UNIVERSITY OF CA RIVERSIDE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
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 ▼ ▼▼▼<»▼▼ T j 
 
 Ex Libris 
 ► ISAAC FOOT ^ 
 
 J- IMIH 
 
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 THE WORKS 
 
 ISAAC DISRAELI.
 
 THK 
 
 CALAMITIES AND QUARRELS 
 
 AUTHOES : 
 
 SOME INQUIRIES RESPECTING THEIR MORAL AND 
 LITERARY CHARACTERS, 
 
 ^nb |P[cmoirs for our ITitcrarir ptstorg. 
 
 By ISAAC DISRAELI. 
 
 A. nt:^v ElDITIOlSr, 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SON, 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.R 
 
 LONDON : 
 FREDERICK AVARNE AND CO. 
 
 BEDFORD STEEET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 NEW YORK: SCRIBNER AND CO. 
 
 1867. 
 
 {_Tlte Author reserves the right of Transfation.'l
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAVILL AND EDWAKDS, PEINTERS, CHANDOS STEEET, 
 
 COVIN! GARDEN.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 PAGE 
 PKEFACB 8 
 
 AUTHORS BY PROFESSION: G0THRIE AND AMHURST DRAKE 
 
 SMOLLETT 7 
 
 THE CASE OP AUTHORS STATED, INCLDDINO THE HISTORY OF LITE- 
 RARY PROPERTY 15 
 
 THE SUFFERINGS OF AUTHORS 22 
 
 A MENDICANT AUTHOR, AND THE PATRONS OF FORMER TIMES ... 25 
 
 COWLEY OF HIS MELANCHOLY 35 
 
 THE PAINS OF FASTIDIOUS EGOTISM 42 
 
 INFLUENCE OP A BAD TEMPER IN CRITICISM 51 
 
 DISAPPOINTED GENIUS TAKES A FATAL DIRECTION BY ITS ABUSE . . 59 
 
 THE MALADIES OF AUTHORS 70 
 
 LITERARY SCOTCHMEN 75 
 
 LABORIOUS AUTHORS 83 
 
 THE DESPAIR OF YOUNG POETS 9S 
 
 THE MISERIES OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COMMENTATOR 104 
 
 THE LIFE OF AN AUTHORESS 106 
 
 INDISCRETION OF AN HISTORIAN — CARTE 110 
 
 LITERARY RIDICULE, ILLUSTRATED BY SOME ACCOUNT OF A LITERARY 
 
 SATIRE 114 
 
 LITERARY HATRED, EXHIBITING A CONSPIRACY AGAINST AN AUTHOR . 130
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 FAaa 
 
 rNDTJE SEVERITY OF CRITICISM 139 
 
 A VOLUMINOUS AUTHOR WITHOUT JUDGMENT 146 
 
 GEOTUS AND ERUDITION THE VICTIMS OP IMMODERATE VANITY . . 152 
 
 GENIUS, THE DUPE OP ITS PASSIONS 168 
 
 LITERARY DISAPPOINTMENTS DISORDERING THE INTELLECT .... 172 
 
 REWARDS OP ORIENTAL STUDENTS 186 
 
 DANGER INCURRED BY GIVING THE RESULT OP LITERARY INQUIRIES . 193 
 
 A NATIONAL WORK WHICH COULD FIND NO PATRONAGE 200 
 
 MISERIES OF SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS 202 
 
 THE ILLUSIONS OF WRITERS IN VERSE 212 
 
 QUARRELS OF AUTHORS. 
 
 PREFACE 229 
 
 WARBUKTON AND HIS QUARRELS ; INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OP HIS 
 
 LITERARY CHARACTER 233 
 
 POPE AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUARRELS 278 
 
 POPE AND OURLL; OR A NARRATIVE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY 
 
 TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING THE PUBLICATION OP POPe's LETTERS 292 
 POPE AND CIBBER ; CONTAINING A VINDICATION OP THE COMIO 
 
 WRITER 301 
 
 POPE AND ADDISON 313 
 
 BOLINGBROKE AND MALLET's POSTHUMOUS QUARREL WITH POPE . . 321 
 
 LINTOT's ACCOUNT-BOOK 328 
 
 pope's EARLIEST SATIRE 333 
 
 THE ROYAL SOCIETY 336 
 
 SIR JOHN HILL, WITH THE ROYAL SOCIETY, FIELDING, SMART, ETO. . 363 
 BOTLE AND BENTLEY 377
 
 Contents. vii 
 
 PAGB 
 PARKER AND MARVELL 391 
 
 D'AVENANT AND A CLUB OP WITS 403 
 
 THE PAPER WARS OP THE CIVIL WARS 414 
 
 POLITICAL CRITIOISJI ON LITERARY COMPOSITIONS 423 
 
 HOBBES AND HIS QUARRELS ; INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS 
 
 CHARACTER 437 
 
 HOBBES'S QUARRELS WITH DR. WALLIS, THE MATHEMATICIAN . . . 463 
 
 JONSON AND DECKER 
 
 CAMDEN AND BROOKE 491 
 
 MARTIN MAR-PRBLATE 501 
 
 SUPPLEMENT TO MARTIN MAR-PRELATE 525 
 
 LITERARY QUARRELS FROM PERSONAL MOTIVES 531 
 
 INDEX 54
 
 CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS: 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 SOME INQUIRIES RESPECTING THEIR MORAL 
 AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 
 
 " Such a superiority do the pursuits of Literature possess above every other occu- 
 pation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminenco 
 above those that escel the most in the common and vulgar professions." — Hitmb.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Calamities of Authors have often excited the attention 
 of the lovers of literature ; and, from the revival of letters to 
 this day, this class of the community, the most ingenious and 
 the most enlightened, have, in all the nations of Europe, been 
 the most honoured, and the least remunerated. Pierius Vale- 
 rianus, an attendant in the Hterary court of Leo X., who twice 
 refused a bishopric that he might pursue his studies uninter- 
 rupted, was a friend of Authors, and composed a small work, 
 " De Infelicitate Literatorum," which has been frequently re- 
 printed.* It forms a catalogue of several ItaUan literati, his 
 contemporaries ; a meagre performance, in which the author 
 shows sometimes a predilection for the marvellous, which 
 happens so rarely in human affairs ; and he is so unphiloso- 
 phical, that he places among the misfortunes of literary men 
 those fatal casualties to which all men are alike liable. Yet 
 even this small volume has its value : for although the his- 
 torian confines his narrative to his own times, he includes a 
 sufficient number of names to convince us that to devote our 
 life to authorship is not the true means of improving our 
 happiness or our fortune. 
 
