calendar, where every offender is sure to find a niche ready to receive him; nothing so easy as the application, and slight provocation is sufficient."

[185] Sometimes Warburton left his battles to be fought by subaltern genius; a circumstance to which Lowth, with keen pleasantry, thus alludes:--"Indeed, my lord, I was afterwards much surprised, when, having been with great civility dismissed from your presence, I found _your footman at your door, armed with his master's cane, and falling upon me without mercy_, yourself looking on and approving, and having probably put the weapon with proper orders into his hands. You think, it seems, that I ought to have taken my beating quietly and patiently, in respect to the livery which he wore. I was not of so tame a disposition: I wrested the weapon from him, and broke it. Your lordship, it seems, by an oblique blow, got an unlucky rap on the knuckles; though you may thank yourself for it, you lay the blame on me."--LOWTH'S _Letter to W._, p. 11.

Warburton and Hurd frequently concerted together on the manner of attack and defence. In one of these letters of Hurd's it is very amusing to read--"Taylor is a more creditable dunce than Webster. What do you think to do with the Appendix against Tillard and Sykes? Why might not Taylor rank with them," &c. The Warburtonians had also a system of _espionage_. When Dr. Taylor was accused by one of them of having _said_ that Warburton was no scholar, the learned Grecian replied that he did not recollect ever _saying_ that Dr. Warburton was no scholar, but that indeed he had always _thought_ so. Hence a tremendous quarrel! Hurd, the Mercury of our Jupiter, cast the first light shaft against the doctor, then Chancellor of Lincoln, by alluding to the Preface of his work on Civil Law as "_a certain thing_ prefatory to a learned work, intituled 'The Elements of Civil Law:'" but at length Jove himself rolled his thunder on the hapless chancellor. The doctor had said in his work, that "the Roman emperors persecuted the first Christians, not so much from a dislike of their tenets as from a jealousy of their nocturnal assemblies." Warburton's doctrine was, that "they held nocturnal assemblies because of the persecution of their enemies." One was the fact, and the other the consequence. But the Chancellor of Lincoln was to be outrageously degraded among the dunces! that was the real motive; the "nocturnal assemblies" only the ostensible one. A pamphleteer, in defence of the chancellor, in reply, thought that in "this literary persecution" it might be dangerous "if Dr. Taylor should be provoked to _prove in print_ what he only _dropped in conversation_." How innocent was this gentleman of the arts and stratagems of logomachy, or book-wars! The _proof_ would not have altered the cause: Hurd would have disputed it tooth and nail; Warburton was running greater risks, every day of his life, than any he was likely to receive from this flourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the Chancellor of Lincoln the butt of his sarcastic pleasantry; and this object was secured by Warburton's forty pages of preface, in which the chancellor stands to be buffeted like an ancient quintain, "a mere lifeless block." All this came upon him for only _thinking_ that Warburton was no _scholar_!

[186] See what I have said at the close of the note, pp. 262-3. In a collection entitled "Verses occasioned by Mr. Warburton's late Edition of Mr. Pope's Works," 1751, are numerous epigrams, parodies, and similes on it. I give one:--

"As on the margin of Thames' silver flood Stand little _necessary_ piles of wood, So Pope's fair page appears with _notes_ disgraced: Put down the nuisances, ye men of taste!"

Lowth has noticed the use Warburton made of his patent for vending Pope. "I thought you might possibly whip me at the cart's-tail in a note to the 'Divine Legation,' the ordinary place of your literary executions; or _pillory me in the Dunciad_, another engine which, as legal proprietor, you have very ingeniously and judiciously applied to the same purpose; or, perhaps, have ordered me a kind of Bridewell correction, by one of your beadles, in a pamphlet."--LOWTH'S _"Letter to Warburton,"_ p. 4.

Warburton carried the licentiousness of the pen in all these notes to the _Dunciad_ to a height which can only be paralleled in the gross logomachies of Schioppius, Gronovius, and Scaliger, and the rest of that snarling crew. But his wit exceeded even his grossness. He was accused of not sparing--

"Round-house wit and Wapping choler." [Verses occasioned by Mr. W.'s late Edition of Pope.]

And one of his most furious assailants thus salutes him:--"Whether you are a wrangling Wapping attorney, a pedantic pretender to criticism, an impudent paradoxical priest, or an animal yet stranger, an heterogeneous medley of all three, as your farraginous style seems to confess."--An Epistle to the Author of a Libel entitled "A Letter to the Editor of Bolingbroke's Works," &c.--See NICHOLS, vol. v. p. 651.

I have ascertained that Mallet was the author of this furious epistle. He would not acknowledge what he dared not deny. Warburton treated Mallet, in this instance, as he often did his superiors--he never replied! The silence seems to have stung this irascible and evil spirit: he returned again to the charge, with another poisoned weapon. His rage produced "A _Familiar_ Epistle to the Most Impudent Man Living," 1749. The style of this second letter has been characterised as "bad enough to disgrace even gaols and garrets." Its virulence could not well exceed its predecessor. The oddness of its title has made this worthless thing often inquired after. It is merely personal. It is curious to observe Mallet, in this pamphlet, treat Pope as an object of pity, and call him "this poor man." [David Mallet was the son of an innkeeper, who, by means of the party he wrote for, obtained lucrative appointments under Government, and died rich. He was unscrupulous in his career, and ready as a writer to do the most unworthy things. The death of Admiral Byng was hastened by the unscrupulous denunciations of Mallet, who was pensioned in consequence.] Orator Henley took some pains, on the first appearance of this catching title, to assure his friends that it did not refer to _him_. The title proved contagious; which shows the abuse of Warburton was very agreeable. Dr. Z. Grey, under the title of "A Country Curate," published "A Free and _Familiar_ Letter to the Great Refiner of Pope and Shakspeare," 1750; and in 1753, young Cibber tried also at "A _Familiar_ Epistle to Mr. William Warburton, from Mr. Theophilus Cibber," prefixed to the "Life of Barton Booth." Dr. Z. Grey's "freedom and _familiarity_" are designed to show Warburton that he has no wit; but unluckily, the doctor having none himself, his arguments against Warburton's are not decisive. "The _familiarity_" of Mallet is that of a scoundrel, and the _younger_ Cibber's that of an idiot: the genius of Warburton was secure. Mallet overcharged his gun with the fellest intentions, but found his piece, in bursting, annihilated himself. The popgun of the _little_ Theophilus could never have been heard!

[Warburton never lost a chance of giving a strong opinion against Mallet; and Dr. Johnson says, "When Mallet undertook to write the 'Life of Marlborough,' Warburton remarked that he might perhaps forget that Marlborough was a general, as he had forgotten that Bacon was a philosopher."]

But Warburton's rage was only a part of his _secret principle_; for can anything be more witty than his attack on poor COOPER, the author of "The Life of Socrates?" Having called his book "a late worthless and now forgotten thing, called 'The Life of Socrates,'" he adds, "where the head of the author has just made a shift to do the office of a _camera obscura_, and represent things in an inverted order, himself _above_, and Rollin, Voltaire, and every other author of reputation, _below_." When Cooper complained of this, and of some severer language, to Warburton, through a friend, Warburton replied that Cooper had attacked him, and that he had only taken his revenge "with a slight joke." Cooper was weak and vain enough to print a pamphlet, to prove that this was a serious accusation, and no joke; and if it was a joke, he shows it was not a correct one. In fact, Cooper could never comprehend how his head was like a _camera obscura_! Cooper was of the Shaftesburian school--philosophers who pride themselves on "the harmony" of their passions, but are too often in discords at a slight disturbance. He equalled the virulence of Warburton, but could not attain to the wit. "I found," says Cooper, "previous to his pretended witticism about the _camera obscura_, such miserable spawn of wretched malice, as nothing but the inflamed brain of a rank monk could conceive, or the oyster-selling maids near London Bridge could utter." One would not suppose all this came from the school of Plato, but rather from the tub of Diogenes. Something must be allowed for poor Cooper, whose "Life of Socrates" had been so positively asserted to be "a late worthless and forgotten thing." It is curious enough to observe Cooper declaring, after this sally, that Warburton "has very unfortunately used the word _impudent_ (which epithet Warburton had applied to him), as it naturally reminds every reader that the pamphlet published about two years ago, addressed 'to the most impudent man living,' was universally acknowledged to be dedicated to our commentator." Warburton had always the _Dunciad_ in his head when a new quarrel was rising, which produced an odd blunder on the side of Edwards, and provoked that wit to be as dull as Cooper. Warburton said, in one of his notes on Edwards, who had entitled himself "a gentleman of Lincoln's Inn,"--"This gentleman, as he is pleased to call himself, is in reality a gentleman only of the _Dunciad_, or, to speak him better, in the plain language of our honest ancestors to such mushrooms, a _gentleman of the last edition_." Edwards misunderstood the allusion, and sore at the personal attack which followed, of his having "eluded the solicitude of his careful father," considered himself "degraded of his gentility," that it was "a reflection on his birth," and threatened to apply to "Mr. Warburton's Masters of the Bench, for degrading a 'barrister of their house.'" This afforded a new triumph to Warburton, in a new note, where he explains his meaning of these "mushrooms," whom he meant merely as literary ones; and assures "Fungoso and his friends, who are all gentlemen, that he meant no more than that Edwards had become a gentleman _of the last edition of the Dunciad_!" Edwards and his fungous friends had understood the phrase as applied to new-fangled gentry. One of these wits, in the collection of verses cited above, says to Warburton:--

"This mushroom has made sauce for you. He's meat; thou'rt poison--plain enough-- If he's a _mushroom_, thou'rt a _puff_!"

Warburton had the full command over the _Dunciad_, even when Pope was alive, for it was in consequence of Warburton's being refused a degree at Oxford, that the poet, though one had been offered to himself, produced the celebrated lines of "Apollo's Mayor and Aldermen," in the fourth _Dunciad_. Thus it is that the personal likes and dislikes of witty men come down to posterity, and are often mistaken as just satire, when, after all, they are nothing but LITERARY QUARRELS, seldom founded on truth, and very often complete falsehoods!

[187] Dr. Thomas Balguy was the son of a learned father, at whose rectory of Northallerton he was born; he was appointed Archdeacon of Salisbury in 1759, and afterwards Archdeacon of Winchester. He died at the prebendal house of the latter city in 1795, at the age of 74. His writings are few--chiefly on church government and authority, which brought him into antagonism with Dr. Priestley and others, who objected to the high view he took of its position. With Hurd and Warburton he was always intimate; his sermon on the consecration of the former was one of the sources of adverse attack; the latter notes his death as that of "an old and esteemed friend."--ED.

[188] Dr. Brown was patronised and "pitied" by Warburton for years. He used him, but spoke of him disparagingly, as "a helpless creature in the ways of the world." Nichols speaks of him as an "elegant, ingenious, and unhappy author." His father was a native of Scotland; his son was born at Rothbury, in Northumberland, educated at Cambridge, made minor canon at Carlisle, but resigned it in disgust, living in obscurity in that city several years, till the Rebellion of 1745, when he acted as a volunteer at the siege of the Castle, and behaved with great intrepidity. His publication of an "Essay on Satire," on the death of Pope, led to his acquaintance with Warburton, who helped him to the rectory of Horksley, near Colchester; but he quarrelled with his patron, as he afterwards quarrelled with others. He then settled down to the vicarage of St. Nicholas, Newcastle, but not for long, as an educational scheme of the Empress of Russia offered him inducements to leave England; but his health failed him before he could carry out his intentions, irritability succeeded, and his disappointments, real and imaginary, led him to commit suicide in the fifty-first year of his age. He seems to have been a continual trouble to Warburton, who often alludes to his unsettled habits--and schooled him occasionally after his own fashion. Thus he writes in 1777:--"Brown is here; I think rather faster than ordinary, but no wiser. You cannot imagine the tenderness they all have of his tender places, and with how unfeeling a hand I probe them."--ED.

[189] Towne is so far "unknown to fame" that his career is unrecorded by our biographers; he was content to work for, and under the guidance of Warburton, as a literary drudge.--ED.

[190] Warburton, indeed, was always looking about for fresh recruits: a circumstance which appears in the curious Memoirs of the late Dr. Heathcote, written by himself. Heathcote, when young, published anonymously a pamphlet in the Middletonian controversy. By the desire of Warburton, the bookseller transmitted his compliments to the anonymous author. "I was greatly surprised," says Heathcote, "but soon after perceived that Warburton's state of authorship being a state of war, _it was his custom to be particularly attentive to all young authors, in hopes of enlisting them into his service_. Warburton was more than civil, when necessary, on these occasions, and would procure such adventurers some slight patronage."--NICHOLS'S "Literary Anecdotes," vol. v. p. 536.

[191] We are astonished at the boldness of the minor critic, when, even after the fatal edition of Warburton's Shakspeare, he should still venture, in the life of his great friend, to assert that "this fine edition must ever be highly valued by men of sense and taste; a spirit congenial to that of the author breathing throughout!"

Is it possible that the man who wrote this should ever have read the "Canons of Criticism?" Yet is it to be supposed that he who took so lively an interest in the literary fortunes of his friend should _not_ have read them? The Warburtonians appear to have adopted one of the principles of the Jesuits in their controversies, which was to repeat arguments which had been confuted over and over again; to insinuate that they had not been so! But this was not too much to risk by him who, in his dedication of "Horace's Epistle to Augustus," with a Commentary, had hardily and solemnly declared that "Warburton, in his _enlarged view of things_, had not only revived the two models of Aristotle and Longinus, but had rather struck out _a new original plan of criticism_, which should unite the virtues of each of them. This experiment was made on the two greatest of our own poets--Shakspeare and Pope. Still (he adds, addressing Warburton) _you went farther_, by joining to those powers a perfect insight into human nature; and so ennobling the exercise of literary by the justest moral censure, _you have now, at length, advanced criticism to its full glory_."

A perpetual intercourse of mutual adulation animated the sovereign and his viceroy, and, by mutual support, each obtained the same reward: two mitres crowned the greater and the minor critic. This intercourse was humorously detected by the lively author of "Confusion Worse Confounded."--"When the late Duke of R.," says he, "kept wild beasts, it was a common diversion to make two of his bears drunk (not metaphorically with flattery, but literally with strong ale), and then daub them over with honey. It was excellent sport to see how lovingly (like a couple of critics) they would lick and claw one another." It is almost amazing to observe how Hurd, who naturally was of the most frigid temperament, and the most subdued feelings, warmed, heated, and blazed in the progressive stages "of that pageantry of praise spread over the Rev. Mr. Warburton, when the latter was advancing fast towards a bishoprick," to use the words of Dr. Parr, a sagacious observer of man. However, notwithstanding the despotic mandates of our Pichrocole and his dapper minister, there were who did not fear to meet the greater bear of the two so facetiously described above. And the author of "Confusion Worse Confounded" tells a familiar story, which will enliven the history of our great critic. "One of the bears mentioned above happened to get loose, and was running along the street in which a tinker was gravely walking. The people all cried, 'Tinker! tinker! beware of the bear!' Upon this Magnano faced about with great composure; and raising his staff, knocked down Bruin, then setting his arms a-kimbo, walked off very sedately; only saying, 'Let the bear beware of the tinker,' which is now become a proverb in those parts."--"Confusion Worse Confounded," p. 75.

POPE,

AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUARRELS.

POPE adopted a system of literary politics--collected with extraordinary care everything relative to his Quarrels--no politician ever studied to obtain his purposes by more oblique directions and intricate stratagems--some of his manoeuvres--his systematic hostility not practised with impunity--his claim to his own works contested--CIBBER'S facetious description of POPE'S feelings, and WELSTED'S elegant satire on his genius--DENNIS'S account of POPE'S Introduction to him--his political prudence further discovered in the Collection of all the Pieces relative to the _Dunciad_, in which he employed SAVAGE--the THEOBALDIANS and the POPEIANS; an attack by a Theobaldian--The _Dunciad_ ingeniously defended, for the grossness of its imagery, and its reproach of the poverty of the authors, supposed by POPE himself, with some curious specimens of literary personalities--the Literary Quarrel between AARON HILL and POPE distinguished for its romantic cast--a Narrative of the extraordinary transactions respecting the publication of POPE'S Letters; an example of Stratagem and Conspiracy, illustrative of his character.

POPE has proudly perpetuated the history of his Literary Quarrels; and he appears to have been among those authors, surely not forming the majority, who have delighted in, or have not been averse to provoke, hostility. He has registered the titles of every book, even to a single paper, or a copy of verses, in which their authors had committed treason against his poetical sovereignty.[192] His ambition seemed gratified in heaping these trophies to his genius, while his meaner passions could compile one of the most voluminous of the scandalous chronicles of literature. We are mortified on discovering so fine a genius in the text humbling itself through all the depravity of a commentary full of spleen, and not without the fictions of satire. The unhappy influence his _Literary Quarrels_ had on this great poet's life remains to be traced. He adopted a system of literary politics abounding with stratagems, conspiracies, manoeuvres, and factions.

Pope's literary quarrels were the wars of his poetical ambition, more perhaps than of the petulance and strong irritability of his character. They were some of the artifices he adopted from the peculiarity of his situation.

Thrown out of the active classes of society from a variety of causes sufficiently known,[193] concentrating his passions into a solitary one, his retired life was passed in the contemplation of his own literary greatness. Reviewing the past, and anticipating the future, he felt he was creating a new era in our literature, an event which does not always occur in a century: but eager to secure present celebrity, with the victory obtained in the open field, he combined the intrigues of the cabinet: thus, while he was exerting great means, he practised little artifices. No politician studied to obtain his purposes by more oblique directions, or with more intricate stratagems; and Pope was at once the lion and the fox of Machiavel. A book might be written on the Stratagems of Literature, as Frontinus has composed one on War, and among its subtilest heroes we might place this great poet.

To keep his name alive before the public was one of his early plans. When he published his "Essay on Criticism," anonymously, the young and impatient poet was mortified with the inertion of public curiosity: he was almost in despair.[194] Twice, perhaps oftener, Pope attacked Pope;[195] and he frequently concealed himself under the names of others, for some particular design. Not to point out his dark familiar "Scriblerus," always at hand for all purposes, he made use of the names of several of his friends. When he employed SAVAGE in "a collection of all the pieces, in verse and prose, published on occasion of the _Dunciad_," he subscribed his name to an admirable dedication to Lord Middlesex, where he minutely relates the whole history of the _Dunciad_, "and the weekly clubs held to consult of hostilities against the author;" and, for an express introduction to that work, he used the name of Cleland, to which is added a note, expressing surprise that the world did not believe that Cleland was the writer![196] Wanting a pretext for the publication of his letters, he delighted CURLL by conveying to him some printed surreptitious copies, who soon discovered that it was but a fairy treasure which he could not grasp; and Pope, in his own defence, had soon ready the authentic edition.[197] Some lady observed that Pope "hardly drank tea without a stratagem!" The female genius easily detects its own peculiar faculty, when it is exercised with inferior delicacy.

But his systematic hostility did not proceed with equal impunity: in this perpetual war with dulness, he discovered that every one he called a dunce was not so; nor did he find the dunces themselves less inconvenient to him; for many successfully substituted, for their deficiencies in better qualities, the lie that lasts long enough to vex a man; and the insolence that does not fear him: they attacked him at all points, and not always in the spirit of legitimate warfare.[198] They filled up his asterisks, and accused him of treason. They asserted that the panegyrical verses prefixed to his works (an obsolete mode of recommendation, which Pope condescended to practise), were his own composition, and to which he had affixed the names of some dead or some unknown writers. They published lists of all whom Pope had attacked; placing at the head, "God Almighty; the King;" descending to the "lords and gentlemen."[199] A few suspected his skill in Greek; but every hound yelped in the halloo against his Homer.[200] Yet the more extraordinary circumstance was, their hardy disputes with Pope respecting his claim to his own works, and the difficulty he more than once found to establish his rights. Sometimes they divided public opinion by even indicating the real authors; and witnesses from White's and St. James's were ready to be produced. Among these literary coteries, several of Pope's productions, in their anonymous, and even in their MS. state, had been appropriated by several pseudo authors; and when Pope called for restitution, he seemed to be claiming nothing less than their lives. One of these gentlemen had enjoyed a very fair reputation for more than two years on the "Memoirs of a Parish-Clerk;" another, on "The Messiah!" and there were many other vague claims. All this was vexatious; but not so much as the ridiculous attitude in which Pope was sometimes placed by his enraged adversaries.[201] He must have found himself in a more perilous situation when he hired a brawny champion, or borrowed the generous courage of some military friend.[202] To all these troubles we may add, that Pope has called down on himself more lasting vengeance; and the good sense of Theobald, the furious but often acute remarks of Dennis; the good-humoured yet keen remonstrance of Cibber; the silver shaft, tipped with venom, sent from the injured but revengeful Lady Mary; and many a random shot, that often struck him, inflicted on him many a sleepless night.[203] The younger Richardson has recorded the personal sufferings of Pope when, one day, in taking up Cibber's letter, while his face was writhing with agony, he feebly declared that "these things were as good as hartshorn to him;" but he appeared at that moment rather to want a little. And it is probably true, what Cibber facetiously says of Pope, in his second letter:--"Everybody tells me that I have made you as uneasy as a rat in a hot kettle, for a twelvemonth together."[204]

Pope was pursued through life by the insatiable vengeance of Dennis. The young poet, who had got introduced to him, among his first literary acquaintances, could not fail, when the occasion presented itself, of ridiculing this uncouth son of Aristotle. The blow was given in the character of Appius, in the "Art of Criticism;" and it is known Appius was instantaneously recognised by the fierce shriek of the agonised critic himself. From that moment Dennis resolved to write down every work of Pope's. How dangerous to offend certain tempers, verging on madness![205] Dennis, too, called on every one to join him in the common cause; and once he retaliated on Pope in his own way. Accused by Pope of being the writer of an account of himself, in Jacob's "Lives of the Poets," Dennis procured a letter from Jacob, which he published, and in which it appears that Pope's own character in this collection, if not written by him, was by him very carefully corrected on the proof-sheet; so that he stood in the same ridiculous attitude into which he had thrown Dennis, as his own trumpeter. Dennis, whose brutal energy remained unsubdued, was a rhinoceros of a critic, shelled up against the arrows of wit. This monster of criticism awed the poet; and Dennis proved to be a Python, whom the golden shaft of Apollo could not pierce.

The political prudence of Pope was further discovered in the "Collection of all the Pieces relative to the _Dunciad_," on which he employed Savage: these exemplified the justness of the satire, or defended it from all attacks. The precursor of the _Dunciad_ was a single chapter in "The Bathos; or, the Art of Sinking in Poetry;" where the humorous satirist discovers an analogy between flying-fishes, parrots, tortoises, &c., and certain writers, whose names are designated by initial letters. In this unlucky alphabet of dunces, not one of them but was applied to some writer of the day; and the loud clamours these excited could not be appeased by the simplicity of our poet's declaration, that the letters were placed at random: and while his oil could not smooth so turbulent a sea, every one swore to the flying-fish or the tortoise, as he had described them. It was still more serious when the _Dunciad_ appeared. Of that class of authors who depended for a wretched existence on their wages, several were completely ruined, for no purchasers were to be found for the works of some authors, after they had been inscribed in the chronicle of our provoking and inimitable satirist.[206]

It is in this collection by Savage I find the writer's admirable satire on the class of literary prostitutes. It is entitled "An Author to be Let, by Iscariot Hackney." It has been ably commended by Johnson in his "Life of Savage," and on his recommendation Thomas Davies inserted it in his "Collection of Fugitive Pieces;" but such is the careless curiosity of modern re-publishers, that often, in preserving a decayed body, they are apt to drop a limb: this was the case with Davies; for he has dropped the preface, far more exquisite than the work itself. A morsel of such poignant relish betrays the hand of the master who snatched the pen for a moment.

This preface defends Pope from the two great objections justly raised at the time against the _Dunciad_: one is, the grossness and filthiness of its imagery; and the other, its reproachful allusions to the poverty of the authors.

The _indelicacies_ of the _Dunciad_ are thus wittily apologised for:--

"They are suitable to the subject; a subject composed, for the most part, of authors whose writings are the refuse of wit, and who in life are the very excrement of Nature. Mr. Pope has, too, used dung; but he disposes that dung in such a manner that it becomes rich manure, from which he raises a variety of fine flowers. He deals in rags; but like an artist, who commits them to a paper-mill, and brings them out useful sheets. The chemist extracts a fine cordial from the most nauseous of all dung; and Mr. Pope has drawn a sweet poetical spirit from the most offensive and unpoetical objects of the creation--unpoetical, though eternal writers of poetry."

The reflections on the _poverty_ of its heroes are thus ingeniously defended:--"Poverty, not proceeding from folly, but which may be owing to virtue, sets a man in an amiable light; but when our wants are of our own seeking, and prove the motive of every ill action (for the poverty of bad authors has always a bad heart for its companion), is it not a vice, and properly the subject of satire?" The preface then proceeds to show how "all these _said writers_ might have been _good mechanics_." He illustrates his principles with a most ungracious account of several of his contemporaries. I shall give a specimen of what I consider as the polished sarcasm and caustic humour of Pope, on some favourite subjects.

"Mr. Thomas _Cooke_.--His enemies confess him not without merit. To do the man justice, he might have made a tolerable figure as a _Tailor_. 'Twere too presumptuous to affirm he could have been a _master_ in any profession; but, dull as I allow him, he would not have been despicable for a third or a fourth hand journeyman. Then had his wants have been avoided; for, he would at least have learnt to _cut his coat according to his cloth_.

"Why would not Mr. _Theobald_ continue an attorney? Is not _Word-catching_ more serviceable in splitting a cause, than explaining a fine poet?

"When Mrs. _Haywood_ ceased to be a strolling-actress, why might not the lady (though once a theatrical queen) have subsisted by turning _washerwoman_? Has not the fall of greatness been a frequent distress in all ages? She might have caught a beautiful bubble, as it arose from the suds of her tub, blown it in air, seen it glitter, and then break! Even in this low condition, she had played with a bubble; and what more is the vanity of human greatness?

"Had it not been an honester and more decent livelihood for Mr. _Norton_ (Daniel De Foe's son of love by a lady who vended oysters) to have dealt in a _fish-market_, than to be dealing out the dialects of Billingsgate in the Flying-post?

"Had it not been more laudable for Mr. _Roome_, the son of an _undertaker_, to have borne a link and a mourning-staff, in the long procession of a funeral--or even been more decent in him to have sung psalms, according to education, in an Anabaptist meeting, than to have been altering the _Jovial Crew, or Merry Beggars_, into a _wicked_ imitation of the _Beggar's Opera_?"

This satire seems too exquisite for the touch of Savage, and is quite in the spirit of the author of the _Dunciad_. There is, in Ruffhead's "Life of Pope," a work to which Warburton contributed all his care, a passage which could only have been written by Warburton. The strength and coarseness of the imagery could never have been produced by the dull and feeble intellect of Ruffhead: it is the opinion, therefore, of Warburton himself, on the _Dunciad_. "The _good purpose_ intended by this satire was, to the _herd_ in general, of less efficacy than our author hoped; for _scribblers_ have not the common sense of _other vermin_, who usually abstain from mischief, when they see any of their kind _gibbeted_ or _nailed up_, as terrible examples."--Warburton employed the same strong image in one of his threats.

One of Pope's Literary Quarrels must be distinguished for its romantic cast.

In the Treatise on the _Bathos_, the initial letters of the bad writers occasioned many heartburns; and, among others, Aaron Hill suspected he was marked out by the letters A. H. This gave rise to a large correspondence between Hill and Pope. Hill, who was a very amiable man, was infinitely too susceptible of criticism; and Pope, who seems to have had a personal regard for him, injured those nice feelings as little as possible. Hill had published a panegyrical poem on Peter the Great, under the title of "The Northern Star;" and the bookseller had conveyed to him a criticism of Pope's, of which Hill publicly acknowledged he mistook the meaning. When the Treatise of "The Bathos" appeared, Pope insisted he had again mistaken the initials A. H.--Hill gently attacked Pope in "a paper of very pretty verses," as Pope calls them. When the _Dunciad_ appeared, Hill is said "to have published pieces, in his youth, bordering upon the bombast." This was as light a stroke as could be inflicted; and which Pope, with great good-humour, tells Hill, might be equally applied to himself; for he always acknowledged, that when a boy, he had written an Epic poem of that description; would often quote absurd verses from it, for the diversion of his friends; and actually inserted some of the most extravagant ones in the very Treatise on "The Bathos." Poor Hill, however, was of the most sickly delicacy, and produced "The Caveat," another gentle rebuke, where Pope is represented as "sneakingly to approve, and want the worth to cherish or befriend men of merit." In the course of this correspondence, Hill seems to have projected the utmost stretch of his innocent malice; for he told Pope, that he had almost finished "An Essay on Propriety and Impropriety in Design, Thought, and Expression, illustrated by examples in both kinds, from the writings of Mr. Pope;" but he offers, if this intended work should create the least pain to Mr. Pope, he was willing, with all his heart, to have it run thus:--"An Essay on Propriety and Impropriety, &c., illustrated by Examples of the first, from the writings of Mr. Pope, and of the rest, from those of the author."--To the romantic generosity of this extraordinary proposal, Pope replied, "I acknowledge your generous offer, to give _examples of imperfections_ rather out of _your own works_ than mine: I consent, with all my heart, to your confining them to _mine_, for two reasons: the one, that I fear your sensibility that way is greater than my own: the other is a better; namely, that I intend to correct the faults you find, if they are such as I expect from Mr. Hill's cool judgment."[207]

Where, in literary history, can be found the parallel of such an offer of self-immolation? This was a literary quarrel like that of lovers, where to hurt each other would have given pain to both parties. Such skill and desire to strike, with so much tenderness in inflicting a wound; so much compliment, with so much complaint; have perhaps never met together, as in the romantic hostility of this literary chivalry.

FOOTNOTES:

[192] Pope collected these numerous literary libels with extraordinary care. He had them bound in volumes of all sizes; and a range of twelves, octavos, quartos, and folios were marshalled in portentous order on his shelves. He wrote the names of the writers, with remarks on these _Anonymiana_. He prefixed to them this motto, from Job: "Behold, my desire is, that mine adversary had written a book: surely I would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me." xxxi. 35. Ruffhead, who wrote Pope's Life under the eye of Warburton, who revised every sheet of the volume, and suffered this mere lawyer and singularly wretched critic to write on, with far inferior taste to his own--offered "the entire collection to any public library or museum, whose search is after _curiosities_, and may be desirous of enriching their common treasure with it: it will be freely at the service of that which asks first." Did no one accept the invitation? As this was written in 1769, it is evidently pointed towards the British Museum; but there I have not heard of it. This collection must have contained much of the Secret Memoirs of Grub-street: it was always a fountain whence those "waters of bitterness," the notes in the _Dunciad_, were readily supplied. It would be curious to discover by what stratagem Pope obtained all that secret intelligence about his Dunces, with which he has burthened posterity, for his own particular gratification. Arbuthnot, it is said, wrote some notes merely literary; but Savage, and still humbler agents, served him as his _Espions de Police_. He pensioned Savage to his last day, and never deserted him. In the account of "the phantom Moore," Scriblerus appeals to Savage to authenticate some story. One curious instance of the fruits of Savage's researches in this way he has himself preserved, in his memoirs of "An Author to be Let, by Iscariot Hackney." This portrait of "a perfect Town-Author" is not deficient in spirit: the hero was one Roome, a man only celebrated in the _Dunciad_ for his "funereal frown." But it is uncertain whether this fellow had really so dismal a countenance; for the epithet was borrowed from his profession, being the son of an undertaker! Such is the nature of some satire! Dr. Warton is astonished, or mortified, for he knew not which, to see the pains and patience of Pope and his friends in compiling the Notes to the _Dunciad_, to trace out the lives and works of such paltry and forgotten scribblers. "It is like walking through the darkest alleys in the dirtiest part of St. Giles's." Very true! But may we not be allowed to detect the vanities of human nature at St. Giles's as well as St. James's? Authors, however obscure, are always an amusing race to authors. The greatest find their own passions in the least, though distorted, or cramped in too small a compass.

It is doubtless from Pope's great anxiety for his own literary celebrity that we have been furnished with so complete a knowledge of the grotesque groups in the _Dunciad_. "Give me a shilling," said Swift, facetiously, "and I will insure you that posterity shall never know one single enemy, excepting those whose memory you have preserved." A very useful hint for a man of genius to leave his wretched assailants to dissolve away in their own weakness. But Pope, having written a _Dunciad_, by accompanying it with a commentary, took the only method to interest posterity. He felt that Boileau's satires on bad authors are liked only in the degree the objects alluded to are known. But he loved too much the subject for its own sake. He abused the powers genius had conferred on him, as other imperial sovereigns have done. It is said that he kept the whole kingdom in awe of him. In "the frenzy and prodigality of vanity," he exclaimed--

"--------Yes, I am proud to see Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me!"

Tacitus Gordon said of him, that Pope seemed to persuade the nation that all genius and ability were confined to him and his friends.

[193] Pope, in his energetic Letter to Lord HERVEY, that "masterpiece of invective," says Warton, which Tyers tells us he kept long back from publishing, at the desire of Queen Caroline, who was fearful her counsellor would become insignificant in the public esteem, and at last in her own, such was the power his genius exercised;--has pointed out one of these causes. It describes himself as "a private person under penal laws, and many other disadvantages, not for want of honesty or conscience; yet it is by these alone I have hitherto lived _excluded from all posts of profit or trust_. I can interfere with the views of no man."

[194] The first publisher of the "Essay on Criticism" must have been a Mr. Lewis, a Catholic bookseller in Covent-garden; for, from a descendant of this Lewis, I heard that Pope, after publication, came every day, persecuting with anxious inquiries the cold impenetrable bookseller, who, as the poem lay uncalled for, saw nothing but vexatious importunities in a troublesome youth. One day, Pope, after nearly a month's publication, entered, and in despair tied up a number of the poems, which he addressed to several who had a reputation in town, as judges of poetry. The scheme succeeded, and the poem, having reached its proper circle, soon got into request.

[195] He was the author of "The Key to the Lock," written to show that "The Rape of the Lock" was a political poem, designed to ridicule the Barrier Treaty; [so called from the arrangement made at the Peace of Utrecht between the ministers of Great Britain and the States General, as to the towns on the frontiers of the Dutch, which were to be permanently strengthened as barrier fortresses. Pope, in the mask of Esdras Barnivelt, apothecary, thus makes out his poem to be a political satire. "Having said that by the _lock_ is meant the _Barrier Treaty_--first then I shall discover, that Belinda represents Great Britain, or (which is the same thing) her late Majesty. This is plainly seen in the description of her,

"On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore."

Alluding to the ancient name of Albion, from her white cliffs, and to the cross which is the ensign of England. The baron who cuts off the lock, or Barrier Treaty, is the Earl of Oxford. Clarissa, who lent the scissors, my Lady Masham. Thalestris, who provokes Belinda to resent the loss of the lock or treaty, the Duchess of Marlborough; and Sir Plume, who is moved by Thalestris to re-demand it of Great Britain, Prince Eugene, "who came hither for that purpose." He concludes 32 pages of similar argument by saying, "I doubt not if the persons most concerned would but order Mr. Bernard Lintott, the printer and publisher of this dangerous piece, to be taken into custody and examined, many further discoveries might be made both of this poet's and his abettors secret designs, which are doubtless of the utmost importance to Government." Such is a specimen of Pope's chicanery.] Its innocent extravagance could only have been designed to increase attention to a work, which hardly required any such artifice. [In the preface to this production, "the uncommon sale of this book" is stated as one reason for the publication; "above six thousand of them have been already vended."] In the same spirit he composed the "Guardian," in which Phillips's Pastorals were insidiously preferred to his own. Pope sent this ironical, panegyrical criticism on Phillips anonymously to the "Guardian," and Steele not perceiving the drift, hesitated to publish it, till Pope advised it. Addison detected it. I doubt whether we have discovered all the _supercheries_ of this kind. After writing the finest works of genius, he was busily employed in attracting the public attention to them. In the antithesis of his character, he was so great and so little! But he knew mankind! and present fame was the great business of his life.

[196] Cleland was the son of Colonel Cleland, an old friend of Pope; he and his son had served in the East Indian army; but the latter returned to London, and became a sort of literary jackal to Pope, and a hack author for the booksellers. He wrote several moral and useful works; but as they did not pay well, he wrote an immoral one, for which he obtained a better price, and a pension of 100_l._ a-year, on condition that he never wrote in that manner again. This was obtained for him by Lord Granville, after Cleland had been cited before the Privy Council, and pleaded poverty as the reason for such authorship.--ED.

[197] The narrative of this dark transaction, which seems to have been imperfectly known to Johnson, being too copious for a note, will be found at the close of this article.

[198] A list of all the pamphlets which resulted from the _Dunciad_ would occupy a large space. Many of them were as grossly personal as the celebrated poem. The poet was frequently ridiculed under the names of "Pope Alexander" (from his dictatorial style), and "Sawney." In "an heroic poem occasioned by the _Dunciad_," published in 1728, the poet's snug retreat at Twickenham is thus alluded to:--

"Sawney! a mimic sage of huge renown, To Twick'nam bow'rs retir'd, enjoys his wealth, His malice and his muse: in grottoes cool, And cover'd arbours, dreams his hours away."

A fragment of Pope's celebrated grotto still remains; the house is destroyed. Pope spent all his spare cash over his Twickenham villa. "I never save anything," he said once to Spence; and the latter has left a detailed account of what he meant to do in the further decoration of his garden if he had lived. As he gained a sum of money, he regularly spent it in this way.--ED.

[199] Pope is, perhaps, the finest _character-painter_ of all satirists. Atterbury, after reading the portrait of Atticus, advised him to proceed in a way which his genius had pointed out; but Arbuthnot, with his dying breath, conjured him "to reform, and not to chastise;" that is, not to spare the vice, but the person. It is said, Pope answered, that, to correct the world with due effect, they become inseparable; and that, deciding by his own experience, he was justified in his opinion. Perhaps, at first, he himself wavered; but he strikes bolder as he gathers strength. The two first editions of the _Dunciad_, now before me, could hardly be intelligible: they exhibit lines after lines gaping with an hiatus, or obscured with initial letters: in subsequent editions, the names stole into their places. We are told, that the personalities in his satires quickened the sale: the portraits of Sporus, Bufo, Clodius, Timon, and Atossa, were purchased by everybody; but when he once declared, respecting the _characters_ of one of his best satires, that no real persons were intended, it checked public curiosity, which was felt in the sale of that edition. Personality in his satires, no doubt, accorded with the temper and the talent of Pope; and the malice of mankind afforded him all the conviction necessary to indulge it. Yet Young could depend solely on abstract characters and pure wit; and I believe that his "Love of Fame" was a series of admirable satires, which did not obtain less popularity than Pope's. Cartwright, one of the poetical sons of Ben Jonson, describes, by a beautiful and original image, the office of the satirist, though he praises Jonson for exercising a virtue he did not always practise; as Swift celebrates Pope with the same truth, when he sings:--

"Yet malice never was his aim; He lash'd the vice, but spared the name."

Cartwright's lines are:--

"--------'tis thy skill To strike the vice, and spare the person still; As he who, when he saw the serpent wreath'd About his sleeping son, and as he breathed, Drink in his soul, did so the shot contrive, To kill the beast, but keep the child alive."

[200] Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, published a letter in Mist's Journal, insisting that Pope had _mistaken the whole character of Thersites_, from ignorance of the language. I regret I have not drawn some notes from that essay. The subject might be made curious by a good Greek scholar, if Pope has really erred in the degree Cooke asserts. Theobald, who seems to have been a more classical scholar than has been allowed, besides some versions from the Greek tragic bards, commenced a translation of the _Odyssey_ as soon as Pope's _Iliad_ appeared.

[201] In one of these situations, Pope issued a very grave, but very ludicrous, advertisement. They had the impudence to publish an account of Pope having been flagellated by two gentlemen in Ham Walks, during his evening promenade. This was avenging Dennis for what he had undergone from the narrative of his madness. In "The Memoirs of Grub-street," vol. i. p. 96, this tingling narrative appears to have been the ingenious forgery of Lady Mary! On this occasion, Pope thought it necessary to publish the following advertisement in the _Daily Post_, June 14, 1728:--

"Whereas, there has been a scandalous paper cried aloud about the streets, under the title of 'A Pop upon Pope,' insinuating that I was whipped in Ham Walks on Thursday last:--This is to give notice, that I did not stir out of my house at Twickenham on that day; and the same is a malicious and ill-founded report.--A. P."

[Spence, on the authority of Pope's half-sister, says: "When some of the people that he had put into the _Dunciad_ were so enraged against him, and threatened him so highly, he loved to walk alone to Richmond, only he would take a large faithful dog with him, and pistols in his pocket. He used to say to us when we talked to him about it, that 'with pistols the least man in England was above a match for the largest.'"]

It seems that Phillips hung up a birchen-rod at Button's. Pope, in one of his letters, congratulates himself that he never attempted to use it. [His half-sister, Mrs. Rackett, testifies to Pope's courage; she says, "My brother never knew what fear was."]

[202] According to the scandalous chronicle of the day, Pope, shortly after the publication of the _Dunciad_, had a tall Irishman to attend him. Colonel Duckett threatened to cane him, for a licentious stroke aimed at him, which Pope recanted. Thomas Bentley, nephew to the doctor, for the treatment his uncle had received, sent Pope a challenge. The modern, like the ancient Horace, was of a nature liable to panic at such critical moments. Pope consulted some military friends, who declared that his _person_ ought to protect him from any such redundance of valour as was thus formally required; however, one of them accepted the challenge for him, and gave Bentley the option either of fighting or apologising; who, on this occasion, proved, what is usual, that the easiest of the two was the quickest done.

[203] I shall preserve one specimen, so classically elegant, that Pope himself might have composed it. It is from the pen of that Leonard Welsted whose "Aganippe" Pope has so shamefully characterised--

"Flow, Welsted, flow, like thine inspirer, beer!"

Can the reader credit, after this, that Welsted, who was clerk in ordinary at the Ordnance Office, was a man of family and independence, of elegant manners and a fine fancy, but who considered poetry only as a passing amusement? He has, however, left behind, amid the careless productions of his muse, some passages wrought up with equal felicity and power. There are several original poetical views of nature scattered in his works, which have been collected by Mr. Nichols, that would admit of a comparison with some of established fame.

Welsted imagined that the spirit of English poetry was on its decline in the age of Pope, and allegorises the state of our poetry in a most ingenious comparison. The picture is exquisitely wrought, like an ancient gem: one might imagine Anacreon was turned critic:--

"A flask I rear'd whose sluice began to fail, And told, from Phaerus, this facetious tale:-- Sabina, very old and very dry, Chanced, on a time, an EMPTY FLASK to spy: The flask but lately had been thrown aside, With the rich grape of Tuscan vineyards dyed; But lately, gushing from the slender spout, Its life, in purple streams, had issued out. _The costly flavour still to sense remain'd_, And still its sides the violet colour stain'd: A sight so sweet taught wrinkled age to smile; Pleased, she imbibes the generous fumes awhile, Then, downwards turn'd, the vessel gently props, And drains with patient care the lucid drops: O balmy spirit of Etruria's vine! O fragrant flask, she said, too lately mine! _If such delights, THOUGH EMPTY, thou canst yield_, What wondrous raptures hadst thou given if filled!" _Paloemon to Coelia at Bath, or the Triumvirate._

"The empty flask" only retaining "the costly flavour," was the verse of Pope.

[204] Pope was made to appear as ridiculous as possible, and often nicknamed "Poet Pug," from the frontispiece to an attack in reply to his own, termed "Pope Alexander's Supremacy and Infallibility examined." It represents Pope as a misshapen monkey leaning on a pile of books, in the attitude adopted by Jervas in his portrait of the poet.--ED.

[205] Dennis tells the whole story. "At his first coming to town he was importunate with Mr. Cromwell to introduce him to me. The recommendation engaged me to be about thrice in company with him; after which I went to the country, till I found myself most insolently attacked in his very superficial 'Essay on Criticism,' by which he endeavoured to destroy the reputation of a man who had published pieces of criticism, and to set up his own. I was moved with indignation to that degree, that I immediately writ remarks on that essay. I also writ upon part of his translation of 'Homer,' his 'Windsor Forest,' and his infamous 'Temple of Fame.'" In the same pamphlet he says:--"Pope writ his 'Windsor Forest' in envy of Sir John Denham's 'Cooper's Hill;' his infamous 'Temple of Fame' in envy of Chaucer's poem upon the same subject; his 'Ode on St. Cecilia's Day,' in envy of Dryden's 'Feast of Alexander.'" In reproaching Pope with his peculiar rhythm, that monotonous excellence, which soon became mechanical, he has an odd attempt at a pun:--"Boileau's Pegasus has all his paces; the Pegasus of Pope, like a _Kentish post-horse_, is always upon the _Canterbury_."--"Remarks upon several Passages in the Preliminaries to the _Dunciad_," 1729.

[206] Two parties arose in the literary republic, the _Theobaldians_ and the _Popeians_. The "Grub-street Journal," a kind of literary gazette of some campaigns of the time, records the skirmishes with tolerable neutrality, though with a strong leaning in favour of the prevailing genius.

The _Popeians_ did not always do honour to their great leader; and the _Theobaldians_ proved themselves, at times, worthy of being engaged, had fate so ordered it, in the army of their renowned enemy. When Young published his "Two Epistles to Pope, on the Authors of the Age," there appeared "One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope, in Answer to two of Dr. Young's." On this, a Popeian defends his master from some extravagant accusations in "The Grub-street Memoirs." He insists, as his first principle, that all accusations against a man's character without an attestor are presumed to be slanders and lies, and in this case every gentleman, though "Knight of the Bathos," is merely a liar and scoundrel.

"You assure us he is not only a bad poet, but a stealer from bad poets: if so, you have just cause to complain of invasion of property. You assure us he is not even a versifier, but steals the _sound_ of his verses; now, to _steal a sound_ is as ingenious as to _paint an echo_. You cannot bear _gentlemen_ should be treated as vermin and reptiles; now, to be impartial, you were compared to _flying-fishes_, _didappers_, _tortoises_, and _parrots_, &c., not vermin, but curious and beautiful creatures"--alluding to the abuse, in this "Epistle," on such authors as Atterbury, Arbuthnot, Swift, the Duke of Buckingham, &c. The Popeian concludes:--

"After all, _your poem_, to comfort you, is more innocent than the _Dunciad_; for in the one there's no man abused but is very well pleased to be abused in such company; whereas in the other there's no man so much as named, but is extremely affronted to be ranked with such people as style each other the _dullest of men_."

The publication of the _Dunciad_, however, drove the _Theobaldians_ out of the field. Guerillas, such as the "One Epistle," sometimes appeared, but their heroes struck and skulked away. A _Theobaldian_, in an epigram, compared the _Dunciad_ of Pope to the offspring of the celebrated Pope Joan. The neatness of his wit is hardly blunted by a pun. He who talks of Pope's "stealing a sound," seems to have practised that invisible art himself, for the verse is musical as Pope's.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE DUNCIAD.

"With rueful eyes thou view'st thy wretched race, The child of guilt, and destined to disgrace. Thus when famed Joan usurp'd the Pontiff's chair, With terror she beheld her new-born heir: Ill-starr'd, ill-favour'd into birth it came; In vice begotten, and brought forth with shame! In vain it breathes, a lewd abandon'd hope! And calls in vain, the unhallow'd father--Pope!"

The answers to this epigram by the Popeians are too gross. The "One Epistle" is attributed to James Moore Smyth, in alliance with Welsted and other unfortunate heroes.

[207] The six Letters are preserved in Ruffhead's Appendix, No. 1.

A NARRATIVE

OF THE EXTRAORDINARY TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING THE PUBLICATION OF POPE'S LETTERS.

JOHNSON observes, that "one of the passages of POPE'S life which seems to deserve some inquiry, was the publication of his letters by CURLL, the rapacious bookseller."[208] Our great literary biographer has expended more research on this occasion than his usual penury of literary history allowed; and yet has only told the close of the strange transaction--the previous parts are more curious, and the whole cannot be separated. Joseph Warton has only transcribed Johnson's narrative. It is a piece of literary history of an uncommon complexion; and it is worth the pains of telling, if Pope, as I consider him to be, was the subtile weaver of a plot, whose texture had been close enough for any political conspiracy. It throws a strong light on the portrait I have touched of him. He conducted all his literary transactions with the arts of a Minister of State; and the genius which he wasted on this literary stratagem, in which he so completely succeeded, might have been perhaps sufficient to have organised rebellion.