 At a later period, a congenial work was composed by Theo- 
 philus Spizelius, a German divine ; his four volumes are after 
 the fashion of his country and his times, which could make 
 even small things ponderous. In 16S0 he first published two 
 
 * A modem wrriter observes, that ' ' Valeriano is chiefly known to the 
 present times by his brief but curious and interesting work, De Liter atom iii 
 Infelicitate, which has preserved many anecdotes of the principal scholars 
 of the age, not elsewhere to be found." — Roscoe's Leo X. vol. iv. p. 175. 
 
 b2
 
 4 Preface. 
 
 volumes, entitled "Infelix Literatus," and five years after- 
 wards his " Felicissimus Literatus ;" he writes without size, 
 and sermonises without end, and seems to have been so grave 
 a lover of symmetry, that he shapes his Felicities just 
 with the same measure as his Infelicities. These two 
 equalised bundles of hay might have held in suspense the 
 casuistical ass of Sterne, till he had died from want of a 
 motive to choose either. Yet Spizelius is not to be con- 
 temned because he is verbose and heavy ; he has reflected 
 more deeply than Valerianus, by opening the moral causes of 
 those calamities which he describes.* 
 
 The chief object of the present work is to ascertain some 
 doubtful yet important points concerning Authors. The title 
 of Author still retains its seduction among our youth, and is 
 consecrated by ages. Yet what affectionate parent would consent 
 to see his son devote himself to his pen as a profession ? The 
 studies of a true Author insulate him in society, exacting 
 daily labours ; yet he will receive but little encouragement, 
 and less remuneration. It will be found that the most suc- 
 cessful Author can obtain no equivalent for the labours of 
 his life. I have endeavoured to ascertain this fact, to de- 
 velope the causes and to paint the variety of evils that natu- 
 rally result from the disappointments of genius. Authors 
 themselves never discover this melancholy truth till they 
 have yielded to an impulse, and adopted a profession, too late 
 in life to resist the one, or abandon the other. Whoever 
 labours without hope, a painful state to which Authors are at 
 length reduced, may surely be placed among the most injm'ed 
 class in the community. Most Authors close their lives in 
 apathy or despair, and too many live by means which few of 
 them would not blush to describe. 
 
 Besides this perpetual struggle with penury, there are also 
 
 * There is also a bulky collection of this kind, entitled, A nalecta de 
 Calamitate Literatorum, e<Jited by Mencken, the author of Charlatanena 
 Eruditorum,
 
 Preface. 5 
 
 moral causes which influence the literary character. I have 
 drawn the individual characters and feelings of Authors from 
 their own confessions, or deduced them from the prevalent 
 events of their lives ; and often discovered them in their 
 secret history, as it floats on tradition, or lies concealed in 
 authentic and original documents, I would paint what has 
 not been unhappily called i\ie psycliological character.* 
 
 I have limited my inquiries to our own country, and gene- 
 rally to recent times ; for researches more curious, and eras 
 more distant, would less forcibly act on our sympathy. If, 
 in attempting to avoid the naked brevity of Valerianus, I 
 have taken a more comprehensive view of several of our 
 Authors, it has been with the hope that I was throwing a 
 new light on their characters, or contributing some fresh 
 materials to our literary history. I feel anxious for the fate 
 of the opinions and the feelings which have arisen in the pro- 
 gress and diversity of this work ; but whatever their errors 
 may be, it is to them that my readers at least owe the mate- 
 rials of which it is formed ; these materials will be received 
 with consideration, as the confessions and statements of genius 
 itself. In mixing them with m}'- own feelings, let me apply 
 a beautiful apologue of the Hebrews — " The clusters of grapes 
 sent out of Babylon implore favour for the exuberant leaves 
 of the vine ; for had there been no leaves, you had lost the 
 grapes." 
 
 * From the Grecian Psyche, or the soul, the Germans have borrowed 
 this expressive term. They have a Psychological Magazine. Some of 
 our own recent authors have adopted the term peculiarly adapted to the 
 historian of the human mind.
 
 THE 
 
 CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 AUTHOES BY PKOFESSION. 
 
 GTJTHBIE AND A3IHURST — DRAKE — SlIOLtETT, 
 
 A GREAT author once sui'prised me by inquiring what I 
 meant by "an Author by Profession." He seemed offended 
 at the supposition that I was creating an odious distmction 
 between authors. I was only placing it among their calamities. 
 
 The title of Author is venerable ; and in the ranks of 
 national glory, authors mingle with its heroes and its patriots. 
 It is indeed by our authors that foreigners have been taught 
 most to esteem us ; and this remarkably appears in the ex- 
 pression of Gemelli, the Italian traveller round the world, 
 who wrote about the jeav 1700 ; for he told all Eui-ope that 
 *• he could find nothing amongst us but our writings to dis- 
 tinguish us from the worst of barbarians." But to become 
 an " Author by Profession," is to have no other means of 
 subsistence than such as are extracted from the quill ; and no 
 one beHeves these to be so precarious as they really are, until 
 disappointed, distressed, and thrown out of every pursuit 
 which can maintain independence, the noblest mind is cast 
 into the lot of a doomed labom-er. 
 
 Literatm'e aboimds with instances of " Authors by Profes- 
 sion" accommodating themselves to this condition. By vile 
 ai'tifices of faction and popularity their moral sense is injured, 
 and the literary character sits in that study which he ought 
 to dignify, merely, as one of them sings. 
 
 To keep his muttoa twirling at the fire. 
 
 Another has said, " He is a fool who is a grain honester 
 than the times he lives in." 
 
 Let it not, therefore, be conceived that I mean to degrade 
 or vilify the Hterary character, when I would only separate
 
 8 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 the Author from those pollutors of the press who have 
 turned a vestal into a prostitute ; a grotesque race of famished 
 buffoons or laughing assassins ; or that populace of unhappy 
 beings, who are di-iven to perish in their garrets, unknown and 
 unregarded by all, for illusions which even their calamities 
 cannot disperse. Poverty, said an ancient, is a sacred thing — 
 it is, indeed, so sacred, that it creates a sympathy even for 
 those who have incurred it by their folly, or plead by it for 
 their crimes. 
 
 The history of our Literature is instructive — let us trace 
 the origin of characters of this sort among us : some of them. 
 have happily disappeared, and, whenever great authors obtain 
 their due rights, the calamities of literature will be greatly 
 diminished. 
 
 As for the phrase of " Authors by Profession," it is said to 
 be of modern origin ; and GuxnEiE, a great dealer in litera- 
 ture, and a political scribe, is thought to have introduced it, 
 as descriptive of a class of writers which he wished to distin- 
 guish from the general term. I present the reader with an 
 unpublished letter of Guthrie, in which the phrase will not 
 only be found, but, what is more important, which exhibits 
 the character in its degraded form. It was addressed to a 
 minister. 
 
 " My Loed, June 3, 1762. 
 
 *' In the year 1745-6, Mr. Pelham, then First Lord of the 
 Treasury, acquainted me, that it was his Majesty's pleasure I 
 i-hould receive, till better provided for, which never has hap- 
 pened, 200Z. a-year, to be paid by him and his successors in 
 the Treasury. I was satisfied with the august name made 
 use of, and the appointment has been regularly and quarterly 
 paid me ever since. I have been equally punctual in doing 
 the government all the services that fell within my abilities 
 or sphere of life, especiall}' in those critical situations that 
 call for unanimity in the service of the crown. 
 
 " Your Lordship may possibly now suspect that / am an 
 Autlior hy Profession : you are not deceived ; and will be less 
 so, if you believe that I am disposed to serve his Majesty 
 under your Lordship's future jpatronage and 'protection^ with 
 greater zeal, if possible, than ever. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, 
 
 " My Lord, Ac, 
 
 "William Guthrie."
 
 Authors by Profession. 9 
 
 Unblushing venality ! In one part he shouts like a plun- 
 dering hussar who has carried off his prey ; and in the other 
 he bows with the tame suppleness of the "quarterly" Swiss 
 chaffering his halbert for his price ; — " to serve his Majesty " 
 for — "his Lordship's future patronage." 
 
 Guthrie's notion of "An Author by Profession," entirely 
 derived from his own character, was twofold ; literary task- 
 work, and political degradation. He was to be a gentleman 
 
 convertible into an historian, at per sheet; and, when he 
 
 had not time to write histories, he chose to sell his name to 
 those he never wrote. These are mysteries of. the craft of 
 authorship ; in this sense it is only a trade, and a very bad 
 one ! But when in his other capacity, this gentleman comes 
 to hire himself to one lord as he had to another, no one can 
 doubt that the stipendiary would change his principles with 
 his livery.* 
 
 Such have been some of the "Authors by Profession " who 
 have worn the literary mask ; for literature was not the first 
 object of their designs. They form a race peculiar to our 
 country. They opened their career in our first great revolu- 
 tion, and flourished during the eventful period of the civil 
 wars. In the form of newspapers, their " Mercuiies " and 
 " Diurnals " were pohtical pamphlets.f Of these, the 
 Royalists, being the better educated, carried off to their side 
 all the spirit, and only left the foam and dregs for the Parlia- 
 mentarians ; otherwise, in lying, they were just like one 
 another; for "the father of lies" seems to be of no party! 
 "Were it desirable to instruct men by a system of political and 
 moral calumny, the complete art might be drawn from these 
 archives of political lying, during their flourishing era. We 
 might discover principles among them which would have 
 humbled the genius of Machiavel himself, and even have 
 taught Mr. Sheridan's more popular scribe, Mr. Puff, a sense 
 of his own inferiority. 
 
 It is known that, during the administration of Harley and 
 "V^'alpole, this class of authors swarmed and started up like 
 mustard-seed in a hot-bed. More than fifty thousand pomids 
 
 * It has been lately disclosed that Home, the author of "Douglas," was 
 pensioned by Lord Bute to answer all the papers and pamphlets of the 
 Government, and to be a vigilant defender of the measures of Government. 
 
 + I have elsewhere portrayed the personal characters of the hireling 
 chiefs of these paper wars : the versatile and unprincipled Jlarchmont 
 Needham, the Cobbett of his day ; the factious Sir Roger L' Estrange ; and 
 the bantering and profligate Sir John Bii-kenhead,
 
 10 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 were expended among tliem ! Faction, with mad and blind 
 passions, can affix a value on the basest things that serve its 
 pm-pose. * These "Authors by Profession" wrote more 
 assiduously the better they were paid ; but as attacks only 
 produced replies and rejoinders, to remunerate them was 
 heightening the fever and feeding the disease. They were all 
 fighting for present pay, with a view of the promised land 
 before them ; but they at length became so numerous, and so 
 crowded on one another, that the minister could neither 
 satisfy promised claims nor actual dues. He had not at last 
 the humblest, office to bestow, not a commissionership of wine 
 licences, as Tacitus Gordon had : not even a coUectorship of 
 the customs in some obscure town, as was the wretched worn- 
 out Oldmixon's pittance ;t not a crumb for a mouse ! 
 
 The captain of this banditti in the administration of 
 Walpole was Amall, a j'^oung attorney, whose mature genius 
 for scm-rUous party-papers broke forth in his tender nonage. 
 This hireling was " The Free Brjton," and in " The Gazetteer" 
 Francis JValsingTimn, Esq^., abusing the name of a profound 
 statesman. It is said that he received above ten thousand 
 pounds for his obscm'e laboui's ; and this patriot was suffered 
 to retire with all the dignity which a pension could confer. 
 He not only wrote for hire, but valued himself on it ; proud 
 of the pliancy of his pen and of his principles, he wrote with- 
 out remorse what his patron was forced to pay for, but to 
 disavow. It was from a knowledge of these " Authors by 
 Profession," writers of a faction in the name of the community, 
 as they have been well described, that our great statesman 
 Pitt fell into an error which he lived to regret. He did not 
 
 * An ample view of these lucubrations is exhibited in the early volumes 
 of the GentlemaiCs Magazine. 
 