It is well known that the origin of Pope's first letters given to the public, arose from the distresses of a cast-off mistress of one of his old friends (H. Cromwell),[209] who had given her the letters of Pope, which she knew how to value: these she afterwards sold to Curll, who preserved the originals in his shop, so that no suspicions could arise of their authenticity. This very collection is now deposited among Rawlinson's MSS. at the Bodleian.[210]

This single volume was successful; and when Pope, to do justice to the memory of Wycherley, which had been injured by a posthumous volume, printed some of their letters, Curll, who seemed now to consider that all he could touch was his own property, and that his little volume might serve as a foundation-stone, immediately announced _a new edition_ of it, with _Additions_, meaning to include the letters of Pope and Wycherley. Curll now became so fond of _Pope's Letters_, that he advertised for any: "no questions to be asked." Curll was willing to be credulous: having proved to the world he had some originals, he imagined these would sanction even spurious one. A man who, for a particular purpose, sought to be imposed on, easily obtained his wish: they translated letters of Voiture to Mademoiselle Rambouillet, and despatched them to the eager Bibliopolist to print, as Pope's to Miss Blount. He went on increasing his collection; and, skilful in catering for the literary taste of the town, now inflamed their appetite by dignifying it with "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence!"

But what were the feelings of Pope during these successive surreptitious editions? He had discovered that his genuine letters were liked; the grand experiment with the public had been made for him, while he was deprived of the profits; yet for he himself to publish his own letters, which I shall prove he had prepared, was a thing unheard of in the nation. All this was vexatious; and to stop the book-jobber and open the market for himself, was a point to be obtained.

While Curll was proceeding, wind and tide in his favour, a new and magnificent prospect burst upon him. A certain person, masked by the initials P. T., understanding Curll was preparing _a Life of Pope_, offered him "divers Memoirs gratuitously;" hinted that he was well known to Pope; but the poet had lately "treated him as a stranger." P. T. desires an answer from E. C. by the _Daily Advertiser_, which was complied with. There are passages in this letter which, I think, prove Pope to be the projector of it: his family is here said to be allied to Lord Downe's; his father is called a merchant. Pope could not bear the reproach of Lady Mary's line:--

Hard as thy heart, and as _thy birth obscure_.

He always hinted at noble relatives; but Tyers tells us, from the information of a relative, that "his father turns out, at last, to have been a linen-draper in the Strand:" therefore P. T. was at least telling a story which Pope had no objection should be repeated.

The second letter of P. T., for the first was designed only to break the ice, offers Curll "a large Collection of Letters from the early days of Pope to the year 1727." He gives an excellent notion of their value: "They will open very many scenes new to the world, and make the most authentic Life and Memoirs that could be." He desires they may be announced to the world immediately, in Curll's precious style, that he "might not appear himself to have set the whole thing a-foot, and afterwards he might plead he had only sent some letters to complete the Collection." He asks nothing, and the originals were offered to be deposited with Curll.

Curll, secure of this promised addition, but still craving for more and more, composed a magnificent announcement, which, with P. T.'s entire correspondence, he enclosed in a letter to Pope himself. The letters were now declared to be a "Critical, Philological, and Historical Correspondence."--His own letter is no bad specimen of his keen sense; but after what had so often passed, his impudence was equal to the better quality.

"SIR,--To convince you of my readiness to oblige you, the inclosed is a demonstration. You have, as he says, disobliged a gentleman, the initial letters of whose name are P. T. I have some other papers in the same hand, relating to your _family_, which I will show, if you desire a sight of them. Your letters to Mr. Cromwell are out of print; and I intend to print them very beautifully, in an octavo volume. I have more to say than is proper to write; and if you will give me a meeting, I will wait on you with pleasure, and close all differences between you and yours,

"E. CURLL."

Pope, surprised, as he pretends, at this address, consulted with his friends; everything evil was suggested against Curll. They conceived that his real design was "to get Pope to look over the former edition of his 'Letters to Cromwell,' and then to print it, as _revised_ by Mr. Pope; as he sent an _obscene book_ to a _Bishop_, and then advertised it as _corrected_ and _revised_ by him;" or perhaps to extort money from Pope for suppressing the MS. of P. T., and then publish it, saying P. T. had kept another copy. Pope thought proper to answer only by this public advertisement:--

"Whereas A. P. hath received a letter from E. C., bookseller, pretending that a person, the initials of whose name are P. T., hath offered the said E. C. to print a large Collection of Mr. P.'s letters, to which E. C. required an answer: A. P. having never had, nor intending to have, any private correspondence with the said E. C., gives it him in this manner. That he knows no such person as P. T.; that he believes he hath no such collection; and that he thinks the whole a forgery, and shall not trouble himself at all about it."

Curll replied, denying he had endeavoured to _correspond_ with Mr. Pope, and affirms that he had written to him by _direction_.

It is now the plot thickens. P. T. suddenly takes umbrage, accuses Curll of having "betrayed him to 'Squire Pope,' but you and he both shall soon be convinced it was no forgery. Since you would not comply with my proposal to advertise, I have printed them at my own expense." He offers the books to Curll for sale.

Curll on this has written a letter, which takes a full view of the entire transaction. He seems to have grown tired of what he calls "such jealous, groundless, and dark negotiations." P. T. now found it necessary to produce something more than a shadow--an agent appears, whom Curll considered to be a clergyman, who assumed the name of R. Smith. The first proposal was, that P. T.'s letters should be returned, that he might feel secure from all possibility of detection; so that P. T. terminates his part in this literary freemasonry as a nonentity.

Here Johnson's account begins.--"Curll said, that one evening a man in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's Epistolary Correspondence; that he asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorised to use his purchase to his own advantage." Smith, the clergyman, left him some copies, and promised more.

Curll now, in all the elation of possession, rolled his thunder in an advertisement still higher than ever.--"Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence regularly digested, from 1704 to 1734:" to lords, earls, baronets, doctors, ladies, &c., with their respective answers, and whose names glittered in the advertisement. The original MSS. were also announced to be seen at his house.

But at this moment Curll had not received many books, and no MSS. The advertisement produced the effect designed; it roused public notice, and it alarmed several in the House of Lords. Pope doubtless instigated his friends there. The Earl of Jersey moved, that to publish letters of Lords was a breach of privilege; and Curll was brought before the House.

This was an unexpected incident; and P. T. once more throws his dark shadow across the path of Curll to hearten him, had he wanted courage to face all the lords. P. T. writes to instruct him in his answers to their examination; but to take the utmost care to conceal P. T.; he assures him that the lords could not touch a hair of his head if he behaved firmly; that he should only answer their interrogatories by declaring he received the letters from different persons; that some were given, and some were bought. P. T. reminds one, on this occasion, of Junius's correspondence on a like threat with his publisher.

"Curll appeared at the bar," says Johnson, "and knowing himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverence. 'He has,' said Curll, 'a knack at versifying; but in prose I think myself a match for him.' When the Orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy." The fact, not mentioned by Johnson, is, that though Curll's flourishing advertisement had announced _letters written by lords_, when the volumes were examined not one written by a lord appeared.

The letter Curll wrote on the occasion to one of these dark familiars, the pretended clergyman, marks his spirit and sagacity. It contains a remarkable passage. Some readers will be curious to have the productions of so celebrated a personage, who appears to have exercised considerable talents.

_15th May, 1735._

"DEAR SIR,--I am just again going to the Lords to finish Pope. I desire you to send me the _sheets_ to _perfect_ the first fifty books, and likewise the _remaining three hundred books_; and pray be at the Standard Tavern this evening, and I will pay you twenty pounds more. My defence is right; I only told the lords I did not know from whence the books came, and that my wife received them. This was strict truth, and prevented all further inquiry. _The lords declared they had been made Pope's tools._ I put myself on this single point, and insisted, as there was not any Peer's letter in the book, I had not been guilty of any breach of privilege. I depend that the _books_ and the _imperfections_ will be sent; and believe of P. T. what I hope he believes of me.

"For the Rev. Mr. SMITH."

The reader observes that Curll talks of a great number of _books not received_, and of _the few_ which he has received, as _imperfect_. The fact is, the whole bubble is on the point of breaking. He, masked in the initial letters, and he, who wore the masquerade dress of a clergyman's gown with a lawyer's band, suddenly picked a quarrel with the duped bibliopolist: they now accuse him of a design he had of betraying them to the Lords!

The tantalized and provoked Curll then addressed the following letter to "The Rev. Mr. Smith," which, both as a specimen of this celebrated personage's "prose," in which he thought himself "a match for Pope," and exhibiting some traits of his character, will entertain the curious reader.

_Friday, 16 May, 1735._

"SIR,--1st, I am falsely accused. 2. I value not any man's change of temper; I will never change my VERACITY for falsehood, in owning a fact of which I am innocent. 3. I did not own the books came from _across the water_, nor ever _named you_; all I said was, that the books came _by water_. 4. When the books were seized, I sent my son to convey a letter to you; and as you told me everybody knew you in Southwark, I bid him make a strict inquiry, as I am sure you would have done in such an exigency. 5. Sir, _I have acted justly_ in this affair, and that is what I shall always think wisely. 6. I will be kept no longer in the dark; P. T. is _Will o' the Wisp_; all the books I have had are imperfect; the first fifty had no titles nor prefaces; the last five bundles seized by the Lords contained but thirty-eight in each bundle, which amounts to one hundred and ninety, and fifty, is in all but two hundred and forty books. 7. As to the loss of a future copy, I despise it, nor will I be concerned with any more such dark suspicious dealers. But now, sir, I'll tell you what I will do: when I have the _books perfected_ which I have already received, and _the rest of the impression_, I will pay you for them. But what do you call this usage? First take a note for a month, and then want it to be changed for one of Sir Richard Hoare's. My note is as good, for any sum I give it, as the Bank, and shall be as punctually paid. I always say, _gold is better than paper_. But if this dark converse goes on, I will instantly reprint the whole book; and, as a supplement to it, all the letters P. T. ever sent me, of which I have exact copies, together with all your originals, and give them in upon oath to my Lord Chancellor. You talk of _trust_--P. T. has not reposed any in me, for he has my money and notes for imperfect books. Let me see, sir, either P. T. or yourself, or you'll find the Scots proverb verified, _Nemo me impune lacessit_.

"Your abused humble servant, "E. CURLL.

"P.S. Lord ---- I attend this day. LORD DELAWAR I SUP WITH TO-NIGHT. Where _Pope_ has one lord, I have twenty."

After this, Curll announced "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence, with the _initial correspondence_ of P. T., R. S. &c." But the shadowy correspondents now publicly declared that they could give _no title_ whatever to Mr. Pope's letters, with which they had furnished CURLL, and never pretended any; that therefore any bookseller had the same right of printing them: and, in respect to money matters between them, he had given them notes not negotiable, and had never paid them fully for the copies, perfect and imperfect, which he had sold.

Thus terminated this dark transaction between Curll and his _initial_ correspondents. He still persisted in printing several editions of the letters of Pope, which furnished the poet with a modest pretext to publish an authentic edition--the very point to which the whole of this dark and intricate plot seems to have been really directed.[211]

Were Pope not concerned in this mysterious transaction, how happened it that the letters which P. T. actually printed were genuine? To account for this, Pope promulgated a new fact. Since the first publication of his letters to his friend Cromwell, wrenched from the distressed female who possessed them, our poet had been advised to collect his letters; and these he had preserved by inserting them in two books; either the originals or the copies. For this purpose an amanuensis or two were employed by Pope when these books were in the country, and by the Earl of Oxford when they were in town. Pope pretended that Curll's letters had been extracted from these two books, but sometimes imperfectly transcribed, and sometimes interpolated. Pope, indeed, offered a reward of twenty pounds to "P. T." and "R. Smith, who passed for a clergyman," if they would come forward and discover the whole of this affair; or "if they had acted, as it was reported, by the _direction_ of any other person." They never appeared. Lintot, the son of the great rival of Curll, told Dr. Johnson, that his father had been offered the same parcel of printed books, and that Pope knew better than anybody else how Curll obtained the copies.

Dr. Johnson, although he appears not to have been aware of the subtle intricacy of this extraordinary plot, has justly drawn this inference: "To make the copies perfect was the only purpose of Pope, because the numbers offered for sale by the private messengers, showed that hope of gain could not have been the motive of the impression. It seems that Pope, being desirous of printing his letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion; when he could complain that his letters were surreptitiously printed, he might decently and defensively publish them himself."

I have observed, how the first letter of P. T. pretending to be written by one who owed no kindness to Pope, bears the evident impression of his own hand; for it contains matters not exactly true, but exactly what Pope wished should appear in his own life. That he had prepared his letters for publication, appears by the story of the two MS. books--that the printed ones came by water, would look as if they had been sent from his house at Twickenham; and, were it not absurd to pretend to decipher initials, P. T. might be imagined to indicate the name of the owner, as well as his place of abode.

Worsdale, an indifferent painter, was a man of some humour in personating a character, for he performed Old Lady Scandal in one of his own farces. He was also a literary adventurer, for, according to Mrs. Pilkington's Memoirs, wishing to be a poet as well as a mimic, he got her and her husband to write all the verses which passed with his name; such a man was well adapted to be this clergyman with the lawyer's band, and Worsdale has asserted that he was really employed by his friend Pope on this occasion.

Such is the intricate narrative of this involved transaction. Pope completely succeeded, by the most subtile manoeuvres imaginable; the incident which perhaps was not originally expected, of having his letters brought before the examination at the House of Lords, most amply gratified his pride, and awakened public curiosity. "He made the House of Lords," says Curll, "his tools." Greater ingenuity, perplexity, and secrecy have scarcely been thrown into the conduct of the writer, or writers, of the Letters of Junius.

FOOTNOTES:

[208] Curll was a bookseller, from whose shop issued many works of an immoral class, yet he chose for his sign "The Bible and Dial," which were displayed over his shop in Fleet-street. The satire of Pope's Dunciad seems fairly to have been earned, as we may judge from the class of books still seen in the libraries of curious collectors, and which are certainly unfitted for more general circulation. For these publications he was fined by the Court of King's Bench, and on one occasion stood in the pillory as a punishment. Yet himself and Lintot were the chief booksellers of the era, until Tonson arose, and by taking a more enlarged view of the trade, laid the foundation of the great publishing houses of modern times.--ED.

[209] Cromwell was one of the gay young men who frequented coffee-houses and clubs when Pope, also a young man, did the same, and corresponded freely with him for a few years, when the intimacy almost entirely ceased. The lady was a Mrs. Thomas, who became a sort of literary hack to Curll, and is celebrated in the Dunciad under the name of Corinna. Roscoe, in his edition of Pope, says, "Of Henry Cromwell little is known, further than what is learnt from this correspondence, from which he appears to have been a man of respectable connections, talents, and education, and to have intermingled pretty freely in the gallantries of fashionable life." He seems to have been somewhat eccentric, and the correspondence of Pope only lasted from 1708 to 1711.--ED.

[210] Pope, in his conversations with Spence, says, "My letters to Cromwell were written with a design that does not generally appear: they were not written in sober sadness."--ED.

[211] Pope's victory over Curll is represented by Hogarth in a print ostentatiously hung in the garret of his "Distressed Poet."--ED.

POPE AND CIBBER;

CONTAINING A VINDICATION OF THE COMIC WRITER.

POPE attacked CIBBER from personal motives--by dethroning Theobald, in the _Dunciad_, to substitute CIBBER, he made the satire not apply--CIBBER'S facetious and serious remonstrance--CIBBER'S inimitable good-humour--an apology for what has been called his "effrontery"--perhaps a modest man, and undoubtedly a man of genius--his humorous defence of his deficiency in Tragedy, both in acting and writing--Pope more hurt at being exposed as a ridiculous lover than as a bad man--an account of "The Egotist, or Colley upon Cibber," a kind of supplement to the "Apology for his life," in which he has drawn his own character with great freedom and spirit.

Pope's quarrel with Cibber may serve to check the haughtiness of genius; it is a remarkable instance how good-humour can gently draw a boundary round the arbitrary power, whenever the wantonness of satire would conceal calumny. But this quarrel will become even more interesting, should it throw a new light on the character of one whose originality of genius seems little suspected. Cibber showed a happy address in a very critical situation, and obtained an honourable triumph over the malice of a great genius, whom, while he complained of he admired, and almost loved the cynic.

Pope, after several "flirts," as Cibber calls them, from slight personal motives, which Cibber has fully opened,[212] at length from "peevish weakness," as Lord Orford has happily expressed it, closed his insults by dethroning Theobald, and substituting Cibber; but as he would not lose what he had already written, this change disturbed the whole decorum of the satiric fiction. Things of opposite natures, joined into one, became the poetical chimera of Horace. The hero of the _Dunciad_ is neither Theobald nor Cibber; Pope forced a dunce to appear as Cibber; but this was not making Cibber a dunce. This error in Pope emboldened Cibber in the contest, for he still insisted that the satire did not apply to him;[213] and humorously compared the libel "to a purge with a wrong label," and Pope "to an apothecary who did not mind his business."[214]

Cibber triumphed in the arduous conflict--though sometimes he felt that, like the Patriarch of old, he was wrestling, not with an equal, but one of celestial race, "and the hollow of his thigh was out of joint." Still, however, he triumphed, by that singular felicity of character, that inimitable _gaiete de coeur_, that honest simplicity of truth, from which flowed so warm an admiration of the genius of his adversary; and that exquisite _tact_ in the characters of men, which carried down this child of airy humour to the verge of his ninetieth year, with all the enjoyments of strong animal spirits, and all that innocent egotism which became frequently a source of his own raillery.[215] He has applied to himself the epithet "impenetrable," which was probably in the mind of Johnson when he noticed his "impenetrable impudence." A critic has charged him with "effrontery."[216] Critics are apt to admit too much of traditional opinion into their own; it is necessary sometimes to correct the knowledge we receive. For my part, I can almost believe that Cibber was a _modest man_![217] as he was most certainly a man of genius. Cibber had lived a dissipated life, and his philosophical indifference, with his careless gaiety, was the breastplate which even the wit of Pope failed to pierce. During twenty years' persecution for his unlucky Odes, he never lost his temper; he would read to his friends the best things pointed against them, with all the spirit the authors could wish; and would himself write epigrams for the pleasure of hearing them repeated while sitting in coffee-houses; and whenever they were applauded as "Palpable hits!"--"Keen!"--"Things with a spirit in them!"--he enjoyed these attacks on himself by himself.[218] If this be vanity, it is at least "_Cibberian_."

It was, indeed, the singularity of his personal character which so long injured his genius, and laid him open to the perpetual attacks of his contemporaries,[219] who were mean enough to ridicule undisguised foibles, but dared not be just to the redeeming virtues of his genius. Yet his genius far exceeded his literary frailties. He knew he was no poet, yet he would string wretched rhymes, even when not salaried for them; and once wrote an Essay on Cicero's character, for which his dotage was scarcely an apology;--so much he preferred amusement to prudence.[220] Another foible was to act tragedies with a squeaking voice[221], and to write them with a genius about the same size for the sublime; but the malice of his contemporaries seemed to forget that he was creating new dramatic existences in the exquisite personifications of his comic characters; and was producing some of our standard comedies, composed with such real genius, that they still support the reputation of the English stage.

In the "Apology for his Life," Cibber had shown himself a generous and an ill-treated adversary, and at all times was prodigal of his eulogiums, even after the death of Pope; but, when remonstrance and good temper failed to sheathe with their oil the sharp sting of the wasp, as his weakest talent was not the ludicrous, he resolved to gain the laughers over, and threw Pope into a very ridiculous attitude.[222] It was extorted from Cibber by this insulting line of Pope's:--

And has not Colley, too, his Lord and w--e?

It seems that Pope had once the same! But a ridiculous story, suited to the taste of the loungers, nettled Pope more than the keener remonstrances and the honest truths which Cibber has urged. Those who write libels, invite imitation.

Besides the two letters addressed by Cibber to Pope, this quarrel produced a moral trifle, or rather a philosophical curiosity, respecting Cibber's own character, which is stamped with the full impression of all its originality.

The title, so expressive of its design, and the whim and good-humour of the work, which may be considered as a curious supplement to the "Apology for his Life," could scarcely have been imagined, and most certainly could not have been executed, but by the genius who dared it. I give the title in the note.[223] It is a curious exemplification of what Shaftesbury has so fancifully described as "self-inspection." This little work is a conversation between "Mr. Frankly and his old acquaintance, Colley Cibber." Cibber had the spirit of making this Mr. Frankly speak the bitterest things against himself; and he must have been an attentive reader of all the keenest reproaches his enemies ever had thrown out. This caustic censor is not a man of straw, set up to be easily knocked down. He has as much vivacity and wit as Cibber himself, and not seldom has the better of the argument. But the gravity and the levity blended in this little piece form admirable contrasts: and Cibber, in this varied effusion, acquires all our esteem for that open simplicity, that unalterable good-humour which flowed from nature, and that fine spirit that touches everything with life; yet, as he himself confesses, the main accusation of Mr. Frankly, that "his philosophical air will come out at last mere vanity in masquerade," may be true.

I will attempt to collect some specimens of this extraordinary production, because they harmonise with the design of the present work, and afford principles, in regard to preserving an equability of temper, which may guide us in Literary Quarrels.

_Frankly_ observes, on Cibber's declaration that he is not uneasy at Pope's satire, that "no blockhead is so dull as not to be sore when he is called so; and (you'll excuse me) if that were to be your own case, why should we believe you would not be as uneasy at it as another blockhead?

_Author._ This is pushing me pretty home indeed; but I wont give out. For as it is not at all inconceivable, that a blockhead of my size may have a particular knack of doing some useful thing that might puzzle a wiser man to be master of, will not that blockhead still have something in him to be conceited of? If so, allow me but the vanity of supposing I may have had some such possible knack, and you will not wonder (though in many other points I may still be a blockhead) that I may, notwithstanding, be contented with my condition.

_Frankly._ Is it not commendable, in a man of parts, to be warmly concerned for his reputation?

_Author._ In what regards his honesty or honour, I will make some allowance; but for the reputation of his parts, not one tittle.

_Frankly._ How! not to be concerned for what half the learned world are in a continual war about.

_Author_. So are another half about religion; but neither Turk or Pope, swords or anathemas, can alter truth! There it stands! always visible to reason, self-defended and immovable! Whatever it _was_, or _is_, it ever _will be_! As no attack can alter, so no defence can add to its proportion.

_Frankly._ At this rate, you pronounce all controversies in wit to be either needless or impertinent.

_Author._ When one in a hundred happens _not_ to be so, or to make amends for being either by its pleasantry, we ought in justice to allow it a great rarity. A reply to a just satire or criticism will seldom be thought better of.

_Frankly._ May not a reply be a good one?

_Author._ Yes, but never absolutely necessary; for as your work (or reputation) must have been good or bad, before it was censured, your reply to that censure could not alter it: it would still be but what it was. If it was good, the attack could not hurt it: if bad, the reply could not mend it.[224]

_Frankly._ But slander is not always so impotent as you seem to suppose it; men of the best sense may be misled by it, or, by their not inquiring after truth, may never come at it; and the vulgar, as they are less apt to be good than ill-natured, often mistake malice for wit, and have an uncharitable joy in commending it. Now, when this is the case, is not a tame silence, upon being satirically libelled, as liable to be thought guilt or stupidity, as to be the result of innocence or temper?--Self-defence is a very natural and just excuse for a reply.

_Author._ Be it so! But still that does not always make it necessary; for though slander, by their not weighing it, may pass upon some few people of sense for truth, and might draw great numbers of the vulgar into its party, the mischief can never be of long duration. _A satirical slander, that has no truth to support it, is only a great fish upon dry land: it may flounce and fling, and make a fretful pother, but it wont bite you; you need not knock it on the head; it will soon lie still, and die quietly of itself._

_Frankly._ The single-sheet critics will find you employment.

_Author._ Indeed they wont. I'm not so mad as to think myself a match for the invulnerable.

_Frankly._ Have a care; there's Foulwit; though he can't feel, he can bite.

_Author._ Ay, so will bugs and fleas; but that's only for sustenance: everything must feed, you know; and your creeping critics are a sort of vermin, that if they could come to a king, would not spare him; yet, whenever they can persuade others to laugh at their jest upon me, I will honestly make one of the number; but I must ask their pardon, if that should be all the reply I can afford them."

This "boy of seventy odd," for such he was when he wrote "The Egotist," unfolds his character by many lively personal touches. He declares he could not have "given the world so finished a coxcomb as Lord Foppington, if he had not found a good deal of the same stuff in himself to make him with." He addresses "A Postscript, To those few unfortunate Readers and Writers who may not have more sense than the Author:" and he closes, in all the fulness of his spirit, with a piece of consolation for those who are so cruelly attacked by superior genius.

"Let us then, gentlemen, who have the misfortune to lie thus at the mercy of those whose natural parts happen to be stronger than our own--let us, I say, make the most of our sterility! Let us double and treble the ranks of our thickness, that we may form an impregnable phalanx, and stand every way in front to the enemy! or, would you still be liable to less hazard, lay but yourselves down, as I do, flat and quiet upon your faces, when Pride, Malice, Envy, Wit, or Prejudice let fly their formidable shot at you, what odds is it they don't all whistle over your head? Thus, too, though we may want the artillery of missive wit to make reprisals, we may at least in security bid them kiss the tails we have turned to them. Who knows but, by this our supine, or rather prone serenity, their disappointed valour may become their own vexation? Or let us yet, at worst, but solidly stand our ground, like so many defensive stone-posts, and we may defy the proudest Jehu of them all to drive over us. Thus, gentlemen, you see that Insensibility is not without its comforts; and as I give you no worse advice than I have taken myself, and found my account in, I hope you will have the hardness to follow it, for your own good and the glory of

"Your impenetrable humble servant, "C. C."

After all, one may perceive, that though the good-humour of poor Cibber was real, still the immortal satire of Pope had injured his higher feelings. He betrays his secret grief at his close, while he seems to be sporting with his pen; and though he appears to confide in the falsity of the satire as his best chance for saving him from it, still he feels that the caustic ink of such a satirist must blister and spot wherever it falls. The anger of Warburton, and the sternness of Johnson, who seem always to have considered an actor as an inferior being among men of genius, have degraded Cibber. They never suspected that "a blockhead of his size could do what wiser men could not," and, as a fine comic genius, command a whole province in human nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[212] Johnson says, that though "Pope attacked Cibber with acrimony, the provocation is not easily discoverable." But the statements of Cibber, which have never been contradicted, show sufficient motives to excite the poetic irascibility. It was Cibber's "fling" at the unowned and condemned comedy of the triumvirate of wits, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, _Three Hours after Marriage_, when he performed Bayes in the _Rehearsal_, that incurred the immortal odium. There was no malice on Cibber's side; for it was then the custom to restore the zest of that obsolete dramatic satire, by introducing allusions to any recent theatrical event. The plot of this ridiculous comedy hinging on the deep contrivance of two lovers getting access to the wife of a virtuoso, "one curiously swathed up like an Egyptian mummy, and the other slily covered in the pasteboard skin of a crocodile," was an incident so _extremely natural_, that it seemed congenial with the high imagination and the deep plot of a Bayes! Poor Cibber, in the gaiety of his _impromptu_, made the "fling;" and, unluckily, it was applauded by the audience! The irascibility of Pope too strongly authenticated one of the three authors. "In the swelling of his heart, after the play was over, he came behind the scenes with his lips pale and his voice trembling, to call me to account for the insult; and accordingly fell upon me with all the foul language that a wit out of his senses would be capable of, choked with the foam of his passion." Cibber replied with dignity, insisted on the privilege of the character, and that he would repeat the same jest as long as the public approved of it. Pope would have certainly approved of Cibber's manly conduct, had he not been the author himself. To this circumstance may be added the reception which the town and the court bestowed on Cibber's "Nonjuror," a satire on the politics of the jacobite faction; Pope appears, under the assumed name of _Barnevelt_, to have published "an odd piece of wit, proving that the Nonjuror, in its design, its characters, and almost every scene of it, was a closely-couched jacobite libel against the Government." Cibber says that "this was so shrewdly maintained, that I almost liked the jest myself." Pope seems to have been fond of this new species of irony; for, in the Pastorals of Phillips, he showed the same sort of ingenuity, and he repeated the same charge of political mystery against his own finest poem; for he proved by many "merry inuendoes," that "The Rape of the Lock" was as audacious a libel as the pretended Barnevelt had made out the Nonjuror to be. See note, p. 280.

[213] Cibber did not obtrude himself in this contest. Had he been merely a poor vain creature, he had not preserved so long a silence. His good-temper was without anger, but he remonstrates with no little dignity, when he chooses to be solemn; though to be playful was more natural to him. "If I have lain so long stoically silent, or unmindful of your satirical favours, it was not so much for want of a proper reply, as that I thought there never needed a public one; for all people of sense would know what truth or falsehood there was in what you said of me, without my wisely pointing it out to them. Nor did I choose to follow your example, of being so much a self-tormentor, as to be concerned at whatever opinion of me any published invective might infuse into people unknown to me. Even the malicious, though they may like the libel, don't always believe it." His reason for reply is, that his silence should not be farther reproached "as a plain confession of my being a bankrupt in wit, if I don't immediately answer those bills of discredit you have drawn upon me." There is no doubt that Cibber perpetually found instigators to encourage these attacks; and one forcible argument he says was, that "a disgrace, from such a pen, would stick upon me to posterity." He seems to be aware that his acquaintance cheer him to the lists "for their particular amusement."

[214] "His edition of Shakspeare proved no better than a foil to set off the superiority of Theobald's; and Cibber bore away the palm from him in the drama. We have an account of two attempts of Pope's, one in each of the two principal branches of this species of poetry, and both unsuccessful. The fate of the comedy has been already mentioned (in page 300), and the tragedy was saved from the like fate by one not less ignominious, being condemned and burnt by his own hands. It was called _Cleone_, and formed upon the same story as a late one wrote and published by Mr. Dodsley with the same title in 1759. See Dodsley's Preface."--_Biographia Britannica_, 1760.

[215] Armstrong, who was a keen observer of man, has expressed his uncommon delight in the company of Cibber. "Beside his abilities as a writer (as a writer of comedies, Armstrong means), and the singular variety of his powers as an actor, he was to the last one of the most agreeable, cheerful, and best-humoured men you would ever wish to converse with."--Warton's _Pope_, vol. iv. 160.

Cibber was one of those rare beings whose dispositions Hume describes "as preferable to an inheritance of 10,000_l._ a year."

[216] Dr. Aikin, in his Biographical Dictionary, has thus written on Cibber: "It cannot be doubted, that, at the time, the contest was more painful to Pope than to Cibber. But Pope's satire is immortal, whereas Cibber's sarcasms are no longer read. _Cibber may therefore be represented to future times with less credit for abilities than he really deserves_; for he was certainly no dunce, though not, in the higher sense of the word, a man of genius. _His effrontery and vanity_ could not be easily overcharged, even by a foe. Indeed, they are striking features in the portrait drawn by himself." Dr. Aikin's political morality often vented its indignation at the successful injustice of great power! Why should not the same spirit conduct him in the Literary Republic? With the just sentiments he has given on Cibber, it was the duty of an intrepid critic to raise a moral feeling against the despotism of genius, and to have protested against the arbitrary power of Pope. It is participating in the injustice to pass it by, without even a regret at its effect.

As for Cibber himself, he declares he was _not impudent_, and I am disposed to take his own word, for he _modestly_ asserts this, in a remark on Pope's expression,

"'Cibberian forehead,'

"by which I find you modestly mean _Cibberian impudence_, as a sample of the strongest.--Sir, your humble servant--but pray, sir, in your 'Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot' (where, by the way, in your ample description of a great Poet, you slily hook in a whole hat-full of virtues to your own character) have not you this particular line?

'And thought a _Lie_, in verse or prose, the same--'"

Cibber laments it is not so, for "any accusation in smooth verse will always sound well, though it is not tied down to have a tittle of truth in it, when the strongest defence in poor humble prose, not having that harmonious advantage, takes nobody by the ear--very hard upon an innocent man! For suppose in prose, now, I were as confidently to insist that you were an _honest_, _good-natured_, _inoffensive creature_, would my barely saying so be any proof of it? No sure. Why then, might it not be supposed an equal truth, that both our assertions were equally false? _Yours_, when you call me _impudent_; _mine_, when I call you _modest_, &c. While my superiors suffer me occasionally to sit down with them, I hope it will be thought that rather the _Papal_ than the _Cibberian_ forehead ought to be out of countenance." I give this as a specimen of Cibber's serious reasonings--they are poor; and they had been so from a greater genius; for ridicule and satire, being only a mere abuse of eloquence, can never be effectually opposed by truisms. Satire must be repelled by satire; and Cibber's _sarcasms_ obtained what Cibber's _reasonings_ failed in.

[217] Vain as Cibber has been called, and vain as he affects to be, he has spoken of his own merits as a comic writer,--and he was a very great one,--with a manly moderation, very surprising indeed in a vain man. Pope has sung in his _Dunciad_, most harmoniously inhuman,

"How, with less reading than makes felons scape, Less human genius than God gives an ape, Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece, A patch'd, vamp'd, future, old, revived new piece; 'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Congreve, and Corneille, Can make a CIBBER, JOHNSON, and OZELL."

Blasting as was this criticism, it could not raise the anger of the gay and careless Cibber. Yet what could have put it to a sharper test? Johnson and Ozell are names which have long disappeared from the dramatic annals, and could only have been coupled with Cibber to give an idea of what the satirist meant by "the human genius of an ape." But listen to the mild, yet the firm tone of Cibber--he talks like injured innocence, and he triumphs over Pope, in all the dignity of truth.--I appeal to Cibber's posterity!

"And pray, sir, why my name under this scurvy picture? I flatter myself, that if you had not put it there, nobody else would have thought it like me; nor can I easily believe that you yourself do: but perhaps you imagined it would be a laughing ornament to your verse, and had a mind to divert other people's spleen with it as well as your own. Now let me hold up my head a little, and then we shall see how the features hit me." He proceeds to relate, how "many of those plays have lived the longer for my meddling with them." He mentions several, which "had been dead to the stage out of all memory, which have since been in a constant course of acting above these thirty or forty years." And then he adds: "Do those altered plays at all take from the merit of those _more successful pieces_, which were _entirely my own_?--When a man is abused, he has a right to speak even laudable truths of himself, to confront his slanderer. Let me therefore add, that my first Comedy of _The Fool in Fashion_ was as much (though not so valuable) an original, as any work Mr. Pope himself has produced. It is now forty-seven years since its first appearance on the stage, where it has kept its station, to this very day, without ever lying one winter dormant. Nine years after this, I brought on _The Careless Husband_, with still greater success; and was that too

'A patch'd, vamp'd, future, old, revived new piece?'

Let the many living spectators of these plays, then, judge between us, whether the above verses came from the honesty of a satirist, who would be thought, like you, the upright censor of mankind. Sir, this libel was below you! Satire, without truth, recoils upon its author, and must, at other times, render him suspected of prejudice, even where he may be just; as frauds, in religion, make more atheists than converts; and the bad heart, Mr. Pope, that points an injury with verse, makes it the more unpardonable, as it is not the result of sudden passion, but of an indulged and slowly-meditating ill-nature. What a merry mixed mortal has nature made you, that can debase that strength and excellence of genius to the lowest human weakness, that of offering unprovoked injuries, at the hazard of your being ridiculous too, when the venom you spit falls short of your aim!" I have quoted largely, to show that Cibber was capable of exerting a dignified remonstrance, as well as pointing the lightest, yet keenest, shafts of sarcastic wit.

[218] Ayre's "Memoirs of Pope," vol. ii. p. 82.

[219] Even the "Grub-street Journal" had its jest on his appointment to the laureateship. In No. 52 was the following epigram:--

"Well, said Apollo, still 'tis mine To give the real laurel: For that my Pope, my son divine, Of rivals ends the quarrel. But guessing who would have the luck To be the birth-day fibber, I thought of Dennis, Tibbald, Duck, But never dreamt of Cibber!"--ED.

[220] It may be reasonably doubted, however, if vanity had not something to do with this--the vanity of appearing as a philosophical writer, and astonishing the friends who had considered him only as a good comedian. The volume was magnificently printed in quarto on fine paper, "for the author," in 1747. It is entitled, "The Character and Conduct of Cicero Considered, from the History of his Life by the Rev. Dr. Middleton; with occasional Essays and Observations upon the most Memorable Facts and Persons during that Period." The entire work is a series of somewhat too-familiar notes on the various passages of "Cicero's Life and Times," as narrated by Middleton. He terms the unsettled state after the death of Sylla "an uncomfortable time for those sober citizens who had a mind and a right to be quiet." His professional character breaks forth when he speaks of Roscius instructing Cicero in acting; and in the very commencement of his grave labour he rambles back to the theatre to quote a scene from Vanbrugh's _Relapse_, as a proof how little fashionable readers _think_ while they _read_. Colley's well-meaning but free-and-easy reflections on the gravities of Roman history, in the progress of his work, are remarkable, and have all the author's coarse common sense, but very little depth or refinement--ED.

[221] With what good-humour he retorts a piece of sly malice of Pope's; who, in the notes to the _Dunciad_, after quoting Jacob's account of Cibber's talents, adds--"Mr. Jacob omitted to remark that he is particularly admirable in tragedy." To which Cibber rejoins--"Ay, sir, and your remark has omitted, too, that (with all his commendations) I can't dance upon the rope, or make a saddle, nor play upon the organ. My dear, dear Mr. Pope, how could a man of your stinging capacity let so tame, so low a reflection escape him? Why, this hardly rises above the petty malice of Miss Molly. 'Ay, ay, you may think my sister as handsome as you please, but if you were to see her legs!' If I have made so many crowded theatres laugh, and in the right place, too, for above forty years together, am I to make up the number of your dunces, because I have not the equal talent of making them cry too? Make it your own case. Is what you have excelled in at all the worse for your having so dismally dabbled in the farce of _Three Hours after Marriage_? What mighty reason will the world have to laugh at my weakness in tragedy, more than at yours in comedy?"

I will preserve one anecdote of that felicity of temper--that undisturbed good-humour which never abandoned Cibber in his most distressful moments. When he brought out, in 1724, his _Caesar in Egypt_, at a great expense, and "a beggarly account of empty boxes" was the result, it raised some altercations between the poet and his brother managers, the bard still struggling for another and another night. At length he closed the quarrel with a pun, which confessed the misfortune, with his own good-humour. In a periodical publication of the times I find the circumstance recorded in this neat epigram:--

_On the Sixth Night of CIBBER'S "Caesar in Egypt."_

When the pack'd audience from their posts retired, And Julius in a general hiss expired; Sage Booth to Cibber cried, "Compute our gains! These dogs of Egypt, and their dowdy queans, But ill requite these habits and these scenes, To rob Corneille for such a motley piece: His geese were swans; but zounds! thy swans are geese!" Rubbing his firm invulnerable brow, The bard replied--"The critics must allow 'Twas ne'er in _Caesar's destiny_ TO RUN!" Wilks bow'd, and bless'd the gay pacific pun.

[222] A wicked wag of a lord had enticed Pope into a tavern, and laid a love-plot against his health. Cibber describes his resolute interference by snatching "our little Homer by the heels. This was done for the honour of our nation. Homer would have been too serious a sacrifice to our evening's amusement." He has metamorphosed our Apollo into a "Tom-tit;" but the Ovidian warmth, however ludicrous, will not _now_ admit of a narrative. This story, by our comic writer, was accompanied by a print, that was seen by more persons, probably, than read the _Dunciad_. In his second letter, Cibber, alluding to the vexation of Pope on this ridiculous story, observes--"To have been exposed as _a bad man_, ought to have given thee thrice the concern of being shown a _ridiculous lover_." And now that he had discovered that he could touch the nerves of Pope, he throws out one of the most ludicrous analogies to the figure of our bard:--"When crawling in thy dangerous deed of darkness, I gently, with a finger and a thumb, picked off thy small round body by thy long legs, like a spider making love in a cobweb."

[223] "The EGOTIST, or Colley upon Cibber; being his own picture retouched to so _plain_ a likeness that no one _now_ would have the face to own it BUT HIMSELF.

'But one stroke more, and that shall be my last.'

_London_, 1743. DRYDEN."

[224] How many good authors might pursue their studies in quiet, would they never reply to their critics but on matters of fact, in which their honour may be involved. I have seen very tremendous criticisms on some works of real genius, like serpents on marble columns, wind and dart about, and spit their froth, but they die away on the pillars that enabled them to erect their malignant forms to the public eye. They fall in due time; and weak must be the substance of that pillar which does not stand, and look as beautiful, when the serpents have crawled over it, as before. Dr. Brown, in his "Letter to Bishop Lowth," has laid down an axiom in literary criticism:--"_A mere literary attack_, however well or ill-founded, would not easily have drawn me into a _public expostulation_; for every man's true literary character is best seen in his own writings. Critics may rail, disguise, insinuate, or pervert; yet still the object of their censures lies equally open to all the world. Thus the world becomes a competent judge of the merits of the work animadverted on. Hence, the mere _author_ hath a fair chance for a fair decision, at least among the judicious; and it is of no mighty consequence what opinions the _injudicious_ form concerning mental abilities. For this reason, I have never replied to any of those numerous critics who have on different occasions honoured me with their regard."

POPE AND ADDISON.

The quarrel between POPE and ADDISON originated in one of the infirmities of genius--a subject of inquiry even after their death, by Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE--POPE courts ADDISON--suspects ADDISON of jealousy--ADDISON'S foible to be considered a great poet--interview between the rivals, of which the result was the portrait of ATTICUS, for which ADDISON was made to sit.

Among the Literary Quarrels of POPE one acquires dignity and interest from the characters of both parties. It closed by producing the severest, but the most masterly portrait of one man of genius, composed by another, which has ever been hung on the satiric Parnassus for the contemplation of ages. ADDISON must descend to posterity with the dark spots of ATTICUS staining a purity of character which had nearly proved immaculate.

The friendship between Pope and Addison was interrupted by one of the infirmities of genius. Tempers of watchful delicacy gather up in silence and darkness motives so shadowy in their origin, and of such minute growth, that, never breaking out into any open act, they escape all other eyes but those of the parties themselves. These causes of enmity are too subtle to bear the touch; they cannot be inquired after, nor can they be described; and it may be said that the minds of such men have rather quarrelled than they themselves: they utter no complaints, but they avoid each other. All the world perceived that two authors of the finest genius had separated from motives on which both were silent, but which had evidently operated with equal force on both. Their admirers were very general, and at a time when literature divided with politics the public interest, the best feelings of the nation were engaged in tracking the obscure commencements and the secret growth of this literary quarrel, in which the amiable and moral qualities of Addison, and the gratitude and honour of Pope, were equally involved. The friends of either party pretended that their chiefs entertained a reciprocal regard for each other, while the illustrious characters themselves were living in a state of hostility. Even long after these literary heroes were departed, the same interest was general among the lovers of literature; but those obscure motives which had only influenced two minds--those imperceptible events, which are only events as they are watched by the jealousy of genius--eluded the most anxious investigation. Yet so lasting and so powerful was the interest excited by this literary quarrel, that, within a few years, the elegant mind of Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE withdrew from the severity of profounder studies to inquire into the causes of a quarrel which was still exciting the most opposite opinions. Blackstone has judged and summed up; but though he evidently inclines to favour Addison, by throwing into the balance some explanation for the silence of Addison against the audible complaints of Pope; though sometimes he pleads as well as judges, and infers as well as proves; yet even Blackstone has not taken on himself to deliver a decision. His happy genius has only honoured literary history by the masterly force and luminous arrangement of investigation, to which, since the time of Bayle, it has been too great a stranger.[225]

At this day, removed from all personal influence and affections, and furnished with facts which contemporaries could not command, we take no other concern in this literary quarrel but as far as curiosity and truth delight us in the study of human nature. We are now of no party--we are only historians!

Pope was a young writer when introduced to Addison by the intervention of that generously-minded friend of both, Steele. Addison eulogised Pope's "Essay on Criticism;" and this fine genius covering with his wing an unfledged bardling, conferred a favour which, in the estimation of a poet, claims a life of indelible gratitude.

Pope zealously courted Addison by his poetical aid on several important occasions; he gave all the dignity that fine poetry could confer on the science of medals, which Addison had written on, and wrote the finest prologue in the language for the Whig tragedy of his friend. Dennis attacked, and Pope defended _Cato_[226]. Addison might have disapproved both of the manner and the matter of the defence; but he did more--he insulted Pope by a letter to Dennis, which Dennis eagerly published as Pope's severest condemnation. An alienation of friendship must have already taken place, but by no overt act on Pope's side.

Not that, however, Pope had not found his affections weakened: the dark hints scattered in his letters show that something was gathering in his mind. Warburton, from his familiar intercourse with Pope, must be allowed to have known his literary concerns more than any one; and when he drew up the narrative,[227] seems to me to have stated uncouthly, but expressively, the progressive state of Pope's feelings. According to that narrative, Pope "reflected," that after he had first published "The Rape of the Lock," then nothing more than a hasty _jeu d'esprit_, when he communicated to Addison his very original project of the whole sylphid machinery, Addison chilled the ardent bard with his coldness, advised him against any alteration, and to leave it as "a delicious little thing, _merum sal_." It was then, says Warburton, "Mr. Pope began to _open his eyes_ to Addison's character." But when afterwards he discovered that Tickell's Homer was opposed to his, and judged, as Warburton says, "by _laying many odd circumstances_ together," that Addison,[228] and not Tickell, was the author--the alienation on Pope's side was complete. No open breach indeed had yet taken place between the rival authors, who, as jealous of dominion as two princes, would still demonstrate, in their public edicts, their inviolable regard; while they were only watching the advantageous moment when they might take arms against each other.

Still Addison publicly bestowed great encomiums on Pope's _Iliad_, although he had himself composed the rival version, and in private preferred his own.[229] He did this with the same ease he had continued its encouragement while Pope was employed on it. We are astonished to discover such deep politics among literary Machiavels! Addison had certainly raised up a literary party. Sheridan, who wrote nearly with the knowledge of a contemporary, in his "Life of Swift," would naturally use the language and the feelings of the time; and in describing Ambrose Phillips, he adds, he was "one of Mr. Addison's little senate."

But in this narrative I have dropt some material parts. Pope believed that Addison had employed Gildon to write against him, and had encouraged Phillips to asperse his character.[230] We cannot, now, quite demonstrate these alleged facts; but we can show that Pope believed them, and that Addison does not appear to have refuted them.[231] Such tales, whether entirely false or partially true, may be considered in this inquiry of little amount. The greater events must regulate the lesser ones.[232]

Was Addison, then, jealous of Pope? Addison, in every respect, then, his superior; of established literary fame when Pope was yet young; preceding him in age and rank; and fortunate in all the views of human ambition. But what if Addison's foible was that of being considered a great poet? His political poetry had raised him to an undue elevation, and the growing celebrity of Pope began to offend him, not with the appearance of a meek rival, with whom he might have held divided empire, but as a master-spirit, that was preparing to reign alone. It is certain that Addison was the most feeling man alive at the fate of his poetry. At the representation of his _Cato_, such was his agitation, that had _Cato_ been condemned, the life of Addison might, too, have been shortened. When a wit had burlesqued some lines of this dramatic poem, his uneasiness at the innocent banter was equally oppressive; nor could he rest, till, by the interposition of a friend, he prevailed upon the author to burn them.[233]

To the facts already detailed, and to this disposition in Addison's temper, and to the quick and active suspicions of Pope, irritable, and ambitious of all the sovereignty of poetry, we may easily conceive many others of those obscure motives, and invisible events, which none but Pope, alienated every day more and more from his affections for Addison, too acutely perceived, too profoundly felt, and too unmercifully avenged. These are alluded to when the satirist sings--

Damn with faint praise; assent with civil leer; And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike; Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike, &c.

Accusations crowded faster than the pen could write them down. Pope never composed with more warmth. No one can imagine that Atticus was an ideal personage, touched as it is with all the features of an extraordinary individual. In a word, it was recognised instantly by the individual himself; and it was suppressed by Pope for near twenty years, before he suffered it to escape to the public.