 + It was said of this man that "he had submitted to labour at the 
 press, like a horse in a mill, till he became as blind and as wretched." To 
 show the extent of the conscience of this class of writers, and to what 
 lengths mere party-writers can proceed, when duly encouraged, Oldmixon, 
 who was a Whig historian, if a violent party-writer ought ever to be 
 dignified by so venerable a title, unmercifully rigid to all other historians, 
 was himself guilty of the crimes with which he so loudly accused others. 
 He charged three eminent persons with interpolating Lord Clarendon's 
 History ; this charge was afterwards disproved by the passages being pro- 
 duced in his Lordship's own handwriting, which had been fortunately 
 preserved ; and yet this accuser of interpolation, when employed by Bishop 
 Kennett to publish his collection of our historians, made no scruple of falsi- 
 fying numerous passages iu Daniel's Chronicle, which makes the first 
 edition of that collection of no value.
 
 Authors hy Profession. 11 
 
 distinguish between authors ; he confounded the mercenary 
 with the men of talent and character ; and with this con- 
 tracted view of the pohtical influence of genius, he must have 
 viewed with awe, perhaps with surprise, its mighty labour in 
 the volumes of Bm'ke. 
 
 But these " Authors by Profession " sometimes found a 
 retribution of their crimes even from their masters. When 
 the ardent patron was changed into a cold minister, their pen 
 seemed wonderfully to have lost its point, and the feather 
 could not any more tickle. They were flung off", as Shak- 
 speare's striking imagery expresses it, like 
 
 An unregarded bulrush on the stream, 
 To rot itself with motion. 
 
 Look on the fate and fortune of Amhurst. The life of 
 this " Author b}^ Profession " points a moral. He flourished 
 about the year 1730. He passed through a yovith of iniquity, 
 and was expelled his college for his irregularities : he had 
 exhibited no marks of regeneration when he assailed the 
 •university with the periodical paper of the Terrce Filius ; a 
 witty Saturnahan effusion on the manners and Toryism of 
 Oxford, where the portraits have an extravagant kind of like- 
 ness, and are so false and so true that they were universally 
 rehshed and individually understood. Amhurst, having lost 
 his character, hastened to reform the morals and politics of 
 the nation. For near twenty years he toiled at " The Crafts- 
 man," of which ten thousand are said to have been sold in 
 one day. Admire this patriot ! an expelled collegian becomes 
 an outrageous zealot for popular I'eform, and an intrepid Whig 
 can bend to be yoked to all the drudgery of a faction ! Am- 
 hurst succeeded in writing out the minister, and writing in 
 BoHngbroke and Pulteney. Now came the hour of gratitude 
 and generosity. His patrons mounted into power — but — 
 they silently dropped the instrument of their ascension. The 
 political prostitute stood shivering at the gate of preferment, 
 which his masters had for ever flung against him. He died 
 broken-hearted, and owed the charity of a grave to his book- 
 seller. 
 
 I must add one more striking example of a political author 
 in the case of Dr. James Deake, a man of genius, and an 
 excellent writer. He resigned an honourable profession, that 
 of medicine, to adopt a very contrary one, that of becoming 
 an author by profession for a party. As a Tory writer, he
 
 12 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 dared every extremity of the law, while he evaded it hy every 
 subtlety of artifice ; he sent a masked lady with his MS. to 
 the printer, who was never discovered, and was once saved by 
 a flaw in the indictment from the simple change of an r for a 
 t, or nor for not ; — one of those shameful evasions by which 
 the law, to its perpetual disgrace, so often protects the crimi- 
 nal from punishment. Dr. Drake had the honour of hearing 
 himself censm-ed from the throne ; of being imprisoned ; of 
 seeing his " Memorials of the Church of England " burned 
 at London, and his "Historia Anglo-Scotica " at Edinburgh. 
 Having enlisted himself in the pay of the booksellers, among 
 other works, I suspect, he condescended to practise some 
 literary impositions. For he has reprinted Father Parson's 
 famous libel against the Earl of Leicester in Elizabeth's reign, 
 under the title of " Secret Memoirs of Robert Dudley, Earl 
 of Leicester, 1706," 8vo, with a preface pretending it was 
 printed from an old MS. 
 
 Drake was a lover of literature ; he left behind him a ver- 
 sion of Herodotus, and a " System of Anatomy," once the 
 most popular and curious of its kind. After all this turmoil 
 of his literary life, neither his masked lady nor the flaws in. 
 his indictments availed him. Government brought a writ of 
 error, severely prosecuted him ; and, abandoned, as usual, by 
 those for whom he had annihilated a genius which deserved a 
 better fate, his perturbed spirit broke out into a fever, and he 
 died raving against cruel persecutors, and patrons not much 
 more humane. 
 
 So much for some of those who have been " Authors by 
 Profession" in one of the twofold capacities which Guthrie 
 designed, that of writing for a minister ; the other, that of 
 writing for the bookseller, though far more honourable, is 
 sufficiently calamitous. 
 
 In commercial times, the hope of profit is always a stimu- 
 lating, but a degrading motive ; it dims the clearest intellect, 
 it stills the proudest feelings. Habit and prejudice will soon 
 reconcile even genius to the work of money, and to avow the 
 motive without a blush. "An author by profession," at once 
 ingenious and ingenuous, declared that, " till fame appears to 
 be worth more than money, he would always prefer money to 
 fame." Johnson had a notion that there existed no motive 
 for writing but money ! Yet, crowned heads have sighed with 
 the ambition of authorship, though this great master of ths
 
 Authors by Profession. 13 
 
 human mind could suppose that on this subject men were not 
 actuated either by the love of glory or of pleasure ! Fielding, 
 an author of great genius and of " the profession," in one of 
 his " Covent-garden Journals " asserts, that " An author, in 
 a country where there is no public provision for men of 
 genius, is not obliged to be a more disinterested patriot than 
 any other. Wliy is he whose UvelOioodis in his pen a greater 
 monster in using it to serve himself, than he who uses his 
 tongue for the same pm-pose ?" 
 