It was some time during their avowed rupture, for the exact period has not been given, that their friends promoted a meeting between these two great men. After a mutual lustration, it was imagined they might have expiated their error, and have been restored to their original purity. The interview did take place between the rival wits, and was productive of some very characteristic ebullitions, strongly corroborative of the facts as they have been stated here. This extraordinary interview has been frequently alluded to. There can be no doubt of the genuineness of the narrative but I know not on what authority it came into the world.[234]

The interview between Addison and Pope took place in the presence of Steele and Gay. They met with cold civility. Addison's reserve wore away, as was usual with him, when wine and conversation imparted some warmth to his native phlegm. At a moment the generous Steele deemed auspicious, he requested Addison would perform his promise in renewing his friendship with Pope. Pope expressed his desire: he said he was willing to hear his faults, and preferred candour and severity rather than forms of complaisance; but he spoke in a manner as conceiving Addison, and not himself, had been the aggressor. So much like their humblest inferiors do great men act under the influence of common passions: Addison was overcome with anger, which cost him an effort to suppress; but, in the formal speech he made, he reproached Pope with indulging a vanity that far exceeded his merit; that he had not yet attained to the excellence he imagined; and observed, that his verses had a different air when Steele and himself corrected them; and, on this occasion, reminded Pope of a particular line which Steele had improved in the "Messiah."[235] Addison seems at that moment to have forgotten that he had trusted, for the last line of his own dramatic poem, rather to the inspiration of the poet he was so contemptuously lecturing than to his own.[236] He proceeded with detailing all the abuse the herd of scribblers had heaped on Pope; and by declaring that his Homer was "an ill-executed thing," and Tickell's had all the spirit. We are told, he concluded "in a low hollow voice of feigned temper," in which he asserted that he had ceased to be solicitous about his own poetical reputation since he had entered into more public affairs; but, from friendship for Pope, desired him to be more humble, if he wished to appear a better man to the world.

When Addison had quite finished schooling his little rebel, Gay, mild and timid (for it seems, with all his love for Pope, his expectations from the court, from Addison's side, had tethered his gentle heart), attempted to say something. But Pope, in a tone far more spirited than all of them, without reserve told Addison that he appealed from his judgment, and did not esteem him able to correct his verses; upbraided him as a pensioner from early youth, directing the learning which had been obtained by the public money to his own selfish desire of power, and that he "had always endeavoured to cut down new-fledged merit." The conversation now became a contest, and was broken up without ceremony. Such was the notable interview between two rival wits, which only ended in strengthening their literary quarrel; and sent back the enraged satirist to his inkstand, where he composed a portrait, for which Addison was made to sit, with the fine _chiar' oscuro_ of Horace, and with as awful and vindictive features as the sombre hand of Juvenal could have designed.

FOOTNOTES:

[225] Sir William Blackstone's Discussion on the Quarrel between Addison and Pope was communicated by Dr. Kippis in his "Biographia Britannica," vol. i. p. 56. Blackstone is there designated as "a gentleman of considerable rank, to whom the public is obliged for works of much higher importance."

[226] Dennis asserts in one of his pamphlets that Pope, fermenting with envy at the success of Addison's _Cato_, went to Lintot, and persuaded him to engage this redoubted critic to write the remarks on _Cato_--that Pope's gratitude to Dennis for having complied with his request was the well-known narrative of Dennis "being placed as a lunatic in the hands of Dr. Norris, a curer of mad people, at his house in Hatton-garden, though at the same time I appeared publicly every day, both in the park and in the town." Can we suppose that Dennis tells a falsehood respecting Pope's desiring Lintot to engage Dennis to write down _Cato_? If true, did Pope wish to see Addison degraded, and at the same time take an opportunity of ridiculing the critic, without, however, answering his arguments? The secret history of literature is like that of politics?

[Dennis took a strong dislike to Addison's _Cato_, and his style of criticism is thus alluded to in the humorous account of his frenzy written by Pope: "On all sides of his room were pinned a great many sheets of a tragedy called _Cato_, with notes on the margin by his own hand. The words _absurd_, _monstrous_, _execrable_, were everywhere written in such large characters, that I could read them without my spectacles." Warton says that "Addison highly disapproved of this bitter satire on Dennis, and Pope was not a little chagrined at this disapprobation; for the narrative was intended to court the favour of Addison, by defending his _Cato_: in which seeming defence Addison was far from thinking our author sincere."]

[227] In the notes to the Prologue to the Satires.

[228] Pope's conjecture was perfectly correct. Dr. Warton confirms it from a variety of indisputable authorities.--Warton's "Pope," vol. iv. p. 34.

[229] In the "Freeholder," May, 1716.

[230] Pope himself thus related the matter to Spence: "Phillips seemed to have been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations; and Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherly, in which he had abused both me and my relations very grossly. Lord Warwick himself told me one day that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be well with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would never admit of a settled friendship between us, and to convince me of what he had said, assured me that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals, and had given him ten guineas after they were published."--ED.

[231] The strongest parts of Sir William Blackstone's discussion turn on certain inaccurate dates of Ruffhead, in his statements, which show them to be inconsistent with the times when they are alleged to have happened. These erroneous dates had been detected in an able article in the Monthly Review on that work, April, 1769. Ruffhead is a tasteless, confused, and unskilful writer--Sir William has laid great stress on the incredible story of Addison paying Gildon to write against Pope, "a man so amiable in his moral character." It is possible that the Earl of Warwick, who conveyed the information, might have been a malicious, lying youth; but then Pope had some knowledge of mankind--he believed the story, for he wrote instantly, with honest though heated feelings, to Addison, and sent him, at that moment, the first sketch of the character of Atticus. Addison used him very civilly ever after--but it does not appear that Addison ever contradicted the tale of the officious Earl. All these facts, which Pope repeated many years after to Spence, Sir William was not acquainted with, for they were transcribed from Spence's papers by Johnson, after Blackstone had written. [This is fully in accordance with his previous conduct, as he described it to Spence; on the first notification of the Earl of Warwick's news, "the next day when I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak severely of him, in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; and that I should rather tell himself freely of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner: I then adjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my Satire on Addison. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever after, and never did me any injustice that I know of from that time to his death, which was about three years after."]

[232] That Addison did occasionally divert Pope's friends from him, appears from the advice which Lady Mary Wortley Montague says he gave to her--"Leave him as soon as you can, he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appetite to satire." Malone thinks this may have been said under the irritation produced by the verses on Addison, which Pope sent to him, as described above. Pope's love of satire, and unflinching use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison's nervous dislike to it.--ED.

[233] From Lord Egmont's MS. Collections.--See the "Addenda Kippis's Biographia Britannica."

[234] The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable interview I have hitherto only traced to "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of A. Pope, Esq., by William Ayre, Esq.," 1745, vol. i. p. 100. This work comes in a very suspicious form; it is a huddled compilation, yet contains some curious matters; and pretends, in the title-page, to be occasionally drawn from "original MSS. and the testimonies of persons of honour." He declares, in the preface, that he and his friends "had means and some helps which were never public." He sometimes appeals to several noble friends of Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publication, and that of its execution, are not in its favour. These volumes were written within six months of the decease of our poet; have no publisher's name; and yet the author, whoever he was, took out "a patent, under his majesty's royal signet," for securing the copyright. This Ayre is so obscure an author, though a translator of Tasso's "Aminta," that he seems to have escaped even the minor chronicles of literature. At the time of its publication there appeared "Remarks on Squire Ayre's Memoirs of Pope." The writer pretends he has discovered him to be only one of the renowned Edmund Curll's "squires," who, about that time, had created an order of literary squires, ready to tramp at the funeral of every great personage with his life. The "Remarker" then addresses Curll, and insinuates he speaks from personal knowledge of the man:--"You have an adversaria of title-pages of your own contrivance, and which your authors are to write books to. Among what you call _the occasional, or black list_, I have seen Memoirs of Dean Swift, Pope, &c." Curll, indeed, was then sending forth many pseudo squires, with lives of "Congreve," "Mrs. Oldfield," &c.; all which contained some curious particulars, picked up in coffee-houses, conversations, or pamphlets of the day. This William Ayre I accept as "a squire of low degree," but a real personage. As for this interview, Ayre was certainly incompetent to the invention of a single stroke of the conversations detailed: where he obtained all these interesting particulars, I have not discovered. Johnson alludes to this interview, states some of its results, but refers to no other authority than floating rumours.

[235] The line stood originally, and nearly literally copied from Isaiah--

"He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes;"

which Steele retouched, as it now stands--

"From every face he wipes off every tear."

Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks, has too much of modern quaintness. The difficulty of choice lies between that naked simplicity which scarcely affects, and those strokes of art which are too apparent.

[236] The last line of Addison's tragedy read originally--

"And oh! 'twas this that ended Cato's life."

A very weak line, which was altered at the suggestion of Pope as it stands at present:--

"And robs the guilty world of Cato's life."--ED.

BOLINGBROKE AND MALLET'S POSTHUMOUS QUARREL WITH POPE.

Lord BOLINGBROKE affects violent resentment for Pope's pretended breach of confidence in having printed his "Patriot King"--WARBURTON'S apology for POPE'S disinterested intentions--BOLINGBROKE instigates MALLET to libel POPE, after the poet's death--The real motive for libelling POPE was BOLINGBROKE'S personal hatred of WARBURTON, for the ascendancy the latter had obtained over the poet--Some account of their rival conflicts--BOLINGBROKE had unsettled POPE'S religious opinions, and WARBURTON had confirmed his faith--POPE, however, refuses to abjure the Catholic religion--Anecdote of POPE'S anxiety respecting a future state--MALLET'S intercourse with POPE: anecdote of "The Apollo Vision," where MALLET mistook a sarcasm for a compliment--MALLET'S character--Why LEONIDAS GLOVER declined writing the Life of Marlborough--BOLINGBROKE'S character hit off--WARBURTON, the concealed object of this posthumous quarrel with POPE.

On the death of POPE, 1500 copies of one of Lord BOLINGBROKE'S works, "The Patriot King," were discovered to have been secretly printed by Pope, but never published. The honest printer presented the whole to his lordship, who burned the edition in his gardens at Battersea. The MS. had been delivered to our poet by his lordship, with a request to print a few copies for its better preservation, and for the use of a few friends.

Bolingbroke affected to feel the most lively resentment for what he chose to stigmatise as "a breach of confidence." "His thirst of vengeance," said Johnson, "incited him to blast the memory of the man over whom he had wept in his last struggles; and he employed Mallet, another friend of Pope, to tell the tale to the public with all its aggravations. Warburton, whose heart was warm with his legacy, and tender by the recent separation," apologised for Pope. The irregular conduct which Bolingbroke stigmatised as a breach of trust, was attributed to a desire of perpetuating the work of his friend, who might have capriciously destroyed it. Our poet could have no selfish motive; he could not gratify his vanity by publishing the work as his own, nor his avarice by its sale, which could never have taken place till the death of its author; a circumstance not likely to occur during Pope's lifetime.[237]

The vindictive rage of Bolingbroke; the bitter invective he permitted MALLET to publish, as the editor of his works; and the two anonymous pamphlets of the latter, which I have noticed in the article of WARBURTON; are effects much too disproportionate to the cause which is usually assigned. JOHNSON does not develope the secret motives of what he has energetically termed "Bolingbroke's thirst of vengeance." He and Mallet carried their secret revenge beyond all bounds: the lordly stoic and the irritated bardling, under the cloak of anonymous calumny, have but ill-concealed the malignity of their passions. Let anonymous calumniators recollect, in the midst of their dark work, that if they escape the detection of their contemporaries, their reputation, if they have any to lose, will not probably elude the researches of the historian;--a fatal witness against them at the tribunal of posterity.

The preface of Mallet to the "Patriot King" of Bolingbroke, produced a literary quarrel; and more pamphlets than perhaps I have discovered were published on this occasion.

Every lover of literature was indignant to observe that the vain and petulant Mallet, under the protection of Pope's

Guide, philosopher, and friend!

should have been permitted to have aspersed Pope with the most degrading language. Pope is here always designated as "This Man." Thus "_This Man_ was no sooner dead than Lord Bolingbroke received information that an entire edition of 1500 copies of these papers had been printed; that this very _Man_ had corrected the press, &c." Could one imagine that this was the Tully of England, describing our Virgil? For Mallet was but the mouthpiece of Bolingbroke.

After a careful detection of many facts concerning the parties now before us, I must attribute the concealed motive of this outrage on Pope to the election the dying poet made of Warburton as his editor. A mortal hatred raged between Bolingbroke and Warburton. The philosophical lord had seen the mighty theologian ravish the prey from his grasp. Although Pope held in idolatrous veneration the genius of Bolingbroke, yet had this literary superstition been gradually enlightened by the energy of Warburton. They were his good and his evil genii in a dreadful conflict, wrestling to obtain the entire possession of the soul of the mortal. Bolingbroke and Warburton one day disputed before Pope, and parted never to meet again. The will of Pope bears the trace of his divided feelings: he left his MSS. to Bolingbroke as his executor, but his works to Warburton as his editor. The secret history of Bolingbroke and Warburton with Pope is little known: the note will supply it.[238]

But how did the puny Mallet stand connected with these great men? By the pamphlets published during this literary quarrel he appears to have enjoyed a more intimate intercourse with them than is known. In one of them he is characterised "as a fellow who, while Mr. Pope lived, was as diligent in licking his feet, as he is now in licking your lordship's; and who, for the sake of giving himself an air of importance, in being joined with you, and for the vanity of saying 'the Author and I,'--'the Editor and me,'--has sacrificed all his pretensions to friendship, honour, and humanity."[239] An anecdote in this pamphlet assigns a sufficient motive to excite some wrath in a much less irritable animal than the self-important editor of Bolingbroke's Works. The anecdote may be distinguished as

THE APOLLO VISION.

"The editor (Mallet) being in company with the person to whom Mr. Pope has consigned the care of his works (Warburton), and who, he thought, had some intention of writing Mr. Pope's life, told him he had an anecdote, which he believed nobody knew but himself. I was sitting one day (said he) with Mr. Pope, in his last illness, who coming suddenly out of a reverie, which you know he frequently fell into at that time, and fixing his eyes steadfastly upon me; 'Mr. M. (said he), I have had an odd kind of vision. Methought I saw my own head open, and Apollo came out of it; I then saw your head open, and Apollo went into it; after which our heads closed up again.' The gentleman (Warburton) could not help smiling at his vanity; and with some humour replied, 'Why, sir, if I had an intention of writing _your_ life, this might perhaps be a proper anecdote; but I don't see, that in Mr. Pope's it will be of any consequence at all.'" P. 14.

This exhibits a curious instance of an author's egotism, or rather of Mallet's conceit, contriving, by some means, to have his name slide into the projected Life of Pope by Warburton, who appears, however, always to have treated him with the contempt Pope himself evidently did.[240] What opinion could the poet have entertained of the taste of that weak and vain critic, who, when Pope published anonymously "The Essay on Man," being asked if anything new had appeared, replied that he had looked over a thing called an "Essay on Man," but, discovering the utter want of skill and knowledge in the author, had thrown it aside. Pope mortified him by confiding to him the secret.

"The Apollo Vision" was a stinging anecdote, and it came from Warburton either directly or indirectly. This was followed up by "A Letter to the Editor of the Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, the Idea of a Patriot King," &c., a dignified remonstrance of Warburton himself; but "The Impostor Detected and Convicted, or the Principles and Practices of the Author of the Spirit of Patriotism (Lord Bolingbroke) set forth in a clear light, in a Letter to a Member of Parliament in Town, from his Friend in the Country, 1749," is a remarkable production. Lord Bolingbroke is the impostor and the concealed Jacobite. Time, the ablest critic on these party productions, has verified the predictions of this seer. We discover here, too, a literary fact, which is necessary to complete our present history. It seems that there were omissions and corrections in the edition Pope printed of "The Patriot King," which his caution or his moderation prompted, and which such a political demagogue as Bolingbroke never forgave. They are thus alluded to: "Lord B. may remember" (from a conversation held, at which the writer appears to have been present), "that a difference in opinion prevailed, and a few points were urged by that gentleman (Pope) in opposition to some particular tenets which related to the limitation of the English monarchy, and to the ideal doctrine of a patriot king. These were Mr. P.'s reasons for the emendations he made; and which, together with the consideration that both their lives were at that time in a declining state, was the true cause, and no other, of his care to preserve those letters, by handing them to the press, with the precaution mentioned by the author." Indeed the cry raised against the _dead man_ by Bolingbroke and Mallet, was an artificial one: that it should ever have tainted the honour of the bard, or that it should ever have been excited by his "Philosopher and Friend," are equally strange; it is possible that the malice of Mallet was more at work than that of Bolingbroke, who suffered himself to be the dupe of a man held in contempt by Pope, by Warburton, and by others. But the pamphlet I have just noticed might have enraged Bolingbroke, because his true character is ably drawn in it. The writer says that "a person in an eminent station of life abroad, when Lord B---- was at Paris to transact a certain affair, said, _C'est certainement un homme d'esprit, mais un coquin sans probite_." This was a very disagreeable truth!

In one of these pamphlets, too, Bolingbroke was mortified at his dignity being lessened by the writer, in comparing his lordship with their late friend Pope.--"I venture to foretell, that the name of Mr. Pope, in spite of your unmanly endeavours, shall revive and blossom in the dust, from his own merits; and presume to remind you, that _yours_, had it not been for _his_ genius, _his_ friendship, _his_ idolatrous veneration for _you_, might, in a short course of years, have died and been forgotten." Whatever the degree of genius Bolingbroke may claim, doubtless the verse of Pope has embalmed his fame. I have never been able to discover the authors of these pamphlets, who all appear of the first rank, and who seem to have written under the eye of Warburton. The awful and vindictive Bolingbroke, and the malignant and petulant Mallet, did not long brood over their anger: he or they gave it vent on the head of Warburton, in those two furious pamphlets, which I have noticed in the "Quarrels of Warburton." All these pamphlets were published in the same year, 1749, so that it is now difficult to arrange them according to their priority. Enough has been shown to prove, that the loud outcry of Bolingbroke and Mallet, in their posthumous attack on Pope, arose from their unforgiving malice against him, for the preference by which the poet had distinguished Warburton; and that Warburton, much more than Pope, was the real object of this masked battery.

FOOTNOTES:

[237] At the time, to season the tale for the babble of Literary Tattlers, it was propagated that POPE intended, on the death of BOLINGBROKE, to sell this eighteenpenny pamphlet at a guinea a copy; which would have produced an addition of as many hundreds to the thousands which the poet had honourably reaped from his Homer. This was the ridiculous lie of the day, which lasted long enough to obtain its purpose, and to cast an odium on the shade of Pope. Pope must have been a miserable calculator of _survivorships_, if ever he had reckoned on this.

[238] Splendid as was the genius of Bolingbroke, the gigantic force of Warburton obtained the superiority. Had the contest solely depended on the effusions of genius, Bolingbroke might have prevailed; but an object more important than human interests induced the poet to throw himself into the arms of Warburton.

The "Essay on Man" had been reformed by the subtle aid of Warburton, in opposition to the objectionable principles which Bolingbroke had infused into his system of philosophy: this, no doubt, had vexed Bolingbroke. But another circumstance occurred of a more mortifying nature. When Pope one day showed Warburton Bolingbroke's "Letters on the Study and Use of History," printed, but not published, and concealing the name of the author, Warburton not only made several very free strictures on that work, but particularly attacked a digression concerning the authenticity of the Old Testament. Pope requested him to write his remarks down as they had occurred, which he instantly did; and Pope was so satisfied with them, that he crossed out the digression in the printed book, and sent the animadversions to Lord Bolingbroke, then at Paris. The style of the great dogmatist, thrown out in heat, must no doubt have contained many fiery particles, all which fell into the most inflammable of minds. Pope soon discovered his officiousness was received with indignation. Yet when Bolingbroke afterwards met Warburton he dissimulated: he used the language of compliment, but in a tone which claimed homage. The two most arrogant geniuses who ever lived, in vain exacted submission from each other: they could allow of no divided empire, and they were born to hate each other. Bolingbroke suppressed his sore feelings, for at that very time he was employed in collecting matter to refute the objections; treasuring up his secret vengeance against Pope and Warburton, which he threw out immediately on the death of Pope. I collect these particulars from Ruffhead, p. 527, and whenever, in that volume, Warburton's name is introduced, it must be considered as coming from himself.

The reasonings of Bolingbroke appear at times to have disturbed the religious faith of our poet, and he owed much to Warburton in having that faith confirmed. But Pope rejected, with his characteristic good sense, Warburton's tampering with him to abjure the Catholic religion. On the belief of a future state, Pope seems often to have meditated with great anxiety; and an anecdote is recorded of his latest hours, which shows how strongly that important belief affected him. A day or two before his death he was at times delirious, and about four o'clock in the morning he rose from bed and went to the library, where a friend who was watching him found him busily writing. He persuaded him to desist, and withdrew the paper he had written. The subject of the thoughts of the delirious poet was a new theory on the "Immortality of the Soul," in which he distinguished between those material objects which tended to strengthen his conviction, and those which weakened it. The paper which contained these disordered thoughts was shown to Warburton, and surely has been preserved.

[239] "A letter to the Lord Viscount B----ke, occasioned by his treatment of a deceased friend." Printed for A. Moore, without date. This pamphlet either came from Warburton himself, or from one of his intimates. The writer, too, calls Pope his friend.

[240] We find also the name of Mallet closely connected with another person of eminence, the Patriot-Poet, Leonidas Glover. I take this opportunity of correcting a surmise of Johnson's in his Life of Mallet, respecting Glover, and which also places Mallet's character in a true light.

A minute life of Mallet might exhibit a curious example of mediocrity of talent, with but suspicious virtues, brought forward by the accident of great connexions, placing a bustling intriguer much higher in the scale of society than "our philosophy ever dreamt of." Johnson says of Mallet, that "It was remarkable of him, that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend." From having been accidentally chosen as private tutor to the Duke of Montrose, he wound himself into the favour of the party at Leicester House; he wrote tragedies conjointly with Thomson, and was appointed, with Glover, to write the Life of the Duke of Marlborough. Yet he had already shown to the world his scanty talent for biography in his "Life of Lord Bacon," on which Warburton so acutely animadverted.

According to Johnson's account, the Duchess of Marlborough assigned the task of writing the Life of the Duke to Glover and to Mallet, with a remuneration of a thousand pounds. She must, however, have mortified the poets by subjoining the sarcastic prohibition that "no verses should be inserted." Johnson adds, "Glover, _I suppose, rejected with disdain the legacy_, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet."

The cause why Glover declined this work could not, indeed, be known to Johnson: it arose from a far more dignified motive than the petty disdain of the legacy, which our great literary biographer has surmised. It can now be told in his own words, which I derive from a very interesting extract communicated to me by my friend Mr. Duppa, from that portion of the MS. Memoirs of Glover not yet published.

I shall first quote the remarkable codicil from the original will of her Grace, which Mr. Duppa took the pains to consult. She assigns her reasons for the choice of her historians, and discriminates between the two authors. After bequeathing the thousand pounds for them, she adds: "I believe Mr. Glover is a very honest man, who wishes, as I do, all the good that can happen, to preserve the liberties and laws of England. Mr. Mallet was recommended to me by the late Duke of Montrose, whom I admired extremely for his great steadiness and behaviour in all things that related to the preservation of our laws and the public good."--Thus her Grace has expressed a personal knowledge and confidence in Glover, distinctly marked from her "recommended" acquaintance Mallet.

Glover refused the office of historian, not from "disdain of the legacy," nor for any deficient zeal for the hero whom he admired. He refused it with sorrowful disappointment; for, besides the fantastical restrictions of "not writing any verses;" and the cruel one of yoking such a patriot with the servile Mallet, there was one which placed the revision of the work in the hands of the Earl of Chesterfield: this was the _circumstance_ at which the dignified genius of Glover revolted. Chesterfield's mean political character had excited his indignation; and he has drawn a lively picture of this polished nobleman's "eager prostitution," in his printed Memoirs, recently published under the title of "Memoirs of a celebrated Literary and Political Character," p. 24.

In the following passage, this great-minded man, for such he was, "unburthens his heart in a melancholy digression from his plain narrative."

"Composing such a narrative (alluding to his own Memoirs) and endeavouring to establish such a temper of mind, I cannot at intervals refrain from regret that the _capricious restrictions_ in the Duchess of Marlborough's will, appointing me to write the life of her illustrious husband, compelled me to reject the undertaking. There, conduct, valour, and success abroad; prudence, perseverance, learning, and science, at home; would have shed some portion of their graces on their historian's page: a mediocrity of talent would have felt an unwonted elevation in the bare attempt of transmitting so splendid a period to succeeding ages." Such was the dignified regret of Glover!

Doubtless, he disdained, too, his colleague; but Mallet reaped the whole legacy, and still more, a pension: pretending to be always occupied on the Life of Marlborough, and every day talking of the great discoveries he had made, he contrived to make this nonentity serve his own purposes. Once hinting to Garrick, that, in spite of chronology, by some secret device of anticipation, he had reserved a niche in this great work for the Roscius of his own times, the gratitude of Garrick was instant. He recollected that Mallet was a tragedy-writer; and it also appeared that our dramatic bardling had one ready. As for the pretended Life of Marlborough, not a line appears ever to have been written!

Such was the end of the ardent solicitude and caprice of the Duchess of Marlborough, exemplified in the last solemn act of life, where she betrayed the same warmth of passion, and the same arrogant caprice she had always indulged, at the cost of her judgment, in what Pope emphatically terms "the trade of the world." She was

"The wisest fool much time has ever made."

Even in this darling project of her last ambition, to immortalise her name, she had incumbered it with such arrogant injunctions, mixed up such contrary elements, that they were certain to undo their own purpose. Such was the barren harvest she gathered through a life of passion, regulated by no principle of conduct. One of the most finished portraits of Pope is the Atossa, in his "Epistle on Woman." How admirably he shows what the present instant proves, that she was one who, always possessing the _means_, was sure to lose the _ends_.

LINTOT'S ACCOUNT-BOOK.

An odd sort of a literary curiosity has fallen in my way. It throws some light on the history of the heroes of the _Dunciad_; but such _minutiae literariae_ are only for my bibliographical readers.

It is a book of accounts, which belonged to the renowned BERNARD LINTOT, the bookseller, whose character has been so humorously preserved by Pope, in a dialogue which the poet has given as having passed between them in Windsor Forest. The book is entitled "_Copies, when Purchased_." The power of genius is exemplified in the ledger of the bookseller as much as in any other book; and while I here discover, that the moneys received even by such men of genius as Gay, Farquhar, Cibber, and Dr. King, amount to small sums, and such authors as Dennis, Theobald, Ozell, and Toland, scarcely amount to anything, that of Pope much exceeds 4000_l._

I am not in all cases confident of the nature of these "Copies purchased;" those works which were originally published by Lintot may be considered as purchased at the sums specified: some few might have been subsequent to their first edition. The guinea, at that time, passing for twenty-one shillings and sixpence, has occasioned the fractions.

I transcribe Pope's account. Here it appears that he sold "The Key to the Lock" and "Parnell's Poems." The poem entitled, "To the Author of a Poem called _Successio_," appears to have been written by Pope, and has escaped the researches of his editors. The smaller poems were contributed to a volume of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Lintot.[241]

MR. POPE.

L s. d. _19 Feb. 1711-12._ Statius, First Book } 16 2 6 Vertumnus and Pomona }

_21 March, 1711-12._ First Edition Rape 7 0 0

_9 April, 1712._ To a Lady presenting Voiture } Upon Silence } 3 16 6 To the Author of a Poem called _Successio_ }

_23 Feb. 1712-13._ Windsor Forest 32 5 0

_23 July, 1713._ Ode on St. Cecilia's day 15 0 0

_20th Feb. 1713-14._ Additions to the Rape 15 0 0

_1 Feb. 1714-15._ Temple of Fame 32 5 0

_30 April, 1715._ Key to the Lock 10 15 0

_17 July, 1716._ Essay on Criticism[242] 15 0 0

_13 Dec. 1721._ Parnell's Poems 15 0 0

_23 March, 1713._ Homer, vol. i. 215 0 0 650 books on royal paper 176 0 0

_9 Feb. 1715-16._ Homer, vol. ii. 215 0 0

_7 May, 1716._ 650 royal paper 150 0 0 This article is repeated to the sixth volume of of Homer. To which is to be added another sum of 840_l._, paid for an assignment of all the copies. The whole of this part of the account amounting to 3203 4 0

Copy-moneys for the Odyssey, vols. i. ii. iii., and 750 of each vol. royal paper, 4to. 615 6 0

Ditto for the vols. iv. v. and 750 do. 425 18 7-1/2 ---------------- L4244 8 7-1/2 ================

MR. GAY.

L s. d. _12 May, 1713._ Wife of Bath 25 0 0

_11 Nov. 1714._ Letter to a Lady 5 7 6

_14 Feb. 1714._ The What d'ye call it? 16 2 6

_22 Dec. 1715._ Trivia 43 0 0 Epistle to the Earl of Burlington 10 15 0

_4 May, 1717._ Battle of the Frogs 16 2 6

_8 Jan. 1717._ Three Hours after Marriage 43 2 6 The Mohocks, a Farce, 2_l._ 10_s._ (Sold the Mohocks to him again.[243]) Revival of the Wife of Bath 75 0 0 ------------ L234 10 0

MR. DENNIS.

L s. d. _Feb. 24, 1703-4._ Liberty Asserted, one half share[245] 7 3 0

_10 Nov. 1708._ Appius and Virginia 21 10 0

_25 April, 1711._ Essay on Public Spirit 2 12 6

_6 Jan. 1711._ Remarks on Pope's Essay 2 12 6

Dennis must have sold himself to criticism from ill-nature, and not for pay. One is surprised that his two tragedies should have been worth a great deal more than his criticism. Criticism was then worth no more than too frequently it deserves; Dr. Sewel, for his "Observations on the Tragedy of _Jane Shore_," received only a guinea.

I had suggested a doubt whether Theobald attempted to translate from the original Greek: one would suppose he did by the following entry, which has a line drawn through it, as if the agreement had not been executed. Perhaps Lintot submitted to pay Theobald for _not doing_ the Odyssey when Pope undertook it.

MR. THEOBALD.

L s. d. _23 May, 1713._ Plato's Phaedon 5 7 6 For _AEsculus's_ Trag. 1 1 6 being part of Ten Guineas.

_12 June, 1714._ La Motte's Homer 3 4 6

_April_ 21, 1714. Articles signed by Mr. Theobald, to translate for B. Lintot the 24 books of Homer's Odyssey into English blank verse. Also the four Tragedies of Sophocles, called OEdipus Tyrannus, OEdipus Coloneus, Trachiniae, and Philoctetes, into English blank verse, with Explanatory Notes to the twenty-four Books of the Odyssey, and to the four Tragedies. To receive, for translating every 450 Greek verses, with Explanatory Notes thereon, the sum of 2_l._ 10_s._

To translate likewise the Satires and Epistles of Horace into English rhyme. For every 120 Latin lines so translated, the sum of 1_l._ 1_s._ 6_d._

These Articles to be performed, according to the time specified, under the penalty of fifty pounds, payable by either party's default in performance.

Paid in hand, 2_l._ 10_s._

It appears that Toland never got above 5_l._, 10_l._, or 20_l._, for his publications. See his article in "Calamities of Authors," p. 155. I discovered the humiliating conditions that attended his publications, from an examination of his original papers. All this author seems to have reaped from a life devoted to literary enterprise, and philosophy, and patriotism, appears not to have exceeded 200_l._

Here, too, we find that the facetious Dr. King threw away all his sterling wit for five miserable pounds, though "The Art of Cookery," and that of "Love," obtained a more honourable price. But a mere school-book probably inspired our lively genius with more real facetiousness than any of those works which communicate so much to others.

DR. KING.

L s. d. _18 Feb. 1707-8._ Paid for Art of Cookery 32 5 0

_16 Feb. 1708-9._ Paid for the First Part of Transactions 5 0 0 Paid for his Art of Love 32 5 0

_23 June, 1709._ Paid for the Second Part of the Transactions[246] 5 0 0

_4 March, 1709-10._ Paid for the History of Cajamai 5 0 0

_10 Nov. 1710._ Paid for King's Gods 50 0 0

_1 July, 1712._ Useful Miscellany, Part I 1 1 6 Paid for the Useful Miscellany 3 0 0

Lintot utters a groan over "The Duke of Buckingham's Works" (Sheffield), for "having been _jockeyed_ of them by Alderman Barber and Tonson." Who can ensure literary celebrity? No bookseller would _now_ regret being _jockeyed_ out of his Grace's works!

The history of plays appears here somewhat curious:--tragedies, then the fashionable dramas, obtained a considerable price; for though Dennis's luckier one reached only to 21_l._, Dr. Young's _Busiris_ acquired 84_l._ Smith's _Phaedra and Hippolytus_, 50_l._; Rowe's _Jane Shore_, 50_l._ 15_s._; and _Jane Gray_, 75_l._ 5_s._ Cibber's _Nonjuror_ obtained 105_l._ for the copyright.

Is it not a little mortifying to observe, that among all these customers of genius whose names enrich the ledger of the bookseller, Jacob, that "blunderbuss of law," while his law-books occupy in space as much as Mr. Pope's works, the amount of his account stands next in value, far beyond many a name which has immortalised itself!

FOOTNOTES:

[241] "Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, by several Hands," 1712.--The second edition appeared in 1714; and in the title-page are enumerated the poems mentioned in this account, and Pope's name affixed, as if he were the actual editor--an idea which Mr. Nichols thought he affected to discountenance. It is probable that Pope was the editor. We see, by this account, that he was paid for his contributions.

[242] This was a new edition, published conjointly by Lintot and Lewis, the Catholic bookseller and early friend of Pope, of whom, and of the first edition, 1711, I have preserved an anecdote, p. 280.

[243] The late Isaac Reed, in the Biog. Dramatica, was uncertain whether Gay was the author of this unacted drama. It is a satire on the inhuman frolics of the bucks and bloods of those days, who imitated the savageness of the Indians whose name they assumed.[244] Why Gay repurchased "The Mohocks," remains to be discovered. Was it another joint production with Pope?--The literary co-partnership between Pope and Gay has never been opened to the curious. It is probable that Pope was consulted, if not concerned, in writing "The What d'ye call it?" which, Jacob says in his "Poetical Register," "exposes several of our eminent poets." Jacob published while Gay was living, and seems to allude to this literary co-partnership; for, speaking of Gay, he says: "that having an inclination to poetry, by the strength of his own genius, and the _conversation_ of Mr. Pope, he has made some progress in poetical writings."

This tragi-comical farce of "The Mohocks" is satirically dedicated to Dennis, "as a _horrid_ and _tremendous_ piece, formed on the model of his own 'Appius and Virginia.'" This touch seems to come from the finger of Pope. It is a mock-tragedy, for the Mohocks themselves rant in blank verse; a feeble performance, far inferior to its happier predecessor, "The What d'ye call it?"

[244] The brutal amusements of these "Mohocks," and the helpless terror of London, is scarcely credible in modern days. Wild bands of drunken men nightly infested the streets, attacking and ill-using every passer-by. A favourite pastime was to surround their victim with drawn swords, pricking him on every side as he endeavoured to escape. Many persons were maimed and dangerously wounded. Gay, in his _Trivia_, has noted some of their more innocent practical jokes; and asks--

"Who has not trembled at the Mohock's name? Was there a watchman took his hourly rounds, Safe from their blows or new invented wounds?"

Swift, in his notes to Stella, has expressed his dread, while in London, of being maimed, or perhaps killed, by them.--ED.

[245] Bought of Mr. George Strahan, bookseller.

[246] For an account of these humorous pieces, see the following article on "The Royal Society."

POPE'S EARLIEST SATIRE.

We find by the first edition of Lintot's "Miscellaneous Poems," that the anonymous lines "To the Author of a Poem called _Successio_," was a literary satire by Pope, written when he had scarcely attained his fourteenth year. This satire, the first probably he wrote for the press, and in which he has succeeded so well, that it might have induced him to pursue the bent of his genius, merits preservation. The juvenile composition bears the marks of his future excellences: it has the tune of his verse, and the images of his wit. Thirty years afterwards, when occupied by the _Dunciad_, he transplanted and pruned again some of the original images.

The hero of this satire is Elkanah Settle. The subject is one of those Whig poems, designed to celebrate the happiness of an uninterrupted "Succession" in the Crown, at the time the Act of Settlement passed, which transferred it to the Hanoverian line. The rhymer and his theme were equally contemptible to the juvenile Jacobite poet.

The hoarse and voluminous Codrus of Juvenal aptly designates this eternal verse-maker;--one who has written with such constant copiousness, that no bibliographer has presumed to form a complete list of his works.[247]

When Settle had outlived his temporary rivalship with Dryden, and was reduced to mere Settle, he published party-poems, in folio, composed in Latin, accompanied by his own translations. These folio poems, uniformly bound, except that the arms of his patrons, or rather his purchasers, richly gilt, emblazon the black morocco, may still be found. These presentation-copies were sent round to the chiefs of the party, with a mendicant's petition, of which some still exist. To have a clear conception of the _present views_ of some politicians, it is necessary to read their history backwards. In 1702, when Settle published "Successio," he must have been a Whig. In 1685 he was a Tory, commemorating, by a heroic poem, the coronation of James II., and writing periodically against the Whigs. In 1680 he had left the Tories for the Whigs, and conducted the whole management of burning the Pope, then a very solemn national ceremony.[248] A Whig, a pope-burner, and a Codrus, afforded a full draught of inspiration to the nascent genius of our youthful satirist.

Settle, in his latter state of wretchedness, had one standard _elegy_ and _epithalamium_ printed off with _blanks_. By the ingenious contrivance of inserting the name of any considerable person who died or was married, no one who had gone out of the world or was entering into it but was equally welcome to this dinnerless livery-man of the draggled-tailed Muses. I have elsewhere noticed his last exit from this state of poetry and of pauperism, when, leaping into a green dragon which his own creative genius had invented, in a theatrical booth, Codrus, in hissing flames and terrifying-morocco folds, discovered "the fate of talents misapplied!"

TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED "SUCCESSIO."

Begone, ye critics, and restrain your spite; Codrus writes on, and will for ever write. The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone, As clocks run fastest when most lead is on.[249] What though no bees around your cradle flew, Nor on your lips distill'd their golden dew; Yet have we oft discover'd in their stead, A swarm of drones that buzz'd about your head. When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre, Attentive blocks stand round you, and admire. Wit past through thee no longer is the same, As meat digested takes a different name;[250] But sense must sure thy safest plunder be, Since no reprisals can be made on thee. Thus thou mayst rise, and in thy daring flight (Though ne'er so weighty) reach a wondrous height: So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly, And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky.[251] Sure Bavius copied Maevius to the full, And CHAERILUS[252] taught CODRUS to be dull; Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o'er This needless labour, and contend no more To prove a _dull Succession_ to be true, Since 'tis enough we find it so in you.

FOOTNOTES:

[247] The fullest account we have of Settle, a busy scribe in his day, is in Mr. Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," vol. i. p. 41.

[248] It was the custom when party feeling ran high on the subject of papacy, towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, to get up these solemn mock-processions of the Pope and Cardinals, accompanied with figures to represent Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, and other subjects well adapted to heat popular feelings, and parade them through the streets of London. The day chosen for this was the anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth (Nov. 17), and when the procession reached Temple-bar, the figure of the Pope was tossed from his chair by one dressed as the Devil into a great bonfire made opposite the statue of Queen Elizabeth, on the city side of Temple-bar. Two rare tracts describe these "solemn mock-processions," as they are termed, in 1679 and 1680. Prints were also published depicting the whole proceedings, and descriptive pamphlets from the pen of Settle, who arranged these shows.--ED.

[249] Thus altered in the _Dunciad_, book i., ver. 183--

"As clocks to weight their nimble motions owe, The wheels above urged by the load below."

[250] This original image a late caustic wit (Horne Tooke), who probably had never read this poem, employed on a certain occasion. Godwin, who had then distinguished himself by his genius and by some hardy paradoxes, was pleading for them as hardily, by showing that they did not originate in him--that they were to be found in Helvetius, in Rousseau, and in other modern philosophers. "Ay," retorted the cynical wit; "so you eat at my table venison and turtle, but from you the same things come quite changed!" The original, after all, is in Donne, long afterwards versified by our poet. See Warton's edition, vol. iv. p. 257. Pope must have been an early reader of Donne.

[251] Thus altered in the _Dunciad_, book i. ver. 181--

"As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly, And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky."

[252] Perhaps, by _Chaerilus_, the juvenile satirist designated _Flecknoe_, or _Shadwell_, who had received their immortality of dulness from his master, catholic in poetry and opinions, Dryden.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY at first opposed from various quarters--their Experimental Philosophy supplants the Aristotelian methods--suspected of being the concealed Advocates of Popery, Arbitrary Power, and Atheism--disappointments incurred by their promises--the simplicity of the early Inquirers--ridiculed by the Wits and others--Narrative of a quarrel between a Member of the Royal Society and an Aristotelian--Glanvill writes his "Plus Ultra," to show the Improvements of Modern Knowledge--Character of Stubbe of Warwick--his Apology, from himself--opposes the "Plus Ultra" by the "Plus Ultra reduced to a Nonplus"--his "Campanella revived"--the Political Projects of Campanella--Stubbe persecuted, and menaced to be publicly whipped; his Roman spirit--his "Legends no Histories"--his "Censure on some Passages of the History of the Royal Society"--Harvey's ambition to be considered the Discoverer of the Circulation of the Blood, which he demonstrates--Stubbe describes the Philosophy of Science--attacks Sprat's Dedication to the King--The Philosophical Transactions published by Sir Hans Sloane ridiculed by Dr. King--his new Species of Literary Burlesque--King's character--these attacks not ineffectually renewed by Sir John Hill.

The Royal Society, on its first establishment, at the era of the Restoration, encountered fierce hostilities; nor, even at later periods, has it escaped many wanton attacks. A great revolution in the human mind was opening with that establishment; for the spirit which had appeared in the recent political concussion, and which had given freedom to opinion, and a bolder scope to enterprise, had now reached the literary and philosophical world; but causes of the most opposite natures operated against this institution of infant science.

In the first place, the new experimental philosophy, full of inventions and operations, proposed to supplant the old scholastic philosophy, which still retained an obscure jargon of terms, the most frivolous subtilties, and all those empty and artificial methods by which it pretended to decide on all topics. Too long it had filled the ear with airy speculation, while it starved the mind that languished for sense and knowledge. But this emancipation menaced the power of the followers of Aristotle, who were still slumbering in their undisputed authority, enthroned in our Universities. For centuries the world had been taught that the philosopher of Stagira had thought on every subject: Aristotle was quoted as equal authority with St. Paul, and his very image has been profanely looked on with the reverence paid to Christ. BACON had fixed a new light in Europe, and others were kindling their torches at his flame. When the great usurper of the human understanding was once fairly opposed to Nature, he betrayed too many symptoms of mere humanity. Yet this great triumph was not obtained without severe contention; and upon the Continent even blood has been shed in the cause of words. In our country, the University of Cambridge was divided by a party who called themselves _Trojans_, from their antipathy to the _Greeks_, or the Aristotelians; and once the learned Richard Harvey, the brother of Gabriel, the friend of Spenser, stung to madness by the predominant powers, to their utter dismay set up their idol on the school-gates, with his heels upwards, and ass's ears on his head. But at this later period, when the Royal Society was established, the war was more open, and both parties more inveterate. Now the world seemed to think, so violent is the reaction of public opinion, that they could reason better without Aristotle than with him: that he had often taught them nothing more than self-evident propositions, or had promoted that dangerous idleness of maintaining paradoxes, by quibbles and other captious subtilties. The days had closed of the "illuminated," the "profound," and the "irrefragable," titles, which the scholastic heroes had obtained; and the Aristotelian four modes, by which all things in nature must exist, of _materialiter_, _formaliter_, _fundamentaliter_, and _eminenter_, were now considered as nothing more than the noisy rattles, or chains of cherry-stones, which had too long detained us in the nursery of the human mind.[253] The world had been cheated with words instead of things; and the new experimental philosophy insisted that men should be less loquacious, but more laborious.

Some there were, in that unsettled state of politics and religion, in whose breasts the embers of the late Revolution were still hot: they were panic-struck that the advocates of popery and arbitrary power were returning on them, disguised as natural philosophers. This new terror had a very ludicrous origin:--it arose from some casual expressions, in which the Royal Society at first delighted, and by which an air of mystery was thrown over its secret movements: such was that "Universal Correspondence" which it affected to boast of; and the vaunt to foreigners of its "Ten Secretaries," when, in truth, all these magnificent declarations were only objects of their wishes. Another fond but singular expression, which the illustrious BOYLE had frequently applied to it in its earliest state, when only composed of a few friends, calling it "The Invisible College," all concurred to make the Royal Society wear the appearance of a conspiracy against the political freedom of the nation. At a time, too, when, according to the historian of the Royal Society, "almost every family was widely disagreed among themselves on matters of religion," they believed that this "new experimental philosophy was subversive of the Christian faith!"[254] and many mortally hated the newly-invented optical glasses, the telescope and the microscope, as atheistical inventions, which perverted our sight, and made everything appear in a new and false light! Sprat wrote his celebrated "History of the Royal Society," to show that experimental philosophy was neither designed for the extinction of the Universities, nor of the Christian religion, which were really imagined to be in danger.

Others, again, were impatient for romantic discoveries; miracles were required, some were hinted at, while some were promised. In the ecstasy of imagination, they lost their soberness, forgetting that they were but the historians of nature, and not her prophets.[255] But amid these dreams of hope and fancy, the creeping experimentalist was still left boasting of improvements, so slow that they were not perceived, and of novelties so absurd that they too often raised the laugh against their grave and unlucky discoverers. The philosophers themselves seemed to have been fretted into the impatient humour which they attempted to correct; and the amiable Evelyn becomes an irritated satirist, when he attempts to reply to the repeated question of that day, "What have they done?"[256]

But a source of the ridicule which was perpetually flowing against the Royal Society, was the almost infantine simplicity of its earliest members, led on by their honest zeal; and the absence of all discernment in many trifling and ludicrous researches, which called down the malice of the wits;[257] there was, too, much of that unjust contempt between the parties, which students of opposite pursuits and tastes so liberally bestow on each other. The researches of the Antiquarian Society were sneered at by the Royal, and the antiquaries avenged themselves by their obstinate incredulity at the prodigies of the naturalists; the student of classical literature was equally slighted by the new philosophers; who, leaving the study of words and the elegancies of rhetoric for the study merely of things, declared as the cynical ancient did of metaphors, "Poterimus vivere sine illis"--We can do very well without them! The ever-witty South, in his oration at Oxford, made this poignant reflection on the Royal Society--"Mirantur nihil nisi pulices, pediculos, et seipsos." They can admire nothing except fleas, lice, and themselves! And even Hobbes so little comprehended the utility of these new pursuits, that he considered the Royal Society merely as so many labourers, who, when they had washed their hands after their work, should leave to others the polishing of their discourses. He classed them, in the way they were proceeding, with apothecaries, and gardeners, and mechanics, who might now "all put in for, and get the prize." Even at a later period, Sir William Temple imagined the virtuosi to be only so many Sir Nicholas Gimcracks; and contemptuously called them, from the place of their first meeting, "the Men of Gresham!" doubtless considering them as wise as "the Men of Gotham!" Even now, men of other tempers and other studies are too apt to refuse the palm of philosophy to the patient race of naturalists.[258] Wotton, who wrote so zealously at the commencement of the last century in favour of modern knowledge, is alarmed lest the effusions of wit, in his time, should "deaden the industry of the philosophers of the next age; for," he adds, "nothing wounds so effectually as a jest; and when men once become ridiculous, their labours will be slighted, and they will find few imitators." The alarm shows his zeal, but not his discernment: since curiosity in hidden causes is a passion which endures with human nature. "The philosophers of the next age" have shown themselves as persevering as their predecessors, and the wits as malicious. The contest between men of meditation and men of experiment, is a very ancient quarrel; and the "divine" Socrates was no friend to, and even a ridiculer of, those very pursuits for which the Royal Society was established.[259]

In founding this infant empire of knowledge, a memorable literary war broke out between Glanvill, the author of the treatise on "Witches," &c., and Stubbe, a physician, a man of great genius. It is the privilege of genius that its controversies enter into the history of the human mind; what is but temporary among the vulgar of mankind, with the curious and the intelligent become monuments of lasting interest. The present contest, though the spark of contention flew out of a private quarrel, at length blazed into a public controversy.

The obscure individual who commenced the fray, is forgotten in the boasted achievements of his more potent ally; he was a clergyman named Cross, the Vicar of Great Chew, in Somersetshire, a stanch Aristotelian.

Glanvill, a member of the Royal Society, and an enthusiast for the new philosophy, had kindled the anger of the peripatetic, who was his neighbour, and who had the reputation of being the invincible disputant of his county.[260] Some, who had in vain contended with Glanvill, now contrived to inveigle the modern philosopher into an interview with this redoubted champion.