 But it is a very important question to ask, is this " live- 
 lihood in the pen" really such? Authors drudging on in 
 obscurity, and enduring miseries which can never close but 
 with their life — shall this be worth even the humble designa- 
 tion of a " livelihood ?" I am not now combating with them 
 whether their taskwork degrades them, but whether they are 
 receiving an equivalent for the violation of then* genius, for 
 the weight of the fetters they are wearing, and for the entailed 
 miseries which form an author's sole legacies to his widow and 
 his children. Far from me is the wish to degrade literature 
 by the inquiry ; but it will be useful to many a youth of pro- 
 mising talent, who is impatient to abandon all professions for 
 this one, to consider well the calamities in which he will most 
 probably participate. 
 
 Among "Authors by Profession" who has displayed a 
 more fruitful genius, and exercised more intense industry, with 
 a loftier sense of his independence, than SiiOLLETT ? But 
 look into his life and enter into his feelings, and you will be 
 shocked at the disparity of his situation with the genius of 
 the man. His life was a succession of struggles, vexatious, 
 and disappointments, yet of success in his writings. Smollett, 
 who is a great poet, though he has written little in verse, and 
 whose rich genius composed the most original pictures of 
 human life, was compelled by his wants to debase his name by 
 selling it to voyages and translations, which he never could 
 have read. When he had worn himself down in the service 
 of the pubhc or the booksellers, there remained not, of all his 
 slender remunerations, in the last stage of hfe, sufficient to 
 convey him to a cheap country and a restorative air on the 
 Continent. The father may have thought himself fortunate, 
 that the daughter whom he loved with more than common 
 affection was no more to share in his wants ; but the husband 
 had by his side the faithful companion of his life, left without
 
 14 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 a wreck of fortune. Smollett, gradually perishing in a foreign 
 land,* neglected by an admiring public, and without fresh 
 resources from the booksellers, who were receiving the income 
 of his works, threw out his injured feelings in the character 
 of Bramble ; the warm generosity of his temper, but not his 
 genius, seemed fleeting with his breath. In a foreign land his 
 widow marked by a plain monument the spot of his burial, 
 and she perished in solitude ! Yet Smollett dead — soon an 
 ornamented column is raised at the place of his birth,t while 
 the grave of the author seemed to multiply the editions of 
 his works. There are indeed grateful feelings in the pubhc 
 at large for a favourite author ; but the awful testimony of 
 those feelings, by its gradual progress, must appear beyond 
 the grave ! They visit the column consecrated by his name, 
 and his features are most loved, most venerated, in the bust. 
 
 Smollett himself shall be the historian of his own heart ; 
 this most successful " Author by Profession," who, for his 
 subsistence, composed masterworks of genius, and drudged in 
 the toils of slavery, shall himself tell us what happened, and 
 describe that state between life and death, partaking of both, 
 which obscured his faculties and sickened his lofty spirit. 
 
 " Had some of those who were pleased to call themselves 
 my friends been at any pains to deserve the character, and 
 told me ingenuously what I had to expect in the capacity of 
 an author, when I first professed myself of that venerable fra- 
 ternity, I should in all probability have spared myself the 
 incredible labour and chagrin I have since undergone^'' 
 
 As a relief from literary labour, Smollett once went to 
 revisit his family, and to embrace the mother he loved ; but 
 such was the irritation of his mind and the infirmity of his 
 health, exhausted by the hard labours of authorship, that he 
 never passed a more weary summer, nor ever found himself so 
 incapable of indulging the warmest emotions of his heart. 
 
 * Smollett died in a small abode in the neigbbourhood of Leghorn, 
 where he had resided some time in the hope of recovering his shattered 
 health; and where he wrote his " Humphrey Clinker." His friends had 
 tried in vain to procure for him the appointment of consul to any one of 
 the ports of the Mediterranean. He is buried in the English cemetery at 
 Leghorn. — Ed. 
 
 •j* It stands opposite Dalquhurn House, where he was born, near the 
 village of Ilentun, Dumbartonshire. Had Smollett lived a few more years, 
 he would have been entitled to an estate of about lOOOi. a year. There is 
 also a cenotaph to his memory on the banks of Leven-water, which he has 
 consecrated in one of hLs best poems. — Ed.
 
 The Case of Authors stated. 15 
 
 On his return, in a letter, lie gave this melancholy narrative 
 of himself : — " Between friends, I am now convinced that my 
 hrain loas in S07ne measure affected ; for I had a kind of Coma 
 Vigil upon me from April to November, without intermission. 
 In consideration of this circumstance, I know you will forgive 
 all my peevishness and discontent ; tell Mrs. Moore that with 
 regard to me, she has as yet seen nothing but the wrong side 
 of the tapestry." Thus it happens in the life of authors, that 
 they whose comic genius difiuses cheerfulness, create a pleasure 
 which they cannot themselves participate. 
 
 The Coma Vigil may be described by a verse of Shak- 
 speare : — 
 
 Still-waking sleep ! tliat is not what it is ! 
 
 Of praise and censm*e, says Smollett, in a letter to Dr. 
 Moore, "Indeed I am sick of both, and wish to God my 
 circumstances would allow me to consign my pen to oblivion." 
 A vsdsh, as fervently repeated by many " Authors by Pro- 
 fession," who are not so fully entitled as was Smollett to 
 write when he chose, or to have lived in quiet for what he had 
 written. An author's life is therefore too often deprived of all 
 social comfort whether he be the writer for a minister, or a 
 bookseller — but their case requires to be stated. 
 
 THE CASE OF AUTHORS STATED, 
 
 INCLUDING THE HISTORY OP LITERARY PROPERTY. 
 