When Glanvill entered the house, he perceived that he was to begin an acquaintance in a quarrel, which was not the happiest way to preserve it. The Vicar of Great Chew sat amid his congregated admirers. The peripatetic had promised them the annihilation of the new-fashioned virtuoso, and, like an angry boar, had already been preluding by whetting his tusks. Scarcely had the first cold civilities passed, when Glanvill found himself involved in single combat with an assailant armed with the ten categories of Aristotle. Cross, with his _Quodam modo_, and his _Modo quodam_, with his _Ubi_ and his _Quando_, scattered the ideas of the simple experimentalist, who, confining himself to a simple recital of _facts_ and a description of _things_, was referring, not to the logic of Aristotle, but to the works of nature. The imperative Aristotelian was wielding weapons, which, says Glanvill, "were nothing more than like those of a cudgel-player, or fencing-master."[261]

The last blow was still reserved, when Cross asserted that Aristotle had more opportunities to acquire knowledge than the Royal Society, or all the present age had, or could have, for this definitive reason, "because Aristotle did, _totam peragrare Asiam_." Besides, in the Chew philosophy, where novelty was treason, improvements or discoveries could never exist. Here the Aristotelian made his stand; and at length, gently hooking Glanvill between the horns of a dilemma, the entrapped virtuoso threw himself into an unguarded affirmation; at which the Vicar of Great Chew, shouting in triumph, with a sardonic grin, declared that Glanvill and his Royal Society had now avowed themselves to be atheistical! This made an end of the interview, and a beginning of the quarrel.[262]

Glanvill addressed an expostulatory letter to the inhuman Aristotelian, who only replied by calling it a recantation, asserting that the affair had finished with the conviction.

On this, Glanvill produced his "Plus Ultra,"[263] on the modern improvements of knowledge. The quaint title referred to that Asian argument which placed the boundaries of knowledge at the ancient limits fixed by Aristotle, like the pillars of Hercules, on which was inscribed _Ne plus ultra_, to mark the extremity of the world. But Glanvill asserted we might advance still further--_plus ultra_! To this book the Aristotelian replied with such rancour, that he could not obtain a licence for the invective either at Oxford or London. Glanvill contrived to get some extracts, and printed a small number of copies for his friends, under the sarcastic title of "The Chew Gazette,"--a curiosity, we are told, of literary scolding, and which might now, among literary trinkets, fetch a Roxburgh prize.

Cross, maddened that he could not get his bundle of peripatetic ribaldries printed, wrote ballads, which he got sung as it chanced. But suppressed invectives and eking rhymes could but ill appease so fierce a mastiff: he set on the poor F.R.S. an animal as rabid, but more vigorous than himself--both of them strangely prejudiced against the modern improvements of knowledge; so that, like mastiffs in the dark, they were only the fiercer.

This was Dr. Henry Stubbe, a physician of Warwick--one of those ardent and versatile characters, strangely made up of defects as strongly marked as their excellences. He was one of those authors who, among their numerous remains, leave little of permanent value; for their busy spirits too keenly delight in temporary controversy, and they waste the efforts of a mind on their own age, which else had made the next their own. Careless of worldly opinions, these extraordinary men, with the simplicity of children, are mere beings of sensation; perpetually precipitated by their feelings, with slight powers of reflection, and just as sincere when they act in contradiction to themselves, as when they act in contradiction to others. In their moral habits, therefore, we are often struck with strange contrasts; their whole life is a jumble of actions; and we are apt to condemn their versatility of principles as arising from dishonest motives; yet their temper has often proved more generous, and their integrity purer, than those who have crept up in one unvarying progress to an eminence which they quietly possess, without any of the ardour of these original, perhaps whimsical, minds. The most tremendous menace to a man of this class would be to threaten to write the history of his life and opinions. When Stubbe attacked the Royal Society, this threat was held out against him. But menaces never startled his intrepid genius; he roved in all his wild greatness; and, always occupied more by present views than interested by the past events of his life, he cared little for his consistency in the high spirit of his independence.

The extraordinary character of Stubbe produced as uncommon a history. Stubbe had originally been a child of fortune, picked up at Westminster school by Sir Henry Vane the younger, who sent him to Oxford; where this effervescent genius was, says Wood, "kicked, and beaten, and whipped."[264] But if these little circumstances marked the irritability and boldness of his youth, it was equally distinguished by an entire devotion to his studies. Perhaps one of the most anomalous of human characters was that of his patron, Sir Henry Vane the younger (whom Milton has immortalised in one of the noblest of sonnets), the head of the Independents, who combined with the darkest spirit of fanaticism the clear views of the most sagacious politician. The gratitude of Stubbe lasted through all the changeful fortunes of the chief of a faction--a long date in the records of human affection! Stubbe had written against monarchy, the church, the university, &c.; for which, after the Restoration, he was accused by his antagonists. He exults in the reproach; he replies with all that frankness of simplicity, so beautiful amid our artificial manners. He denies not the charge; he never trims, nor glosses over, nor would veil, a single part of his conduct. He wrote to serve his patrons, but never himself. I preserve the whole of this noble passage in the note.[265] Wood bears witness to his perfect disinterestedness. He never partook of the prosperity of his patron, nor mixed with any parties, loving the retirement of his private studies; and if he scorned and hated one party, the Presbyterians, it was, says Wood, because his high generous nature detested men "void of generous souls, sneaking, snivelling, &c." Stubbe appears to have carried this philosophical indifference towards objects of a higher interest than those of mere profit; for, at the Restoration, he found no difficulty in conforming to the Church[266] and to the Government. The king bestowed on him the title of his physician; yet, for the sake of making philosophical experiments, Stubbe went to Jamaica, and intended to have proceeded to Mexico and Peru, pursuing his profession, but still an adventurer. At length Stubbe returned home; established himself as a physician at Warwick, where, though he died early, he left a name celebrated.[267] The fertility of his pen appears in a great number of philosophical, political, and medical publications. But all his great learning, the facility of his genius, his poignant wit, his high professional character, his lofty independence, his scorn of practising the little mysterious arts of life, availed nothing; for while he was making himself popular among his auditors, he was eagerly depreciated by those who would not willingly allow merit to a man who owned no master, and who feared no rival.

Literary coteries were then held at coffee-houses;[268] and there presided the voluble Stubbe, with "a big and magisterial voice, while his mind was equal to it," says the characterising Wood; but his attenuated frame seemed too delicate to hold long so unbroken a spirit. It was an accident, however, which closed this life of toil and hurry and petulant genius. Going to a patient at night, Stubbe was drowned in a very shallow river, "his head (adds our cynic, who had generously paid the tribute of his just admiration with his strong peculiarity of style) being then intoxicated with bibbing, but more with talking and snuffing of powder."

Such was the adversary of the Royal Society! It is quite in character that, under the government of Cromwell, he himself should have spread a taste for what was then called "The New Philosophy" among our youth and gentlemen, with the view of rendering the clergy contemptible; or, as he says, "to make them appear egregious fools in matters of common discourse." He had always a motive for his actions, however opposite they were; pretending that he was never moved by caprice, but guided by principle. One of his adversaries, however, has reason to say, that judging him by his "printed papers, he was a man of excellent contradictory parts." After the Restoration, he furnished as odd, but as forcible a reason, for opposing the Royal Society. At that time the nation, recent from republican ardours, was often panic-struck by papistical conspiracies, and projects of arbitrary power; and it was on this principle that he took part against the Society. Influenced by Dr. Fell and others, he suffered them to infuse these extravagant opinions into his mind. No private ends appear to have influenced his changeable conduct; and in the present instance he was sacrificing his personal feelings to his public principles; for Stubbe was then in the most friendly correspondence with the illustrious Boyle, the father of the Royal Society, who admired the ardour of Stubbe, till he found its inconvenience.[269]

Stubbe opened his formidable attacks, for they form a series, by replying to the "Plus Ultra" of Glanvill, with a title as quaint, "The _Plus Ultra_ reduced to a _Non-plus_, in animadversions on Mr. Glanvill and the Virtuosi." For a pretence for this violent attack, he strained a passage in Glanvill; insisting that the honour of the whole faculty of which he was a member was deeply concerned to refute Glanvill's assertion, that "the ancient physicians could not cure a cut finger."--This Glanvill denied he had ever affirmed or thought;[270] but war once resolved on, a pretext as slight as the present serves the purpose; and so that an odium be raised against the enemy, the end is obtained before the injustice is acknowledged. This is indeed the history of other wars than those of words. The present was protracted with an hostility unsubduing and unsubdued. At length the malicious ingenuity, or the heated fancy, of Stubbe, hardly sketched a political conspiracy, accusing the ROYAL SOCIETY of having adopted the monstrous projects of CAMPANELLA;--an anomalous genius, who was confined by the Inquisition the greater part of his life, and who, among some political reveries, projected the establishment of a universal empire, though he was for shaking off the yoke of authority in the philosophical world. He was for one government and one religion throughout Europe, but in other respects he desired to leave the minds of men quite free. Campanella was one of the new lights of the age; and his hardy, though wild genius much more resembled our Stubbe, who denounced his extravagancies, than any of the Royal Society, to whom he was so artfully compared.

This tremendous attack appeared in Stubbe's "Campanella Revived, or an Enquiry into the History of the Royal Society; whether the Virtuosi there do not pursue the projects of Campanella, for reducing England into Popery; relating the quarrel betwixt H. S. and the R. S., &c. 1670."[271]

Such was the dread which his reiterated attacks caused the Royal Society, that they employed against him all the petty persecutions of power and intrigue. "Thirty legions," says Stubbe, alluding to the famous reply of the philosopher, who would not dispute with a crowned head, "were to be called to aid you against a young country physician, who had so long discontinued studies of this nature." However, he announces that he has finished three more works against the Royal Society, and has a fourth nearly ready, if it be necessary to prove that the rhetorical history of the Society by Sprat must be bad, because "no eloquence can be complete if the subject-matter be foolish!" His adversaries not only threatened to write his life,[272] but they represented him to the king as a libeller, who ought to be whipped at a cart's tail; a circumstance which Stubbe records with the indignation of a Roman spirit.[273] They stopped his work several times, and by some stratagem they hindered him from correcting the press; but nothing could impede the career of his fearless genius. He treated with infinite ridicule their trivial or their marvellous discoveries in his "Legends no Histories," and his "Censure on some Passages of the History of the Royal Society." But while he ridiculed, he could instruct them; often contributing new knowledge, which the Royal Society had certainly been proud to have registered in their history. In his determination of depreciating the novelties of his day, he disputes even the honour of HARVEY to the discovery of the circulation of the blood: he attributes it to ANDREAS CAESALPINUS, who not only discovered it, but had given it the name of _Circulatio Sanguinis_.[274]

Stubbe was not only himself a man of science, but a caustic satirist, who blends much pleasantry with his bitterness. In the first ardour of philosophical discovery, the Society, delighted by the acquisition of new facts, which, however, rarely proved to be important, and were often ludicrous in their detail, appear to have too much neglected the arts of reasoning; they did not even practise common discernment, or what we might term philosophy, in its more enlarged sense.[275] Stubbe, with no respect for "a Society," though dignified by the addition of "Royal," says, "a cabinet of virtuosi are but pitiful reasoners. Ignorance is infectious; and 'tis possible for men to grow fools by contact. I will speak to the virtuosi in the language of the Romish Saint Francis (who, in the wilderness, so humbly addressed his only friends,) '_Salvete, fratres asini! Salvete, fratres lupi!_'" As for their Transactions and their History, he thinks "they purpose to grow famous, as the Turks do to gain Paradise, _by treasuring up all the waste paper they meet with_." He rallies them on some ridiculous attempts, such as "An Art of Flying;" an art, says Stubbe, in which they have not so much as effected the most facile part of the attempt, which is to break their necks!

Sprat, in his dedication to the king, had said that "the establishment of the Royal Society was an enterprise equal to the most renowned actions of the best princes." One would imagine that the notion of a monarch founding a society for the cultivation of the sciences could hardly be made objectionable; but, in literary controversy, genius has the power of wresting all things to its purpose by its own peculiar force, and the art of placing every object in the light it chooses, and can thus obtain our attention in spite of our conviction. I will add the curious animadversion of Stubbe on Sprat's compliment to the king:--

"Never Prince acquired the fame of great and good by any knickknacks--but by actions of political wisdom, courage, justice," &c.

Stubbe shows how Dionysius and Nero had been depraved by these _mechanic philosophers_--that

"An Aristotelian would never pardon himself if he compared _this_ heroical enterprise with the actions of our Black Prince or Henry V.; or with Henry VIII. in demolishing abbeys and rejecting the papal authority; or Queen Elizabeth's exploits against Spain; or her restoring the Protestant religion, putting the Bible into English, and supporting the Protestants beyond sea. But the reason he (Sprat) gives why the establishment of the Royal Society of experimentators equals the most renowned actions of the best princes, is such a pitiful one as Guzman de Alfarache never met with in the whole extent of the _Hospital of Fools_--'To increase the power, by new arts, of conquered nations!' These consequences are twisted like the _cordage of Ocnus_, the God of Sloth, in hell, which are fit for nothing but _to fodder asses with_. If our historian means by _every little invention to increase the powers of mankind_, as an enterprise of such renown, he is deceived; this glory is not due to such as go about with a dog and a hoop, nor to the practicers of legerdemain, or upon the high or low rope; not to every mountebank and his man Andrew; all which, with many other mechanical and experimental philosophers, do in some sort increase the powers of mankind, and differ no more from some of the virtuosi, than _a cat in a hole_ doth from _a cat out of a hole_; betwixt which that inquisitive person ASDRYASDUST TOSSOFFACAN found a very great resemblance. 'Tis not the increasing of the _powers of mankind_ by a pendulum watch, nor spectacles whereby divers may see under water, nor the new ingenuity of apple-roasters, nor every petty discovery or instrument, must be put in comparison, much less preferred, before _the protection and enlargement of empires_."[276]

Had Stubbe's death not occurred, this warfare had probably continued. He insisted on a complete victory. He had forced the Royal Society to disclaim their own works, by an announcement that they were not answerable, as a body, for the various contributions which they gave the world: an advertisement which has been more than once found necessary to be renewed. As for their historian Sprat, our intrepid Stubbe very unexpectedly offered to manifest to the parliament that this courtly adulator, by his book, was chargeable with high treason; if they believed that the Royal Society were really engaged so deeply as he averred in the portentous Caesarean Popery of Campanella. Glanvill, who had "insulted all university learning," had been immolated at the pedestal of Aristotle. "I have done enough," he adds, "since my animadversions contain more than they all knew; and that these have shown that the _virtuosi_ are very great impostors, or men of little reading;" alluding to the various discoveries which they promulgated as novelties, but which Stubbe had asserted were known to the ancients and others of a later period. This forms a perpetual accusation against the inventors and discoverers, who may often exclaim, "Perish those who have done our good works before us!" "The Discoveries of the Ancients and Moderns" by Dutens, had this book been then published, might have assisted our keen investigator; but our combatant ever proudly met his adversaries single-handed.

The "Philosophical Transactions" were afterwards accused of another kind of high treason, against grammar and common sense. It was long before the collectors of facts practised the art of writing on them; still later before they could philosophise, as well as observe: Bacon and Boyle were at first only imitated in their patient industry. When Sir HANS SLOANE was the secretary of the Royal Society, he, and most of his correspondents, wrote in the most confused manner imaginable. A wit of a very original cast, the facetious Dr. KING,[277] took advantage of their perplexed and often unintelligible descriptions; of the meanness of their style, which humbled even the great objects of nature; of their credulity that heaped up marvels, and their vanity that prided itself on petty discoveries, and invented a new species of satire. SLOANE, a name endeared to posterity, whose life was that of an enthusiast of science, and who was the founder of a national collection; and his numerous friends, many of whose names have descended with the regard due to the votaries of knowledge, fell the victims. Wit is an unsparing leveller.

The new species of literary burlesque which King seems to have invented, consists in selecting the very expressions and absurd passages from the original he ridiculed, and framing out of them a droll dialogue or a grotesque narrative, he adroitly inserted his own remarks, replete with the keenest irony, or the driest sarcasm.[278] Our arch wag says, "The bulls and blunders which Sloane and his friends so naturally pour forth cannot be misrepresented, so careful I am in producing them." King still moves the risible muscles of his readers. "The Voyage to Cajamai," a travestie of Sloane's valuable "History of Jamaica," is still a peculiar piece of humour; and it has been rightly distinguished as "one of the severest and merriest satires that was ever written in prose."[279] The author might indeed have blushed at the labour bestowed on these drolleries; he might have dreaded that humour so voluminous might grow tedious; but King, often with a LUCIANIC spirit, with flashes of RABELAIS, and not seldom with the causticity of his friend Swift, dissipated life in literary idleness, with parodies and travesties on most of his contemporaries; and he made these little things often more exquisite at the cost of consuming on them a genius capable of better. A parodist or a burlesquer is a wit who is perpetually on the watch to catch up or to disguise an author's words, to swell out his defects, and pick up his blunders--to amuse the public! King was a wit, who lived on the highway of literature, appropriating, for his own purpose, the property of the most eminent passengers, by a dextrous mode no other had hit on. What an important lesson the labours of King offer to real genius! Their temporary humour lost with their prototypes becomes like a paralytic limb, which, refusing to do its office, impedes the action of the vital members.

WOTTON, in summing up his "Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning," was doubtful whether knowledge would improve in the next age proportionably as it had done in his own. "The humour of the age is visibly altered," he says, "from what it had been thirty years ago. Though the Royal Society has weathered the rude attacks of Stubbe," yet "the sly insinuations of the _Men of Wit_," with "the _public ridiculing_ of all who spend their time and fortunes in scientific or curious researches, have so taken off the edge of those who have opulent fortunes and a love to learning, that these studies begin to be contracted amongst physicians and mechanics."--He treats King with good-humour. "A man is got but a very little way (in philosophy) that is concerned as often as such a merry gentleman as Dr. King shall think fit to make himself sport."[280]

FOOTNOTES:

[253] Some may be curious to have these monkish terms defined. _Causes_ are distinguished by Aristotle into four kinds:--The material cause, _ex qua_, out of which things are made; the formal cause, _per quam_, by which a thing is that which it is, and nothing else; the efficient cause, _a qua_, by the agency of which anything is produced; and the final cause, _propter quam_, the end for which it is produced. Such are his notions in his Phys. 1. ii. c. iii., referred to by Brucker and Formey in their Histories of Philosophy. Of the Scholastic Metaphysics, _Sprat_, the historian of the Royal Society, observes, "that the lovers of that cloudy knowledge boast that it is an excellent instrument to refine and make subtle the minds of men. But there may be _a greater excess in the subtlety of men's wits_ than in their _thickness_; as we see those threads, which are of too fine a spinning, are found to be more useless than those which are homespun and gross."--_History of the Royal Society_, p. 326.

In the history of human folly, often so closely connected with that of human knowledge, some of the schoolmen (the commentators on Aquinas and others) prided themselves, and were even admired for their impenetrable obscurity! One of them, and our countryman, is singularly commended by Cardan, for that "only one of his arguments was enough to puzzle all posterity; and that, when he had grown old, he wept because he could not understand his own books." Baker, in his Reflections upon Learning, who had examined this schoolman, declares that his obscurity is such, as if he never meant to be understood. The extravagances of the schoolmen are, however, not always those of Aristotle. Pope, and the wits of that day, like these early members of the Royal Society, decried Aristotle, who did not probably fall in the way of their studies. His great imperfections are in natural philosophy; but he still preserves his eminence for his noble treatises of Ethics, and Politics, and Poetics, notwithstanding the imperfect state in which these have reached us. Dr. Copleston and Dr. Gillies have given an energetic testimony to their perpetual value. Pope, in satirising the University as a nest of dunces, considered the followers of Aristotle as so many stalled oxen, "_fat bulls of Basan_."

"A hundred head of Aristotle's friends." DUNCIAD.

Swift has drawn an allegorical personage of Aristotle, by which he describes the nature of his works. "He stooped much, and made use of a staff; his visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow;" descriptive of his abrupt conciseness, his harsh style, the obscurities of his dilapidated text, and the deficiency of feeling, which his studied compression, his deep sagacity, and his analytical genius, so frequently exhibit.

[254] Sprat makes an ingenious observation on the notion of those who declared that "_the most learned ages are still the most atheistical, and the ignorant the most devout_." He says this had become almost proverbial, but he shows that piety is little beholden to those who make this distinction. "The Jewish law forbids us to offer up to God a sacrifice that has a blemish; but these men bestow the most excellent of men on the devil, and only assign to religion those men and those times which have the greatest blemish of human nature, even a defect in their knowledge and understanding."--_History of the Royal Society_, p. 356.

[255] Science, at its birth, is as much the child of imagination as curiosity; and, in rapture at the new instrument it has discovered, it impatiently magnifies its power. To the infant, all improvements are wonders; it chronicles even its dreams, and has often described what it never has seen, delightfully deceived; the cold insults of the cynics, the wits, the dull, and the idle, maliciously mortify the infant in its sports, till it returns to slow labour and patient observation. It is rather curious, however, that when science obtains a certain state of maturity, it is liable to be attacked by the same fits of the marvellous which affected its infancy;--and the following extract from one of the enthusiastic _Virtuosi_ in the infancy of science, rivals the visions of "the perfectibility of man" of which we hear so much at this late period. Some, perhaps, may consider these strong tendencies of the imagination, breaking out at these different periods in the history of science, to indicate results, of which the mind feels a consciousness, which the philosopher should neither indulge nor check.

"Should these heroes go on (the Royal Society) as they have happily begun, they will fill the world with wonders; and posterity will find many things that are now but _rumours_, verified into practical _realities_. It may be, some ages hence, a _voyage_ to the southern unknown tracts, yea, possibly the _Moon_, will not be more strange than one to America. To them that come after us, it may be as ordinary to _buy a pair of wings_ to fly into remotest regions, as now _a pair of boots_ to ride a journey. And to confer at the distance of the Indies, by _sympathetic conveyances_, may be as usual to future times, as to us in a literary correspondence. The restoration of _grey hairs to juvenility_, and renewing the _exhausted marrow_, may at length, be effected without a miracle; and the turning the now-comparative _desert world_ into a _paradise_, may not improbably be expected from late _agriculture_.

"Those that judge by the narrowness of former principles and successes, will smile at these paradoxical expectations. But the great inventions of latter ages, which altered the face of all things, in their naked proposals and mere suppositions, were to former times as ridiculous. To have talked of a new earth to have been discovered, had been a romance to antiquity; and to sail without sight of stars or shores, by the guidance of a mineral, a story more absurd than the flight of Daedalus. That men should speak after their tongues were ashes, or communicate with each other in differing hemispheres, before the invention of letters, could not but have been thought a fiction. Antiquity would not have believed the almost incredible force of our cannons, and would as coldly have entertained the wonders of the telescope."--GLANVILL, _Scepsis Scientifica_, p. 133.

[256] Evelyn, whose elegant mind, one would have imagined, had been little susceptible of such vehement anger, in the preface to his "Sylva," scolds at no common rate: "Well-meaning people are led away by the noise of a few ignorant and comical buffoons, who, with an insolence suitable to their understanding, are still crying out, _What have the Society done?_" He attributes all the opposition and ridicule the Society encountered to a personage not usual to be introduced into a philosophical controversy--"The Enemy of Mankind." But it was well to denounce the devil himself, as the Society had nearly lost the credit of fearing him. Evelyn insists that "next to the propagation of our most holy faith," that of the new philosophy was desirable both for the king and the nation; "for," he adds, "it will survive the triumphs of the proudest conquerors; since, when all their pomp and noise is ended, they are those _little things in black_, whom now in scorn they term philosophers and fops, to whom they must be obliged for making their names outlast the pyramids, whose founders are as unknown as the heads of the Nile." Why Evelyn designates the philosophers as _little things in black_, requires explanation. Did they affect a dress of this colour in the reign of Charles II., or does he allude to the dingy appearance of the chemists?

[257] It is not easy to credit the simplicity of these early inquirers. In a Memorial in Sprat's History, entitled, "Answers returned by Sir Philliberto Vernatti to certain Inquiries sent by order of the Royal Society;" among some of the most extraordinary questions and descriptions of nonentities, which must have fatigued Sir Philliberto, who then resided in Batavia, I find the present:--"Qy. 8. What ground there may be for that relation concerning _horns taking root, and growing about Goa_?" It seems the question might as well have been asked at London, and answered by some of the members themselves; for Sir Philliberto gravely replied--"Inquiring about this, a friend laughed, and told me it was a jeer put upon the Portuguese, because the women of Goa are counted none of the chastest." Inquiries of this nature, and often the most trivial objects set off with a singular minuteness of description, tempted the laugh of the scoffers. Their great adversary, Stubbe, ridiculing their mode of giving instructions for inquiries, regrets that the paper he received from them had been lost, otherwise he would have published it. "The great Mr. Boyle, when he brought it, tendered it with blushing and disorder," at the simplicity of the Royal Society! And indeed the royal founder himself, who, if he was something of a philosopher, was much more of a wit, set the example. The Royal Society, on the day of its creation, was the whetstone of the wit of their patron. When Charles II. dined with the members on the occasion of constituting them a Royal Society, towards the close of the evening he expressed his satisfaction in being the first English monarch who had laid a foundation for a society who proposed that their sole studies should be directed to the investigation of the arcana of nature; and added with that peculiar gravity of countenance he usually wore on such occasions, that among such learned men he now hoped for a solution to a question which had long perplexed him. The case he thus stated:--"Suppose two pails of water were fixed in two different scales that were equally poised, and which weighed equally alike, and that two live bream, or small fish, were put into either of these pails, he wanted to know the reason why that pail, with such addition, should not weigh more than the other pail which stood against it." Every one was ready to set at quiet the royal curiosity; but it appeared that every one was giving a different opinion. One, at length, offered so ridiculous a solution, that another of the members could not refrain from a loud laugh; when the King, turning to him, insisted that he should give his sentiments as well as the rest. This he did without hesitation, and told his majesty, in plain terms, that he denied the fact! On which the King, in high mirth, exclaimed--"Odds fish, brother, you are in the right!" The jest was not ill designed. The story was often useful, to cool the enthusiasm of the scientific visionary, who is apt often to account for what never has existed.

[258] Pope was severe in his last book of the _Dunciad_ on the students of insects, flowers, &c.; and R.O. Cambridge followed out the idea of a mad virtuoso in his "Scribleriad," which he has made up from the absurd or trifling parts of natural history and philosophy. His hero is--

"A much-enduring man, whose curious soul Bore him with ceaseless toil from pole to pole; Insatiate endless knowledge to obtain, Thro' woes by land, thro' dangers on the main."

He collects curiosities from all parts of the world; studies occult and natural sciences; and is at last beatified by electrical glories at a meeting of hermetical philosophers. This poem is elucidated by notes, which point the allusions to the works or doings of the old philosophers.--ED.

[259] Evelyn, who could himself be a wit occasionally, was, however, much annoyed by the scorners. He applies to these wits a passage in Nehemiah ii. 19, which describes those who laughed at the _builders of Jerusalem_. "These are the Sanballats, the Horonites, who disturb our men upon the wall; but _let us rise up and build_!" He describes these Horonites of wit as "magnificent fops, whose talents reach but to the adjusting of their perukes." But the Royal Society was attacked from other quarters, which ought to have assisted them. Evelyn, in his valuable treatise on forest-trees, had inserted a new project for making cider; and Stubbe insisted, that in consequence "much cider had been spoiled within these three years, by following the directions published by the commands of the Royal Society." They afterwards announced that they never considered themselves as answerable for their own memoirs, which gave Stubbe occasion to boast that he had forced them to deny what they had written. A passage in Hobbes's "Considerations upon his Reputation, &c.," is as remarkable for the force of its style as for that of sense, and may be applicable to _some_ at this day, notwithstanding the progress of science, and the importance attached to their busy idleness.

"Every man that hath spare money can get furnaces, and buy coals. Every man that hath spare money can be at the charge of making great moulds, &c., and so may have the best and greatest telescopes. They can get engines made, recipients made, and try conclusions; but they are never the more philosophers for all this. 'Tis laudable to bestow money on curious or useful delights, but that is none of the praises of a philosopher." p. 53.

[260] Glanvill was a learned man, but evidently superstitious, particularly in all that related to witchcraft and apparitions; the reality of both being insisted on by him in a series of books which he published at various periods of his life, and which he continually worked upon with new arguments and instances, in spite of all criticism or opposition. He was a member of the Royal Society, prebend of Worcester, and rector of Bath, where he died, October 4, 1680.--ED.

[261] The ninth chapter in the "Plus Ultra," entitled "The Credit of Optic Glasses vindicated against a disputing man, who is afraid to believe his eyes against Aristotle," gives one of the ludicrous incidents of this philosophical visit. The disputer raised a whimsical objection against the science of optics, insisting that the newly-invented glasses, the telescope, the microscope, &c., were all deceitful and fallacious; for, said the Aristotelian, "take two spectacles, use them at the same time, and you will not see so well as with one singly--_ergo_, your microscopes and telescopes are impostors." How this was forced into a syllogism does not appear; but still the conclusion ran, "We can see better through one pair than two, therefore all perspectives are fallacious!"

One proposition for sense, And t'other for convenience,

will make a tolerable syllogism for a logician in despair. The Aristotelian was, however, somewhat puzzled by a problem which he had himself raised--"Why we cannot see with two pair of spectacles better than with one singly?" for the man of axioms observed, "_Vis unita fortior_," "United strength _is stronger_." It is curious enough, in the present day, to observe the sturdy Aristotelian denying these discoveries, and the praises of optics, and "the new glasses," by Glanvill. "If this philosopher," says the member of the Royal Society, "had spared some of those thoughts to the profitable doctrine of optics which he hath spent upon _genus_ and _species_, we had never heard of this objection." And he replies to the paradox which the Aristotelian had raised by "Why cannot he write better with _two pens_ than with a _single one_, since _Vis unita fortior_? When he hath answered this _Quaere_, he hath resolved his own. The reason he gave why it should be so, is the reason why 'tis not." Such are the squabbles of infantine science, which cannot as yet discover causes, although it has ascertained effects.

[262] This appears in chap. xviii. of the "Plus Ultra." With great simplicity Glanvill relates:--"At this period of the conference, the disputer lost all patience, and with sufficient spite and rage told me 'that I was an atheist!--that he had indeed desired my acquaintance, but would have no more on't,' and so turned his back and went away, giving me time only to answer that 'I had no great reason to lament the loss of an acquaintance that could be so easily forfeited.'" The following chapter vindicates the Royal Society from the charge of atheism! to assure the world they were not to be ranked "among the black conspirators against Heaven!" We see the same objections again occurring in the modern system of geology.

[263] This book was so scarce in 1757, that the writer in the "Biographia Britannica" observes that this "small but elegant treatise is still very much esteemed by the curious, being become so scarce as not to be met with in other hands." Oldys, in 1738, had, in his "British Librarian," selected this work among the scarce and valuable books of which he has presented us with so many useful analyses.

The history of books is often curious. At one period a book is scarce and valuable, and at another is neither one nor the other. This does not always depend on the caprice of the public, or what may be called literary fashions. Glanvill's "Plus Ultra" is probably now of easy occurrence; like a prophecy fully completed, the uncertain event being verified, the prophet has ceased to be remembered.

[264] His early history is given by Wood in his usual style. His father had been a Lincolnshire parson, who was obliged to leave his poor curacy because "anabaptistically inclined," and fled to Ireland, whence his mother and her children were obliged to return on the breaking out of the rebellion of 1641, and landed at Liverpool; afterward, says Wood, "they all beated it on the hoof thence to London, where she, gaining a comfortable subsistence by her needle, sent her son Henry, being then ten years of age, to the collegiate school at Westminster. At that time Mr. Richard Busbie was the chief master, who finding the boy have pregnant parts to a miracle, did much favour and encourage him. At length Sir Henry Vane, junior (the same who was beheaded on Tower Hill, 1662), coming casually into the school with Dr. Lambert Osbaldiston, he did, at the master's motion, take a kindness to the said boy, and gave him the liberty to resort to his house, and to fill that belly which otherwise had no sustenance but what one penny could purchase for his dinner: and as for his breakfast, he had none, except he got it by making somebody's exercise. Soon after, Sir Henry got him to be a king's scholar; and his master perceiving him to be beyond his years in proficiency, he gave him money to buy books, clothes, and his teaching for nothing." Such was the humble beginning of a learned man, who lived to be a formidable opponent to the whole body of the Royal Society.--ED.

[265] When Sprat and Glanvill, and others, had threatened to write his life, Stubbe draws this apology for it, while he shows how much, in a time of revolutions, the Royal Society might want one for themselves.

"I was so far from being daunted at those rumours and threats, that I enlarged much this book thereupon, and resolved to charge the enemy home when I saw how weak a resistance I should meet with. I knew that recriminations were no answers. I understood well that the passages of a life like mine, spent in different places with much privacy and obscurity, was unknown to them; that even those actions they would fix their greatest calumnies upon, were such as that they understood not the grounds, nor had they learning enough and skill to condemn. I was at Westminster School when the late king was beheaded. I never took covenant nor engagement. In sum, _I served my patron_. I endeavoured to express my _gratitude_ to him who had relieved me, being a _child_, and in great poverty (the rebellion in Ireland having deprived my parents of all means wherewith to educate me); who made me a king's scholar; preferred me to Christchurch College, Oxon.; and who often supplied me with money when my tender years gave him little hopes of any return; and who protected me amidst the _Presbyterians_, and _Independents_, and other _sects_. With none thereof did I contract any relation or acquaintance; my familiarity never engaged me with ten of that party; and my genius and humour inclined me to fewer. I neither enriched, nor otherwise advanced myself, during the late troubles; and shared the common _odium_ and _dangers_, not _prosperity_, with my _benefactor_. I believe no generous man, who hath the least sense of bravery, will condemn me; and I profess I am ashamed rather to have done so little, than that I have done so much, for him that so frankly obliged a _stranger_ and a _child_. When Gracchus was put to death for sedition, that faithful friend and accomplice of his was dismissed, and mentioned with honour by all posterity, who, when he was impeached, _justified his treason_ by the avowing a _friendship_ so great that, whatever Gracchus had commanded him, he would not have declined it. And being further questioned, whether he would have burned the capitol at his bidding? he replied again, that he should have done it; but Gracchus would not bid such a thing. They that knew me heretofore, know I have a thousand times thus apologised for myself; adding, that in _vassals_ and _slaves_, and persons _transcendently obliged_, their fidelity exempted them from all ignominy, though the principal _lords_, _masters_, and _patrons_, might be accounted _traitors_. My youth and other circumstances incapacitated me from rendering him any great services; but _all that I did_, and _all that I writ_, had no other aim than _his interest_; nor do I care how much any man can inodiate my former writings, as long as they were subservient to him.

"Having made this declaration, let them (or more able men than they) write the life of a man who hath some virtues of the most celebrated times, and hath preserved himself free from the vices of these. My reply shall be a scornful silence."--Preface to Stubbe's "Legends no Histories," 1670.

[266] His reasons for conformity on these important objects are given with his usual simplicity. "I have at length removed all the umbrages I ever lay under. I have joined myself to the Church of England, not only upon account of its being _publicly imposed_ (which in _things indifferent_ is no small consideration, as I learned from the Scottish transactions at Perth), but because it is _the least defining_, and consequently _the most comprehensive and fitting to be national_."

[267] He died at Bath in 1676, where he had gone in attendance upon several of his patients from the neighbourhood of Warwick, where he for a long time practised as a physician. His old antagonist Glanvill was at that time rector of the Abbey Church in which he was buried, and so became the preacher of his funeral sermon. Wood says he "said no great matter of him."--ED.

[268] Pope said to Spence, "It was Dryden who made Will's coffee-house the great resort for the wits of his time. After his death Addison transferred it to Button's, who had been a servant of his." Will's coffee-house was at the corner of Bow-street, Covent-garden, and Button's close by in Russell-street.--ED.

[269] "Some years after the king's restoration he took pet against the Royal Society, (for which before he had a great veneration,) and being encouraged by Dr. Jo. Fell, no admirer of that society, became in his writings an inveterate enemy against it for several pretended reasons: among which were, first, that the members thereof intended to bring a contempt upon ancient and solid learning, upon Aristotle, to undermine the universities, and reduce them to nothing, or at least to be very inconsiderable. Secondly, that at long running to destroy the established religion, and involve the nation in popery, and I know not what, &c. So dexterous was his pen, whether _pro_ or _con_, that few or none could equal, answer, or come near him. He was a person of most admirable parts, had a most prodigious memory, though his enemies would not acknowledge it, but said he read indexes; was the most noted Latinist and Grecian of his age; and after he had been put upon it, was so great an enemy to the _virtuosi_ of his time, I mean those of the Royal Society, that, as he saith, they alarmed him with dangers and troubles even to the hazard of his life and fortunes."--_Wood._

[270] The aspersed passage in Glanvill is this: "The philosophers of elder times, though their wits were excellent, yet the way they took was not like to bring much advantage to knowledge, or any of the uses of human life, being, for the most part, that of _Notion_ and _Dispute_, which still runs round in a labyrinth of talk, but advanceth nothing. _These methods_, in so many centuries, _never brought the world so much practical beneficial knowledge as could help towards the cure of a cut finger_." Plus Ultra, p. 7.--Stubbe, with all the malice of a wit, drew his inference, and turned the point unfairly against his adversary!

I shall here observe how much some have to answer, in a literary court of conscience, when they unfairly depreciate the works of a contemporary; and how idly the literary historian performs his task, whenever he adopts the character of a writer from another who is his adversary. This may be particularly shown in the present instance.

MORHOFF, in his _Polyhistor Litteraria_, censures the _Plus Ultra_ of Glanvill, conceiving that he had treated with contempt all ages and nations but his own. The German bibliographer had never seen the book, but took its character from Stubbe and Meric Casaubon. The design of the _Plus Ultra_, however, differs little from the other works of Glanvill, which Morhoff had seen, and has highly commended.

[271] The political reverie of Campanella was even suspected to cover very opposite designs to those he seemed to be proposing to the world. He attempted to turn men's minds from all inquiries into politics and religion, to mere philosophical ones. He wished that the passions of mankind might be so directed, as to spend their force in philosophical discussions, and in improvements in science. He therefore insisted on a uniformity on those great subjects which have so long agitated modern Europe; for the ancients seem to have had no wars merely for religion, and perhaps none for modes of government. One may discover an enlightened principle in the project; but the character of Campanella was a jumble of sense, subtlety, and wildness. He probably masked his real intentions. He appears an advocate for the firm establishment of the papal despotism; yet he aims to give an enlightened principle to regulate the actions of mankind. The intentions of a visionary are difficult to define. If he were really an advocate for despotism, what occasioned an imprisonment for the greater part of his days? Did he lay his project much deeper than the surface of things? Did Campanella imagine that, if men were allowed to philosophise with the utmost freedom, the despotism of religion and politics would dissolve away in the weakness of its quiescent state?

The project is a chimera--but, according to the projector, the political and religious freedom of _England_ formed its greatest obstacle. Part of his plan, therefore, includes the means of weakening the Insular heretics by intestine divisions--a mode not seldom practised by the continental powers of France and Spain.

The political project of this fervid genius was, that his "Prince," the Spanish king, should be the mightiest sovereign in Europe. For this, he was first to prohibit all theological controversies from the Transalpine schools, those of Germany, &c. "A controversy," he observes, "always shows a kind of victory, and may serve as an authority to a bad cause." He would therefore admit of no commentaries on the Bible, to prevent all diversity of opinion. He would have revived the ancient philosophical sects, instead of the modern religious sects.

The _Greek_ and the _Hebrew_ languages were not to be taught! for the republican freedom of the ancient Jews and Grecians had often proved destructive of monarchy. Hobbes, in the bold scheme of his _Leviathan_, seems to have been aware of this fatality. Campanella would substitute for these ancient languages the study of the _Arabic_ tongue! The troublesome Transalpine wits might then employ themselves in confuting the Turks, rather than in vexing the Catholics; so closely did sagacity and extravagance associate in the mind of this wild genius. But _Mathematical_ and _Astronomical_ schools, and other institutions for the encouragement of the _mechanical arts_, and particularly those to which the northern genius is most apt, as navigation, &c., were to occupy the studies of the people, divert them from exciting fresh troubles, and withdraw them from theological factions. Campanella thus would make men great in science, having first made them slaves in politics; a philosophical people were to be the subjects of despots--not an impossible event!

His plan, remarkable enough, of _weakening the English_, I give in his words:--"No better way can possibly be found than by causing divisions and dissensions among them, and by continually keeping up the same; which will furnish the Spaniard and the French with advantageous opportunities. As for their religion, which is a moderated Calvinism, that cannot be so easily extinguished and rooted out there, unless there were some schools set up in Flanders, where the English have great commerce, by means of which there may be scattered abroad the seeds of schism and division. These people being of a nature which is still desirous of novelties and change, they are easily wrought over to anything." These _schools_ were tried at Douay in Flanders, and at Valladolid in Spain, and other places. They became nests of rebellion for the English Catholics; or for any one, who, being discontented with government, was easily converted to any religion which aimed to overturn the British Constitution. The _secret history_ of the Roman Catholics in England remains yet to be told: they indeed had their martyrs and their heroes; but the _public effects_ appear in the frequent executions which occurred in the reigns of Elizabeth and James.

Stubbe appears to have imagined that the ROYAL SOCIETY was really formed on the principle of Campanella; to withdraw the people from intermeddling with _politics_ and _religion_, by engaging them merely in philosophical pursuits.--The reaction of the public mind is an object not always sufficiently indicated by historians. The vile hypocrisy and mutual persecutions of the numerous fanatics occasioned very relaxed and tolerant principles of religion at the Restoration; as, the democratic fury having spent itself, too great an indulgence was now allowed to monarchy. Stubbe was alarmed that, should Popery be established, the crown of England would become feudatory to foreign power, and embroil the nation in the restitution of all the abbey lands, of which, at the Reformation, the Church had so zealously been plundered. He was still further alarmed that the _virtuosi_ would influence the education of our youth to these purposes; "an evil," says he, "which has been guarded against by our ancestors in founding _free-schools_, by uniformity of instruction cementing men's minds." We now smile at these terrors; perhaps they were sometimes real. The absolute necessity of strict conformity to the prevalent religion of Europe was avowed in that unrivalled scheme of despotism, which menaced to efface every trace of popular freedom, and the independence of nations, under the dominion of Napoleon.

[272] To this threat of writing his life, we have already noticed the noble apology he has drawn up for the versatility of his opinions. See p. 347. At the moment of the Restoration it was unwise for any of the parties to reproach another for their opinions or their actions. In a national revolution, most men are implicated in the general reproach; and Stubbe said, on this occasion, that "he had observed worse faces in the society than his own." Waller, and Sprat, and Cowley had equally commemorated the protectorship of Cromwell and the restoration of Charles. Our satirist insidiously congratulates himself that "_he_ had never compared Oliver the regicide to Moses, or his son to Joshua;" nor that he had ever written any Pindaric ode, "dedicated to the happy memory of the most renowned Prince Oliver, Lord Protector:" nothing to recommend "the sacred urn" of that blessed spirit to the veneration of posterity; as if

"His _fame_, like men, the elder it doth grow, Will of itself turn _whiter_ too, Without what needless art can do."

These lines were, I think, taken from Sprat himself! Stubbe adds, it would be "imprudent in them to look beyond the act of indemnity and oblivion, which was more necessary to the Royal Society than to me, who joined with no party, &c."--_Preface to "Legends no Histories."_

[273] He has described this intercourse of his enemies at court with the king, where, when this punishment was suggested, "a generous personage, altogether unknown to me, being present, bravely and frankly interposed, saying, that 'whatever I was, I was a Roman; that Englishmen were not so precipitously to be condemned to so exemplary a punishment; that representing that book to be a libel against the king was too remote a consequence to be admitted of in a nation free-born, and governed by laws, and tender of ill precedents.'" It was a noble speech, in the relaxed politics of the court of Charles II. He who made it deserved to have had his name more explicitly told: he is designated as "that excellent Englishman, the great ornament of this age, nation, and House of Commons; he whose single worth balanceth much of the debaucheries, follies, and impertinences of the kingdom."--_A Reply unto the Letter written to Mr. Henry Stubbe, Oxford, 1671_, p. 20.

[274] Stubbe gives some curious information on this subject. Harvey published his Treatise at Frankfort, 1628, but Caesalpinus's work had appeared in 1593. Harvey adopted the notion, and more fully and perspicuously proved it. I shall give what Stubbe says. "Harvey, in his two Answers to Riolan, nowhere asserts the invention so to himself, as to deny that he had the intimation or notion from Caesalpinus; and his silence I take for a tacit confession. His _ambition of glory_ made him _willing to be thought the author of a paradox_ he had so illustrated, and brought upon the stage, where _it lay unregarded_, and in all probability buried in oblivion; yet such was his modesty, as not to vindicate it to himself by telling a lie."--STUBBE'S _Censure_, &c., p. 112.

I give this literary anecdote, as it enters into the history of most discoveries, of which the _improvers_, rather than the _inventors_, are usually the most known to the world. Bayle, who wrote much later than Stubbe, asserts the same, and has preserved the entire passage, art. _Caesalpinus_. It is said Harvey is more expressly indebted to a passage in Servetus, which Wotton has given in the preface to his "Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning," edition 1725. The notion was probably then afloat, and each alike contributed to its development. Thus it was disputed with Copernicus, whether his great discovery of a fixed sun, and the earth wheeling round that star, was his own; others had certainly observed it; yet the invention was still Copernican: for that great genius alone corrected, extended, and gave perfection to a hint, till it expanded to a system.

So gradual have often been the great inventions of genius. What others _conjectured_, and some _discovered_, Harvey _demonstrated_. The fate of Harvey's discovery is a curious instance of that patience and fortitude which genius must too often exert in respect to itself. Though Harvey lived to his eightieth year, he hardly witnessed his great discovery established before he died; and it has been said, that he was the only one of his contemporaries who lived to see it in some repute. No physician adopted it; and when it got into vogue, they then disputed whether he was the inventor! Sir William Temple denied not only the discovery, but the doctrine of the Circulation of the Blood. "Sense can hardly allow it; which," says he, "in this dispute must be satisfied as well as reason, before mankind will concur."

[275] Stubbe has an eloquent passage, which describes the philosophy of science. The new Experimental School had perhaps too wholly rejected some virtues of the old one; the cultivation of the human understanding, as well as the mere observation on the facts that they collected; an error which has not been entirely removed.

"That art of reasoning by which the prudent are discriminated from fools, which methodiseth and facilitates our discourses, which informs us of the validity of consequences and the probability of arguments, and manifests the fallacies of impostors; that art which gives life to solid eloquence, and which renders Statesmen, Divines, Physicians, and Lawyers accomplished; how is this cried down and vilified by the ignoramuses of these days! What contempt is there raised upon the disputative Ethics of Aristotle and the Stoics; and those moral instructions, which have produced the Alexanders and the Ptolemies, the Pompeys and the Ciceroes, are now slighted in comparison of _day-labouring_! Did we live at Sparta, where the daily employments were the exercises of substantial virtue and gallantry, and _men_, like _setting dogs_, were rather _bred up_ unto, than _taught_ reason and worth, it were a more tolerable proposal (though the different policy of these times would not admit of it); but this _working_, so recommended, is but the _feeding of carp in the air_, &c. As for the study of Politics, and all critical learning, these are either pedantical, or tedious, to those who have _a shorter way of studying men_."--_Preface to "Legends no Histories."_

[276] "Legends no Histories," p. 5.

[277] Dr. King was allied to the families of Clarendon and Rochester; he took a degree as Doctor of Civil Law, and soon got into great practice. "He afterwards went with the Earl of Pembroke, Lord-Lieutenant, to Ireland, where he became Judge Advocate, Sole Commissioner of the Prizes, Keeper of the Records, Vicar-General to the Lord Primate of Ireland; was countenanced by persons of the highest rank, and might have made a fortune. But so far was he from heaping up riches, that he returned to England with no other treasure than a few merry poems and humorous essays, and returned to his student's place in Christ Church."--_Enc. Brit._ He was assisted by Bolingbroke; but when his patronage failed, Swift procured him the situation of editor to "Barber's Gazette." He ultimately took to drinking; Lintot the bookseller, told Pope, "I remember Dr. King could write verses in a tavern three hours after he could not speak." His last patron was Lord Clarendon, and he died in apartments he had provided for him in London, Dec. 25, 1712, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey at the expense of his lordship.--ED.

[278] Sloane describes Clark, the famous posture-master, "Phil. Trans." No. 242, certainly with the wildest grammar, but with many curious particulars; the gentleman in one of Dr. King's Dialogues inquires the secretary's opinion of the causes of this man's wonderful pliability of limbs; a question which Sloane had thus solved, with colloquial ease: it depended upon "bringing the body to it, by using himself to it."

In giving an account of "a child born without a brain"--"Had it lived long enough," said King, "it would have made an excellent publisher of Philosophical Transactions!"