 Johnson has dignified the booksellers as "the patrons of 
 literature," which was generous in that great author, who 
 had written well and lived but ill all his life on that patronage. 
 Eminent booksellers, in their constant intercourse with the 
 most enlightened class of the community, that is, with the 
 best authors and the best readers, partake of the intelligence 
 aroxmd them ; their great capitals, too, are productive of good 
 and evil in literature ; useful v/hen they carry on great works, 
 and pernicious when they sanction indifferent ones. Yet are 
 they but commercial men. A trader can never be deemed a 
 patron, for it would be romantic to purchase what is not sale- 
 able ; and where no favour is conferred, there is no patronage. 
 Authors continue poor, and booksellers become opulent ; an 
 extraordinary result ! Booksellers are not agents for authors,
 
 16 ' Calamities of Authors. 
 
 but proprietors of their works ; so that the perpetual revenues 
 of literature are solely in the possession of the trade. 
 
 Is it then wonderful that even successful authors are indi- 
 gent ? They are heirs to fortunes, but by a strange singu- 
 larity they are disinherited at their birth ; for, on the publi- 
 cation of their works, these cease to be their own property. 
 Let that natural property be secured, and a good book would 
 be an inheritance, a leasehold or a freehold, as you choose it ; 
 it might at least last out a generation, and descend to the 
 author's blood, were they permitted to live on their father's 
 glory, as in all other property they do on his industry.* 
 Something of this nature has been instituted in France, where 
 the descendants of Corneille and Moliere retain a claim on 
 the theatres whenever the dramas of their great ancestors 
 are performed. In that country, literature has ever received 
 peculiar honours — it was there decreed, in the affair of Cre- 
 billon, that literary productions are not seizable by creditors. f 
 
 The history of literary property in this country might form 
 as ludicrous a narrative as Lucian's " true history." It was 
 a long while doubtful whether any such thing existed, at the 
 very time when booksellers were assigning over the perpetual 
 copyrights of books, and making them the subject of family 
 settlements for the provision of their wives and childi-en ! 
 When Tonson, in 1739, obtained an injunction to restrain 
 
 * The following facts will show the value of literary jyroperty ; immense 
 profits and cheap purchases ! The manuscript of " Robinson Crusoe" ran 
 through the whole trade, and no one would print it ; the bookseller who did 
 purchase it, who, it is said, was not remarkable for his discernment, but for 
 a speculative turn, got a thousand guineas by it. How many have the 
 booksellers since accumulated ? Burn's "Justice" was disposed of by its 
 author for a trifle, as well as Buchan's "Domestic Medicine ;" these works 
 yield annual incomes. Goldsmith's " Vicar of Wakefield " was sold in the 
 hour of distress, with little distinction from any other work in that class of 
 composition; and "Evelina" produced five guineas from the niggardly 
 trader. Dr. Johnson fixed the price of his "Biography of the Poets" at 
 two hundred guineas ; and Mr. Malone observes, the booksellei's in the 
 course of twenty-five years have probably got five thousand. I could add a 
 great number of facts of this nature which relate to living writers ; the 
 profits of their own works for two or throe years would rescue them from 
 the horrors and humiliation of pauperism. It is, perhaps, useful to record, 
 that, while the compositions of genius are but slightly reinunerated, though 
 sometimes as productive as " the household stuff" of literature, the latter 
 is rewarded with princely magnificence. At the sale of the Robinsons, the 
 copyright of " Vyse's Spelling-book" was sold at the enormous price of 
 2200^., with an annuity of fifty guineas to the author ! 
 
 + The circumstance, with the poet's dignified petition, and the King's 
 honourable decree, are preserved in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 406.
 
 The Case, of Authors atuted. 17 
 
 aiiother bookseller from printing Milton's " Paradise Lost," 
 lie brought into court as a proof of his title an assignment of 
 the original copyright, made over by the sublime poet in 
 1667, which was read. Milton received for this assignment 
 the sum which we all know — Tonson and all his family and 
 assignees rode in their carriages with the profits of the live- 
 pound epic* 
 
 The verbal and tasteless lawyers, not many years past, with 
 legal metaphysics, wrangled like the schoolmen, inquiring of 
 each other, " whether the style and ideas of an author were 
 tangible things ; or if these were a property, how is j^ossession 
 to be taken, or any act of occupancy made on mere intel- 
 lectual ideas." Nothing, said they, can be an object of pro- 
 perty but which has a corporeal substance ; the air and the 
 light, to which they compared an author's ideas, are common 
 to all ; ideas in the MS. state were compared to birds in a 
 cage ; while the author confines them in his own dominion, 
 none but he has a right to let them fly ; but the moment he 
 allows the bird to escape from his hand, it is no violation of 
 property in any one to make it his own. And to prove that 
 there existed no property after publication, they found an 
 analogy in the gathering of acorns, or in seizing on a vacant 
 piece of ground ; and thus degrading that most refined piece 
 of art formed in the highest state of society, a literary pro- 
 duction, they brought us back to a state of nature ; and seem 
 to have concluded that literary property was purely ideal ; a 
 phantom which, as its author could neither grasp nor confine 
 
 * The elder Tonson's portrait represents Lim in his gown and cap, hold- 
 ing in his right hand a volume lettered " Pai-adise Lost" — such a favourite 
 object was Milton and copyright ! Jacob Tonson was the founder of a race 
 who long honoured literature. His rise in life is curious. He was at first 
 unable to pay twenty pounds for a play by Dryden, and joined with another 
 bookseller to advance that sum ; the play sold, and Tonson was afterwards 
 enabled to purchase the succeeding ones. He and his nephew died worth 
 two hundred thousand pounds. — Much old Tonson owed to his own In- 
 dustry ; but he was a mere trader. He and Dryden had frequent bicker- 
 ings ; he insisted on receiving 10,000 verses for two hundred and sixty-eight 
 pounds, and poor Dryden threw in the finest Ode in the language towards 
 the number. He would pay in the base coin which was then current ; 
 which was a loss to the poet. Tonson once complained to Dryden, that he 
 had only received 1446 lines of his translation of Ovid for his Miscellany 
 for fifty guineas, when he had calculated at the rate of 1518 lines for forty 
 guineas ; he gives the poet a piece of critical reasoning, that he considered 
 he had a better bargain with "Juvenal," which is reckoned " not so easy 
 to translate as Ovid." In these times such a mere trader in literature has 
 disappeared. 
 

 
 18 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 to himself, he must entirely depend on the public benevolence 
 for his reward.* 
 
 The Ideas, that is, the work of an author, are " tangible 
 things." " There are works," to quote the words of a :iear 
 and dear relative, " which require great learning, great in- 
 dustry, great labour, and great capital, in their preparation. 
 They assume a palpable form. You may fill warehouses with 
 them, and freight ships ; and the tenure by which they are 
 held is superior to that of all other property, for it is original. 
 It is tenure which does not exist in a doubtful title ; which 
 does not spring from any adventitious circumstances ; it is 
 not fomid — it is not purchased — it is not pi-escriptive — it is 
 original ; so it is the most natural of all titles, because it is 
 the most simple and least artificial. It is paramount and 
 sovereign, because it is a tenure by creation." f 
 
 There were indeed some more generous spirits and better 
 philosophers fortunately found on the same bench ; and the 
 identity of a literary composition was resolved into its senti- 
 ments and language, besides what was more obviously valuable 
 to some persons, the print and paper. On this slight prin- 
 ciple was issued the profound award which accorded a certain 
 term of years to any work, however immortal. They could 
 not diminish the immortality of a book, but only its reward. 
 In all the litigations respecting literary property, authors 
 ■were little considered — except some honourable testimonies 
 due to genius, from the sense of Willes, and the eloquence 
 of Mansfield. Literary property was still disputed, like the 
 rights of a parish common. An honest printer, who could 
 not always write grammar, had the shrewdness to make a 
 bold effort in this scramble, and perceiving that even by this 
 last favourable award all literary property would necessarily 
 centre with the booksellers, now stood forward for his own body 
 — the printers. This rough advocate observed that " a few 
 persons who call themselves booksellers, about the number of 
 tioenty-Jlve, have kept the monopoly of books and copies in 
 their hands, to the entire exclusion of all others, but more 
 especially the printers, whom they have always held it a rule 
 never to let become purchasers in copyP Not a word for the 
 <iutliors ! As for them, they were doomed by both parties as 
 the fat oblation : they indeed sent forth some meek bleat- 
 
 * Sir James Burrows' lleports on the question concerning Literary Pro- 
 perty, 4to. London, 1773. 
 
 t Mirror of Parliament, 3529.
 
 The Case of Authors stated. 19 
 
 ings ; but what were AriHORS, between judges, booksellei's, 
 and printers ? the sacrificed among the sacrificers ! 
 
 All this was reasoning in a circle. Literakt peoperty in 
 our nation arose from a new state of society. These lawyers 
 could never develope its nature by wild analogies, nor dis- 
 cover it in any common-law right ; for our common law, 
 composed of immemorial customs, could never have had in 
 its contemplation an object which could not have existed in 
 barbarous periods. Literature, in its enlarged spu'it, certainly 
 never entered into the thoughts or attention of our rude an- 
 cestors. All their views were bounded by the necessaries of 
 life ; and as yet they had no conception of the impalpable, 
 invisible, yet sovereign dominion of the human mind — enough. 
 for our rough heroes was that of the seas ! Before the reign 
 of Henry VIII. great authors composed occasionally a book 
 in Latin, which none but other great authors cared for, and 
 which the people could not read. In the reign of Elizabeth, 
 RoGEE AscHAM appeared — one of those men of genius born 
 to create a new era in the history of their nation. The first 
 English author who may be regarded as the founder of our 
 prose style was Roger Ascham, the venerable parent of om* 
 native literature. At a time when om* scholars affected to 
 contemn the vernacular idiom, and in their Latin works were 
 losing their better fame, that of being understood by all their 
 coimtrymen, Ascham boldly avowed the design of setting an 
 example, in his own words, to speak as the common 
 PEOPLE, TO THINK AS WISE MEN. His pristine English is 
 still forcible without pedantry, and still beautiful without 
 ornament.* The illustrious Bacon condescended to follow 
 this new example in the most popular of his works. This 
 change in our literature was like a revelation ; these men 
 taught us om' language in books. Yv'^e became a reading 
 people; and then the demand for books naturally produced 
 a new order of authors, who traded in literature. It was 
 then, so early as in the Elizabethan age, that literary p7'operty 
 may be said to derive its obscure origin in this nation. It 
 was protected in an indirect manner by the licensers of the 
 press ; for although that was a mere political institution, only 
 designed to prevent seditious and irreligious publications, yet, 
 as no book could be printed without a licence, there was 
 honour enough in the licensers not to allow other publishers 
 
 * See "Amenities of Literature" for an account of this author. 
 
 c2
 
 20 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 to infringe on the privilege granted to the first claimant. In 
 Queen Anne's time, when the office of licensers was extin- 
 guished, a more liberal genius was rising in the nation, and 
 literary froiperty received a more definite and a more power- 
 fid protection. A limited term was granted to every author 
 to reap the fruits of his labours ; and Lord Hardwicke pro- 
 nounced this statute " a universal patent for authors." Yet, 
 subsequently, the subject of literary property involved dis- 
 cussion ; even at so late a period as in 1769 it was still to be 
 litigated. It was then granted that originally an author had 
 at common law a property in his work, but that the act of 
 Anne took away all copyright after the expiration of the 
 terms it permitted. 
 
 As the matter now stands, let us address an arithmetical 
 age — but m}' pen hesitates to bring down my subject to an 
 argument fitted to " these coster-monger times."* On the 
 present principle of literar}^ property, it results that an autlior 
 disposes of a leasehold property of twenty-eight years, often 
 for less than the price of one year's purchase ! How many 
 living authors are the sad witnesses of this fact, who, like so 
 many Esaus, have sold their inheritance for a meal ! I leave 
 the whole school of Adam Smith to calm their calculating 
 emotions concerning " that unprosperous race of men" (some- 
 times this master-seer calls them "unproductive") "com- 
 monly called men of letters,^'' who are pretty much in the 
 situation which lawyers and physicians would be in, were . 
 these, as he tells us, in that state when " a scholar and a 
 hegyar seem to have been very nearly synonymous terms" — 
 and this melancholy fact that man of genius discovered, 
 without the feather of his pen brushing away a tear from 
 his lid — without one spontaneous and indignant groan ! 
 