Sloane presented the Royal Society with "a figure of a Chinese, representing one of that nation using an ear-picker, and expressing great satisfaction therein."--"Whatever pleasure," said that learned physician, "the Chinese may take in thus picking their ears, I am certain most people in these parts, who have had their hearing impaired, have had such misfortune first come to them by picking their ears too much."--He is so _curious_, says King, that the secretary took as much satisfaction in looking upon the ear-picker, as the Chinese could do in picking their ears!

But "What drowning is"--that "Hanging is only apoplexy!" that "Men cannot swallow when they are dead!" that "No fish die of fevers!" that "Hogs s--t soap, and cows s--t fire!" that the secretary had "Shells, called _Blackmoor's-teeth_, I suppose from their _whiteness_!" and the learned RAY'S, that grave naturalist, incredible description of "a very curious little instrument!" I leave to the reader and Dr. King.

[279] Sir Hans Sloane was unhappily not insensible to these ludicrous assaults, and in the preface to his "History of Jamaica," 1707, a work so highly prized for its botanical researches, absolutely anticipated this fatal facetiousness, for thus he delivers himself:--"Those who strive to make ridiculous anything of this kind, and think themselves great wits, but are very ignorant, and understand nothing of the argument, these, if one were afraid of them, and consulted his own ease, might possibly hinder the publication of any such work, the efforts to be expected from them, making possibly some impression upon persons of equal dispositions; but considering that I have the approbation of others, whose judgment, knowledge, &c., I have great reason to value; and considering that these sorts of men have been in all ages ready to do the like, not only to ordinary persons and their equals, but even to abuse their prince and blaspheme their Maker, I shall, as I have ever since I seriously considered this matter, think of and treat them with the greatest contempt."

[280] Dr. King's dispersed works have fortunately been collected by Mr. Nichols, with ample illustrations, in three vols. 8vo, 1776. The "Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of Learning," form a collection of ludicrous dissertations of Antiquarianism, Natural Philosophy, Criticism, &c., where his own peculiar humour combines with his curious reading. [In this he burlesqued the proceedings of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies with some degree of spirit and humour. By turning vulgar lines into Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon, a learned air is given to some papers on childish subjects. One learned doctor communicates to another "an Essay proving, by arguments philosophical, that millers, falsely so reputed, are not thieves, with an interesting argument that taylors likewise are not so." A Welsh schoolmaster sends some "natural observations" made in Wales, in direct imitation of the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1707, and with humorous love for genealogy, reckons that in his school, "since the flood, there have been 466, and I am the 467th master: before the flood, they living long, there were but two--Rice ap Evan Dha the good, and Davie ap Shones Gonnah the naught, in whose time the flood came." The first paper of the collection is an evident jest on John Bagford and his gatherings for the history of printing, now preserved among the manuscripts of the British Museum. It purports to be "an Essay on the invention of samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford, with an account of her collections for the same:" and written in burlesque of a paper in the "Philosophical Transactions" for April, 1697. It is a most elaborate performance, deducing with mock-seriousness the origin of samplers from the ancient tales of Arachne, who "set forth the whole story of her wrongs in needlework, and sent it to her sister;" and our author adds, with much humour, "it is very remarkable that the memory of this story does at present continue, for there are no samplers, which proceed in any measure beyond the first rudiments, but have a tree and a nightingale sitting on it." Such were the jests of the day against the Royal philosophers.] He also invented _satirical and humorous indexes_, not the least facetious parts of his volumes. King had made notes on more than 20,000 books and MSS., and his _Adversaria_, of which a portion has been preserved, is not inferior in curiosity to the literary journals of Gibbon, though it wants the investigating spirit of the modern philosopher.

SIR JOHN HILL,

WITH THE ROYAL SOCIETY, FIELDING, SMART, &c.

A Parallel between Orator HENLEY and Sir JOHN HILL--his love of the Science of Botany, with the fate of his "Vegetable System"--ridicules scientific Collectors; his "Dissertation on Royal Societies," and his "Review of the Works of the Royal Society"--compliments himself that he is NOT a Member--successful in his attacks on the Experimentalists, but loses his spirit in encountering the Wits--"The Inspector"--a paper war with FIELDING--a literary stratagem--battles with SMART and WOODWARD--HILL appeals to the Nation for the Office of Keeper of the Sloane Collection--closes his life by turning Empiric--Some Epigrams on HILL--his Miscellaneous Writings.

In the history of literature we discover some who have opened their career with noble designs, and with no deficient powers, yet unblest with stoic virtues, having missed, in their honourable labours, those rewards they had anticipated, they have exhibited a sudden transition of character, and have left only a name proverbial for its disgrace.

Our own literature exhibits two extraordinary characters, indelibly marked by the same traditional odium. The wit and acuteness of Orator HENLEY, and the science and vivacity of the versatile Sir JOHN HILL, must separate them from those who plead the same motives for abjuring all moral restraint, without having ever furnished the world with a single instance that they were capable of forming nobler views.

This _orator_ and this _knight_ would admit of a close parallel;[281] both as modest in their youth as afterwards remarkable for their effrontery. Their youth witnessed the same devotedness to study, with the same inventive and enterprising genius. Hill projected and pursued a plan of botanical travels, to form a collection of rare plants: the patronage he received was too limited, and he suffered the misfortune of having anticipated the national taste for the science of botany by half a century. Our young philosopher's valuable "Treatise on Gems," from Theophrastus, procured for him the warm friendship of the eminent members of the Royal Society. To this critical period of the lives of Henley and of Hill, their resemblance is striking; nor is it less from the moment the surprising revolution in their characters occurred.

Pressed by the wants of life, they lost its decencies. Henley attempted to poise himself against the University; Hill against the Royal Society. Rejected by these learned bodies, both these Cains of literature, amid their luxuriant ridicule of eminent men, still evince some claims to rank among them. The one prostituted his genius in his "Lectures;" the other, in his "Inspectors." Never two authors were more constantly pelted with epigrams, or buffeted in literary quarrels. They have met with the same fate; covered with the same odium. Yet Sir John Hill, this despised man, after all the fertile absurdities of his literary life, performed more for the improvement of the "Philosophical Transactions," and was the cause of diffusing a more general taste for the science of botany, than any other contemporary. His real ability extorts that regard which his misdirected ingenuity, instigated by vanity, and often by more worthless motives, had lost for him in the world.[282]

At the time that Hill was engaged in several large compilations for the booksellers, his employers were desirous that the honours of an F.R.S. should ornament his title-page. This versatile genius, however, during these graver works, had suddenly emerged from his learned garret, and, in the shape of a fashionable lounger, rolled in his chariot from the Bedford to Ranelagh; was visible at routs; and sate at the theatre a tremendous arbiter of taste, raising about him tumults and divisions;[283] and in his "Inspectors," a periodical paper which he published in the _London Daily Advertiser_, retailed all the great matters relating to himself, and all the little matters he collected in his rounds relating to others. Among other personalities, he indulged his satirical fluency on the scientific collectors. The Antiquarian Society were twitted as medal-scrapers and antediluvian knife-grinders; conchologists were turned into cockleshell merchants; and the naturalists were made to record pompous histories of stickle-hacks and cockchafers. Cautioned by Martin Folkes, President of the Royal Society,[284] not to attempt his election, our enraged comic philosopher, who had preferred his jests to his friends, now discovered that he had lost three hundred at once. Hill could not obtain three signatures to his recommendation. Such was the real, but, as usual, not the ostensible, motive of his formidable attack on the Royal Society. He produced his "Dissertation on Royal Societies, in a letter from a Sclavonian nobleman to his friend," 1751; a humorous prose satire, exhibiting a ludicrous description of a tumultuous meeting at the Royal Society, contrasted with the decorum observed in the French Academy; and moreover, he added a _conversazione_ in a coffee-house between some of the members.

Such was the declaration of war, in a first act of hostility; but the pitched-battle was fought in "A Review of the Works of the Royal Society, in eight parts," 1751. This literary satire is nothing less than a quarto volume, resembling, in its form and manner, the Philosophical Transactions themselves; printed as if for the convenience of members to enable them to bind the "Review" with the work reviewed. Voluminous pleasantry incurs the censure of that tedious trifling which it designs to expose. In this literary facetia, however, no inconsiderable knowledge is interspersed with the ridicule. Perhaps Hill might have recollected the successful attempts of Stubbe on the Royal Society, who contributed that curious knowledge which he pretended the Royal Society wanted; and with this knowledge he attempted to combine the humour of Dr. King.[285]

Hill's rejection from the Royal Society, to another man would have been a puddle to step over; but he tells a story, and cleanly passes on, with impudent adroitness.[286]

Hill, however, though he used all the freedom of a satirist, by exposing many ridiculous papers, taught the Royal Society a more cautious selection. It could, however, obtain no forgiveness from the parties it offended; and while the respectable men whom Hill had the audacity to attack, Martin Folkes, the friend and successor of Newton, and Henry Baker, the naturalist, were above his censure,--his own reputation remained in the hands of his enemies. While Hill was gaining over the laughers on his side, that volatile populace soon discovered that the fittest object to be laughed at was our literary Proteus himself.

The most egregious egotism alone could have induced this versatile being, engaged in laborious works, to venture to give the town the daily paper of _The Inspector_, which he supported for about two years. It was a light scandalous chronicle all the week, with a seventh-day sermon. His utter contempt for the genius of his contemporaries, and the bold conceit of his own, often rendered the motley pages amusing. _The Inspector_ became, indeed, the instrument of his own martyrdom; but his impudence looked like magnanimity; for he endured, with undiminished spirit, the most biting satires, the most wounding epigrams, and more palpable castigations.[287] His vein of pleasantry ran more freely in his attacks on the Royal Society than in his other literary quarrels. When Hill had not to banter ridiculous experimentalists, but to encounter wits, his reluctant spirit soon bowed its head. Suddenly even his pertness loses its vivacity; he becomes drowsy with dulness, and, conscious of the dubiousness of his own cause, he skulks away terrified: he felt that the mask of quackery and impudence which he usually wore was to be pulled off by the hands now extended against him.

A humorous warfare of wit opened between Fielding, in his _Covent-Garden Journal_, and Hill, in his _Inspector_. _The Inspector_ had made the famous lion's head, at the Bedford, which the genius of Addison and Steele had once animated, the receptacle of his wit; and the wits asserted, of this now _inutile lignum_, that it was reduced to a mere state of _blockheadism_. Fielding occasionally gave a facetious narrative of a paper war between the forces of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, the literary hero of the _Covent-Garden Journal_, and the army of Grub-street; it formed an occasional literary satire. Hill's lion, no longer Addison's or Steele's, is not described without humour. Drawcansir's "troops are kept in awe by a strange mixed monster, not much unlike the famous chimera of old. For while some of our Reconnoiterers tell us that this monster has the appearance of a lion, others assure us that his ears are much longer than those of that generous beast."

Hill ventured to notice this attack on his "blockhead;" and, as was usual with him, had some secret history to season his defence with.

"The author of 'Amelia,' whom I have only once seen, told me, at that accidental meeting, he held the present set of writers in the utmost contempt; and that, in his character of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, he should treat them in the most unmerciful manner. He assured me he had always excepted me; and after honouring me with some encomiums, he proceeded to mention a conduct which would be, he said, useful to both; this was, the amusing our readers with a mock fight; giving blows that would not hurt, and sharing the advantage in silence."[288]

Thus, by reversing the fact, Hill contrived to turn aside the frequent stories against him by a momentary artifice, arresting or dividing public opinion. The truth was, more probably, as Fielding relates it, and the story, as we shall see, then becomes quite a different affair. At all events, Hill incurred the censure of the traitor who violates a confidential intercourse.

And if he lies not, must at least betray. POPE.

Fielding lost no time in reply. To have brought down the _Inspector_ from his fastnesses into the open field, was what our new General only wanted: a battle was sure to be a victory. Our critical Drawcansir has performed his part, with his indifferent puns, but his natural facetiousness.

"It being reported to the General that a _hill_ must be levelled, before the Bedford coffee-house could be taken, orders were given; but this was afterwards found to be a mistake; for this _hill_ was only a little paltry _dunghill_, and had long before been levelled with the dirt. The General was then informed of a report which had been spread by his _lowness_, the Prince of Billingsgate, in the Grub-street army, that his Excellency had proposed, by a _secret treaty_ with that Prince, to carry on the war only in appearance, and so to betray the common cause; upon which his Excellency said with a smile:--'If the betrayer of a private treaty could ever deserve the least credit, yet his Lowness here must proclaim himself either a liar or a fool. None can doubt but that he is the former, if he hath feigned this treaty; and I think few would scruple to call him the latter, if he had rejected it.' The General then declared the fact stood thus:--'His Lowness came to my tent on an affair of his own. I treated him, though a commander in the enemy's camp, with civility, and even kindness. I told him, with the utmost good-humour, I should attack his Lion; and that he might, if he pleased, in the same manner defend him; from which, said I, no great loss can happen on either side--'"

_The Inspector_ slunk away, and never returned to the challenge.

During his inspectorship, he invented a whimsical literary stratagem, which ended in his receiving a castigation more lasting than the honours performed on him at Ranelagh by the cane of a warm Hibernian. Hill seems to have been desirous of abusing certain friends whom he had praised in the _Inspectors_; so volatile, like the loves of coquettes, are the literary friendships of the "Scribleri." As this could not be done with any propriety there, he published the first number of a new paper, entitled _The Impertinent_. Having thus relieved his private feelings, he announced the cessation of this new enterprise in his _Inspectors_, and congratulated the public on the ill reception it had given to the _Impertinent_, applauding them for their having shown by this that "their indignation was superior to their curiosity." With impudence all his own, he adds--"It will not be easy to say too much in favour of the candour of the town, which has despised a piece that cruelly and unjustly attacked Mr. Smart the poet." What innocent soul could have imagined that _The Impertinent_ and _The Inspector_ were the same individual? The style is a specimen of _persiflage_; the thin sparkling thought; the pert vivacity, that looks like wit without wit; the glittering bubble, that rises in emptiness;--even its author tells us, in _The Inspector_, it is "the most pert, the most pretending," &c.[289]

Smart, in return for our Janus-faced critic's treatment, balanced the amount of debtor and creditor with a pungent Dunciad _The Hilliad_. Hill, who had heard of the rod in pickle, anticipated the blow, to break its strength; and, according to his adopted system, introduced himself and Smart, with a story of his having recommended the bard to his bookseller, "who took him into salary on my approbation. I betrayed him into the profession, and having starved upon it, he has a right to abuse me." This story was formally denied by an advertisement from Newbery, the bookseller.

"The Hilliad" is a polished and pointed satire. The hero is thus exhibited on earth, and in heaven.

On earth, "a tawny sibyl," with "an old striped curtain--"

And tatter'd tapestry o'er her shoulders hung-- Her loins with patchwork cincture were begirt, That more than spoke diversity of dirt. Twain were her teeth, and single was her eye-- Cold palsy shook her head----

with "moon-struck madness," awards him all the wealth and fame she could afford him for sixpence; and closes her orgasm with the sage admonition--

The chequer'd world's before thee; go, farewell! Beware of Irishmen; and learn to spell!

But in heaven, among the immortals, never was an unfortunate hero of the vindicative Muses so reduced into nothingness! Jove, disturbed at the noise of this thing of wit, exclaims, that nature had never proved productive in vain before, but now,

On mere privation she bestow'd a frame, And dignified a nothing with a name; A wretch devoid of use, of sense, of grace, The insolvent tenant of incumber'd space!

Pallas hits off the style of Hill, as

The neutral nonsense, neither false nor true-- Should Jove himself, in calculation mad, Still negatives to blank negations add; How could the barren ciphers ever breed; But nothing still from nothing would proceed. Raise, or depress, or magnify, or blame, Inanity will ever be the same.

But Phoebus shows there may still be something produced from inanity.

E'en blank privation has its use and end-- From emptiness, how sweetest music flows! How absence, to possession adds a grace, And modest vacancy, to all gives place. So from Hillario, some effect may spring; E'en him--that slight penumbra of a thing!

The careless style of the fluent Inspectors, beside their audacity, brought Hill into many scrapes. He called Woodward, the celebrated harlequin, "the meanest of all characters." This Woodward resented in a pamphlet-battle, in which Hill was beaten at all points.[290] But Hill, or the Monthly Reviewer, who might be the same person, for that journal writes with the tenderness of a brother of whatever relates to our hero, pretends that the Inspector only meant, that "the character of Harlequin (if a thing so unnatural and ridiculous ought to be called a character) was the _meanest_ on the stage!"[291]

I will here notice a characteristic incident in Hill's literary life, of which the boldness and the egotism is scarcely paralleled, even by Orator Henley. At the time the Sloane Collection of Natural History was purchased, to form a part of our grand national establishment, the British Museum, Hill offered himself, by public advertisement, in one of his _Inspectors_, as the properest person to be placed at its head. The world will condemn him for his impudence. The most reasonable objection against his mode of proceeding would be, that the thing undid itself; and that the very appearance, by public advertisement, was one motive why so confident an offer should be rejected. Perhaps, after all, Hill only wanted to _advertise himself_.

But suppose that Hill was the man he represents himself to be, and he fairly challenges the test, his conduct only appears eccentric, according to routine. Unpatronised and unfriended men are depressed, among other calamities, with their quiescent modesty; but there is a rare spirit in him who dares to claim favours, which he thinks his right, in the most public manner. I preserve, in the note, the most striking passages of this extraordinary appeal.[292]

At length, after all these literary quarrels, Hill survived his literary character. He had written himself down to so low a degree, that whenever he had a work for publication, his employers stipulated, in their contracts, that the author should conceal his name; a circumstance not new among a certain race of writers.[293] But the genius of Hill was not annihilated by being thrown down so violently on his mother earth; like Anthaeus, it rose still fresh; and like Proteus, it assumed new forms.[294] Lady Hill and the young Hills were claimants on his industry far louder than the evanescent epigrams which darted around him: these latter, however, were more numerous than ever dogged an author in his road to literary celebrity.[295] His science, his ingenuity, and his impudence once more practised on the credulity of the public, with the innocent quackery of attributing all medicinal virtues to British herbs. He made many walk out, who were too sedentary; they were delighted to cure headaches by feverfew tea; hectic fevers by the daisy; colics by the leaves of camomile, and agues by its flowers. All these were accompanied by plates of the plants, with the Linnaean names.[296] This was preparatory to the _Essences_ of Sage, _Balsams_ of Honey, and _Tinctures_ of Valerian. Simple persons imagined they were scientific botanists in their walks, with Hill's plates in their hands. But one of the newly-discovered virtues of British herbs was, undoubtedly, that of placing the discoverer in a chariot.

In an Apology for the character of Sir John Hill, published after his death, where he is painted with much beauty of colouring, and elegance of form, the eruptions and excrescences of his motley physiognomy, while they are indicated--for they were too visible to be entirely omitted in anything pretending to a resemblance--are melted down, and even touched into a grace. The Apology is not unskilful, but the real purpose appears in the last page; where we are informed that Lady Hill, fortunately for the world, possesses all his valuable recipes and herbal remedies!

FOOTNOTES:

[281] The moral and literary character of Henley has been developed in "Calamities of Authors."

[282] The twenty-six folios of his "Vegetable System," with many others, testify his love and his labour. It contains 1600 plates, representing 26,000 different figures of plants _from nature only_. This publication ruined the author, whose widow (the sister of Lord Ranelagh) published "An Address to the Public, by the Hon. Lady Hill, setting forth the consequences of the late Sir John Hill's acquaintance with the Earl of Bute," 1787. I should have noticed it in the "Calamities of Authors." It offers a sad and mortifying lesson to the votary of science who aspires to a noble enterprise. Lady Hill complains of the _patron_; but a patron, however great, cannot always raise the public taste to the degree required to afford the only true patronage which can animate and reward an author. Her detail is impressive:--

"Sir John Hill had just wrote a book of great elegance--I think it was called 'Exotic Botany'--which he wished to have presented to the king, and therefore named it to Lord Bute. His lordship waived that, saying that 'he had a greater object to propose;' and shortly after laid before him a plan of the most voluminous, magnificent, and costly work that ever man attempted. I tremble when I name its title--because I think the severe application which it required killed him; and I am sure the expense ruined his fortune--'The Vegetable System.' This work was to consist of twenty-six volumes folio, containing sixteen hundred copper-plates, the engraving of each cost four guineas; the paper was of the most expensive kind; the drawings by the first hands. The printing was also a very weighty concern; and many other articles, with which I am unacquainted. Lord Bute said that 'the expense had been considered, and that Sir John Hill might rest assured his circumstances should not be injured.' Thus he entered upon and finished his destruction. The sale bore no proportion to the expense. After 'The Vegetable System' was completed, Lord Bute proposed another volume to be added, which Sir John strenuously opposed; but his lordship repeating his desire, Sir John complied, lest his lordship should find a pretext to cast aside repeated promises of ample provision for himself and family. But this was the crisis of his fate--he died." Lady Hill adds:--"He was a character on which every virtue was impressed." The domestic partiality of the widow cannot alter the truth of the narrative of "The Vegetable System," and its twenty-six tomes.

[283] His apologist forms this excuse for one then affecting to be a student and a rake:--"Though engaged in works which required the attention of a whole life, he was so exact an economist of his time that he scarcely ever missed a public amusement for many years; and this, as he somewhere observes, was of no small service to him; as, without indulging in these respects, he could not have undergone the fatigue and study inseparable from the execution of his vast designs."--Short Account of the "Life, Writings, and Character of the late Sir John Hill, M.D." Edinburgh: 1779.

[284] Hogarth has painted a portrait of Folkes, which is still hanging in the rooms of the Royal Society. He was nominated vice-president by the great Sir Isaac Newton, and succeeded him as president. He wrote a work on the "English Silver Coinage," and died at the age of sixty-four, 1754.--ED.

[285] Hill planned his Review with good sense. He says:--"If I am merry in some places, it ought to be considered that the subjects are too ridiculous for serious criticism. That the work, however, might not be without its _real use_, an _Error_ is nowhere exposed without establishing a _Truth_ in its place." He has incidentally thrown out much curious knowledge--such as his plan for forming a _Hortus Siccus_, &c. The Review itself may still be considered both as curious and entertaining.

[286] In exposing their deficiencies, as well as their redundancies, Hill only wishes, as he tells us, that the Society may by this means become ashamed of what it has been, and that the world may know that _he is NOT a member of it till it is an honour to a man to be so_! This was telling the world, with some ingenuity, and with no little impudence, that the Royal Society would not admit him as a member. He pretends to give a secret anecdote to explain the cause of this rejection. Hill, in every critical conjuncture of his affairs, and they were frequent ones, had always a story to tell, or an evasion, which served its momentary purpose. When caned by an Irish gentleman at Ranelagh, and his personal courage, rather than his stoicism, was suspected, he published a story of _his_ having once caned a person whom he called Mario; on which a wag, considering Hill as a Prometheus, wrote--

"To beat one man great Hill was fated. What man?--a man whom he created!"

We shall see the story he turned to his purpose, when pressed hard by Fielding. In the present instance, in a letter to a foreign correspondent, who had observed his name on the list of the _Correspondents_ of the Royal Society, Hill said--"You are to know that _I have the honour NOT to be a member of the Royal Society of London_."--This letter lay open on his table when a member, upon his accustomed visit, came in, and in his absence read it. "And we are not to wonder," says Hill, "that he who could obtain intelligence in this manner could also divulge it. _Hinc illae lachrymae!_ Hence all the animosities that have since disturbed this philosophic world." While Hill insolently congratulates himself that he is _not_ a member of the Royal Society, he has most evidently shown that he had no objection to be the member of any society which would enrol his name among them. He obtained his medical degree from no honourable source; and another title, which he affected, he mysteriously contracted into barbaric dissonance. Hill entitled himself--

_Acad. Reg. Scient. Burd. &c. Soc._

To which Smart, in the "Hilliad," alludes--

"While _Jargon_ gave his titles on a _block_, And styled him M.D. Acad. Budig. Soc."

His personal attacks on Martin Folkes, the president, are caustic, but they may not be true; and on Baker, celebrated for his microscopical discoveries, are keen. He reproaches Folkes, in his severe dedication of the work, in all the dignity of solemn invective.--"The manner in which you represented me to a noble friend, while to myself you made me much more than I deserved; the ease with which you had excused yourself, and the solemnity with which, in the face of Almighty God, you excused yourself again; when we remember that the whole was done within the compass of a day; these are surely virtues in a patron that I, of all men, ought not to pass over in silence." Baker, in his early days, had unluckily published a volume of lusory poems. Some imitations of Prior's loose tales Hill makes use of to illustrate _his_ "Philosophical Transactions." All is food for the malicious digestion of Wit!

His anecdote of Mr. Baker's _Louse_ is a piece of secret scientific history sufficiently ludicrous.

"The Duke of Montague was famous for his love to the whole animal creation, and for his being able to keep a very grave face when not in the most serious earnest. Mr. Baker, a distinguished member of the Royal Society, had one day entertained this nobleman and several other persons with the sight of the peristaltic motion of the bowels in a louse, by the microscope. When the observation was over, he was going to throw the creature away; but the Duke, with a face that made him believe he was perfectly in earnest, told him it would be not only cruel, but ungrateful, in return for the entertainment that creature had given them, to destroy it. He ordered the boy to be brought in from whom it was procured, and after praising the smallness and delicacy of Mr. Baker's fingers, persuaded him carefully to replace the animal in its former territories, and to give the boy a shilling not to disturb it for a fortnight."--"A Review of the Works of the Royal Society," by John Hill, M.D., p. 5.

[287] These papers had appeared in the London _Daily Advertiser_, 1754. At their close he gleaned the best, and has preserved them in two volumes. But as Hill will never rank as a classic, the original nonsense will be considered as most proper for the purposes of a true collector. Woodward, the comedian, in his lively attack on Hill, has given "a mock Inspector," an exquisite piece of literary ridicule, in which he has hit off the egotisms and slovenly ease of the real ones. Never, like "The Inspector," flamed such a provoking prodigy in the cloudy skies of Grub-street; and Hill seems studiously to have mortified his luckless rivals by a perpetual embroidery of his adventures in the "Walks at Marybone," the "Rotunda at Ranelagh," spangled over with "my domestics," and "my equipage." [One of his adventures at Ranelagh was sufficiently unfortunate to obtain for him the unenviable notoriety of a caricature print representing him enduring a castigation at the Rotunda gate from an Irish gentleman named Brown, with whose character he had made far too free in one of his "Inspectors." Hill showed much pusillanimity in the affair, took to his bed, and gave out that the whole thing was a conspiracy to murder him. This occasioned the publication of another print, in which he is represented in bed, surrounded by medical men, who treat him with very little respect. One insists on his fee, because Hill has never been acknowledged as one of themselves; and another, to his plea of want of money, responds, "Sell your sword, it is only an encumbrance."]

[288] It is useful to remind the public that they are often played upon in this manner by the artifices of _political writers_. We have observed symptoms of this deception practised at present. It is an old trick of the craft, and was greatly used at a time when the nation seemed maddened with political factions. In a pamphlet of "A View of London and Westminster, or the Town-spy," 1725, I find this account:--"The _seeming quarrel_, formerly, between _Mist's Journal_ and the _Flying Post_ was _secretly concerted_ between themselves, in order to decoy the eyes of all the parties on both their papers; and the project succeeded beyond all expectation; for I have been told that the former narrowly missed getting an estate by it."--p. 32.

[289] Isaac Reed, in his "Repository of Fugitive Pieces of Wit and Humour," vol. iv., in republishing "The Hilliad," has judiciously preserved the offending "Impertinent" and the abjuring "Inspector." The style of "The Impertinent" is volatile and poignant. His four classes of authors are not without humour. "There are men who write because they have wit; there are those who write because they are hungry; there are some of the modern authors who have a constant fund of both these causes; and there are who will write, although they are not instigated either by the one or by the other. The first are all spirit; the second are all earth; the third disclose more life, or more vapidity, as the one or the other cause prevails; and for the last, having neither the one nor the other principle for the cause, they show neither the one nor the other character in the effect; but begin, continue, and end, as if they had neither begun, continued, nor ended at all." The first class he instances by Fielding; the second by Smart. Of the third he says:--"The mingled wreath belongs to Hill," that is himself; and the fourth he illustrates by the absurd Sir William Browne.

"Those of the first rank are the most capricious and lazy of all animals. The monkey genius would rarely exert itself, if even idleness innate did not give way to the superior love of mischief. The ass (that is Smart), which characters the second, is as laborious as he is empty; he wears a ridiculous comicalness of aspect (which was, indeed, the physiognomy of the poor poet), that makes people smile when they see him at a distance. His mouth opens, because he must be fed, while we laugh at the insensibility and obstinacy that make him prick his lips with thistles."

[290] Woodward humorously attributes Hill's attack on him to his _jealousy_ of his successful performance of _Harlequin_, and opens some of the secret history of Hill, by which it appears that early in life he trod the theatrical boards. He tells us of the extraordinary pains the prompter had taken with Hill, in the part of Oroonoko; though, "if he had not quite forgotten it, to very little purpose." He reminds Hill of a dramatic anecdote, which he no doubt had forgotten. It seems he once belonged to a strolling company at May-fair, where, in the scene between Altamont and Lothario, the polite audience of that place all chorused, and agreed with him, when dying he exclaimed, "Oh, Altamont, thy genius is the stronger." He then shows him off as the starved apothecary in _Romeo and Juliet_, in one of his botanic peregrinations to Chelsea Garden; from whence, it is said, he was expelled for "culling too many rare plants"--

"I do remember an apothecary, Culling of simples----."

Hill, who was often so brisk in his attack on the wits, had no power of retort; so that he was always buffeting and always buffeted.

[291] He was also satirised in a poem termed "The Pasquinade," published in 1752, in which the goddesses of Pertness and Dulness join to praise him as their favourite reflex.

"Pertness saw her form distinctly shine In none, immortal Hill! so full as thine."

Dulness speaks of him thus rapturously:--

"See where my son, who gratefully repays Whate'er I lavish'd on his younger days; Whom still my arm protects to brave the town Secure from Fielding, Machiavel, or Brown; Whom rage nor sword e'er mortally shall hurt, Chief of a hundred chiefs o'er all the pert! Rescued an orphan babe from common sense, I gave his mother's milk to Confidence; She with her own ambrosia bronz'd his face, And changed his skin to monumental brass. Whom rage nor sword e'er mortally shall hurt, Chief of a hundred chiefs o'er all the pert! Rescued an orphan babe from common sense, I gave his mother's milk to Confidence; She with her own ambrosia bronz'd his face, And changed his skin to monumental brass."

[292] Hill addresses the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Speaker, on Sir Hans Sloane's Collection of Natural History, proposing himself as a candidate for nomination in the principal office, by whatever name that shall be called:--"I deliver myself with humility; but conscious also that I possess the liberties of a British subject, I shall speak with freedom." He says that the only means left for a Briton is to address his sovereign and the public. "That foreigners will resort to this collection is certain, for it is the most considerable in the world; and that our own people will often visit it is as sure, because it may be made the means of much useful as well as curious knowledge. One and the other will expect a person in that office who has sufficient knowledge: he must be able to give account of every article, freely and fluently, not only in his own, but in the Latin and French languages.

"This the world, and none in it better than your lordship, sees is not a place that any one can execute: it requires knowledge in a peculiar and uncommon kind of study--knowledge which very few possess; and in which, my lord, the bitterest of my enemies (and I have thousands, although neither myself nor they know why) will not say I am deficient----.

"My lord, the eyes of all Europe are upon this transaction. What title I have to your lordship's favour, those books which I have published, and with which (pardon the necessary boast) all Europe is acquainted, declare. Many may dispute by interest with me; but if there be one who would prefer himself, by his abilities, I beg the matter may be brought to trial. The collection is at hand; and I request, my lord, such person and myself may be examined by that test, together. It is an amazing store of knowledge; and he has most, in this way, who shall show himself most acquainted with it.

"What are my own abilities it very ill becomes me thus to boast; but did they not qualify me for the trust, my lord, I would not ask it. As to those of any other, unless a man be conjured from the dead, I shall not fear to say there is not any one whoever that is able so much as to call the parts of the collection by their names.

"I know I shall be accused of ostentation in giving to myself this preference; and I am sorry for it: but those who have candour will know it could not be avoided.

"Many excel, my lord, in other studies: it is my chance to have bestowed the labour of my life on this: those labours may be of some use to others. This appears the only instance in which it is possible that they should be rewarded----."

In a subsequent _Inspector_, he treated on the improvement of botany by raising plants, and reading lectures on them at the British Museum, with the living plants before the lecturer and his auditors. Poor Sir John! he was born half a century too early!--He would, in this day, have made his lectures fashionable; and might have secured at the opera every night an elegant audience for the next morning in the gardens of the Museum.

[293] It would be difficult to form a list of his anonymous works or compilations, among which many are curious. Tradition has preserved his name as the writer of Mrs. Glasse's Cookery, and of several novels. There is a very curious work, entitled "Travels in the East," 2 vols. 8vo, of which the author has been frequently and in vain inquired after. These travels are attributed to a noble lord; but it now appears that they are a very entertaining narrative manufactured by Hill. Whiston, the bookseller, had placed this work in his MS. catalogue of Hill's books.

There is still another production of considerable merit, entitled "Observations on the Greek and Roman Classics," 1753. A learned friend recollects, when young, that this critical work was said to be written by Hill. It excels Blackwell and Fenton; and aspires to the numerous composition of prose. The sentimental critic enters into the feelings of the great authors whom he describes with spirit, delicacy of taste, and sometimes with beautiful illustration. It only wants a chastening hand to become a manual for the young classical student, by which he might acquire those vivid emotions, which many college tutors may not be capable of communicating.

I suspect, too, he is the author of this work, from a passage which Smart quotes, as a specimen of Hill's puffing himself, and of those smart short periods which look like wit, without being witty. In a letter to himself, as we are told, Hill writes:--"You have discovered many of the beauties of the ancients--they are obliged to you; we are obliged to you: were they alive, they would thank you; we who are alive do thank you." If Hill could discriminate the most hidden beauties of the ancients, the _tact_ must have been formed at his leisure--in his busy hours he never copied them; but when had he leisure?

Two other works, of the most contrasted character, display the versatility and dispositions of this singular genius, at different eras. When "The Inspector" was rolling in his chariot about the town, appeared "Letters from the Inspector to a Lady," 1752. It is a pamphlet, containing the amorous correspondence of Hill with a reigning beauty, whom he first saw at Ranelagh. On his first ardent professions he is contemptuously rejected; he perseveres in high passion, and is coldly encouraged; at length he triumphs; and this proud and sullen beauty, in her turn, presents a horrid picture of the passions. Hill then becomes the reverse of what he was; weary of her jealousy, sated with the intercourse, he studiously avoids, and at length rejects her; assigning for his final argument his approaching marriage. The work may produce a moral effect, while it exhibits a striking picture of all the misery of illicit connexions: but the scenes are coloured with Ovidian warmth. The original letters were shown at the bookseller's: Hill's were in his own handwriting, and the lady's in a female hand. But whether Hill was the publisher, as an attempt at notoriety--or the lady admired her own correspondence, which is often exquisitely wrought, is not known.

Hill, in his serious hours, published a large quarto volume, entitled "Thoughts Concerning God and Nature," 1755. This work, the result of his scientific knowledge and his moral reasoning, was never undertaken for the purpose of profit. He printed it with the certainty of a considerable loss, from its abstract topics, not obvious to general readers; at a time, too, when a guinea quarto was a very hazardous enterprise. He published it purely from conscientious and religious motives; a circumstance mentioned in that Apology of his Life which we have noticed. The more closely the character of Hill is scrutinised, the more extraordinary appears this man, so often justly contemned, and so often unjustly depreciated.

[294] Through the influence of Lord Bute he became connected with the Royal Gardens at Kew; and his lordship also assisted him in publishing his botanical works. See note, p. 363.

[295] It would occupy pages to transcribe epigrams on Hill. One of them alludes to his philosophical as well as his literary character:--

"Hill puffs himself; forbear to chide! An insect vile and mean Must first, he knows, be magnified Before it can be seen."

Garrick's happy lines are well known on his farces:--

"For physic and farces his equal there scarce is-- His farces are physic, his physic a farce is."

Another said--

"The worse that we wish thee, for all thy vile crimes, Is to take thy own physic, and read thy own rhymes."

The rejoinder would reverse the wish--

"For, if he takes his physic first, He'll never read his rhymes."

[296] Hill says, in his pamphlet on the "Virtues of British Herbs":--"It will be happy if, by the same means, the knowledge of plants also becomes more general. The study of them is pleasant, and the exercise of it healthful. He who seeks the herb for its cure, will find it half effected by the walk; and when he is acquainted with the useful kinds, he may be more people's, besides his own, physician."

BOYLE AND BENTLEY.

A Faction of Wits at Oxford the concealed movers of this Controversy--Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE'S opinions the ostensible cause; Editions of classical Authors by young Students at Oxford the probable one--BOYLE'S first attack in the Preface to his "Phalaris"--BENTLEY, after a silence of three years, betrays his feelings on the literary calumny of BOYLE--BOYLE replies by the "Examination of Bentley's Dissertation"--BENTLEY rejoins by enlarging it--the effects of a contradictory Narrative at a distant time--BENTLEY'S suspicions of the origin of the "Phalaris," and "The Examination," proved by subsequent facts--BENTLEY'S dignity when stung at the ridicule of Dr. KING--applies a classical pun, and nicknames his facetious and caustic Adversary--KING invents an extraordinary Index to dissect the character of BENTLEY--specimens of the Controversy; BOYLE'S menace, anathema, and ludicrous humour--BENTLEY'S sarcastic reply not inferior to that of the Wits.

The splendid controversy between BOYLE and BENTLEY was at times a strife of gladiators, and has been regretted as the opprobrium of our literature; but it should be perpetuated to its honour; for it may be considered, on one side at least, as a noble contest of heroism.

The ostensible cause of the present quarrel was inconsiderable; the concealed motive lies deeper; and the party feelings of the haughty Aristarchus of Cambridge, and a faction of wits at Oxford, under the secret influence of Dean Aldrich, provoked this fierce and glorious contest.

Wit, ridicule, and invective, by cabal and stratagem, obtained a seeming triumph over a single individual, but who, like the Farnesian Hercules, personified the force and resistance of incomparable strength. "The Bees of Christchurch," as this conspiracy of wits has been called, so musical and so angry, rushed in a dark swarm about him, but only left their fine stings in the flesh they could not wound. He only put out his hand in contempt, never in rage. The Christchurch men, as if doubtful whether wit could prevail against learning, had recourse to the maliciousness of personal satire. They amused an idle public, who could even relish sense and Greek, seasoned as they were with wit and satire, while Boyle was showing how Bentley wanted wit, and Bentley was proving how Boyle wanted learning.

To detect the origin of the controversy, we must find the seed-plot of Bentley's volume in Sir William Temple's "Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning," which he inscribed to his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. Sir William, who had caught the contagion of the prevalent literary controversy of the times, in which the finest geniuses in Europe had entered the lists, imagined that the ancients possessed a greater force of genius, with some peculiar advantages--that the human mind was in a state of decay--and that our knowledge was nothing more than scattered fragments saved out of the general shipwreck. He writes with a premeditated design to dispute the improvements or undervalue the inventions of his own age. Wotton, the friend of Bentley, replied by his curious volume of "Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning." But Sir William, in his ardour, had thrown out an unguarded opinion, which excited the hostile contempt of Bentley. "The oldest books," he says, "we have, are still in their kind the best; the two most ancient that I know of, in prose, are 'AEsop's Fables' and 'Phalaris's Epistles.'"--The "Epistles," he insists, exhibit every excellence of "a statesman, a soldier, a wit, and a scholar." That ancient author, who Bentley afterwards asserted was only "some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk."

Bentley, bristled over with Greek, perhaps then considered that to notice a vernacular and volatile writer ill assorted with the critic's _Fastus_. But about this time Dean Aldrich had set an example to the students of Christchurch of publishing editions of classical authors. Such juvenile editorships served as an easy admission into the fashionable literature of Oxford. Alsop had published the "AEsop;" and Boyle, among other "young gentlemen," easily obtained the favour of the dean, "to _desire_ him to undertake an edition of the 'Epistles of Phalaris.'" Such are the modest terms Boyle employs in his reply to Bentley, after he had discovered the unlucky choice he had made of an author.

For this edition of "Phalaris" it was necessary to collate a MS. in the king's library; and Bentley, about this time, had become the royal librarian. Boyle did not apply directly to Bentley, but circuitously, by his bookseller, with whom the doctor was not on terms. Some act of civility, or a Mercury more "formose," to use one of his latinisms, was probably expected. The MS. was granted, but the collator was negligent; in six days Bentley reclaimed it, "four hours" had been sufficient for the purpose of collation.

When Boyle's "Phalaris" appeared, he made this charge in the preface, that having ordered the Epistles to be collated with the MS. in the king's library, the collator was prevented perfecting the collation by the _singular humanity_ of the library-keeper, who refused any further use of the MS.; _pro singulari sua humanitate negavit_: an expression that sharply hit a man marked by the haughtiness of his manners.[297]

Bentley, on this insult, informed Boyle of what had passed. He expected that Boyle would have civilly cancelled the page; though he tells us he did not require this, because, "to have insisted on the cancel, might have been forcing a gentleman to too low a submission;"--a stroke of delicacy which will surprise some to discover in the strong character of Bentley. But he was also too haughty to ask a favour, and too conscious of his superiority to betray a feeling of injury. Boyle replied, that the bookseller's account was quite different from the doctor's, who had spoken slightingly of him. Bentley said no more.

Three years had nearly elapsed, when Bentley, in a new edition of his friend Wotton's book, published "A Dissertation on the Epistles of the Ancients;" where, reprehending the false criticism of Sir William Temple, he asserted that the "Fables of AEsop" and the "Epistles of Phalaris" were alike spurious. The blow was levelled at Christchurch, and all "the bees" were brushed down in the warmth of their summer-day.

It is remarkable that Bentley kept so long a silence; indeed, he had considered the affair so trivial, that he had preserved no part of the correspondence with Boyle, whom no doubt he slighted as the young editor of a spurious author. But Boyle's edition came forth, as Bentley expresses it, "with a sting in its mouth." This, at first, was like a cut finger--he breathed on it, and would have forgotten it; but the nerve was touched, and the pain raged long after the stroke. Even the great mind of Bentley began to shrink at the touch of literary calumny, so different from the vulgar kind, in its extent and its duration. He betrays the soreness he would wish to conceal, when he complains that "the false story has been spread all over England."

The statement of Bentley produced, in reply, the famous book of Boyle's "Examination of Bentley's Dissertation." It opens with an imposing narrative, highly polished, of the whole transaction, with the extraordinary furniture of documents, which had never before entered into a literary controversy--depositions--certificates--affidavits--and private letters. Bentley now rejoined by his enlarged "Dissertation on Phalaris," a volume of perpetual value to the lovers of ancient literature, and the memorable preface of which, itself a volume, exhibits another Narrative, entirely differing from Boyle's. These produced new replies and new rejoinders. The whole controversy became so perplexed, that it has frightened away all who have attempted to adjust the particulars. With unanimous consent they give up the cause, as one in which both parties studied only to contradict each other. Such was the fate of a Narrative, which was made out of the recollections of the parties, with all their passions at work, after an interval of three years. In each, the memory seemed only retentive of those passages which best suited their own purpose, and which were precisely those the other party was most likely to have forgotten. What was forgotten, was denied; what was admitted, was made to refer to something else; dialogues were given which appear never to have been spoken; and incidents described which are declared never to have taken place; and all this, perhaps, without any purposed violation of truth. Such were the dangers and misunderstandings which attended a Narrative framed out of the broken or passionate recollections of the parties on the watch to confound one another.[298]

Bentley's Narrative is a most vigorous production: it heaves with the workings of a master-spirit; still reasoning with such force, and still applying with such happiness the stores of his copious literature, had it not been for this literary quarrel, the mere English reader had lost this single opportunity of surveying that commanding intellect.

Boyle's edition of "Phalaris" was a work of parade, designed to confer on a young man, who bore an eminent name, some distinction in the literary world. But Bentley seems to have been well-informed of the secret transactions at Christchurch. In his first attack he mentions Boyle as "the young gentleman of great hopes, whose name is set to the edition;" and asserts that the editor, no more than his own "Phalaris," has written what was ascribed to him. He persists in making a plurality of a pretended unity, by multiplying Boyle into a variety of little personages, of "new editors," our "annotators," our "great geniuses."[299] Boyle, touched at these reflections, declared "they were levelled at a learned society, in which I had the happiness to be educated; as if 'Phalaris' had been made up by contributions from several hands." Pressed by Bentley to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. John Freind, Boyle confers on him the ambiguous title of "The Director of Studies." Bentley links the Bees together--Dr. Freind and Dr. Alsop. "The Director of Studies, who has lately set out Ovid's 'Metamorphoses,' with a paraphrase and notes, is of the same size for learning with the late editor of the AEsopian Fables. They bring the nation into contempt abroad, and themselves into it at home;" and adds to this magisterial style, the mortification of his criticism on Freind's Ovid, as on Alsop's AEsop.

But Boyle assuming the honours of an edition of "Phalaris," was but a venial offence, compared with that committed by the celebrated volume published in its defence.

If Bentley's suspicions were not far from the truth, that "the 'Phalaris' had been _made up by contributions_," they approached still closer when they attacked "The Examination of his Dissertation." Such was the assistance which Boyle received from all "the Bees," that scarcely a few ears of that rich sheaf fall to his portion. His efforts hardly reach to the mere narrative of his transactions with Bentley. All the varied erudition, all the Attic graces, all the inexhaustible wit, are claimed by others; so that Boyle was not materially concerned either in his "Phalaris," or in the more memorable work.[300]

The Christchurch party now formed a literary conspiracy against the great critic; and as treason is infectious when the faction is strong, they were secretly engaging new associates; Whenever any of the party published anything themselves, they had sworn to have always "a fling at Bentley," and intrigued with their friends to do the same.

They procured Keil, the professor of astronomy, in so grave a work as "The Theory of the Earth," to have a fling at Bentley's boasted sagacity in conjectural criticism. Wotton, in a dignified reproof, administered a spirited correction to the party-spirit; while his love of science induced him generously to commend Keil, and intimate the advantages the world may derive from his studies, "as he grows older." Even Garth and Pope struck in with the alliance, and condescended to pour out rhymes more lasting than even the prose of "the Bees."

But of all the rabid wits who, fastening on their prey, never drew their fangs from the noble animal, the facetious Dr. King seems to have been the only one who excited Bentley's anger. Persevering malice, in the teasing shape of caustic banter, seems to have affected the spirit even of Bentley.

At one of those conferences which passed between Bentley and the bookseller, King happened to be present; and being called on by Boyle to bear his part in the drama, he performed it quite to the taste of "the Bees." He addressed a letter to Dean Aldrich, in which he gave one particular: and, to make up a sufficient dose, dropped some corrosives. He closes his letter thus:--"That scorn and contempt which I have naturally for pride and insolence, makes me remember that which otherwise I might have forgotten." Nothing touched Bentley more to the quick than reflections on "his pride and insolence." Our defects seem to lose much of their character, in reference to ourselves, by habit and natural disposition; yet we have always a painful suspicion of their existence; and he who touches them with no tenderness is never pardoned. The invective of King had all the bitterness of truth. Bentley applied a line from Horace; which showed that both Horace and Bentley could pun in anger:--

Proscripti _Regis Rupili_ pus atque venenum.[301]--_Sat._ i. 7. The filth and venom of _Rupilius King_.

The particular incident which King imperfectly recollected, made afterwards much noise among the wits, for giving them a new notion of the nature of ancient MSS. King relates that Dr. Bentley said--"If the MS. were collated, it would be worth nothing for the future." Bentley, to mortify the pertness of the bookseller, who would not send his publications to the Royal Library, had said that he ought to do so, were it but to make amends for the damage the MS. would sustain by his printing the various readings; "for," added Bentley, "after the various lections were once taken and printed, _the MS. would be like a squeezed orange, and little worth for the future_." This familiar comparison of a MS. with a squeezed orange provoked the epigrammatists. Bentley, in retorting on King, adds some curious facts concerning the fate of MSS. after they have been printed; but is aware, he says, of what little relish or sense the Doctor has of MSS., who is better skilled in "the catalogue of ales, his Humty-Dumty, Hugmatee, Three-threads, and the rest of that glorious list, than in the catalogue of MSS." King, in his banter on Dr. Lister's journey to Paris, had given a list of these English beverages. It was well known that he was in too constant an intercourse with them all. Bentley nicknames King through the progress of his Controversy, for his tavern-pleasures, Humty-Dumty, and accuses him of writing more in a tavern than in a study. He little knew the injustice of his charge against a student who had written notes on 22,000 books and MSS.; but they were not Greek ones.

All this was not done with impunity. An irritated wit only finds his adversary cutting out work for him. A second letter, more abundant with the same pungent qualities, fell on the head of Bentley. King says of the arch-critic--"He thinks meanly, I find, of my reading; yet for all that, I dare say I have read more than any man in England besides _him_ and _me_; for I have read his book all over."[302] Nor was this all; "Humty-Dumty" published eleven "Dialogues of the Dead," supposed to be written by a student at Padua, concerning "one Bentivoglio, a very troublesome critic in the world;" where, under the character of "Signior Moderno," Wotton falls into his place. Whether these dialogues mortified Bentley, I know not: they ought to have afforded him very high amusement. But when a man is at once tickled and pinched, the operation requires a gentler temper than Bentley's. "Humty-Dumty," indeed, had Bentley too often before him. There was something like inveteracy in his wit; but he who invented the remarkable index to Boyle's book, must have closely studied Bentley's character. He has given it with all its protuberant individuality.[303]

Bentley, with his peculiar idiom, had censured "all the stiffness and stateliness, and operoseness of style, quite alien from the character of 'Phalaris,' a man of business and despatch." Boyle keenly turns his own words on Bentley. "_Stiffness and stateliness, and operoseness of style_, is indeed quite _alien from the character of a man of business_; and being but a _library-keeper_, it is not over-modestly done, to oppose his judgment and taste to that of Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, who knows more of these things than Dr. Bentley does of Hesychius and Suidas. Sir William Temple has spent a good part of his life in transacting affairs of state: he has written to kings, and they to him; and this has qualified him to judge how kings should write, much better than the _library-keeper at St. James's_."--This may serve as a specimen of the Attic style of the controversy. Hard words sometimes passed. Boyle complains of some of the _similes_ which Bentley employs, more significant than elegant. For the new readings of "Phalaris," "he likens me to a bungling tinker mending old kettles." Correcting the faults of the version, he says, "The first epistle cost me four pages in scouring;" and, "by the help of a Greek proverb, he calls me downright ass." But while Boyle complains of these sprinklings of ink, he himself contributes to Bentley's "Collection of Asinine Proverbs," and "throws him in one out of Aristophanes," of "an ass carrying mysteries:" "a proverb," says Erasmus, (as 'the Bees' construe him.) "applied to those who were preferred to some place they did not deserve, as when a _dunce_ was made a _library-keeper_."

Some ambiguous threats are scattered in the volume, while others are more intelligible. When Bentley, in his own defence, had referred to the opinions which some learned foreigners entertained of him--they attribute these to "the foreigners, because they are foreigners--we, that have the happiness of a nearer conversation with him, know him better; and we may perhaps take an opportunity of setting these mistaken strangers right in their opinions." They threaten him with his character, "in a tongue that will last longer, and go further, than their own;" and, in the imperious style of Festus, add:--"Since Dr. Bentley has appealed to foreign universities, to foreign universities he must go." Yet this is light, compared with the odium they would raise against him by the menace of the resentments of a whole society of learned men.

"_Single adversaries_ die and drop off; but _societies_ are immortal: their resentments are sometimes delivered down from hand to hand; and when once they have begun with a man, there is no knowing when they will leave him."

In reply to this literary anathema, Bentley was furnished, by his familiarity with his favourite authors, with a fortunate application of a term, derived from Phalaris himself. Cicero had conveyed his idea of Caesar's cruelty by this term, which he invented from the very name of the tyrant.[304]

"There is a certain temper of mind that Cicero calls _Phalarism_; a spirit like Phalaris's. One would be apt to imagine that a portion of it had descended upon some of his translators. The gentleman has given a broad hint more than once in his book, that if I proceed further against Phalaris, I may draw, perhaps, a duel, or a stab upon myself; a generous threat to a divine, who neither carries arms nor principles fit for that sort of controversy. I expected such usage from the spirit of Phalarism."

In this controversy, the amusing fancy of "the Bees" could not pass by Phalaris without contriving to make some use of that brazen bull by which he tortured men alive. Not satisfied in their motto, from the Earl of Roscommon, with wedging "the great critic, like Milo, in the timber he strove to rend," they gave him a second death in their finis, by throwing Bentley into Phalaris's bull, and flattering their vain imaginations that they heard him "bellow."

"He has defied Phalaris, and used him very coarsely, under the assurance, as he tells us, that 'he is out of his reach.' Many of Phalaris's enemies thought the same thing, and repented of their vain confidence afterwards in his _bull_. Dr. Bentley is perhaps, by this time, or will be suddenly, satisfied that he also has presumed a little too much upon his distance; but it will be too late to repent when he begins to bellow."[305]

Bentley, although the solid force of his mind was not favourable to the lighter sports of wit, yet was not quite destitute of those airy qualities; nor does he seem insensible to the literary merits of "that odd work," as he calls Boyle's volume, which he conveys a very good notion of:--"If his book shall happen to be preserved anywhere as an useful commonplace book for ridicule, banter, and all the topics of calumny." With equal dignity and sense he observes on the ridicule so freely used by both parties--"I am content that what is the greatest virtue of his book should be counted the greatest fault of mine."

His reply to "Milo's fate," and the tortures he was supposed to pass through when thrown into Phalaris's bull, is a piece of sarcastic humour which will not suffer by comparison with the volume more celebrated for its wit.

"The facetious examiner seems resolved to vie with Phalaris himself in the science of _Phalarism_; for his revenge is not satisfied with one single death of his adversary, but he will kill me over and over again. He has slain me twice by two several deaths! one, in the first page of his book; and another, in the last. In the title-page I die the death of Milo, the Crotonian:--

----Remember Milo's end, Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend.

"The application of which must be this:--That as Milo, after his victories at six several Olympiads, was at last conquered and destroyed in wrestling with a _tree_, so I, after I had attained to some small reputation in letters, am to be quite baffled and run down by _wooden antagonists_. But in the end of his book he has got me into Phalaris's bull, and he has the pleasure of fancying that he hears me _begin to bellow_. Well, since it is certain that I am in the bull, I have performed the part of a sufferer. For as the cries of the tormented in old Phalaris's bull, being conveyed through pipes lodged in the machine, were turned into music for the entertainment of the tyrant, so the complaints which my torments express from me, being conveyed to Mr. Boyle by this answer, are all dedicated to his pleasure and diversion. But yet, methinks, when he was setting up to be _Phalaris junior_, the very omen of it might have deterred him. As the old tyrant himself at last bellowed in his own bull, his imitators ought to consider that at long run their own actions may chance to overtake them."--p. 43.

Wit, however, enjoyed the temporary triumph; not but that some, in that day, loudly protested against the award.[306] "The Episode of Bentley and Wotton," in "The Battle of the Books," is conceived with all the caustic imagination of the first of our prose satirists. There Bentley's great qualities are represented as "tall, without shape or comeliness; large, without strength or proportion." His various erudition, as "armour patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces;" his book, as "the sound" of that armour, "loud and dry, like that made by the fall of a sheet of lead from the roof of some steeple;" his haughty intrepidity, as "a vizor of brass, tainted by his breath, corrupted into copperas, nor wanted gall from the same fountain; so that, whenever provoked by anger or labour, an atramentous quality of most malignant nature was seen to distil from his lips." Wotton is "heavy-armed and slow of foot, lagging behind." They perish together in one ludicrous death. Boyle, in his celestial armour, by a stroke of his weapon, transfixes both "the lovers," "as a cook trusses a brace of woodcocks, with iron skewer piercing the tender sides of both. Joined in their lives, joined in their death, so closely joined, that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare." Such is the candour of wit! The great qualities of an adversary, as in Bentley, are distorted into disgraceful attitudes; while the suspicious virtues of a friend, as in Boyle, not passed over in prudent silence, are ornamented with even spurious panegyric.

Garth, catching the feeling of the time, sung--

And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle.

Posterity justly appreciates the volume of Bentley for its stores of ancient literature; and the author, for that peculiar sagacity in emending a corrupt text, which formed his distinguishing characteristic as a classical critic; and since his book but for this literary quarrel had never appeared, reverses the names in the verse of the "Satirist."

FOOTNOTES:

[297] Haughtiness was the marking feature of Bentley's literary character; and his Wolseyan style and air have been played on by the wits. Bentley happened to express himself on the King's MS. of Phalaris in a manner their witty malice turned against him. "'Twas a surprise (he said) to find that OUR MS. was not perused."--"OUR MS. (they proceed) that is, his Majesty's and mine! He speaks out now; 'tis no longer the King's, but OUR MS., _i.e._ Dr. Bentley's and the King's in common, _Ego et Rex meus_--much too familiar for a library-keeper!"--It has been said that Bentley used the same Wolseyan egotism on Pope's publications:--"This man is always abusing _me_ or the _King_!"

[298] Bentley, in one place, having to give a positive contradiction to the statement of the bookseller, rising in all his dignity and energy, exclaims, "What can be done in this case? Here are two contrary affirmations; and the matter being done in private, neither of us have any witness. I might plead, as AEmilius Scaurus did against one Varius, of Sucro. _Varius Sucronensis ait, AEmilius Scaurus negat. Utri creditis Quirites?_" p. 21.--The story is told by Valerius Maximus, lib. iii. c. 7. Scaurus was insolently accused by one Varius, a Sucronian, that he had taken bribes from Mithridates: Scaurus addressed the Roman people. "He did not think it just that a man of his age should defend himself against accusations, and before those who were not born when he filled the offices of the republic, nor witnessed the actions he had performed. Varius, the Sucronian, says that Scaurus, corrupted by gold, would have betrayed the republic; Scaurus replies, It is not true. Whom will you believe, fellow-Romans?"--This appeal to the people produced all the effect imaginable, and the ridiculous accuser was silenced.

Bentley points the same application, with even more self-consciousness of his worth, in another part of his preface. It became necessary to praise himself, to remove the odium Boyle and his friends had raised on him--it was a difficulty overcome. "I will once more borrow the form of argument that AEmilius Scaurus used against Varius Sucronensis. Mr. Spanheim and Mr. Graevius give a high character of Dr. B.'s learning: Mr. Boyle gives the meanest that malice can furnish himself with. _Utri creditis, Quirites?_ Whether of the characters will the present age or posterity believe?"--p. 82. It was only a truly great mind which could bring itself so close to posterity.

[299] It was the fashion then to appear very unconcerned about one's literary reputation; but then to be so tenacious about it when once obtained as not to suffer, with common patience, even the little finger of criticism to touch it. Boyle, after defending what he calls his "honesty," adds, "the rest _only_ touches my learning. This will give me _no concern_, though it may put me to some little trouble. I shall enter upon this with _the indifference of a gamester who plays but for a trifle_." On this affected indifference, Bentley keenly observes:--"This was entering on his work a little ominously; for a gamester who plays with indifference never plays his game well. Besides that, by this odd comparison, he seems to give warning, and is as good as his word, that he will put the dice upon his readers as often as he can. But what is worse than all, this comparison puts one in mind of a general rumour, that there's another set of gamesters who _play him_ in his dispute while themselves are safe behind the curtain."--BENTLEY'S _Dissertation on Phalaris_, p. 2.

[300] Rumours and conjectures are the lot of contemporaries; truth seems reserved only for posterity; and, like the fabled Minerva, she is born of age at once. The secret history of this volume, which partially appeared, has been more particularly opened in one of Warburton's letters, who received it from Pope, who had been "let into the secret." Boyle wrote the Narrative, "which, too, was corrected for him." Freind, who wrote the entire Dissertation on AEsop in that volume, wrote also, with Atterbury, the body of the Criticisms; King, the droll argument, proving that Bentley was not the author of his own Dissertation, and the extraordinary index which I shall shortly notice. In Atterbury's "Epistolary Correspondence" is a letter, where, with equal anger and dignity, Atterbury avows his having written _about half, and planned the whole_ of Boyle's attack upon Bentley! With these facts before us, can we read without surprise, if not without indignation, the passage I shall now quote from the book to which the name of Boyle is prefixed. In raising an artful charge against Bentley, of appropriating to himself some MS. notes of Sir Edward Sherburn, Boyle, replying to the argument of Bentley, that "Phalaris" was the work of some sophist, says:--"The sophists are everywhere pelted by Dr. Bentley, for putting out what they wrote in other men's names; but I did not expect to hear so loudly of it from one that has so far outdone them; for _I think 'tis much worse to take the honour of another man's book to one's self_, than to entitle one's own book to another man."--p. 16.

I am surprised Bentley did not turn the point of his antagonist's sword on himself, for this flourish was a most unguarded one. But Bentley could not then know so much of the book, "made up by contributions," as ourselves.

Partial truths flew about in rumours at the time; but the friends of a young nobleman, and even his fellow-workmen, seemed concerned that his glory should not be diminished by a ruinous division. Rymer, in his "Essay concerning Curious and Critical Learning," judiciously surmised its true origin. "I fancy this book was written (as most public compositions in that college are) by a _select club_. Every one seems to have thrown in a repartee or so in his turn; and the most ingenious Dr. Aldrich (he does not deserve the epithet in its most friendly sense) no doubt at their head, smoked and punned plentifully on this occasion." The arrogance of Aldrich exceeded even that of Bentley. Rymer tells further, that Aldrich was notorious for thus employing his "young inexperienced students;" that he "_betrayed_ Mr. Boyle into the controversy, and is still involving others in the quarrel." Thus he points at the rival chieftains; one of whom never appeared in public, but was the great mover behind the curtain. These lively wits, so deeply busied among the obscurest writers of antiquity, so much against their will, making up a show of learning against the formidable array of Bentley, exhilarated themselves in their dusty labours by a perpetual stimulus of keen humour, playful wit, and angry invective. No doubt they were often enraged at bearing the yoke about their luxuriant manes, ploughing the darkest and heaviest soil of antiquity. They had been reared--

"Insultare solo, et gressus glomerare superbos." "Georg." Lib. iii. 117.

"To insult the ground, and proudly pace the plain." TRAPP.

Swift, in "The Battle of the Books," who, under his patron, Sir William Temple, was naturally in alliance with "the Bees," with ingenious ambiguity alludes to the glorious manufacture. "Boyle, clad in a suit of armour, _which had been given him by all the GODS_." Still the truth was only floating in rumours and surmises; and the little that Boyle had done was not yet known. Lord Orrery, his son, had a difficulty to overcome to pass lightly over this allusion. The literary honour of the family was at stake, and his filial piety was exemplary to a father, who had unfortunately, in passion, deprived his lordship of the family library--a stroke from which his sensibility never recovered, and which his enemies ungenerously pointed against him. Lord Orrery, with all the tenderness of a son, and the caution of a politician, observes on "the armour given by the Gods"--"I shall not _dispute_ about the _gift_ of the armour. The Gods never bestowed celestial armour except upon heroes, whose courage and superior strength distinguished them from the rest of mankind." Most ingeniously he would seem to convert into a classical fable what was designed as a plain matter of fact!

It does credit to the discernment of Bentley, whose taste was not very lively in English composition, that he pronounced Boyle was _not the author_ of the "Examination," from _the variety of styles in it_.--p. 107.

[301] This short and pointed satire of Horace is merely a pleasant story about a low wretch of the name of King; and Brutus, under whose command he was, is entreated to get rid of him, from his hereditary hatred to _all kings_. I suppose this pun must be considered legitimate, otherwise Horace was an indifferent punster.

[302] A keen repartee! Yet King could read this mighty volume as "a vain confused performance," but the learned DODWELL declared to "the Bees of Christchurch," who looked up to him, that "he had never learned so much from any book of the size in his life." King was as unjust to Bentley, as Bentley to King. Men of genius are more subject to "unnatural civil war" than even the blockheads whom Pope sarcastically reproaches with it. The great critic's own notion of his volume seems equally modest and just. "To undervalue this dispute about 'Phalaris,' because it does not suit one's own studies, is to quarrel with a circle because it is not a square. If the question be not of vulgar use, it was writ therefore for a few; for even the greatest performances, upon the most important subjects, are no entertainment at all to _the many of the world_."--p. 107.

[303] This index, a very original morsel of literary pleasantry, is at once a satirical character of the great critic, and what it professes to be. I preserve a specimen among the curiosities I am collecting. It is entitled--

"_A Short Account of +Dr. BENTLEY+, by way of Index._

"Dr. Bentley's true story proved false, by the testimonies of, &c., p. --

"His civil language, p. --

"His nice taste, in wit, p. -- in style, p. -- in Greek, p. -- in Latin, p. -- in English, p. --

"His modesty and decency in contradicting great men"--a very long list of authors, concluding with '_Everybody_,' p. --

"His familiar acquaintance with books he never saw," p. --

And lastly, "his profound skill in criticism--from beginning to THE END."

Which thus terminates the volume.

[304] Cicero ad Atticum, Lib. vii., Epist. xii.

[305] No doubt this idea was the origin of that satirical Capriccio, which closed in a most fortunate pun--a literary caricature, where the doctor is represented in the hands of Phalaris's attendants, who are putting him into the tyrant's bull, while Bentley exclaims, "I had rather be _roasted_ than _Boyled_."

[306] Sir Richard Blackmore, in his bold attempt at writing "A Satire against Wit," in utter defiance of it, without any, however, conveys some opinions of the times. He there paints the great critic, "crowned with applause," seated amidst "the spoils of ruined wits:"

"Till his rude strokes had thresh'd the empty sheaf, Methought there had been something else than chaff."

Boyle, not satisfied with the undeserved celebrity conceded to his volume, ventured to write poetry, in which no one appears to have suspected the aid of "The Bees"--

"See a fine scholar sunk by wit in Boyle! After his foolish rhymes, both friends and foes Conclude they know _who did not write his prose_." _A Satire against Wit._

PARKER AND MARVELL.

MARVELL the founder of "a newly-refined art of jeering buffoonery"--his knack of nicknaming his adversaries--PARKER'S Portrait--PARKER suddenly changes his principles--his declamatory style--MARVELL prints his anonymous letter as a motto to "The Rehearsal Transprosed"--describes him as an "At-all"--MARVELL'S ludicrous description of the whole posse of answers summoned together by PARKER--MARVELL'S cautious allusion to MILTON--his solemn invective against PARKER--anecdote of MARVELL and PARKER--PARKER retires after the second part of "The Rehearsal Transprosed"--The Recreant, reduced to silence, distils his secret vengeance in a posthumous libel.

One of the legitimate ends of satire, and one of the proud triumphs of genius, is to unmask the false zealot; to beat back the haughty spirit that is treading down all; and if it cannot teach modesty, and raise a blush, at least to inflict terror and silence. It is then that the satirist does honour to the office of the executioner.

As one whose whip of steel can with a lash Imprint the characters of shame so deep, Even in the brazen forehead of proud Sin, That not eternity shall wear it out.[307]

The quarrel between PARKER and MARVELL is a striking example of the efficient powers of genius, in first humbling, and then annihilating, an unprincipled bravo, who had placed himself at the head of a faction.

Marvell, the under-secretary and the bosom-friend of Milton, whose fancy he has often caught in his verse, was one of the greatest wits of the luxuriant age of Charles II.; he was a master in all the arts of ridicule; and his inexhaustible spirit only required some permanent subject to have rivalled the causticity of Swift, whose style, in neatness and vivacity, seems to have been modelled on his.[308] But Marvell placed the oblation of genius on a temporary altar, and the sacrifice sunk with it; he wrote to the times, and with the times his writings have passed away; yet something there is incorruptible in wit, and wherever its salt has fallen, that part is still preserved.

Such are the vigour and fertility of Marvell's writings, that our old Chronicler of Literary History, Anthony Wood, considers him as the founder of "the then newly-refined art (though much in mode and fashion almost ever since) of sportive and jeering buffoonery;"[309] and the crabbed humorist describes "this pen-combat as briskly managed on both sides; a jerking flirting way of writing entertaining the reader, by seeing two such right cocks of the game so keenly engaging with sharp and dangerous weapons."--Burnett calls Marvell "the liveliest droll of the age, who writ in a burlesque strain, but with so peculiar and entertaining a conduct, that from the king to the tradesman, his books were read with great pleasure." Charles II. was a more polished judge than these uncouth critics; and, to the credit of his impartiality,--for that witty monarch and his dissolute court were never spared by Marvell, who remained inflexible to his seduction--he deemed Marvell the best prose satirist of the age. But Marvell had other qualities than the freest humour and the finest wit in this "newly-refined art," which seems to have escaped these grave critics--a vehemence of solemn reproof, and an eloquence of invective, that awes one with the spirit of the modern Junius,[310] and may give some notion of that more ancient satirist, whose writings are said to have so completely answered their design, that, after perusal, their victim hanged himself on the first tree; and in the present case, though the delinquent did not lay violent hands on himself, he did what, for an author, may be considered as desperate a course, "withdraw from the town, and cease writing for some years."[311]

The celebrated work here to be noticed is Marvell's "Rehearsal Transprosed;" a title facetiously adopted from Bayes in "The Rehearsal Transposed" of the Duke of Buckingham. It was written against the works and the person of Dr. Samuel Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, whom he designates under the character of Bayes, to denote the incoherence and ridiculousness of his character. Marvell had a peculiar knack of calling names,--it consisted in appropriating a ludicrous character in some popular comedy, and dubbing his adversaries with it. In the same spirit he ridiculed Dr. Turner, of Cambridge, a brother-genius to Parker, by nicknaming him "Mr. Smirk, the Divine in Mode," the name of the Chaplain in Etherege's "Man of Mode," and thus, by a stroke of the pen, conveyed an idea of "a neat, starched, formal, and forward divine." This application of a fictitious character to a real one, this christening a man with ridicule, though of no difficult invention, is not a little hazardous to inferior writers; for it requires not less wit than Marvell's to bring out of the real character the ludicrous features which mark the factitious prototype.

Parker himself must have his portrait, and if the likeness be justly hit off, some may be reminded of a resemblance. Mason applies the epithet of "Mitred Dullness" to him: but although he was at length reduced to railing and to menaces, and finally mortified into silence, this epithet does not suit so hardy and so active an adventurer.

The secret history of Parker may be collected in Marvell,[312] and his more public one in our honest chronicler, Anthony Wood. Parker was originally educated in strict sectarian principles; a starch Puritan, "fasting and praying with the Presbyterian students weekly, and who, for their refection feeding only on thin broth made of oatmeal and water, were commonly called _Gruellers_." Among these, says Marvell, "it was observed that he was wont to put more graves than all the rest into his porridge, and was deemed one of the _preciousest_[313] young men in the University." It seems that these mortified saints, both the brotherhood and the sisterhood, held their chief meetings at the house of "Bess Hampton, an old and crooked maid that drove the trade of laundry, who, being from her youth very much given to the godly party, as they call themselves, had frequent meetings, especially for those that were her customers." Such is the dry humour of honest Anthony, who paints like the Ostade of literary history.

But the age of sectarism and thin gruel was losing all its coldness in the sunshine of the Restoration; and this "preciousest young man," from praying and caballing against episcopacy, suddenly acquainted the world, in one of his dedications, that Dr. Ralph Bathurst had "rescued him from the chains and fetters of an unhappy education," and, without any intermediate apology, from a sullen sectarian turned a flaming highflyer for the "supreme dominion" of the Church.[314]

It is the after-conduct of Parker that throws light on this rapid change. On speculative points any man may be suddenly converted; for these may depend on facts or arguments which might never have occurred to him before. But when we watch the weathercock chopping with the wind, so pliant to move, and so stiff when fixed--when we observe this "preciousest grueller" clothed in purple, and equally hardy in the most opposite measures--become a favourite with James II., and a furious advocate for arbitrary power; when we see him railing at and menacing those, among whom he had committed as many extravagances as any of them;[315] can we hesitate to decide that this bold, haughty, and ambitious man was one of those who, having neither religion nor morality for a casting weight, can easily fly off to opposite extremes? and whether a puritan or a bishop, we must place his zeal to the same side of his religious ledger--that of the profits of barter!

The quarrel between Parker and Marvell originated in a preface,[316] written by Parker, in which he had poured down his contempt and abuse on his old companions, the Nonconformists. It was then Marvell clipped his wings with his "Rehearsal Transprosed;" his wit and humour were finely contrasted with Parker's extravagances, set off in his declamatory style; of which Marvell wittily describes "the volume and circumference of the periods, which, though he takes always to be his chiefest strength, yet, indeed, like too great a line, weakens the defence, and requires too many men to make it good." The tilt was now opened, and certain masqued knights appeared in the course; they attempted to grasp the sharp and polished weapon of Marvell, to turn it on himself.[317] But Marvell, with malicious ingenuity, sees Parker in them all--they so much resembled their master! "There were no less," says the wit, "than six scaramouches together on the stage, all of them of the same gravity and behaviour, the same tone, the same habit, that it was impossible to discern which was the true author of the 'Ecclesiastical Polity.' I believe he imitated the wisdom of some other princes, who have sometimes been persuaded by their servants to disguise several others in the regal garb, that the enemy might not know in the battle whom to single." Parker, in fact, replied to Marvell anonymously, by "A Reproof to the Rehearsal Transprosed," with a mild exhortation to the magistrate to crush with the secular arm the pestilent wit, the servant of Cromwell, and the friend of Milton. But this was not all; something else, anonymous too, was despatched to Marvell: it was an extraordinary letter, short enough to have been an epigram, could Parker have written one; but short as it was, it was more in character, for it was only a threat of assassination! It concluded with these words: "If thou darest to print any lie or libel against Dr. Parker, by the Eternal God I will cut thy throat." Marvell replied to "the Reproof," which he calls a printed letter, by the second part of "the Rehearsal Transprosed;" and to the unprinted letter, by publishing it on his own title-page.

Of two volumes of wit and broad humour, and of the most galling invective, one part flows so much into another, that the volatile spirit would be injured by an analytical process. But Marvell is now only read by the curious lovers of our literature, who find the strong, luxuriant, though not the delicate, wit of the wittiest age, never obsolete: the reader shall not, however, part from Marvell without some slight transplantations from a soil whose rich vegetation breaks out in every part.

Of the pleasantry and sarcasm, these may be considered as specimens. Parker was both author and licenser of his own work on "Ecclesiastical Polity;"[318] and it appears he got the licence for printing Marvell's first _Rehearsal_ recalled. The Church appeared in danger when the doctor discovered he was so furiously attacked. Marvell sarcastically rallies him on his dual capacity:--

"He is such an _At-all_, of so many capacities, that he would excommunicate any man who should have presumed to intermeddle with any one of his provinces. Has he been an author? he is too the licenser. Has he been a father? he will stand too for godfather. Had he acted _Pyramus_, he would have been _Moonshine_ too, and the _Hole in the Wall_. That first author of 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' (such as his) Nero, was of the same temper. He could not be contented with the Roman empire, unless he were too his own precentor; and lamented only the detriment that mankind must sustain at his death, in losing so considerable a fiddler."

The satirist describes Parker's arrogance for those whom Parker calls the vulgar, and whom he defies as "a rout of wolves and tigers, apes and buffoons;" yet his personal fears are oddly contrasted with his self-importance: "If he chance but to sneeze, he prays that the _foundations of the earth_ be not shaken.--Ever since he crept up to be but the _weathercock of a steeple_, he trembles and cracks at every puff of wind that blows about him, as if the _Church of England_ were falling." Parker boasted, in certain philosophical "Tentamina," or essays of his, that he had confuted the atheists: Marvell declares, "If he had reduced any atheist by his book, he can only pretend to have converted them (as in the old Florentine wars) by mere tiring them out, and perfect weariness." A pleasant allusion to those mock fights of the Italian mercenaries, who, after parading all day, rarely unhorsed a single cavalier.

Marvell blends with a ludicrous description of his answerers great fancy:--

"The whole _Posse Archidiaconatus_ was raised to repress me; and great rising there was, and sending post every way to pick out the ablest ecclesiastical droles to prepare an answer. Never was such a hubbub made about a sorry book. One flattered himself with being at least a surrogate; another was so modest as to set up with being but a paritor; while the most generous hoped only to be graciously smiled upon at a good dinner; but the more hungry starvelings generally looked upon it as an immediate call to a benefice; and he that could but write an answer, whatsoever it were, took it for the most dexterous, cheap, and legal way of simony. As is usual on these occasions, there arose no small competition and mutiny among the pretenders."

It seems all the body had not impudence enough, and had too nice consciences, and could not afford an extraordinary expense in wit for the occasion. It was then

"The author of the 'Ecclesiastical Polity' altered his lodgings to a calumny-office, and kept open chamber for all comers, that he might be supplied himself, or supply others, as there was occasion. But the information came in so slenderly, that he was glad to make use of anything rather than sit out; and there was at last nothing so slight, but it grew material; nothing so false, but he resolved it should go for truth; and what wanted in matter, he would make out with invention and artifice. So that he and his remaining comrades seemed to have set up a glass-house, the model of which he had observed from the height of his window in the neighbourhood, and the art he had been initiated into ever since from the manufacture (he will criticise because not orifacture) of _soap-bubbles_, he improved by degrees to the mystery of making _glass-drops_, and thence, in running leaps, mounted by these virtues to be Fellow of the Royal Society, Doctor of Divinity, Parson, Prebend, and Archdeacon. The furnace was so hot of itself, that there needed no coals, much less any one to blow them. One burnt the weed, another calcined the flint, a third melted down that mixture; but he himself fashioned all with his breath, and polished with his style, till, out of a mere jelly of sand and ashes, he had furnished a whole cupboard of things, so brittle and incoherent, that the least touch would break them again in pieces, and so transparent, that every man might see through them."

Parker had accused Marvell with having served Cromwell, and being the friend of Milton, then living, at a moment when such an accusation not only rendered a man odious, but put his life in danger.[319] Marvell, who now perceived that Milton, whom he never looked on but with the eyes of reverential awe, was likely to be drawn into his quarrel, touches on this subject with infinite delicacy and tenderness, but not with diminished energy against his malignant adversary, whom he shows to have been an impertinent intruder in Milton's house, where indeed he had first known him. He cautiously alludes to our English Homer by his initials: at that moment the very name of Milton would have tainted the page!

"J. M. was, and is, a man of great learning and sharpness of wit, as any man. It was his misfortune, living in a tumultuous time, to be tossed on the wrong side; and he writ, _flagrante bello_, certain dangerous treatises. But some of his books, upon which you take him at advantage, were of no other nature than that one writ by your own father; only with this difference, that your father's, which I have by me, was written with the same design, but with much less wit or judgment, for which there was no remedy, unless you will supply his judgment with his high Court of Justice. At his Majesty's happy return, J. M. did partake, even as you yourself did, for all your huffing, of his royal clemency, and has ever since expiated himself in a retired silence. Whether it were my foresight, or my good fortune, I never contracted any friendship or confidence with you; but then it was you frequented J. M. incessantly, and haunted his house day by day. What discourses you there used, he is too generous to remember. But for you to insult over his old age, to traduce him by your scaramouches, and in your own person, as a schoolmaster, who was born and hath lived more ingenuously and liberally than yourself!"

Marvell, when he lays by his playful humour and fertile fancy for more solemn remonstrances, assumes a loftier tone, and a severity of invective, from which, indeed, Parker never recovered.

Accused by Parker of aiming to degrade the clerical character, Marvell declares his veneration for that holy vocation, and that he reflected even on the failings of the men, from whom so much is expected, with indulgent reverence:--

"Their virtues are to be celebrated with all encouragement; and if their vices be not notoriously palpable, let the eye, as it defends its organ, so conceal the object by connivance." But there are cases when even to write satirically against a clergyman may be not only excusable, but necessary:--"The man who gets into the church by the belfry or the window, ought never to be borne in the pulpit; and so the man who illustrates his own corrupt doctrines with as ill a conversation, and adorns the lasciviousness of his life with an equal petulancy of style and language."--In such a concurrence of misdemeanors, what is to be done? The example and the consequence so pernicious! which could not be, "if our great pastors but exercise the wisdom of common shepherds, by parting with one to stop the infection of the whole flock, when his rottenness grows notorious. Or if our clergy would but use the instinct of other creatures, and chastise the blown deer out of their herd, such mischiefs might easily be remedied. In this case it is that I think a clergyman is laid open to the pen of any one that knows how to manage it; and that every person who has either wit, learning, or sobriety, is licensed, if debauched, to curb him; if erroneous, to catechise him; and if foul-mouthed and biting, to muzzle him. Such an one would never have come into the church, but to take sanctuary; rather wheresoever men shall find the footing of so wanton a satyr out of his own bounds, the neighbourhood ought, notwithstanding all his pretended capering divinity, to hunt him through the woods, with hounds and horse, home to his harbour."

And he frames an ingenious apology for the freedom of his humour, in this attack on the morals and person of his adversary:--

"To write against him (says Marvell) is the odiousest task that ever I undertook, and has looked to me all the while like the cruelty of a living dissection; which, however it may tend to public instruction, and though I have picked out the noxious creature to be anatomised, yet doth scarce excuse the offensiveness of the scent and fouling of my fingers: therefore, I will here break off abruptly, leaving many a vein not laid open, and many a passage not searched into. But if I have undergone the drudgery of the most loathsome part already (which is his personal character), I will not defraud myself of what is more truly pleasant, the conflict with, if it may be so called, his reason."

It was not only in these "pen-combats" that this Literary Quarrel proceeded; it seems also to have broken out in the streets; for a tale has been preserved of a rencontre, which shows at once the brutal manners of Parker, and the exquisite wit of Marvell. Parker meeting Marvell in the streets, the bully attempted to shove him from the wall: but, even there, Marvell's agility contrived to lay him sprawling in the kennel; and looking on him pleasantly, told him to "lie there for a son of a whore!" Parker complained to the Bishop of Rochester, who immediately sent for Marvell, to reprimand him; but he maintained that the doctor had so called himself, in one of his recent publications; and pointing to the preface, where Parker declares "he is 'a true son of his mother, the Church of England:' and if you read further on, my lord, you find he says: 'The Church of England has spawned two bastards, the Presbyterians and the Congregationists;' ergo, my lord, he expressly declares that he is the _son of a whore_!"

Although Parker retreated from any further attack, after the second part of "The Rehearsal Transprosed," he in truth only suppressed passions to which he was giving vent in secrecy and silence. That, indeed, was not discovered till a posthumous work of his appeared, in which one of the most striking parts is a most disgusting caricature of his old antagonist. Marvell was, indeed, a republican, the pupil of Milton, and adored his master: but his morals and his manners were Roman--he lived on the turnip of Curtius, and he would have bled at Philippi. We do not sympathise with the fierce republican spirit of those unhappy times that scalped the head feebly protected by a mitre or a crown. But the private virtues and the rich genius of such a man are pure from the taint of party. We are now to see how far private hatred can distort, in its hideous vengeance, the resemblance it affects to give after nature. Who could imagine that Parker is describing Marvell in these words?--

"Among these insolent revilers of great fame for ribaldry was one Marvell. From his youth he lived in all manner of wickedness; and thus, with a singular petulancy from nature, he performed the office of a satirist for the faction, not so much from the quickness of his wit, as from the sourness of his temper. A vagabond, ragged, hungry poetaster, beaten at every tavern, where he daily received the rewards of his impudence in kicks and blows.[320] By the interest of Milton, to whom he was somewhat agreeable for his malignant wit, he became the under-secretary to Cromwell's secretary."

And elsewhere he calls him "a drunken buffoon," and asserts that "he made his conscience more cheap than he had formerly made his reputation;" but the familiar anecdote of Marvell's political honesty, when, wanting a dinner, he declined the gold sent to him by the king, sufficiently replies to the calumniator. Parker, then in his retreat, seems not to have been taught anything like modesty by his silence, as Burnet conjectured; who says, "That a face of brass must grow red when it is burnt as his was." It was even then that the recreant, in silence, was composing the libel, which his cowardice dared not publish, but which his invincible malice has sent down to posterity.

FOOTNOTES:

[307] Randolph's _Muses' Looking-glass_. Act 1, Scene 4.

[308] Swift certainly admired, if he did not imitate Marvell: for in his "Tale of a Tub" he says, "We still read Marvell's answer to Parker with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago."

[309] This is a curious remark of Wood's: How came raillery and satire to be considered as "a newly-refined art?" Has it not, at all periods, been prevalent among every literary people? The remark is, however, more founded on truth than it appears, and arose from Wood's own feelings. Wit and Raillery had been so strange to us during the gloomy period of the fanatic Commonwealth, that honest Anthony, whose prejudices did not run in favour of Marvell, not only considers him as the "restorer of this newly-refined art," but as one "hugely versed in it," and acknowledges all its efficacy in the complete discomfiture of his haughty rival. Besides this, _a small book_ of controversy, such as Marvell's usually are, was another novelty--the "aureoli libelli," as one fondly calls his precious books, were in the wretched taste of the times, rhapsodies in folio. The reader has doubtless heard of Caryll's endless "Commentary on Job," consisting of 2400 folio pages! in small type. Of that monument of human perseverance, which commenting on Job's patience, inspired what few works do to whoever read them, the exercise of the virtue it inculcated, the publisher, in his advertisement in Clavel's Catalogue of Books, 1681, announces the two folios in 600 sheets each! these were a republication of the first edition, in twelve volumes quarto! he apologises "that it hath been _so long a doing_, to the great vexation and loss of the proposer." He adds, "indeed, _some few lines_, no more than what may be contained _in a quarto page_, are expunged, _they not relating to the Exposition_, which nevertheless some, by malicious prejudice, have so unjustly aggravated, as if the whole work had been disordered." He apologises for curtailing _a few lines_ from 2400 folio pages! and he considered that these few lines were the only ones that did not relate to the Exposition! At such a time, the little books of Marvell must have been considered as relishing morsels after such indigestible surfeits.

[310] The severity of his satire on Charles's court may be well understood by the following lines:--

"A colony of French possess the court, Pimps, priests, buffoons, in privy-chamber sport; Such slimy monsters ne'er approached a throne Since Pharaoh's days, nor so defil'd a crown; In sacred ear tyrannick arts they croak, Pervert his mind, and good intentions choak."

"The Historical Poem," given in the poems on State affairs, is so personal in its attacks on the vices of Charles, that it is marvellous how its author escaped punishment. "Hodge's Vision from the Monument" is equally strong, while the "Dialogue between two Horses" (that of the statue of Charles I. at Charing-cross, and Charles II., then in the city), has these two strong lines of regret:--

"----to see _Deo Gratias_ writ on the throne, And the king's wicked life say God there is none."

The satire ends with the question:--

"But canst thou devise when things will be mended?"

Which is thus answered:--

"When the reign of the line of the Stuarts is ended!".--ED.

[311] So Burnet tells us.

[312] See "The Rehearsal Transprosed, the second part," p. 76.

[313] One of the canting terms used by the saints of those days, and not obsolete in the dialect of those who still give themselves out to be saints in the present.

[314] Marvell admirably describes Parker's journey to London at the Restoration, where "he spent a considerable time in creeping into all corners and companies, horoscoping up and down concerning the duration of the government." This term, so expressive of his political doubts, is from "Judicial Astrology," then a prevalent study. "Not considering anything as best, but as most lasting and most profitable; and after having many times cast a figure, he at last satisfied himself that the episcopal government would endure as long as this king lived, and from thenceforwards cast about to find the highway to preferment. To do this, he daily enlarged not only his conversation but his conscience, and was made free of some of the town vices; imagining, like Muleasses, King of Tunis (for I take witness that on all occasions I treat him rather above his quality than otherwise), that by hiding himself among the onions he should escape being traced by his perfumes." The narrative proceeds with a curious detail of all his sycophantic attempts at seducing useful patrons, among whom was the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then began "those pernicious books," says Marvell, "in which he first makes all that he will to be law, and then whatsoever is law, to be divinity." Parker, in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," came at length to promulgate such violent principles as these, "He openly declares his submission to the government of a Nero and a Caligula, rather than suffer a dissolution of it." He says, "it is absolutely necessary to set up a more severe government over men's consciences and religious persuasions than over their vices and immoralities;" and that "men's vices and debaucheries may lie more safely indulged than their consciences." Is it not difficult to imagine that this man had once been an Independent, the advocate for every congregation being independent of a bishop or a synod?

[315] Parker's father was a lawyer, and one of Oliver's most submissive sub-committee men, who so long pillaged the nation and spilled its blood, "not in the hot and military way (which diminishes always the offence), but in the cooler blood and sedentary execution of an high court of justice." He wrote a very remarkable book (after he had been petitioned against for a misdemeanour) in defence of that usurped irregular state called "The Government of the People of England." It had "a most hieroglyphical title" of several emblems: two hands joined, and beneath a sheaf of arrows, stuffed about with half-a-dozen mottoes, "enough," says Marvell, "to have supplied the mantlings and achievement of this (godly) family." An anecdote in this secret history of Parker is probably true. "He shortly afterwards did inveigh against his father's memory, and in his mother's presence, before witnesses, for a couple of whining fanatics."--_Rehearsal Transprosed_, second part, p. 75.

[316] This preface was prefixed to Bishop Bramball's "Vindication of the Bishops from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery."

[317] As a specimen of what old Anthony calls "a jerking flirting way of writing," I transcribe the titles of these answers which Marvell received. As Marvell had nicknamed Parker, Bayes, the quaint humour of one entitled his reply, "Rosemary and Bayes;" another, "The Transproser Rehearsed, or the Fifth Act of Mr. Bayes's Play;" another, "Gregory Father Greybeard, with his Vizard off;" another formed "a Commonplace Book out of the Rehearsal, digested under heads;" and lastly, "Stoo him Bayes, or some Animadversions on the Humour of writing Rehearsals."--_Biog. Brit._ p. 3055.

This was the very Bartlemy-fair of wit!

[318] The title will convey some notion of its intolerant principles: "A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity, wherein the authority of the Civil Magistrate _over the Consciences of Subjects_, in matters of external Religion, is asserted."

[319] Milton had become acquainted with Marvell when travelling in Italy, where he had gone to perfect his studies. He returned to England in 1653, and was connected with the Cromwellian party, through the introduction of Milton, in 1657. The great poet was at that time secretary to Cromwell, and he became his assistant-secretary. He afterwards represented his native town of Hull in Parliament.--ED.

[320] Vanus, pannosus, et famelicus poetaster oenopolis quovis vapulans, fuste et calce indies petulantiae poenas tulit--are the words in Parker's "_De Rebus sui Temporis Commentariorum_," p. 275.

D'AVENANT

AND A CLUB OF WITS.

CALAMITIES of Epic Poets--Character and Anecdotes of D'AVENANT--attempts a new vein of invention--the Critics marshalled against each other on the "Gondibert"--D'AVENANT'S sublime feelings of Literary Fame--attacked by a Club of Wits in two books of Verses--the strange misconception hitherto given respecting the Second Part--various specimens of the Satires on Gondibert, the Poet, and his Panegyrist HOBBES--the Poet's silence; and his neglect of the unfinished Epic, while the Philosopher keenly retorts on the Club, and will not allow of any authority in WIT.

The memoirs of epic poets, in as far as they relate to the history of their own epics, would be the most calamitous of all the suitors of the Muses, whether their works have reached us, or scarcely the names of the poets. An epic, which has sometimes been the labour of a life, is the game of the wits and the critics. One ridicules what is written; the other censures for what has not been written:--and it has happened, in some eminent instances, that the rudest assailants of him who "builds the lofty rhyme," have been his ungenerous contemporaries. Men, whose names are now endeared to us, and who have left their ~KTEMA ES AEI~, which HOBBES so energetically translates "a possession for everlasting," have bequeathed an inheritance to posterity, of which they have never been in the receipt of the revenue. "The first fruits" of genius have been too often gathered to place upon its tomb. Can we believe that MILTON did not endure mortification from the neglect of "evil days," as certainly as Tasso was goaded to madness by the systematic frigidity of his critics? He who is now before us had a mind not less exalted than Milton or Tasso; but was so effectually ridiculed, that he has only sent us down the fragment of a great work.

One of the curiosities in the history of our poetry, is the GONDIBERT of D'AVENANT; and the fortunes and the fate of this epic are as extraordinary as the poem itself. Never has an author deserved more copious memoirs than the fertility of this man's genius claims. His life would have exhibited a moving picture of genius in action and in contemplation. With all the infirmities of lively passions, he had all the redeeming virtues of magnanimity and generous affections; but with the dignity and the powers of a great genius, falling among an age of wits, he was covered by ridicule. D'Avenant was a man who had viewed human life in all its shapes, and had himself taken them. A poet and a wit, the creator of the English stage with the music of Italy and the scenery of France; a soldier, an emigrant, a courtier, and a politician:--he was, too, a state-prisoner, awaiting death with his immortal poem in his hand;[321] and at all times a philosopher!

That hardiness of enterprise which had conducted him through life, brought the same novelty, and conferred on him the same vigour in literature.

D'Avenant attempted to open a new vein of invention in narrative poetry; which not to call _epic_, he termed _heroic_; and which we who have more completely emancipated ourselves from the arbitrary mandates of Aristotle and Bossu, have since styled romantic. Scott, Southey, and Byron have taught us this freer scope of invention, but characterised by a depth of passion which is not found in D'Avenant. In his age, the title which he selected to describe the class of his poetical narrative, was a miserable source of petty criticism. It was decreed that every poem should resemble another poem, on the plan of the ancient epic. This was the golden age of "the poet-apes," till they found that it was easier to produce epic writers than epic readers.

But our poet, whose manly genius had rejected one great absurdity, had the folly to adopt another. The first reformers are always more heated with zeal than enlightened by sagacity. The four-and-twenty chapters of an epic, he perceived, were but fantastical divisions, and probably, originally, but accidental; yet he proposed another form as chimerical; he imagined that by having only five he was constructing his poem on the dramatic plan of five acts. He might with equal propriety have copied the Spanish comedy which I once read, in twenty-five acts, and in no slender folio. "Sea-marks (says D'Avenant, alluding to the works of antiquity) are chiefly useful to _coasters_, and serve not those who have the ambition of _discoverers_, that love to sail in untried seas;" and yet he was attempting to turn an epic poem into a monstrous drama, from the servile habits he had contracted from his intercourse with the theatre! This error of the poet has, however, no material influence on the "Gondibert," as it has come down to us; for, discouraged and ridiculed, our adventurer never finished his voyage of discovery. He who had so nobly vindicated the freedom of the British Muse from the meanness of imitation, and clearly defined what such a narrative as he intended should be, "a perfect glass of nature, which gives us a familiar and easy view of ourselves," did not yet perceive that there is no reason why a poetical narrative should be cast into any particular form, or be longer or shorter than the interest it excites will allow.

More than a century and a half have elapsed since the first publication of "Gondibert," and its merits are still a subject of controversy; and indubitable proof of some inherent excellence not willingly forgotten. The critics are marshalled on each side, one against the other, while between these formidable lines stands the poet, with a few scattered readers;[322] but what is more surprising in the history of the "Gondibert," the poet is a great poet, the work imperishable!

The "Gondibert" has poetical defects fatal for its popularity; the theme was not happily chosen; the quatrain has been discovered by capricious ears to be unpleasing, though its solemnity was felt by Dryden.[323] The style is sometimes harsh and abrupt, though often exquisite; and the fable is deficient in that rapid interest which the story-loving readers of all times seem most to regard. All these are diseases which would have long since proved mortal in a poem less vital; but our poet was a commanding genius, who redeemed his bold errors by his energetic originality. The luxuriancy of his fancy, the novelty of his imagery, the grandeur of his views of human life; his delight in the new sciences of his age;--these are some of his poetical virtues. But, above all, we dwell on the impressive solemnity of his philosophical reflections, and his condensed epigrammatic thoughts. The work is often more ethical than poetical; yet, while we feel ourselves becoming wiser at every page, in the fulness of our minds we still perceive that our emotions have been seldom stirred by passion. The poem falls from our hands! yet is there none of which we wish to retain so many single verses. D'Avenant is a poetical Rochefoucault; the sententious force of his maxims on all human affairs could only have been composed by one who had lived in a constant intercourse with mankind.[324]

A delightful invention in this poem is "the House of Astragon," a philosophical residence. Every great poet is affected by the revolutions of his age. The new experimental philosophy had revived the project of Lord Bacon's learned retirement, in his philosophical romance of the _Atalantis_; and subsequently in a time of civil repose after civil war, Milton, Cowley, and Evelyn attempted to devote an abode to science itself. These tumults of the imagination subsided in the establishment of the Royal Society. D'Avenant anticipated this institution. On an estate consecrated to philosophy stands a retired building on which is inscribed, "Great Nature's Office," inhabited by sages, who are styled "Nature's Registers," busily recording whatever is brought to them by "a throng of Intelligencers," who make "patient observations" in the field, the garden, the river, on every plant, and "every fish, and fowl, and beast." Near at hand is "Nature's Nursery," a botanical garden. We have also "a Cabinet of Death," "the Monument of Bodies," an anatomical collection, which leads to "the Monument of vanished Minds," as the poet finely describes the library. Is it not striking to find, says Dr. Aikin, so exact a model of _the school of Linnaeus_?

This was a poem to delight a philosopher; and Hobbes, in a curious epistle prefixed to the work, has strongly marked its distinct beauties. "Gondibert" not only came forth with the elaborate panegyric of Hobbes, but was also accompanied by the high commendatory poems of Waller and Cowley; a cause which will sufficiently account for the provocations it inflamed among the poetical crew; and besides these accompaniments, there is a preface of great length, stamped with all the force and originality of the poet's own mind; and a postscript, as sublime from the feelings which dictated it as from the time and place of its composition.

In these, this great genius pours himself out with all that "glory of which his large soul appears to have been full," as Hurd has nobly expressed it.[325] Such a conscious dignity of character struck the petulant wits with a provoking sense of their own littleness.

A club of wits caballed and produced a collection of short poems sarcastically entitled "Certain Verses written by several of the Author's Friends, to be reprinted in the Second Edition of 'Gondibert,'" 1653. Two years after appeared a brother volume, entitled "The Incomparable Poem of Gondibert vindicated from the Wit-Combats of Four Esquires; Clinias, Dametas, Sancho and Jack Pudding;"[326] with these mottoes:

~Koteei kai aoidos aoido~. Vatum quoque gratia, rara est. Anglice, One wit-brother Envies another.

Of these rare tracts, we are told by Anthony Wood and all subsequent literary historians, too often mere transcribers of title-pages, that the second was written by our author himself. Would not one imagine that it was a real vindication, or at least a retort-courteous on these obliging friends. The irony of the whole volume has escaped their discovery. The second tract is a continuation of the satire: a mock defence, where the sarcasm and the pretended remonstrance are sometimes keener than the open attack. If, indeed, D'Avenant were the author of a continuation of a satire on himself, it is an act of _felo de se_ no poet ever committed; a self-flagellation by an iron whip, where blood is drawn at every stroke, the most penitent bard never inflicted on himself. Would D'Avenant have bantered his proud labour, by calling it "incomparable?" And were it true, that he felt the strokes of their witty malignity so lightly, would he not have secured his triumph by finishing that "Gondibert," "the monument of his mind?" It is too evident that this committee of wits hurt the quiet of a great mind.

As for this series of literary satires, it might have been expected, that since the wits clubbed, this committee ought to have been more effective in their operations. Many of their papers were, no doubt, more blotted with their wine than their ink. Their variety of attack is playful, sarcastic, and malicious. They were then such exuberant wits, that they could make even ribaldry and grossness witty. My business with these wicked trifles is only as they concerned the feelings of the great poet, whom they too evidently hurt, as well as the great philosopher who condescended to notice these wits, with wit more dignified than their own.

Unfortunately for our "jeered Will," as in their usual court-style they call him, he had met with "a foolish mischance," well known among the collectors of our British portraits. There was a feature in his face, or rather no feature at all, that served as a perpetual provocative: there was no precedent of such a thing, says Suckling, in "The Sessions of the Poets"--

In all their records, in verse or in prose, There was none of a Laureat who wanted a nose.

Besides, he was now doomed--

Nor could old Hobbes Defend him from dry bobbs.

The preface of "Gondibert," the critical epistle of Hobbes, and the poems of the two greatest poets in England, were first to be got rid of. The attack is brisk and airy.

UPON THE PREFACE.

Room for the best of poets heroic, If you'll believe two wits and a Stoic. Down go the _Iliads_, down go the _AEneidos_: All must give place to the _Gondiberteidos_. For to _Homer_ and _Virgil_ he has a just pique, Because one's writ in Latin, the other in Greek; Besides an old grudge (our critics they say so) With _Ovid_, because his sirname was _Naso_. If fiction the fame of a poet thus raises, What poets are you that have writ his praises? But we justly quarrel at this our defeat; You give us a stomach, he gives us no meat. A preface to no book, a porch to no house; Here is the mountain, but where is the mouse?

This stroke, in the mock defence, is thus warded off, with a slight confession of the existence of "the mouse."

Why do you bite, you men of fangs (That is, of teeth that forward hangs), And charge my dear Ephestion With want of meat? you want digestion. We poets use not so to do, To find men meat and stomach too. You have the book, you have the house, And mum, good Jack, and catch the mouse.

Among the personal foibles of D'Avenant appears a desire to disguise his humble origin; and to give it an air of lineal descent, he probably did not write his name as his father had done. It is said he affected, at the cost of his mother's honour, to insinuate that he was the son of Shakspeare, who used to bait at his father's inn.[327] These humorists first reduce D'Avenant to "Old Daph."

Denham, come help me to laugh, At old Daph, Whose fancies are higher than chaff.

Daph swells afterwards into "Daphne;" a change of sex inflicted on the poet for making one of his heroines a man; and this new alliance to Apollo becomes a source of perpetual allusion to the bays--

Cheer up, small wits, now _you_ shall crowned be,-- Daphne himself is turn'd into a tree.

One of the club inquires about the situation of _Avenant_--

----where now it lies, Whether in Lombard,[328] or the skies.

Because, as seven cities disputed for the birth of Homer, so after ages will not want towns claiming to be _Avenant_--

Some say by _Avenant_ no place is meant, And that our Lombard is without descent; And as, by _Bilk_, men mean there's nothing there, So come from _Avenant_, means from _no where_. Thus _Will_, intending _D'Avenant_ to grace, Has made a notch in's name like that in's face.

D'Avenant had been knighted for his good conduct at the siege of Gloucester, and was to be tried by the Parliament, but procured his release without trial. This produces the following sarcastic epigram:--

UPON FIGHTING WILL.

The King knights Will for fighting on his side; Yet when Will comes for fighting to be tried, There is not one in all the armies can Say they e'er felt, or saw, this fighting man. Strange, that the Knight should not be known i' th' field; A face well charged, though nothing in his shield. Sure fighting Will like _basilisk_ did ride Among the troops, and all that _saw_ Will died; Else how could Will, for fighting, be a Knight, And none alive that ever saw Will fight?

Of the malignancy of their wit, we must preserve one specimen. They probably harassed our poet with anonymous despatches from the Club: for there appears another poem on D'Avenant's anger on such an occasion:--

A LETTER SENT TO THE GOOD KNIGHT.

Thou hadst not been thus long neglected, But we, thy four best friends, expected, Ere this time, thou hadst stood corrected. But since that planet governs still, That rules thy tedious fustain quill 'Gainst nature and the Muses' will; When, by thy friends' advice and care, 'Twas hoped, in time, thou wouldst despair To give ten pounds to write it fair; Lest thou to all the world would show it, We thought it fit to let thee know it: Thou art a damn'd insipid poet!

These literary satires contain a number of other "pasquils," burlesquing the characters, the incidents, and the stanza, of the GONDIBERT: some not the least witty are the most gross, and must not be quoted; thus the wits of that day were poetical suicides, who have shortened their lives by their folly.

D'Avenant, like more than one epic poet, did not tune to his ear the _names_ of his personages. They have added, to show that his writings are adapted to an easy musical singer, the names of his heroes and heroines, in these verses:--

Hurgonil, Astolpho, Borgia, Goltha, Tibalt, Astragon, Hermogild, Ulfinor, Orgo, Thula.

And "epithets that will serve for any substantives, either in this part or the next."

Such are the labours of the idlers of genius, envious of the nobler industry of genius itself!--How the great author's spirit was nourished by the restoratives of his other friends, after the bitter decoctions prescribed by these "Four," I fear we may judge by the unfinished state in which "Gondibert" has come down to us. D'Avenant seems, however, to have guarded his dignity by his silence; but Hobbes took an opportunity of delivering an exquisite opinion on this Club of Wits, with perfect philosophical indifference. It is in a letter to the Hon. EDWARD HOWARD, who requested to have his sentiments on another heroic poem of his own, "The British Princes."

"My judgment in poetry hath, you know, been once already censured, by very good wits, for commending 'Gondibert;' but yet they have not, I think, disabled my testimony. For, _what authority is there in wit_? A jester may have it; a man in drink may have it, and be fluent over-night, and wise and dry in the morning. What is it? or who can tell whether it be better to have it, or be without it, especially if it be a pointed wit? I will take my liberty to praise what I like, as well as they do to reprehend what they do not like."

The stately "Gondibert" was not likely to recover favour in the court of Charles the Second, where man was never regarded in his true greatness, but to be ridiculed; a court where the awful presence of Clarendon became so irksome, that the worthless monarch exiled him; a court where nothing was listened to but wit at the cost of sense, the injury of truth, and the violation of decency; where a poem of magnitude with new claims was a very business for those volatile arbiters of taste; an epic poem that had been travestied and epigrammed, was a national concern with them, which, next to some new state-plot, that occurred oftener than a new epic, might engage the monarch and his privy council. These were not the men to be touched by the compressed reflections and the ideal virtues personified in this poem. In the court of the laughing voluptuary the manners as well as the morals of these satellites of pleasure were so little heroic, that those of the highest rank, both in birth and wit, never mentioned each other but with the vulgar familiarity of nicknames, or the coarse appellatives of Dick, Will, and Jack! Such was the era when the serious "Gondibert" was produced, and such were the judges who seem to have decided its fate.

FOOTNOTES:

[321] D'Avenant commenced his poem during his exile at Paris. The preface is dated from the Louvre; the postscript from Cowes Castle, in the Isle of Wight, where he was then confined, expecting his immediate execution. The poem, in the first edition, 1651, is therefore abruptly concluded. There is something very affecting and great in his style on this occasion. "I am here arrived at the middle of the third book. But it is high time to strike sail and cast anchor, though I have run but half my course, when at the helm I am threatened with _death_; who, though he can visit us but once, seems troublesome; and even in the innocent may beget such a gravity, as diverts the music of verse. Even in a worthy design, I shall ask leave to desist, when I am interrupted by so great an experiment as _dying_;--and 'tis an experiment to the most experienced; for no man (though his mortifications may be much greater than mine) can say _he has already died_."--D'Avenant is said to have written a letter to Hobbes about this time, giving some account of his progress in the third book. "But why (said he) should I trouble you or myself with these thoughts, when I am pretty certain I shall be hanged next week?"--A stroke of the gaiety of temper of a very thoughtful mind; for D'Avenant, with all his wit and fancy, has made the profoundest reflections on human life.

The reader may be interested to know, that after D'Avenant's removal from Cowes to the Tower, to be tried, his life was saved by the gratitude of two aldermen of York, whom he had obliged. It is delightful to believe the story told by Bishop Newton, that D'Avenant owed his life to Milton; Wood, indeed, attributes our poet's escape to both; at the Restoration D'Avenant interposed, and saved Milton. Poets, after all, envious as they are to a brother, are the most generously-tempered of men: they libel, but they never hang; they will indeed throw out a sarcasm on the man whom they saved from being hanged. "Please your Majesty," said Sir John Denham, "do not hang George Withers--that it may not be said I am the worst poet alive."

[322] It would form a very curious piece of comparative criticism, were the opinions and the arguments of all the critics--those of the time and of the present day--thrown into the smelting-pot. The massiness of some opinions of great authority would be reduced to a thread of wire; and even what is accepted as standard ore might shrink into "a gilt sixpence." On one side, the condemners of D'Avenant would be Rymer, Blackwall, Granger, Knox, Hurd, and Hayley; and the advocates would be Hobbes, Waller, Cowley, Dr. Aikin, Headley, &c. Rymer opened his Aristotelian text-book. He discovers that the poet's first lines do not give any light into his design (it is probable D'Avenant would have found it hard to have told it to Mr. Rymer); that it has neither proposition nor invocation--(Rymer might have filled these up himself); so that "he chooses to enter into the top of the house, because the mortals of mean and satisfied minds go in at the door;" and then "he has no hero or action so illustrious that the _name_ of the poem prepared the reader for its reception." D'Avenant had rejected the marvellous from his poem--that is, the machinery of the epic: he had resolved to compose a tale of human beings for men. "This was," says Blackwall, another of the classical flock, "like lopping off a man's limb, and then putting him upon running races." Our formal critics are quite lively in their dulness on our "adventurer." But poets, in the crisis of a poetical revolution, are more legitimate judges than all such critics. Waller and Cowley applaud D'Avenant for this very omission of the epical machinery in this new vein of invention:--

"Here no bold tales of gods or monsters swell, But human passions such as with us dwell; _Man is thy theme_, his virtue or his rage, Drawn to the life in each elaborate page." WALLER.

"Methinks heroic poesy, till now, Like some fantastic fairy-land did show, _And all but man, in man's best work had place_." COWLEY.

Hurd's discussion on "Gondibert," in his "Commentaries," is the most important piece of criticism; subtle, ingenious, and exquisitely analytical. But he holds out the fetter of authority, and he decides as a judge who expounds laws; not the best decision, when new laws are required to abrogate obsolete ones. And what laws invented by man can be immutable? D'Avenant was thus tried by the laws of a country, that of Greece or Rome, of which, it is said, he was not even a denizen.

It is remarkable that all the critics who condemn D'Avenant could not but be struck by his excellences, and are very particular in expressing their admiration of his genius. I mean all the critics who have read the poem: some assuredly have criticised with little trouble.

[323] It is written in the long four-lined stanzas, which Dryden adopted for his _Annus Mirabilis_; nearly 2000 of such stanzas are severe trials for the critical reader.--ED.

[324] I select some of these lines as examples.

Of Care, who only "seals her eyes in cloisters," he says,

"She visits cities, but she dwells in thrones."

Of learned Curiosity, eager, but not to be hurried--the student is

"Hasty to know, though not by haste beguiled."

He calls a library, with sublime energy,

"The monument of vanish'd minds."

Never has a politician conveyed with such force a most important precept:

------------"The laws, Men from themselves, but not from power, secure."

Of the Court he says,

"There prosperous power sleeps long, though suitors wake."

"Be bold, for number cancels bashfulness; Extremes, from which a King would blushing shrink, Unblushing senates act as no excess."

And these lines, taken as they occur:

"Truth's a discovery made by travelling minds." "Honour's the moral conscience of the great." "They grow so certain as to need no hope." "Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds."

I conclude with one complete stanza, of the same cast of reflection. It may be inscribed in the library of the student, in the studio of the artist, in every place where excellence can only be obtained by knowledge.

"Rich are the diligent, who can command Time, nature's stock! and, could his hour-glass fall, Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand, And by incessant labour gather all!"

[325] Can one read such passages as these without catching some of the sympathies of a great genius that knows itself?

"He who writes an heroic poem leaves an estate entailed, and he gives a greater gift to posterity than to the present age; for a public benefit is best measured in the number of receivers; and our contemporaries are but few when reckoned with those who shall succeed.

"If thou art a malicious reader, thou wilt remember my preface boldly confessed, that a main motive to the undertaking was a desire of fame; and thou mayest likewise say, I may very possibly not live to enjoy it. Truly, I have some years ago considered that Fame, like Time, only gets a reverence by long running; and that, like a river, 'tis narrowest where 'tis bred, and broadest afar off.

"If thou, reader, art one of those who have been warmed with poetic fire, I reverence thee as my judge; and whilst others tax me with vanity, I appeal to thy conscience whether it be more than such a necessary assurance as thou hast made to thyself in like undertakings? For when I observe that writers have many enemies, such inward assurance, methinks, resembles that forward confidence in men of arms, which makes them proceed in great enterprise; since the right examination of abilities begins with inquiring whether we doubt ourselves."

Such a composition is injured by mutilation. He here also alludes to his military character: "Nor could I sit idle and sigh with such as mourn to hear the drum; for if the age be not quiet enough to be taught virtue a pleasant way, the next may be at leisure; nor could I (like men that have civilly slept till they are old in dark cities) think war a novelty." Shakspeare could not have expressed his feelings, in his own style, more eloquently touching than D'Avenant.

[326] It is said there were four writers. The Clinias and Dametas were probably Sir John Denham and Jo. Donne; Sir Allan Broderick and Will Crofts, who is mentioned by the clubs as one of their fellows, appear to be the Sancho and Jack Pudding. Will Crofts was a favourite with Charles II: he had been a skilful agent, as appears in Clarendon. [In the accounts of moneys disbursed for secret services in the reign of Charles II., published by the Camden Society, his name appears for 200_l._, but that of his wife repeatedly figures for large sums, "as of free guift." In this way she receives 700_l._ with great regularity for a series of years, until the death of Charles II.] Howell has a poem "On some who, blending their brains together, plotted how to bespatter one of the Muses' choicest sons, Sir William D'Avenant."

[327] The story was current in D'Avenant's time, and it is certain he encouraged the believers in its truth. Anthony Wood speaks of the lady as "a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation, in which she was imitated by none of her children but by this William." He also notes Shakspeare's custom to lodge at the Crown Inn, Oxford, kept by her husband, "in his journies between Warwickshire and London." Aubrey tells the same tale, adding that D'Avenant "would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a glass of wine with his most intimate friends, _e.g._ Sam. Butler (author of 'Hudibras,' &c.,) say, that it seemed to him that he writ with the very same spirit that Shakspeare did, and was contented enough to be thought his son;" he adds that "his mother had a very light report." It was Pope who told Oldys the jesting story he had obtained from Betterton, of little Will running from school to meet Shakspeare, in one of his visits to Oxford, and being asked where he was running, by an old townsman, replied, to "see my godfather Shakspeare." "There's a good boy," said the old gentleman, "but have a care that you don't take God's name in vain."--ED.

[328] The scene where the story of "Gondibert" is placed, which the wits sometimes pronounced _Lumber_ and _Lumbery_.

THE PAPER-WARS OF THE CIVIL WARS.

The "Mercuries" and "Diurnals," archives of political fictions--"The Diurnals," in the pay of the Parliament, described by BUTLER and CLEVELAND--Sir JOHN BIRKENHEAD excels in sarcasm, with specimens of his "Mercurius Aulicus"--how he corrects his own lies--Specimens of the Newspapers on the side of the Commonwealth.

Among these battles of logomachy, in which so much ink has been spilt, and so many pens have lost their edge--at a very solemn period in our history, when all around was distress and sorrow, stood forwards the facetious ancestors of that numerous progeny who still flourish among us, and who, without a suspicion of their descent, still bear the features of their progenitors, and inherit so many of the family humours. These were the MERCURIES and DIURNALS--the newspapers of our Civil Wars.

The distinguished heroes of these Paper-Wars, Sir John Birkenhead, Marchmont Needham, and Sir Roger L'Estrange, I have elsewhere portrayed.[329] We have had of late correct lists of these works; but no one seems as yet to have given any clear notion of their spirit and their manner.

The London Journals in the service of the Parliament were usually the _Diurnals_. These politicians practised an artifice which cannot be placed among "the lost inventions." As these were hawked about the metropolis to spur curiosity, often languid from over-exercise, or to wheedle an idle spectator into a reader, every paper bore on its front the inviting heads of its intelligence. Men placed in the same circumstances will act in the same manner, without any notion of imitation; and the passions of mankind are now addressed by the same means which our ancestors employed, by those who do not suspect they are copying them.

These _Diurnals_ have been blasted by the lightnings of Butler and Cleveland. Hudibras is made happy at the idea that he may be

Register'd by fame eternal, In deathless pages of DIURNAL.

But Cleveland has left us two remarkable effusions of his satiric and vindictive powers, in his curious character of "A Diurnal Maker," and "A London Diurnal." He writes in the peculiar vein of the wit of those times, with an originality of images, whose combinations excite surprise, and whose abundance fatigues our weaker delicacy.

"A Diurnal-Maker is the Sub-Almoner of History; Queen Mab's Register; one whom, by the same figure that a North-country pedler is a merchantman, you may style an author. The silly countryman who, seeing an ape in a scarlet coat, blessed his young worship, and gave his landlord joy of the hopes of his house, did not slander his compliment with worse application than he that names this shred an historian. To call him an Historian is to knight a Mandrake; 'tis to view him through a perspective, and, by that gross hyperbole, to give the reputation of an engineer to a maker of mousetraps. When these weekly fragments shall pass for history, let the poor man's box be entitled the Exchequer, and the alms-basket a Magazine. Methinks the Turke should license Diurnals, because he prohibits learning and books." He characterises the Diurnal as "a puny chronicle, scarce pin-feathered with the wings of time; it is a history in sippets; the English Iliads in a nutshell; the Apocryphal Parliament's Book of Maccabees in single sheets."

But Cleveland tells us that these Diurnals differ from a _Mercurius Aulicus_ (the paper of his party),--"as the Devil and his Exorcist, or as a black witch doth from a white one, whose office is to unravel her enchantments."

The _Mercurius Aulicus_ was chiefly conducted by Sir JOHN BIRKENHEAD, at Oxford, "communicating the intelligence and affairs of the court to the rest of the kingdom." Sir John was a great wag, and excelled in sarcasm and invective; his facility is equal to repartee, and his spirit often reaches to wit: a great forger of tales, who probably considered that a romance was a better thing than a newspaper.[330] The royal party were so delighted with his witty buffoonery, that Sir John was recommended to be Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. Did political lying seem to be a kind of moral philosophy to the feelings of a party? The originality of Birkenhead's happy manner consists in his adroit use of sarcasm: he strikes it off by means of a parenthesis. I shall give, as a specimen, one of his summaries of what the _Parliamentary Journals_ had been detailing during the week.

"The Londoners in print this week have been pretty copious. They say that _a troop of the Marquess of Newcastle's horse have submitted to the Lord Fairfax_. (They were part of the _German_ horse which came over in the _Danish_ fleet.)[331] That the Lord _Wilmot hath been dead five weeks, but the Cavaliers concealed his death_. (Remember this!) That _Sir John Urrey[332] is dead and buried at Oxford_. (He died the same day with the Lord Wilmot.) That the _Cavaliers, before they have done, will HURREY all men into misery_. (This quibble hath been six times printed, and nobody would take notice of it; now let's hear of it no more!) That _all the Cavaliers which Sir William Waller took prisoners (besides 500) tooke the National Covenant_. (Yes, all he took (besides 500) tooke the Covenant.) That 2000 _Irish Rebels landed in Wales_. (You called them English Protestants till you cheated them of their money.) That _Sir William Brereton left 140 good able men in Hawarden Castle_. ('Tis the better for Sir Michael Earnley, who hath taken the Castle.) That _the Queen hath a great deafnesse_. (Thou hast a great blister on thy tongue.) That _the Cavaliers burned all the suburbs of Chester, that Sir William Brereton might find no shelter to besiedge it_. (There was no hayrick, and Sir William cares for no other shelter.)[333] The SCOTTISH DOVE says (there are Doves in Scotland!) that _Hawarden Castle had but forty men in it when the Cavaliers took it_. (Another told you there were 140 lusty stout fellows in it: for shame, gentlemen! conferre Notes!) That _Colonel Norton at Rumsey took 200 prisoners_. (I saw them counted: they were just two millions.) Then the _Dove_ hath this sweet passage: _O Aulicus, thou profane wretch, that darest scandalize GOD'S saints, darest thou call that loyal subject Master Pym a traitor_? (Yes, pretty _Pigeon_,[334] he was charged with six articles by his Majesty's Atturney Generall.) Next he says, that _Master Pym died like Moses upon the Mount_. (He did not die upon the mount, but should have done.) Then he says _Master Pym died in a good old age, like Jacob in Egypt_. (Not like Jacob, yet just as those died in Egypt in the days of Pharaoh.")[335]

As Sir John was frequently the propagator of false intelligence, it was necessary at times to seem scrupulous, and to correct some slight errors. He does this very adroitly, without diminishing his invectives.

"We must correct a mistake or two in our two last weeks. We advertised you of certain money speeches made by Master _John_ Sedgwick: on better information, it was not _John_, but _Obadiah_, Presbyter of Bread-street, who in the pulpit in hot weather used to unbutton his doublet, which John, who wanteth a thumbe, forbears to practise. And when we told you last week of a committee of _Lawyers_ appointed to put their new _Seale_ in execution, we named, among others, Master George Peard.[336] I confess this was no small errour to reckon Master Peard among the _Lawyers_, because he now lies sicke, and so farre from being their new _Lord Keeper_, that he now despairs to become their _Door Keeper_, which office he performed heretofore. But since Master Peard has become desperately sick; and so his vote, his law, and haire have all forsook him, his corporation of Barnstable have been in perfect health and loyalty. The town of Barnstable having submitted to the King, this will no doubt be a special cordial for their languishing Burgess. And yet the man may grow hearty again when he hears of the late defeat given to his Majesty's forces in Lincolnshire."

This paper was immediately answered by MARCHMONT NEEDHAM, in his "Mercurius Britannicus," who cannot boast the playful and sarcastic bitterness of Sir John; yet is not the dullest of his tribe. He opens his reply thus:

"Aulicus will needs venture his soule upon the other _half-sheet_; and this week he _lies_, as completely as ever he did in _two full sheets_; full of as many scandals and fictions, full of as much stupidity and ignorance, full of as many tedious untruths as ever. And because he would _recrute_ the reputation of his wit, he falls into the company of our _Diurnals_ very furiously, and there lays about him in the midst of our weekly pamphlets; and he casts in the few squibs, and the little wildfire he hath, dashing out his conceits; and he takes it ill that the poore scribblers should tell a story for their living; and after a whole week spent at Oxford, in inke and paper, to as little purpose as _Maurice_ spent his shot and powder at _Plimouth_, he gets up, about Saturday, into a jingle or two, for he cannot reach to a full jest; and I am informed that the three-quarter conceits in the last leafe of his Diurnall cost him fourteen pence in _aqua vitae_."

Sir John never condescends formally to reply to Needham, for which he gives this singular reason:--"As for this libeller, we are still resolved to take no notice till we find him able to spell his own name, which to this hour BRITANNICUS never did."

In the next number of Needham, who had always written it _Brittanicus_, the correction was silently adopted. There was no crying down the etymology of an Oxford malignant.

I give a short narrative of the political temper of the times, in their unparalleled gazettes.

At the first breaking out of the parliament's separation from the royal party, when the public mind, full of consternation in that new anarchy, shook with the infirmity of childish terrors, the most extravagant reports were as eagerly caught up as the most probable, and served much better the purposes of their inventors. They had daily discoveries of new conspiracies, which appeared in a pretended correspondence written from Spain, France, Italy, or Denmark: they had their amusing literature, mixed with their grave politics; and a dialogue between "a Dutch mariner and an English ostler," could alarm the nation as much as the last letter from their "private correspondent." That the wildest rumours were acceptable appears from their contemporary Fuller. Armies were talked of, concealed under ground by the king, to cut the throats of all the Protestants in a night. He assures us that one of the most prevailing dangers among the Londoners was "a design laid for a mine of powder under the Thames, to cause the river to drown the city." This desperate expedient, it seems, was discovered just in time to prevent its execution; and the people were devout enough to have a public thanksgiving, and watched with a little more care that the Thames might not be blown up. However, the plot was really not so much at the bottom of the Thames as at the bottom of their purses. Whenever they wanted 100,000_l._ they raised a plot, they terrified the people, they appointed a thanksgiving-day, and while their ministers addressed to God himself all the news of the week, and even reproached him for the rumours against their cause, all ended, as is usual at such times, with the gulled multitude contributing more heavily to the adventurers who ruled them than the legal authorities had exacted in their greatest wants. "The Diurnals" had propagated thirty-nine of these "Treasons, or new Taxes," according to one of the members of the House of Commons, who had watched their patriotic designs.

These "Diurnals" sometimes used such language as the following, from _The Weekly Accompt_, January, 1643:--

"This day afforded no newes at all, but onely what was _heavenly_ and _spiritual_;" and he gives an account of the public fast, and of the grave divine Master Henderson's sermon, with his texts in the morning; and in the afternoon, another of Master Strickland, with his texts--and of their spiritual effect over the whole parliament![337]

Such news as the following was sometimes very agreeable:--

"From Oxford it is informed, that on Sunday last was fortnight in the evening, Prince Rupert, accompanied with some lords, and other cavaliers, _danced through the streets openly, with music before them_, to one of the colleges; where, after they had stayed about half an houre, they returned back again, dancing with the same music; and immediately there followed _a pack of women, or curtizans_, as it may be supposed, for they were hooded, and could not be knowne; and this the party who related affirmed he saw with his own eyes."

On this the Diurnal-maker pours out severe anathemas--and one with a _note_, that "_dancing_ and _drabbing_ are inseparable companions, and follow one another close at the heels." He assures his readers, that the malignants, or royalists, only fight like sensual beasts, to maintain their dancing and drabbing!--Such was the revolutionary tone here, and such the arts of faction everywhere. The matter was rather peculiar to our country, but the principle was the same as practised in France. Men of opposite characters, when acting for the same concealed end, must necessarily form parallels.

FOOTNOTES:

[329] "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 158 (last edition).

[330] There is a small poem, published in 1643, entitled "The Great Assizes holden in Parnassus," in the manner of a later work, "The Sessions of the Poets," in which all the Diurnals and Mercuries are arraigned and tried. An impartial satire on them all; and by its good sense and heavy versification, is so much in the manner of GEORGE WITHER, that some have conjectured it to be that singular author's. Its rarity gives it a kind of value. Of such verses as Wither's, who has been of late extolled too highly, the chief merit is their sense and truth; which, if he were not tedious, might be an excellence in prose. Antiquaries, when they find a poet adapted for their purposes, conjecture that he is an excellent one. This prosing satirist, strange to say, in some pastoral poetry, has opened the right vein.

Aulicus is well characterized:--

--------------"hee, for wicked ends, Had the Castalian spring defiled with gall, And changed by Witchcraft most satyricall, The bayes of Helicon and myrtles mild, To pricking hawthornes and to hollies wild. --------------with slanders false, With forged fictitious calumnies and tales-- He added fewel to the direful flame Of civil discord; and domestic blowes, By the incentives of malicious prose. For whereas he should have composed his inke Of liquors that make flames expire, and shrink Into their cinders-- --He laboured hard for to bring in The exploded doctrines of the Florentine, And taught that to dissemble and to lie Were vital parts of human policie."

[331] Alluding to a ridiculous rumour, that the King was to receive foreign troops by a Danish fleet.

[332] Col. Urrey, _alias_ Hurrey, deserted the Parliament, and went over to the King; afterwards deserted the King, and discovered to the Parliament all he knew of the King's forces.--_See Clarendon._

[333] This Sir William Brereton, or, as Clarendon writes the name, Bruerton, was the famous Cheshire knight, whom Cleveland characterizes as one of those heroes whose courage lies in their teeth. "Was Brereton," says the loyal satirist, "to fight with his teeth, as he in all other things resembles the beast, he would have odds of any man at this weapon. He's a terrible slaughterman at a Thanksgiving dinner. Had he been cannibal enough to have eaten those he vanquished, his gut would have made him valiant." And in "Loyal Songs" his valiant appetite is noticed:

"But, oh! take heed lest he do eat The Rump all at one dinner!"

And Aulicus, we see, accuses him of concealing his bravery in a hayrick. It is always curious and useful to confer the writers of intemperate times one with another. Lord Clarendon, whose great mind was incapable of descending to scurrility, gives a very different character to this pot-valiant and hayrick runaway; for he says, "It cannot be denied but Sir William Brereton, and the other gentlemen of that party, albeit their educations and course of life had been very different from their present engagements, and for the most part very unpromising in matters of war, and therefore were too much contemned enemies, executed their commands with notable sobriety and indefatigable industry (virtues not so well practised in the King's quarters), insomuch as the best soldiers who encountered with them had no cause to despise them."--_Clarendon_, vol. ii. p. 147.

[334] "The Scotch Dove" seems never to have recovered from this metamorphosis, but ever after, among the newsmen, was known to be only a Widgeon. His character is not very high in "The Great Assizes."

"The innocent _Scotch Dove_ did then advance, Full sober in his wit and countenance: And, though his book contain'd not mickle scence, Yet his endictment shew'd no great offence. Great wits to perils great, themselves expose Oft-times; but the _Scotch Dove_ was none of those. In many words he little matter drest, And did laconick brevity detest. But while his readers did expect some Newes, They found a Sermon--"

The Scotch Dove desires to meet the classical Aulicus in the duel of the pen:--

------------"to turn me loose, A _Scottish Dove_ against a _Roman Goose_."

"The Scotch Dove" is condemned "to cross the seas, or to repasse the Tweede." They all envy him his "easy mulet," but he wofully exclaims at the hard sentence,

"For if they knew that _home_ as well as he, They'd rather die than there imprison'd be!"

[335] This stroke alludes to a rumour of the times, noticed also by Clarendon, that Pym died of the _morbus pediculosus_.

[336] "Peard, a bold lawyer of little note."--_Clarendon._

[337] These divines were as ready with the sword as the pen; thus, we are told in "The Impartial Scout" for July, 1650--"The ministers are now as active in the military discipline as formerly they were in the gospel profession, Parson Ennis, Parson Brown, and about thirty other ministers having received commissions to be majors and captains, who now hold forth the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other, telling the soldiery that they need not fear what man can do against them--that God is on their side--and that He hath prepared an engine in heaven to break and blast the designs of all covenant-breakers."--ED.

POLITICAL CRITICISM

ON LITERARY COMPOSITIONS.

ANTHONY WOOD and LOCKE--MILTON and SPRAT--BURNET and his History--PRIOR and ADDISON--SWIFT and STEELE--WAGSTAFFE and STEELE--STEELE and ADDISON--HOOKE and MIDDLETON--GILBERT WAKEFIELD--MARVEL and MILTON--CLARENDON and MAY.

VOLTAIRE, in his letters on our nation, has hit off a marked feature in our national physiognomy. "So violent did I find parties in London, that I was assured by several that the Duke of MARLBOROUGH was a coward, and Mr. POPE a fool."

A foreigner indeed could hardly expect that in collecting the characters of English authors by English authors (a labour which has long afforded me pleasure often interrupted by indignation)--in a word, that a class of literary history should turn out a collection of personal quarrels. Would not this modern Baillet, in his new _Jugemens des Scavans_, so ingeniously inquisitive but so infinitely confused, require to be initiated into the mysteries of that spirit of party peculiar to our free country!

All that boiling rancour which sputters against the thoughts, the style, the taste, the moral character of an author, is often nothing more than practising what, to give it a name, we may call _Political Criticism in Literature_; where an author's literary character is attacked solely from the accidental circumstance of his differing in opinion from his critics on subjects unconnected with the topics he treats of.

Could Anthony Wood, had he not been influenced by this political criticism, have sent down LOCKE to us as "a man of a turbulent spirit, clamorous, and never contented, prating and troublesome?"[338] But Locke was the antagonist of FILMER, that advocate of arbitrary power; and Locke is described "as bred under a fanatical tutor," and when in Holland, as one of those who under the Earl of Shaftesbury "stuck close to him when discarded, and carried on the _trade of faction_ beyond and within the seas several years after." In the great original genius, born, like BACON and NEWTON, to create a new era in the history of the human mind, this political literary critic, who was not always deficient in his perceptions of genius, could only discover "a trader in faction," though in his honesty he acknowledges him to be "a noted writer."

A more illustrious instance of party-spirit operating against works of genius is presented to us in the awful character of MILTON. From earliest youth to latest age endowed with all the characteristics of genius; fervent with all the inspirations of study; in all changes still the same great literary character as Velleius Paterculus writes of one of his heroes--"Aliquando fortuna, semper animo maximus:" while in his own day, foreigners, who usually anticipate posterity, were inquiring after Milton, it is known how utterly disregarded he lived at home. The divine author of the "Paradise Lost" was always connected with the man for whom a reward was offered in the _London Gazette_. But in their triumph, the lovers of monarchy missed their greater glory, in not separating for ever the republican Secretary of State from the rival of Homer.

That the genius of Milton pined away in solitude, and that all the consolations of fame were denied him during his life, from this political criticism on his works, is generally known; but not perhaps that this spirit propagated itself far beyond the poet's tomb. I give a remarkable instance. Bishop Sprat, who surely was capable of feeling the poetry of Milton, yet from political antipathy retained such an abhorrence of his _name_, that when the writer of the Latin Inscription on the poet JOHN PHILIPS, in describing his versification, applied to it the term _Miltono_, Sprat ordered it to be erased, as polluting a monument raised in a church.[339] A mere critical opinion on versification was thus sacrificed to political feeling:--a stream indeed which in its course has hardly yet worked itself clear. It could only have been the strong political feeling of Warton which could have induced him to censure the prose of Milton with such asperity, while he closed his critical eyes on its resplendent passages, which certainly he wanted not the taste to feel,--for he caught in his own pages, occasionally, some of the reflected warmth. This feeling took full possession of the mind of Johnson, who, with all the rage of political criticism on subjects of literature, has condemned the finest works of Milton, and in one of his terrible paroxysms has demonstrated that the Samson Agonistes is "a tragedy which ignorance has admired and bigotry applauded." Had not Johnson's religious feelings fortunately interposed between Milton and his "Paradise," we should have wanted the present noble effusion of his criticism; any other Epic by Milton had probably sunk beneath his vigorous sophistry, and his tasteless sarcasm. Lauder's attack on Milton was hardily projected, on a prospect of encouragement, from this political criticism on the literary character of Milton; and he succeeded as long as he could preserve the decency of the delusion.

The Spirit of Party has touched with its plague-spot the character of Burnet; it has mildewed the page of a powerful mind, and tainted by its suspicions, its rumours, and its censures, his probity as a man. Can we forbear listening to all the vociferations which faction has thrown out? Do we not fear to trust ourselves amid the multiplicity of his facts? And when we are familiarised with the variety of his historical portraits, are we not startled when it is suggested that "they are tinged with his own passions and his own weaknesses?" Burnet has indeed made "his humble appeal to the great God of Truth" that he has given it as fully as he could find it; and he has expressed his abhorrence of "a lie in history," so much greater a sin than a lie in common discourse, from its lasting and universal nature. Yet these hallowing protestations have not saved him! A cloud of witnesses, from different motives, have risen up to attaint his veracity and his candour; while all the Tory wits have ridiculed his style, impatiently inaccurate, and uncouthly negligent, and would sink his vigour and ardour, while they expose the meanness and poverty of his genius. Thus the literary and the moral character of no ordinary author have fallen a victim to party-feeling.[340]

But this victim to political criticism on literature was himself criminal, and has wreaked his own party feelings on the _Papist_ Dryden, and the _Tory_ Prior; Dryden he calls, in the most unguarded language, "a monster of immodesty and impurity of all sorts." There had been a literary quarrel between Dryden and Burnet respecting a translation of Varillas' "History of Heresies;" Burnet had ruined the credit of the papistical author while Dryden was busied on the translation; and as Burnet says, "he has wreaked his malice on me for spoiling his three months' labour." In return, he kindly informs Dryden, alluding to his poem of "The Hind and the Panther," "that he is the author of the _worst_ poem the age has produced;" and that as for "his morals, it is scarce possible to grow a worse man than he was"--a personal style not to be permitted in any controversy, but to bring this passion on the hallowed ground of history, was not "casting away his shoe" in the presence of the divinity of truth.[341] It could only have been the spirit of party which induced Burnet, in his History, to mention with contempt and pretended ignorance so fine a genius as "_one Prior_, who had been Jersey's secretary." It was the same party-feeling in the Tory Prior, in his elegant "Alma," where he has interwoven so graceful a wreath for Pope, that could sneer at the fine soliloquy of the Roman Cato of the Whig Addison:

I hope you would not have me die _Like simple Cato in the play_, For anything that he can say.

It was the same spirit which would not allow that Garth was the author of his celebrated poem--

Garth did not write his own Dispensary,

as Pope ironically alludes to the story of the times:--a contemporary wit has recorded this literary injury, by repeating it.[342] And Swift, who once exclaimed to Pope, "The deuce take party!" was himself the greatest sinner of them all. He, once the familiar friend of Steele till party divided them, not only emptied his shaft of quivers against his literary character, but raised the horrid yell of the war-whoop in his inhuman exultation over the unhappy close of the desultory life of a man of genius. Bitterly has he written--

From perils of a hundred jails, Withdrew to starve, and die in Wales.

When Steele published "The Crisis," Swift attacked the author in so exquisite a piece of grave irony, that I am tempted to transcribe his inimitable parallels of a triumvirate composed of the writer of the _Flying Post_, Dunton the literary projector, and poor Steele: the one, the Iscariot of hackney scribes; the other a crack-brained scribbling bookseller, who boasted he had a thousand projects, fancied he had methodised six hundred, and was ruined by the fifty he executed. The following is a specimen of that powerful irony in which Swift excelled all other writers; that fine Cervantic humour, that provoking coolness which Swift preserves while he is panegyrising the objects of his utter contempt.

"Among the present writers on the Whig side, I can recollect but _three_ of any great distinction, which are the _Flying Post_, Mr. Dunton, and the Author of 'The Crisis.' The first of these seems to have been much sunk in reputation since the sudden retreat of the only true, genuine, original author, Mr. Ridpath, who is celebrated by the _Dutch Gazetteer_ as one of _the best pens in England_. Mr. Dunton hath been longer and more conversant in books than any of the three, as well as more voluminous in his productions: however, having employed his studies in so great a variety of other subjects, he hath, I think, but lately turned his genius to politics. His famous tract entitled 'Neck or Nothing' must be allowed to be the shrewdest piece, and written with the most spirit of any which hath appeared from that side since the change of the ministry. It is indeed a most cutting satire upon the Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke; and I wonder none of our friends ever undertook to answer it. I confess I was at first of the same opinion with several good judges, who from the style and manner suppose it to have issued from the sharp pen of the Earl of Nottingham; and I am still apt to think it might receive his lordship's last hand. The third and principal of this triumvirate is the author of 'The Crisis,' who, although he must yield to the _Flying Post_ in knowledge of the world and skill in politics, and to Mr. Dunton in keenness of satire and variety of reading, hath yet other qualities enough to denominate him a writer of a superior class to either, provided he would a little regard the propriety and disposition of his words, consult the grammatical part, and get some information on the subject he intends to handle."[343]

So far this fine ironical satire may be inspected as a model; the polished weapon he strikes with so gracefully, is allowed by all the laws of war; but the political criticism on the literary character, the party feeling which degrades a man of genius, is the drop of poison on its point.

Steele had declared in the "Crisis" that he had always maintained an inviolable respect for the clergy. Swift (who perhaps was aimed at in this instance, and whose character, since the publication of "The Tale of a Tub," lay under a suspicion of an opposite tendency) turns on Steele with all the vigour of his wit, and all the causticity of retort:--

"By this he would insinuate that those papers among the _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_, where the whole order is abused, were not his own. I will appeal to all who know the flatness of his style, and the barrenness of his invention, whether he doth not grossly prevaricate? _Was he ever able to walk without his leading-strings, or swim without bladders, without being discovered by his hobbling or his sinking?_"

Such was the attack of Swift, which was pursued in the _Examiner_, and afterwards taken up by another writer. This is one of the evils resulting from the wantonness of genius: it gives a contagious example to the minor race; its touch opens a new vein of invention, which the poorer wits soon break into; the loose sketch of a feature or two from its rapid hand is sufficient to become a minute portrait, where not a hair is spared by the caricaturist. This happened to Steele, whose literary was to be sacrificed to his political character; and this superstructure was confessedly raised on the malicious hints we have been noticing. That the _Examiner_ was the seed-plot of "The Character of Richard St--le, Esq.," appears by its opening--"It will be no injury, I am persuaded, to the _Examiner_ to _borrow him_ a little (Steele), upon promise of returning him safe, as children do their playthings, when their mirth is over, and, they have done with them."

The author of the "Character of Richard St--le, Esq.," was Dr. Wagstaffe, one of those careless wits[344] who lived to repent a crazy life of wit, fancy, and hope, and an easy, indolent one, whose genial hours force up friends like hot-house plants, that bloom and flower in the spot where they are raised, but will not endure the change of place and season--this wit caught the tone of Swift, and because, as his editor tells us, "he had some friends in the ministry, and thought he could not take a better way to oblige them than by showing his dislike to a gentleman who had so much endeavoured to oppose them," he sat down to write a libel with all the best humour imaginable; for, adds this editor, "he was so far from having any personal pique or enmity against Mr. Steele, that at the time of his writing he did not so much as know him, even by sight." This principle of "having some friends in the ministry," and not "any knowledge" of the character to be attacked, has proved a great source of invention to our political adventurers;--thus Dr. Wagstaffe was fully enabled to send down to us a character where the moral and literary qualities of a genius, to whom this country owes so much as the father of periodical papers, are immolated to his political purpose. This severe character passed through several editions. However the careless Steele might be willing to place the elaborate libel to the account of party writings, if he did not feel disturbed at reproaches and accusations, which are confidently urged, and at critical animadversions, to which the negligence of his style sometimes laid him too open, his insensibility would have betrayed a depravity in his morals and taste which never entered into his character.[345]

Steele was doomed even to lose the friendship of Addison amid political discords; but on that occasion Steele showed that his taste for literature could not be injured by political animosity. It was at the close of Addison's life, and on occasion of the Peerage Bill, Steele published "The Plebeian," a cry against enlarging the aristocracy. Addison replied with "The Old Whig," Steele rejoined without alluding to the person of his opponent. But "The Old Whig" could not restrain his political feelings, and contemptuously described "little Dicky, whose trade it was to write pamphlets." Steele replied with his usual warmth; but indignant at the charge of "vassalage," he says, "I will end this paper, by firing every free breast with that noble exhortation of the tragedian--

Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights, The generous plan of power deliver'd down From age to age, &c."

Thus delicately he detects the anonymous author, and thus energetically commends, while he reproves him!

Hooke (a Catholic), after he had written his "Roman History," published "Observations on Vertot, Middleton, &c., on the Roman Senate," in which he particularly treated Dr. Middleton with a disrespect for which the subject gave no occasion: this was attributed to the Doctor's _offensive_ letter from Rome. Spelman, in replying to this concealed motive of the Catholic, reprehends him with equal humour and bitterness for his desire of _roasting a Protestant parson_.

Our taste, rather than our passions, is here concerned; but the moral sense still more so. The malice of faction has long produced this literary calamity; yet great minds have not always degraded themselves; not always resisted the impulse of their finer feelings, by hardening them into insensibility, or goading them in the fury of a misplaced revenge. How delightful it is to observe Marvell, the Presbyterian and Republican wit, with that generous temper that instantly discovers the alliance of genius, warmly applauding the great work of Butler, which covered his own party with odium and ridicule. "He is one of an excellent wit," says Marvell, "and whoever dislikes the choice of his subject, cannot but commend the performance."[346]

Clarendon's profound genius could not expand into the same liberal feelings. He highly commends May for his learning, his wit and language, and for his Supplement to Lucan, which he considered as "one of the best epic poems in the English language;" but this great spirit sadly winces in the soreness of his feelings when he alludes to May's "History of the Parliament;" then we discover that this late "ingenious person" performed his part "so meanly, that he seems to have lost his wit when he left his honesty." Behold the political criticism in literature! However we may incline to respect the feelings of Clarendon, this will not save his judgment nor his candour. We read May now, as well as Clarendon; nor is the work of May that of a man who "had lost his wits," nor is it "meanly performed." Warburton, a keen critic of the writers of that unhappy and that glorious age for both parties, has pronounced this "History" to be "a just composition, according to the rules of history; written with much judgment, penetration, manliness, and spirit, and with a candour that will greatly increase your esteem, when you understand that he wrote by order of his masters the Parliament."

Thus have authors and their works endured the violations of party feelings; a calamity in our national literature which has produced much false and unjust criticism.[347] The better spirit of the present times will maintain a safer and a more honourable principle,--the true objects of LITERATURE, the cultivation of the intellectual faculties, stand entirely unconnected with POLITICS and RELIGION, let this be the imprescriptible right of an author. In our free country unhappily they have not been separated--they run together, and in the ocean of human opinions, the salt and bitterness of these mightier waves have infected the clear waters from the springs of the Muses. I once read of a certain river that ran through the sea without mixing with it, preserving its crystalline purity and all its sweetness during its course; so that it tasted the same at the Line as at the Poles. This stream indeed is only to be found in the geography of an old romance; literature should be this magical stream!

FOOTNOTES:

[338] A forcible description of Locke may be found in the curious "Life of Wood," written by himself. I shall give the passage where Wood acknowledges his after celebrity, at the very moment the bigotry of his feelings is attempting to degrade him.

Wood belonged to a club with Locke and others, for the purpose of hearing chemical lectures. "John Locke of Christchurch was afterwards a noted writer. This John Locke was a man of a turbulent spirit, clamorous, and never contented. The club wrote and took notes from the mouth of their master, who sat at the upper end of a table, but the said John Locke scorned to do it; so that while every man besides of the club were writing, he would be prating and troublesome."

[339] This anecdote deserves preservation. I have drawn it from the MSS. of Bishop KENNET.

"In the Epitaph on JOHN PHILIPS occurs this line on his metre, that

'Uni in hoc laudis genere Miltono secundus, Primoque pene par.'

These lines were ordered to be razed out of the monument by Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. The word Miltono being, as he said, not fit to be in a Christian church; but they have since been restored by Dr. ATTERBURY, who succeeded him as Bishop of Rochester, and who wrote the epitaph jointly with Dr. FREIND."--Lansdowne MSS., No. 908, p. 162.

The anecdote has appeared, but without any authority. Dr. SYMMONS, in his "Life of Milton," observing on what he calls Dr. Johnson's "biographical libel on Milton," that Dr. Johnson has mentioned this fact, seems to suspect its authenticity; for, if true, "it would cover the respectable name of Sprat with eternal dishonour." Of its truth the above gives sufficient authority; but at all events the prejudices of Sprat must be pardoned, while I am showing that minds far greater than his have shared in the same unhappy feeling. Dr. Symmons himself bears no light stain for his slanderous criticism on the genius of THOMAS WARTON, from the motive we are discussing; though Warton, as my text shows, was too a sinner! I recollect in my youth a more extraordinary instance than any other which relates to Milton. A woman of no education, who had retired from the business of life, became a very extraordinary reader; accident had thrown into her way a large library composed of authors who wrote in the reigns of the two Charleses. She turned out one of the _malignant_ party, and an abhorrer of the Commonwealth's men. Her opinion of CROMWELL and MILTON may be given. She told me it was no wonder that the rebel who had been secretary to the usurper should have been able to have drawn so finished a character of SATAN, and that the Pandaemonium, with all the oratorical devils, was only such as he had himself viewed at Oliver's council-board.

[340] I throw into this note several curious notices respecting BURNET, and chiefly from contemporaries.

Burnet has been accused, after a warm discussion, of returning home in a passion, and then writing the character of a person. But as his feelings were warm, it is probable he might have often practised the reverse. An anecdote of the times is preserved in "The Memoirs of Grub-street," vol. ii. p. 291. "A noble peer now living declares he stood with a very ill grace in the history, till he had an opportunity put into his hands of obliging the bishop, by granting a favour at court, upon which the bishop told a friend, within an hour, that he was mistaken in such a lord, and must go and alter his whole character; and so he happens to have a pretty good one." In this place I also find this curious extract from the MS. "Memoirs of the M---- of H----." "Such a day Dr. B----t told me King William was an obstinate, conceited man, that would take no advice; and on this day King William told me that Dr. B----t was a troublesome, impertinent man, whose company he could not endure." These anecdotes are very probable, and lead one to reflect. Some political tergiversation has been laid to his charge; Swift accused him of having once been an advocate for passive obedience and absolute power. He has been reproached with the deepest ingratitude, for the purpose of gratifying his darling passion of popularity, in his conduct respecting the Duke of Lauderdale, his former patron. If the following piece of secret history be true, he showed too much of a compliant humour, at the cost of his honour. I find it in Bishop Kennet's MSS. "Dr. Burnet having _over night_ given in some important depositions against the Earl of Lauderdale to the House of Commons, was, _before morning_, by the intercession of the D----, made king's chaplain and preacher at the Rolls; so he was bribed to hold the peace."--Lansdowne MSS., 990. This was quite a politician's short way to preferment! An honest man cannot leap up the ascent, however he may try to climb. There was something morally wrong in this transaction, because Burnet notices it, and acknowledges--"I was much blamed for what I had done." The story is by no means refuted by the _naive_ apology.

Burnet's character has been vigorously attacked, with all the nerve of satire, in "Faction Displayed," attributed to Shippen, whom Pope celebrates--

----"And pour myself as plain As honest Shippen or as old Montaigne."

Shippen was a Tory. In "Faction Displayed," Burnet is represented with his Cabal (so some party nicknames the other), on the accession of Queen Anne, plotting the disturbance of her government. "Black Aris's fierceness," that is Burnet, is thus described:--

"A Scotch, seditious, unbelieving priest, The brawny chaplain of the calves'-head feast, Who first his patron, then his prince betray'd, And does that church he's sworn to guard, invade, Warm with rebellious rage, he thus began," &c.

One hardly suspects the hermit Parnell capable of writing rather harsh verses, yet stinging satire; they are not in his works; but he wrote the following lines on a report of a fire breaking out in Burnet's library, which had like to have answered the purpose some wished--of condemning the author and his works to the flames--

"He talks, and writes, that Popery will return, And we, and he, and all his works will burn; And as of late he meant to bless the age With _flagrant prefaces of party rage_, O'ercome with passion and the subject's weight, Lolling he nodded in his elbow-seat; Down fell the candle! Grease and zeal conspire, Heat meets with heat, and pamphlets burn their sire; Here crawls a _preface_ on its half-burn'd maggots, And there an _introduction_ brings its fagots; Then roars the prophet of the northern nation, Scorch'd by a flaming speech on moderation."

Thomas Warton smiles at Burnet for the horrors of Popery which perpetually haunted him, in his "Life of Sir T. Pope," p. 53. But if we substitute the term arbitrary power for popery, no Briton will join in the abuse Burnet has received on this account. A man of Burnet's fervid temper, whose foible was strong vanity and a passion for popularity, would often rush headlong into improprieties of conduct and language; his enemies have taken ample advantage of his errors; but many virtues his friends have recorded; and the elaborate and spirited character which the Marquis of Halifax has drawn of Burnet may soothe his manes, and secure its repose amid all these disturbances around his tomb. This fine character is preserved in the "Biographia Britannica." Burnet is not the only instance of the motives of a man being honourable, while his actions are frequently the reverse, from his impetuous nature. He has been reproached for a want of that truth which he solemnly protests he scrupulously adhered to; yet, of many circumstances which were at the time condemned as "lies," when Time drew aside the mighty veil, Truth was discovered beneath. Tovey, with his visual good humour, in his "Anglia Judaica," p. 277, notices "that pleasant copious imagination which will for ever rank our _English Burnet_ with the _Grecian Heliodorus_." Roger North, in his "Examen," p. 413, calls him "a busy Scotch parson." Lord Orford sneers at his hasty epithets, and the colloquial carelessness of his style, in his "Historic Doubts," where, in a note, he mentions "_one_ Burnet" tells a ridiculous story, mimicking Burnet's chit-chat, and concludes surprisingly with, "So the Prince of Orange mounted the throne."

After reading this note, how would that learned foreigner proceed, who I have supposed might be projecting the "Judgments of the Learned" on our English authors? Were he to condemn Burnet as an historian void of all honour and authority, he would not want for documents. It would require a few minutes to explain to the foreigner the nature of political criticism.

[341] Dryden was very coarsely satirised in the political poems of his own day; and among the rest, in "The Session of the Poets,"--a general onslaught directed against the writers of the time, which furnishes us with many examples of unjust criticism on these literary men, entirely originating in political feeling. One example may suffice;

"Then in came Denham, that limping old bard, Whose fame on _the Sophy_ and _Cooper's-hill_ stands, And brought many stationers, who swore very hard That nothing sold better except 'twere his lands. But Apollo advised him to write something more, To clear a suspicion which possessed the Court, That _Cooper's-hill_, so much bragg'd on before, Was writ by a vicar, who had forty pounds for't."

[342] Dr. Wagstaffe, in his "Character of Steele," alludes to the rumour which Pope has sent down to posterity in a single verse: "I should have thought Mr. Steele might have the example of his _friend_ before his eyes, who _had the reputation of being the author of The Dispensary_, till, by two or three unlucky after-claps, he proved himself incapable of writing it."--WAGSTAFFE'S _Misc. Works_, p. 136.

[343] I know not how to ascertain the degree of political skill which Steele reached in his new career--he was at least a spirited Whig, but the ministry was then under the malignant influence of the concealed adherents to the Stuarts, particularly of Bolingbroke, and such as Atterbury, whose secret history is now much better known than in their own day. The terrors of the Whigs were not unfounded. Steele in the House disappointed his friends; from his popular Essays, it was expected he would have been a fluent orator; this was no more the case with him than Addison. On this De Foe said he had better have continued the _Spectator_ than the _Tatler_.--LANSDOWNE'S _MSS._ 1097.

[344] Wagstaffe's "Miscellaneous Works," 1726, have been collected into a volume. They contain satirical pieces of humour, accompanied by some Hogarthian prints. His "Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb," ridicules Addison's on the old ballad of "Chevy Chase," who had declared "it was full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets," and quoted passages which he paralleled with several in the AEneid. Wagstaffe tells us he has found "in the library of a schoolboy, among other undiscovered valuable authors, one more proper to adorn the shelves of Bodley or the Vatican than to be confined to the obscurity of a private study." This little Homer is the chanter of Tom Thumb. He performs his office of "a true commentator," proving the congenial spirit of the poet of Thumb with that of the poet of AEneas. Addison got himself ridiculed for that fine natural taste, which felt all the witchery of our ballad-Enniuses, whose beauties, had Virgil lived with Addison, he would have inlaid into his mosaic. The bigotry of classical taste, which is not always accompanied by a natural one, and rests securely on prescribed opinions and traditional excellence, long contemned our vernacular genius, spurning at the minstrelsy of the nation; Johnson's ridicule of "Percy's Reliques" had its hour, but the more poetical mind of Scott has brought us back to home feelings, to domestic manners, and eternal nature.

[345] I shall content myself with referring to "The Character of Richard St--le, Esq.," in Dr. Wagstaffe's Miscellaneous Works, 1726. Considering that he had no personal knowledge of his victim, one may be well surprised at his entering so deeply into his private history; but of such a character as Steele, the private history is usually too public--a mass of scandal for the select curious. Poor Steele, we are told, was "arrested for the maintenance of his bastards, and afterwards printed a _proposal_ that the public should take care of them;" got into the House "not to be arrested;"--"his _set_ speeches there, which he designs to get _extempore_ to speak in the House." For his literary character we are told that "Steele was a jay who borrowed a feather from the peacock, another from the bullfinch, and another from the magpye; so that _Dick_ is made up of borrowed colours; he borrowed his humour from Estcourt, criticism of Addison, his poetry of Pope, and his politics of Ridpath; so that his qualifications as a man of genius, like Mr. T----s, as a member of Parliament, _lie in thirteen parishes_." Such are the pillows made up for genius to rest its head on!

Wagstaffe has sometimes delicate humour; Steele, who often wrote in haste, necessarily wrote incorrectly. Steele had this sentence: "And ALL, as one man, will join in a common indignation against ALL who would perplex our obedience:" on which our pleasant critic remarks--"Whatever contradiction there is, as some suppose, in _all joining against all_, our author has good authority for what he says; and it may be proved, in spite of Euclid or Sir Isaac, that everything consists of _two alls_, that these _alls_ are capable of being divided and subdivided into as many _alls_ as you please, and so _ad infinitum_. The following lines may serve for an illustration:--

'Three children sliding on the ice Upon a summer's day; As it fell out, they all fell in; The rest they ran away.'

"Though this polite author does not directly say there are _two alls_, yet he implies as much; for I would ask any _reasonable_ man what can be understood by _the rest they ran away_, but the _other all_ we have been speaking of? The world may see that I can exhibit the beauties, as well as quarrel with the faults, of his composition, but I hope he will not value himself on his _hasty productions_."

Poor Steele, with the best humour, bore these perpetual attacks, not, however, without an occasional groan, just enough to record his feelings. In one of his wild, yet well-meant projects, of the invention of "a Fish-pool, or Vessel for Importing Fish Alive," 1718, he complains of calumnies and impertinent observations on him, and seems to lay some to the account of his knighthood:--"While he was pursuing what he believed might conduce to the common good, he gave the syllables _Richard Steele_ to the publick, to be used and treated as they should think fit; he must go on in _the same indifference_, and allow the TOWN _their usual liberty with his name_, which I find they think they have much more room to sport with than formerly, as it is lengthened with the monosyllable SIR."

[346] "Rehearsal Transprosed," p. 45.

[347] The late Gilbert Wakefield is an instance where the political and theological opinions of a recluse student tainted his pure literary works. Condemned as an enraged Jacobin by those who were Unitarians in politics, and rejected because he was a Unitarian in religion by the orthodox, poor Wakefield's literary labours were usually reduced to the value of waste-paper. We smile, but half in sorrow, in reading a letter, where he says, "I meditate a beginning, during the winter, of my criticisms on all the ancient Greek and Latin authors,_ by small piecemeals, on the cheapest possible paper, and at the least possible expense of printing_. As I can never do more than barely indemnify myself, I shall print only 250 copies." He half-ruined himself by his splendid edition of Lucretius, which could never obtain even common patronage from the opulent friends of classical literature. Since his death it has been reprinted, and is no doubt now a marketable article for the bookseller; so that if some authors are not successful for themselves, it is a comfort to think how useful, in a variety of shapes, they are made so to others. Even Gilbert's "contracted scheme of publication" he was compelled to abandon! Yet the classic erudition of Wakefield was confessed, and is still remembered. No one will doubt that we have lost a valuable addition to our critical stores by this literary persecution, were it only in the present instance; but examples are too numerous!

HOBBES, AND HIS QUARRELS;

INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS CHARACTER.

Why HOBBES disguised his sentiments--why his philosophy degraded him--of the sect of the HOBBISTS--his LEVIATHAN; its principles adapted to existing circumstances--the author's difficulties on its first appearance--the system originated in his fears, and was a contrivance to secure the peace of the nation--its duplicity and studied ambiguity illustrated by many facts--the advocate of the national religion--accused of atheism--HOBBE'S religion--his temper too often tried--attacked by opposite parties--Bishop FELL'S ungenerous conduct--makes HOBBES regret that juries do not consider the quarrels of authors of any moment--the mysterious panic which accompanied him through life--its probable cause--he pretends to recant his opinions--he is speculatively bold, and practically timorous--an extravagant specimen of the anti-social philosophy--the SELFISM of HOBBES--his high sense of his works, in regard to foreigners and posterity--his monstrous egotism--his devotion to his literary pursuits--the despotic principle of the LEVIATHAN of an innocent tendency--the fate of systems of opinions.

The history of the philosopher of Malmesbury exhibits a large picture of literary controversy, where we may observe how a persecuting spirit in the times drives the greatest men to take refuge in the meanest arts of subterfuge. Compelled to disguise their sentiments, they will not, however, suppress them; and hence all their ambiguous proceedings, all that ridicule and irony, and even recantation, with which ingenious minds, when forced to their employ, have never failed to try the patience, or the sagacity, of intolerance.[348]

The character of Hobbes will, however, serve a higher moral design. The force of his intellect, the originality of his views, and the keenest sagacity of observation, place him in the first order of minds; but he has mortified, and then degraded man into a mere selfish animal. From a cause we shall discover, he never looked on human nature but in terror or in contempt. The inevitable consequence of that mode of thinking, or that system of philosophy, is to make the philosopher the abject creature he has himself imagined; and it is then he libels the species from his own individual experience.[349] More generous tempers, men endowed with warmer imaginations, awake to sympathies of a higher nature, will indignantly reject the system, which has reduced the unlucky system-maker himself to such a pitiable condition.

Hobbes was one of those original thinkers who create a new era in the philosophical history of their nation, and perpetuate their name by leaving it to a sect.[350]

The eloquent and thinking Madame de Stael has asserted that "Hobbes was an _Atheist_ and a _Slave_." Yet I still think that Hobbes believed, and proved, the necessary existence of a Deity, and that he loved freedom, as every sage desires it. It is now time to offer an apology for one of those great men who are the contemporaries of all ages, and, by fervent inquiry, to dissipate that traditional cloud which hangs over one of "those monuments of the mind" which Genius has built with imperishable materials.

The author of the far-famed "Leviathan" is considered as a vehement advocate for absolute monarchy. This singular production may, however, be equally adapted for a republic; and the monstrous principle may be so innocent in its nature, as even to enter into our own constitution, which presumes to be neither.[351]

As "The Leviathan" produced the numerous controversies of Hobbes, a history of this great moral curiosity enters into our subject.

Hobbes, living in times of anarchy, perceived the necessity of re-establishing authority with more than its usual force. But how were the divided opinions of men to melt together, and where in the State was to be placed _absolute power_? for a remedy of less force he could not discover for that disordered state of society which he witnessed. Was the sovereign or the people to be invested with that mighty power which was to keep every other quiescent?--a topic which had been discussed for ages, and still must be, as the humours of men incline--was, I believe, a matter perfectly indifferent to our philosopher, provided that whatever might be the government, absolute power could somewhere be lodged in it, to force men to act in strict conformity. He discovers his perplexity in the dedication of his work. "In a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great liberty, on the other side for too much authority, 'tis hard to pass between the points of both unwounded." It happened that our cynical Hobbes had no respect for his species; terrified at anarchy, he seems to have lost all fear when he flew to absolute power--a sovereign remedy unworthy of a great spirit, though convenient for a timid one like his own. Hobbes considered men merely as animals of prey, living in a state of perpetual hostility, and his solitary principle of action was self-preservation at any price.

He conjured up a political phantom, a favourite and fanciful notion, that haunted him through life. He imagined that the _many_ might be more easily managed by making them up into an artificial _One_, and calling this wonderful political unity the _Commonwealth_, or the _Civil Power_, or the _Sovereign_, or by whatever name was found most pleasing; he personified it by the image of "Leviathan."[352]

At first sight the ideal monster might pass for an innocent conceit; and there appears even consummate wisdom in erecting a colossal power for our common security; but Hobbes assumed that _Authority_ was to be supported to its extreme pitch. _Force_ with him appeared to constitute _right_, and _unconditional submission_ then became a _duty_: these were consequences quite natural to one who at his first step degraded man by comparing him to a watch, and who would not have him go but with the same nicety of motion, wound up by a great key.

To be secure, by the system of Hobbes, we must at least lose the glory of our existence as intellectual beings. He would persuade us into the dead quietness of a commonwealth of puppets, while he was consigning into the grasp of his "Leviathan," or sovereign power, the wire that was to communicate a mockery of vital motion--a principle of action without freedom. The system was equally desirable to the Protector Cromwell as to the regal Charles. A conspiracy against mankind could not alarm their governors: it is not therefore surprising that the usurper offered Hobbes the office of Secretary of State; and that he was afterwards pensioned by the monarch.

A philosophical system, moral or political, is often nothing more than a temporary expedient to turn aside the madness of the times by substituting what offers an appearance of relief; nor is it a little influenced by the immediate convenience of the philosopher himself; his personal character enters a good deal into the system. The object of Hobbes in his "Leviathan" was always ambiguous, because it was, in truth, one of these systems of expediency, conveniently adapted to what has been termed of late "existing circumstances." His sole aim was to keep all things in peace, by creating one mightiest power in the State, to suppress instantly all other powers that might rise in insurrection. In his times, the establishment of despotism was the only political restraint he could discover of sufficient force to chain man down, amid the turbulence of society; but this concealed end he is perpetually shifting and disguising; for the truth is, no man loved slavery less.[353]

The system of Hobbes could not be limited to politics: he knew that the safety of the people's morals required an _Established Religion_. The alliance between Church and State had been so violently shaken, that it was necessary to cement them once more. As our philosopher had been terrified in his politics by the view of its contending factions, so, in religion, he experienced the same terror at the hereditary rancours of its multiplied sects. He could devise no other means than to attack the mysteries and dogmas of theologians, those after-inventions and corruptions of Christianity, by which the artifices of their chiefs had so long split them into perpetual factions:[354] he therefore asserted that the religion of the people ought to exist, in strict conformity to the will of the State.[355]

When Hobbes wrote against mysteries, the mere polemics sent forth a cry of his impiety; the philosopher was branded with Atheism;--one of those artful calumnies, of which, after a man has washed himself clean, the stain will be found to have dyed the skin.[356]

To me it appears that Hobbes, to put an end to these religious wars, which his age and country had witnessed, perpetually kindled by crazy fanatics and intolerant dogmatists, insisted that the _crosier_ should be carried in the _left_ hand of his Leviathan, and the _sword_ in his right.[357] He testified, as strongly as man could, by his public actions, that he was a Christian of the Church of England, "as by law established," and no enemy to the episcopal order; but he dreaded the encroachments of the Churchmen in his political system; jealous of that _supremacy_ at which some of them aimed. Many enlightened bishops sided with the philosopher.[358] At a time when Milton sullenly withdrew from every public testimonial of divine worship, Hobbes, with more enlightened views, _attended Church service_, and strenuously supported _an established religion_; yet one is deemed a religious man, and the other an Atheist! Were the actions of men to be decisive of their characters, the reverse might be inferred.

The temper of our philosopher, so ill-adapted to contradiction, was too often tried; and if, as his adversary, Harrington, in the "Oceana," says, "Truth be a spark whereunto objections are like bellows," the mind of Hobbes, for half a century, was a very forge, where the hammer was always beating, and the flame was never allowed to be extinguished. Charles II. strikingly described his worrying assailants. "Hobbes," said the king, "was a bear against whom the Church played their young dogs, in order to exercise them."[359] A strange repartee has preserved the causticity of his wit. Dr. Eachard, perhaps one of the prototypes of Swift, wrote two admirable ludicrous dialogues, in ridicule of Hobbes's "State of Nature."[360] These were much extolled, and kept up the laugh against the philosophic misanthropist: once when he was told that the clergy said that "Eachard had crucified Hobbes," he bitterly retorted, "Why, then, don't they fall down and _worship_ me?"[361]

"The Leviathan" was ridiculed by the wits, declaimed against by the republicans, denounced by the monarchists, and menaced by the clergy. The commonwealth man, the dreamer of equality, Harrington, raged at the subtile advocate for despotic power; but the glittering bubble of his fanciful "Oceana" only broke on the mighty sides of the Leviathan, wasting its rainbow tints: the mitred Bramhall, at "The Catching of Leviathan, or the Great Whale," flung his harpoon, demonstrating consequences from the principles of Hobbes, which he as eagerly denied. But our ambiguous philosopher had the hard fate to be attacked even by those who were labouring to the same end.[362] The literary wars of Hobbes were fierce and long; heroes he encountered, but heroes too were fighting by his side. Our chief himself wore a kind of magical armour; for, either he denied the consequences his adversaries deduced from his principles, or he surprised by new conclusions, which many could not discover in them; but by such means he had not only the art of infusing confidence among the _Hobbists_, but the greater one of dividing his adversaries, who often retreated, rather fatigued than victorious. Hobbes owed this partly to the happiness of a genius which excelled in controversy, but more, perhaps, to the advantage of the ground he occupied as a metaphysician: the usual darkness of that spot is favourable to those shiftings and turnings which the equivocal possessor may practise with an unwary assailant. Far different was the fate of Hobbes in the open daylight of mathematics: there his hardy genius lost him, and his sophistry could spin no web; as we shall see in the memorable war of twenty years waged between Hobbes and Dr. Wallis. But the gall of controversy was sometimes tasted, and the flames of persecution flashed at times in the closet of our philosopher. The ungenerous attack of Bishop Fell, who, in the Latin translation of Wood's "History of the University of Oxford," had converted eulogium into the most virulent abuse,[363] without the participation of Wood, who resented it with his honest warmth, was only an arrow snatched from a quiver which was every day emptying itself on the devoted head of our ambiguous philosopher. Fell only vindicated himself by a fresh invective on "the most vain and waspish animal of Malmesbury," and Hobbes was too frightened to reply. This was the Fell whom it was so difficult to assign a reason for not liking:

I don't like thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell, But I don't like thee, Dr. Fell!

A curious incident in the history of the mind of this philosopher, was the mysterious panic which accompanied him to his latest day. It has not been denied that Hobbes was subject to occasional terrors: he dreaded to be left without company; and a particular instance is told, that on the Earl of Devonshire's removal from Chatsworth, the philosopher, then in a dying state, insisted on being carried away, though on a feather-bed. Various motives have been suggested to account for this extraordinary terror. Some declared he was afraid of spirits; but he was too stout a materialist![364]--another, that he dreaded assassination; an ideal poniard indeed might scare even a materialist. But Bishop Atterbury, in a sermon on _the Terrors of Conscience_, illustrates their nature by the character of our philosopher. Hobbes is there accused of attempting to destroy the principles of religion against his own inward conviction: this would only prove the insanity of Hobbes! The Bishop shows that "the disorders of _conscience_ are not a _continued_, but an _intermitting_ disease;" so that the patient may appear at intervals in seeming health and real ease, till the fits return: all this he applies to the case of our philosopher. In reasoning on human affairs, the shortest way will be to discover human motives. The spirit, or the assassin of Hobbes, arose from the bill brought into Parliament, when the nation was panic-struck on the fire of London, against Atheism and Profaneness; he had a notion that a writ _de heretico comburendo_ was intended for him by Bishop Seth Ward, his _quondam_ admirer.[365] His spirits would sink at those moments; for in the philosophy of Hobbes, the whole universe was concentrated in the small space of SELF. There was no length he refused to go for what he calls "the natural right of preservation, which we all receive from the uncontrollable dictates of NECESSITY." He exhausts his imagination in the forcible descriptions of his extinction: "the terrible enemy of nature, Death," is always before him. The "inward horror" he felt of his extinction, Lord Clarendon thus alludes to: "If Mr. Hobbes and some other man were both condemned to death (which is the most formidable thing Mr. Hobbes can conceive)"--and Dr. Eachard rallies him on the infinite anxiety he bestowed on his _body_, and thinks that "he had better compound to be kicked and beaten twice a day, than to be so dismally tortured about an old rotten carcase." Death was perhaps the only subject about which Hobbes would not dispute.

Such a materialist was then liable to terrors; and though, when his works were burnt, the author had not a hair singed, the convulsion of the panic often produced, as Bishop Atterbury expresses it, "an intermitting disease."

Persecution terrified Hobbes, and magnanimity and courage were no virtues in his philosophy. He went about hinting that he was not obstinate (that is, before the Bench of Bishops); that his opinions were mere conjectures, proposed as exercises for the powers of reasoning. He attempted (without meaning to be ludicrous) to make his _opinions_ a distinct object from his _person_; and, for the good order of the latter, he appealed to the family chaplain for his attendance at divine service, from whence, however, he always departed at the sermon, insisting that the chaplain could not teach him anything. It was in one of these panics that he produced his "Historical Narrative of Heresy, and the Punishment thereof," where, losing the dignity of the philosophic character, he creeps into a subterfuge with the subtilty of the lawyer; insisting that "The Leviathan," being published at a time when there was no distinction of creeds in England (the Court of High Commission having been abolished in the troubles), that therefore none could be heretical.[366]

No man was more speculatively bold, and more practically timorous;[367] and two very contrary principles enabled him, through an extraordinary length of life, to deliver his opinions and still to save himself: these were his excessive vanity and his excessive timidity. The one inspired his hardy originality, and the other prompted him to protect himself by any means. His love of glory roused his vigorous intellect, while his fears shrunk him into his little self. Hobbes, engaged in the cause of truth, betrayed her dignity by his ambiguous and abject conduct: this was a consequence of his selfish philosophy; and this conduct has yielded no dubious triumph to the noble school which opposed his cynical principles.

A genius more luminous, sagacity more profound, and morals less tainted, were never more eminently combined than in this very man, who was so often reduced to the most abject state. But the anti-social philosophy of Hobbes terminated in preserving a pitiful state of existence. He who considered nothing more valuable than life, degraded himself by the meanest artifices of self-love,[368] and exulted in the most cynical truths.[369] The philosophy of Hobbes, founded on fear and suspicion, and which, in human nature, could see nothing beyond himself, might make him a wary politician, but always an imperfect social being. We find, therefore, that the philosopher of Malmesbury adroitly retained a friend at court, to protect him at an extremity; but considering all men alike, as bargaining for themselves, his friends occasioned him as much uneasiness as his enemies. He lived in dread that the Earl of Devonshire, whose roof had ever been his protection, should at length give him up to the Parliament! There are no friendships among cynics!

To such a state of degradation had the selfish philosophy reduced one of the greatest geniuses; a philosophy true only for the wretched and the criminal.[370] But those who feel moving within themselves the benevolent principle, and who delight in acts of social sympathy, are conscious of passions and motives, which the others have omitted in their system. And the truth is, these "unnatural philosophers," as Lord Shaftesbury expressively terms them, are by no means the monsters they tell us they are: their practice is therefore usually in opposition to their principles. While Hobbes was for chaining down mankind as so many beasts of prey, he surely betrayed his social passion, in the benevolent warnings he was perpetually giving them; and while he affected to hold his brothers in contempt, he was sacrificing laborious days, and his peace of mind, to acquire celebrity. Who loved glory more than this sublime cynic?--"_Glory_," says our philosopher, "by those whom it displeaseth, is called _Pride_; by those whom it pleaseth, it is termed _a just valuation of himself_."[371] Had Hobbes defined, as critically, the passion of _self-love_, without resolving all our sympathies into a single monstrous one, we might have been disciplined without being degraded.

Hobbes, indeed, had a full feeling of the magnitude of his labours, both for foreigners and posterity, as he has expressed it in his life. He disperses, in all his works, some Montaigne-like notices of himself, and they are eulogistic. He has not omitted any one of his virtues, nor even an apology for his deficiency in others. He notices with complacency how Charles II. had his portrait placed in the royal cabinet; how it was frequently asked for by his friends, in England and in France.[372] He has written his life several times, in verse and in prose; and never fails to throw into the eyes of his adversaries the reputation he gained abroad and at home.[373] He delighted to show he was living, by annual publications; and exultingly exclaims, "That when he had silenced his adversaries, he published, in the eighty-seventh year of his life, the Odyssey of Homer, and the next year the Iliad, in English verse."

His greatest imperfection was a monstrous egotism--the fate of those who concentrate all their observations in their own individual feelings. There are minds which may think too much, by conversing too little with books and men. Hobbes exulted he had read little; he had not more than half-a-dozen books about him; hence he always saw things in his own way, and doubtless this was the cause of his mania for disputation.

He wrote against dogmas with a spirit perfectly dogmatic. He liked conversation on the terms of his own political system, provided absolute authority was established, peevishly referring to his own works whenever contradicted; and his friends stipulated with strangers, that "they should not dispute with the old man." But what are we to think of that pertinacity of opinion which he held even with one as great as himself? Selden has often quitted the room, or Hobbes been driven from it, in the fierceness of their battle.[374] Even to his latest day, the "war of words" delighted the man of confined reading. The literary duels between Hobbes and another hero celebrated in logomachy, the Catholic priest, Thomas White, have been recorded by Wood. They had both passed their eightieth year, and were fond of paying visits to one another: but the two literary Nestors never met to part in cool blood, "wrangling, squabbling, and scolding on philosophical matters," as our blunt and lively historian has described.[375]

His little qualities were the errors of his own selfish philosophy; his great ones were those of nature. He was a votary to his studies:[376] he avoided marriage, to which he was inclined; and refused place and wealth, which he might have enjoyed, for literary leisure. He treated with philosophic pleasantry his real contempt of money.[377] His health and his studies were the sole objects of his thoughts; and notwithstanding that panic which so often disturbed them, he wrote and published beyond his ninetieth year. He closes the metrical history of his life with more dignity than he did his life itself; for his mind seems always to have been greater than his actions. He appeals to his friends for the congruity of his life with his writings; for his devotion to justice; and for a generous work, which no miser could have planned; and closes thus:--

And now complete my four-and-eighty years, Life's lengthen'd plot is o'er, and the last scene appears.[378]

Of the works of Hobbes we must not conclude, as Hume tells us, that "they have fallen into neglect;" nor, in the style with which they were condemned at Oxford, that "they are pernicious and damnable." The sanguine opinion of the author himself was, that the mighty "Leviathan" will stand for all ages, defended by its own strength; for the rule of justice, the reproof of the ambitious, the citadel of the Sovereign, and the peace of the people.[379] But the smaller treatises of Hobbes are not less precious. Locke is the pupil of Hobbes, and it may often be doubtful whether the scholar has rivalled the nervous simplicity and the energetic originality of his master.

The genius of Hobbes was of the first order; his works abound with the most impressive truths, in all the simplicity of thought and language, yet he never elevates nor delights. Too faithful an observer of the miserable human nature before him, he submits to expedients; he acts on the defensive; and because he is in terror, he would consider security to be the happiness of man. In _Religion_ he would stand by an established one; yet thus he deprives man of that moral freedom which God himself has surely allowed us. Locke has the glory of having first given distinct notions of the nature of toleration. In _Politics_ his great principle is the establishment of _Authority_, or, as he terms it, an "entireness of sovereign power:" here he seems to have built his arguments with such eternal truths and with such a contriving wisdom as to adapt his system to all the changes of government. Hobbes found it necessary in his day to place this despotism in the hands of his colossal monarch; and were Hobbes now living, he would not relinquish the principle, though perhaps he might vary the application; for if Authority, strong as man can create it, is not suffered to exist in our free constitution, what will become of our freedom? Hobbes would now maintain his system by depositing his "entireness of sovereign power" in the Laws of his Country. So easily shifted is the vast political machine of the much abused "Leviathan!" The _Citizen_ of Hobbes, like the _Prince_ of Machiavel, is alike innocent, when the end of their authors is once detected, amid those ambiguous means by which the hard necessity of their times constrained their mighty genius to disguise itself.

It is, however, remarkable of _Systems of Opinions_, that the founder's celebrity has usually outlived his sect's. Why are systems, when once brought into practice, so often discovered to be fallacies? It seems to me the natural progress of system-making. A genius of this order of invention long busied with profound observations and perpetual truths, would appropriate to himself this assemblage of his ideas, by stamping his individual mark on them; for this purpose he strikes out some mighty paradox, which gives an apparent connexion to them all: and to this paradox he forces all parts into subserviency. It is a minion of the fancy, which his secret pride supports, not always by the most scrupulous means. Hence the system itself, with all its novelty and singularity, turns out to be nothing more than an ingenious deception carried on for the glory of the inventor; and when his followers perceive they were the dupes of his ingenuity, they are apt, in quitting the system, to give up all; not aware that the parts are as true as the whole together is false; the sagacity of Genius collected the one, but its vanity formed the other!

FOOTNOTES:

[348] Shaftesbury has thrown out, on this head, some important truths:--"If men are forbid to speak their minds _seriously_, they will do it _ironically_. If they find it dangerous to do so, they will then redouble their disguise, _invoke themselves into mysteriousness_, and talk so as hardly to be understood. The _persecuting_ spirit has raised the _bantering_ one. The higher the slavery, the more exquisite the buffoonery."--Vol. i. p. 71. The subject of our present inquiry is a very remarkable instance of "involving himself into mysteriousness." To this cause we owe the strong raillery of Marvell; the cloudy "Oracles of Reason" of Blount; and the formidable, though gross burlesque, of Hickeringill, the rector of All-Saints, in Colchester. "Of him (says the editor of his collected works, 1716), the greatest writers of our times trembled at his pen; and as great a genius as Sir Roger L'Estrange's was, it submitted to his _superior way of reasoning_"--that is, to a most extraordinary burlesque spirit in politics and religion. But even he who made others tremble felt the terrors he inflicted; for he complains that "some who have thought his pen too sharp and smart, those who have been galled, sore men where the skin's off, have long lain to catch for somewhat to accuse me--upon such touchy subjects, a man had need have the _dexterity to split a hair_, to handle them pertinently, usefully, and yet _safely_ and _warily_."--Such men, however, cannot avoid their fate: they will be persecuted, however they succeed in "splitting a hair;" and it is then they have recourse to the most absurd _subterfuges_, to which our Hobbes was compelled. Thus also it happened to Woolston, who wrote in a ludicrous way "Blasphemies" against the miracles of Christ; calling them "tales and rodomontados." He rested his defence on this subterfuge, that "it was meant to place the Christian religion on a better footing," &c. But the Court answered, that "if the author of a treasonable libel should write at the conclusion, _God save the king!_ it would not excuse him."

[349] The moral axiom of Solon "KNOW THYSELF" (_Nosce teipsum_), applied by the ancient sage as a corrective for our own pride and vanity, Hobbes contracts into a narrow principle, when, in his introduction to "The Leviathan," he would infer that, by this self-inspection, we are enabled to determine on the thoughts and passions of other men; and thus he would make the taste, the feelings, the experience of the individual decide for all mankind. This simple error has produced all the dogmas of cynicism; for the cynic is one whose insulated feelings, being all of the selfish kind, can imagine no other stirrer of even our best affections, and strains even our loftiest virtues into pitiful motives. Two noble authors, men of the most dignified feelings, have protested against this principle. Lord Shaftesbury keenly touches the characters of Hobbes and Rochester:--"Sudden courage, says our modern philosopher (Hobbes), is anger. If so, courage, considered as constant, and belonging to a character, must, in his account, be defined constant anger, or anger constantly recurring. All men, says a witty poet (Rochester), would be cowards, if they durst: that the poet and the philosopher both were cowards, may be yielded, perhaps, without dispute! they may have spoken the best of their knowledge."--SHAFTESBURY, vol. i. p. 119.

With an heroic spirit, that virtuous statesman, Lord Clarendon, rejects the degrading notion of Hobbes. When _he_ looked into his own breast, he found that courage was a real virtue, which had induced him, had it been necessary, to have shed his blood as a patriot. But death, in the judgment of Hobbes, was the most terrible event, and to be avoided by any means. Lord Clarendon draws a parallel between a "man of courage" and one of the disciples of Hobbes, "brought to die together, by a judgment they cannot avoid." "How comes it to pass, that one of these undergoes death, with no other concernment than as if he were going any other journey; and the other with such confusion and trembling, that he is even without life before he dies; if it were true that all men fear alike upon the like occasion?"--_Survey of the Leviathan_, p. 14.

[350] They were distinguished as _Hobbists_, and the opinions as _Hobbianism_. Their chief happened to be born on a Good Friday; and in the metrical history of his own life he seems to have considered it as a remarkable event. An atom had its weight in the scales by which his mighty egotism weighed itself. He thus marks the day of his birth, innocently enough:--

"Natus erat noster Servator Homo-Deus annos Mille et quingentos, octo quoque undecies."

But the _Hobbists_ declared more openly (as Wood tells us), that "as our Saviour Christ went out of the world on that day to save the men of the world, so another saviour came into the world on that day to save them!"

That the sect spread abroad, as well as at home, is told us by Lord Clarendon, in the preface to his "Survey of the Leviathan." The qualities of the author, as well as the book, were well adapted for proselytism; for Clarendon, who was intimately acquainted with him, notices his confidence in conversation--his never allowing himself to be contradicted--his bold inferences--the novelty of his expressions--and his probity, and a life free from scandal. "The humour and inclination of the time to all kind of paradoxes," was indulged by a pleasant clear style, an appearance of order and method, hardy paradoxes, and accommodating principles to existing circumstances.

Who were the sect composed of? The monstrous court of Charles II.--the grossest materialists! The secret history of that court could scarcely find a Suetonius among us. But our author was frequently in the hands of those who could never have comprehended what they pretended to admire; this appears by a publication of the times, intituled, "Twelve Ingenious Characters, &c." 1686, where, in that of a town-fop, who, "for genteel breeding, posts to town, by his mother's indulgence, three or four wild companions, half-a-dozen bottles of Burgundy, _two leaves of Leviathan_," and some few other obvious matters, shortly make this young philosopher nearly lose his moral and physical existence. "He will not confess himself an Atheist, yet he boasts aloud that he holds his _gospel_ from _the Apostle of Malmesbury_, though it is more than probable he never read, at least understood, ten leaves of _that unlucky author_." If such were his wretched disciples, Hobbes was indeed "an unlucky author," for their morals and habits were quite opposite to those of their master. EACHARD, in the preface to his Second Dialogue, 1673, exhibits a very Lucianic arrangement of his disciples--Hobbes' "Pit, Box, and Gallery Friends." The _Pit-friends_ were sturdy practicants who, when they hear that "Ill-nature, Debauchery, and Irreligion were Mathematics and Demonstration, clap and shout, and swear by all that comes from Malmesbury." The _Gallery_ are "a sort of small, soft, little, pretty, fine gentlemen, who having some little wit, some little modesty, some little remain of conscience and country religion, could not hector it as the former, but quickly learnt to chirp and giggle when t'other clapt and shouted." But "the Don-admirers, and _Box-friends_ of Mr. Hobbes are men of gravity and reputation, who will scarce simper in favour of the philosopher, but can make shift to nod and nod again." Even amid this wild satire we find a piece of truth in a dark corner; for the satirist confesses that "his Gallery-friends, who were such resolved practicants in _Hobbianism_ (by which the satirist means all kinds of licentiousness) would most certainly have been so, had there never been any such man as Mr. Hobbes in the world." Why then place to the account of the philosopher those gross immoralities which he never sanctioned? The life of Hobbes is without a stain! He had other friends besides these "Box, Pit, and Gallery" gentry--the learned of Europe, and many of the great and good men of his own country.

[351] Hobbes, in defending Thucydides, whom he has so admirably translated, from the charge of some obscurity in his design, observes that "Marcellinus saith he was obscure, on purpose that the common people might not understand him; and not unlikely, for a wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men), that wise men only should be able to commend him." Thus early in life Hobbes had determined on a principle which produced all his studied ambiguity, involved him in so much controversy, and, in some respects, preserved him in an inglorious security.

[352] Hobbes explains the image in his Introduction. He does not disguise his opinion that _Men_ may be converted into _Automatons_; and if he were not very ingenious we might lose our patience. He was so delighted with this whimsical fancy of his "artificial man," that he carried it on to government itself, and employed the engraver to impress the monstrous personification on our minds, even clearer than by his reasonings. The curious design forms the frontispiece of "The Leviathan." He borrowed the name from that sea-monster, that mightiest of powers, which Job has told is not to be compared with any on earth. The sea-monster is here, however, changed into a colossal man, entirely made up of little men from all the classes of society, bearing in the right hand the sword, and in the left the crosier. The compartments are full of political allegories. An expression of Lord Clarendon's in the preface to his "Survey of the Leviathan," shows our philosopher's infatuation to this "idol of the Den," as Lord Bacon might have called the intellectual illusion of the philosopher. Hobbes, when at Paris, showed a proof-sheet or two of his work to Clarendon, who, he soon discovered, could not approve of the hardy tenets. "He frequently came to me," says his lordship, "and told me his book (_which he would call LEVIATHAN_) was then printing in England. He said, that he knew when I read his book I would not like it, and mentioned some of his conclusions: upon which I asked him, why he would publish such doctrine: to which, after a discourse, _between jest and earnest_, he said, _The truth is, I have a mind to go home!_" Some philosophical systems have, probably, been raised "between jest and earnest;" yet here was a text-book for the despot, as it is usually accepted, deliberately given to the world, for no other purpose than that the philosopher was desirous of changing his lodgings at Paris for his old apartments in London!

[353] The duplicity of the system is strikingly revealed by Burnet, who tells of Hobbes, that "he put all the law in the will of the _prince_ or the _people_; for he writ his book _at first_ in favour of _absolute monarchy_, but turned it afterwards to gratify the _republican party_. These were his true principles, though he had disguised them for deceiving unwary readers." It is certain Hobbes became a suspected person among the royalists. They were startled at the open extravagance of some of his political paradoxes; such as his notion of the necessity of extirpating all the _Greek_ and _Latin_ authors, "by reading of which men from their childhood have gotten a habit of licentious controuling the actions of their sovereigns."--p. 111. But the doctrines of liberty were not found only among the Greeks and Romans; the _Hebrews_ were stern republicans; and liberty seems to have had a nobler birth in the North among our German ancestors, than perhaps in any other part of the globe. It is certain that the Puritans, who warmed over the Bible more than the classic historians, had their heads full of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; the hanging of the five kings of Joshua; and the fat king of the Moabites, who in his summer-room received a present, and then a dagger, from the left-handed Jewish Jacobin. Hobbes curiously compares "The _tyrannophobia_, or fear of being strongly governed," to the _hydrophobia_. "When a monarchy is once bitten to the quick by those democratical writers, and, by their poison, men seem to be converted into dogs," his remedy is, "a strong monarch," or "the exercise of entire sovereignty," p. 171; and that the authority he would establish should be immutable, he hardily asserts that "the ruling power cannot be punished for mal-administration." Yet in this elaborate system of despotism are interspersed some strong republican axioms, as The safety of the people is the supreme law,--The public good to be preferred to that of the individual:--and that God made the one for the many, and not the many for the one. The effect the LEVIATHAN produced on the royal party was quite unexpected by the author. His hardy principles were considered as a satire on arbitrary power, and Hobbes himself as a concealed favourer of democracy. This has happened more than once with such vehement advocates. Our philosopher must have been thunderstruck at the insinuation, for he had presented the royal exile, as Clarendon in his "Survey" informs us, with a magnificent copy of "The Leviathan," written on vellum; this beautiful specimen of calligraphy may still be seen, as we learn from the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1813, where the curiosity is fully described. The suspicion of Hobbes's principles was so strong, that it produced his sudden dismissal from the presence of Charles II. when at Paris. The king, indeed, said he believed Hobbes intended him no hurt; and Hobbes said of the king, "that his majesty understood his writings better than his accusers." However, happy was Hobbes to escape from France, where the officers were in pursuit of him, amid snowy roads and nipping blasts. The lines in his metrical life open a dismal winter scene for an old man on a stumbling horse:--

"Frigus erat, nix alta, senex ego, ventus acerbus, Vexat equus sternax, et salebrosa via--"

A curious spectacle! to observe, under a despotic government, its vehement advocate in flight!

The ambiguity of "The Leviathan" seemed still more striking, when Hobbes came, at length, to place the right of government merely in what he terms "the Seat of Power,"--a wonderful principle of expediency; for this was equally commodious to the republicans and to the royalists. By this principle, the republicans maintained the right of Cromwell, since his authority was established, while it absolved the royalists from their burdensome allegiance; for, according to "The Leviathan," Charles was the English monarch only when in a condition to force obedience; and, to calm tender consciences, the philosopher further fixed on that precise point of time, "when a subject may obey an unjust conqueror." After the Restoration, it was subtilely urged by the Hobbists, that this very principle had greatly served the royal cause; for it afforded a plea for the emigrants to return, by compounding for their estates, and joining with those royalists who had remained at home in an open submission to the established government; and thus they were enabled to concert their measures in common, for reinstating the old monarchy. Had the Restoration never taken place, Hobbes would have equally insisted on the soundness of his doctrine; he would have asserted the title of Richard Cromwell to the Protectorate, if Richard had had the means to support it, as zealously as he afterwards did that of Charles II. to the throne, when the king had firmly re-established it. The philosophy of Hobbes, therefore, is not dangerous in any government; its sole aim is to preserve it from intestine divisions; but for this purpose, he was for reducing men to mere machines. With such little respect he treated the species, and with such tenderness the individual!

I will give Hobbes's own justification, after the Restoration of Charles II., when accused by the great mathematician, Dr. Wallis, a republican under Cromwell, of having written his work in defence of Oliver's government. Hobbes does not deny that "he placed the right of government wheresoever should be the strength." Most subtilely he argues, how this very principle "was designed in behalf of the faithful subjects of the king," after they had done their utmost to defend his rights and person. The government of Cromwell being established, these found themselves without the protection of a government of their own, and therefore might lawfully promise obedience to their victor for the saving of their lives and fortunes; and more, they ought even to protect that authority in war by which they were themselves protected in peace. But this plea, which he so ably urged in favour of the royalists, will not, however, justify those who, like Wallis, voluntarily submitted to Cromwell, because they were always the enemies of the king; so that this submission to Oliver is allowed only to the royalists--a most admirable political paradox! The whole of the argument is managed with infinite dexterity, and is thus unexpectedly turned against his accusers themselves. The principle of "self-preservation" is carried on through the entire system of Hobbes.--_Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, &c., of Mr. Hobbes._

[354] The passage in Hobbes to which I allude is in "The Leviathan," c. 32. He there says, sarcastically, "It is with the _mysteries of religion_ as with wholesome pills for the sick, which, swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but, chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect." Hobbes is often a wit: he was much pleased with this thought, for he had it in his _De Cive_; which, in the English translation, bears the title of "Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society," 1651. There he calls "the wholesome pills," "bitter." He translated the _De Cive_ himself; a circumstance which was not known till the recent appearance of Aubrey's papers.

[355] Warburton has most acutely distinguished between the intention of Hobbes and that of some of his successors. The bishop does not consider Hobbes as an enemy to religion, not even to the Christian; and even doubts whether he has attacked it in "The Leviathan." At all events, he has "taken direct contrary measures from those of Bayle, Collins, Tindal, Bolingbroke, and all that school. They maliciously endeavoured to show the Gospel was _unreasonable_; Hobbes, as reasonable as his admirable wit could represent it: they contended for the most unbounded _toleration_, Hobbes for the most rigorous _conformity_." See the "Alliance between Church and State,"