 Authors may exclaim, " we ask for justice, not charity." 
 They would not need to require any favour, nor claim any 
 other than that protection which an enlightened government, 
 in its wisdom and its justice, must bestow. They would 
 leave to the public disposition the sole appreciation of their 
 works ; their book must make its own fortune ; a bad work 
 may be cried up, and a good work may be cried down ; 
 
 * A coster-monger, or Costard-monger, is a dealer in apples, which ara 
 60 called because they are shaped like a costard, i. c. a man's head. 
 Stcevens. — Johnson explains the phrase eloquently : "In these times wLen 
 the prevalence of tra(Ui has produced that meanness, that rates the merit 
 of everything by money."
 
 The Case of Authors stated. , 21 
 
 but Faction will soon lose its voice, and Truth acquire 
 one. The cause we are pleading is not the calamities of 
 indifferent writers, but of those whose utility or whose 
 genius long survives that limited term which has been 
 so hardly wrenched from the penurious hand of verbal 
 lawyers. Every lover of literature, and every votary of 
 humanity has long felt indignant at that sordid state and 
 all those secret sorrows to which men of the finest genius, or 
 of sublime industry, are reduced and degraded in society. 
 Johnson himself, who rejected that perpetuity of literary 
 property which some enthusiasts seemed to claim at the 
 time the subject was undergoing the discussion of the 
 judges, is, however, for extending the copyright to a cen- 
 tury. Could authors secure this, their natural right, litera- 
 ture would acquire a permanent and a nobler reward ; for 
 great authors would then be distinguished by the very pi'ofits 
 they would receive from that obscure multitude whose com- 
 mon disgraces they frequently pai'ticipate, notwithstanding 
 the superiority of their own genius. Johnson himself will 
 serve as a proof of the incompetent remuneration of literary 
 property. He undertook and he performed an Herculean 
 labour, which employed him so many 3*ears that the price 
 he obtained was exhausted before the work was concluded — 
 the wages did not even last as long as the labour ! Where, 
 then, is the author to look forward, when such works are 
 undertaken, for a provision for his family, or for his future 
 existence ? It w-ould naturally arise from the work itself, 
 were authors not the most ill-treated and oppressed class of 
 the community. The daughter of Miltox need not have 
 craved the alms of the admirers of her father, if the right of 
 authors had been better protected ; his own " Paradise Lost" 
 had then been her better portion and her most honourable 
 inheritance. The children of Bue:n'S would have required no 
 subscriptions ; that annual tribute which the public pay to 
 the genius of their pai'ent was their due, and would have been 
 their fortune. 
 
 Authors now submit to have a shorter life than their own 
 celebrity. While the book markets of Europe ai*e supplied 
 with the writings of English authors, and they have a wider 
 diffusion in America than at home, it seems a national ingrati- 
 sude to limit the existence of works for their authors to a 
 short number of years, and then to seize on their possession 
 for ever.
 
 22 
 
 THE SUFFERINGS OF AUTHORS. 
 
 The natural riglits and properties of authoes not having 
 been sufficiently protected, they are defrauded, not indeed of 
 their fame, though they may not ahvays Hve to witness it, 
 hut of then- uninterritpted profits, which might save them 
 from their frequent degradation in society. That act of 
 Anne which confers on them some right of property, ac- 
 knowledges that works of learned men have been carried on 
 "too often to the ruin of them and their families." 
 
 Hence we trace a literary calamity which the public 
 endure in those "Authors by Profession," who, finding often 
 too late in life that it is the worst profession, are not scru- 
 pulous to Hve by some means or other. " I must live," cried 
 one of the brotherhood, shrugging his shoulders in his 
 misery, and almost blushing for a libel he had just printed — 
 " I do not see the necessity," was the dignified reply. Trade 
 was certainly not the origin of authorship. Most of our 
 great authors have written from a more impetuous impulse 
 than that of a mechanic ; urged by a loftier motive than that 
 of humouring the popular taste, they have not lowered 
 themselves by writing down to the public, but have raised 
 the pubhc to them. Untasked, they composed at propitious 
 intervals ; and feeling, not labour, was in their last, as in 
 their first page. 
 
 When we became a reading people, books were to be 
 suited to popular tastes, and then that trade was opened that 
 leads to the workhouse. A new race sprang up, that, like 
 Ascham, "spoke as the common people;" but would not, 
 like Ascham, "think as wise men." The founders of 
 "Authors by Profession" appear as far back as in the Eliza- 
 bethan age. Then there were some roguish wits, who, taking 
 advantage of the public humour, and yielding then- principle 
 to their pen, lived to write, and wrote to Hve ; loose livers 
 and loose writers ! — like Autolyeus, they ran to the fair, with 
 baskets of hasty manufactures, fit for clowns and maidens.* 
 
 * An abundance of these amusing tracts eagerly bought up in their day, 
 but which camo in the following generation to the ballad-stalls, are in the 
 present enshrined in the cabinets of the curious. Such arc the revolutions 
 of literature ! [It is by no means uncommon to find them realise sums at 
 the rate of a guinea a page ; but it is to be solely attributed to their extreme 
 rarity ; for in many instances the reprints of such tracts are Avorthless.]
 
 The Sufferings of Authors. 23 
 
 Even then flourished the craft of authorship, and the 
 mysteries of bookselling. Eobeet GuEEifE, the master-wit, 
 wrote "The Ai't of Coney-catching," or Cheatery, in which 
 he was an adept ; he died of a surfeit of Ehenish and pickled 
 herrings, at a fatal banquet of authors ; — and left as his 
 legacy among the "Authors by Profession" " A Groatsworth 
 of Wit, bought with a Million of Eepentance." One died of 
 another kind of surfeit. Another was assassinated in a 
 brothel. But the list of the calamities of all these worthies 
 have as great variety as those of the Seven Champions.* 
 Nor were the stationers, or hook-venders, as the pubHshers of 
 books were first designated, at a fault in the mj-steries of 
 "coney-catching." Deceptive and vaunting title-pages were 
 practised to such excess, that Tom Nash, an " Author by 
 Profession," never fastidiously modest, blushed at the title of 
 his " Pierce Pennilesse," which the publisher had flourished 
 in the first edition, like " a tedious mountebank." The 
 booksellers forged great names to recommend their works, and 
 passed off in currency their base metal stamped with a roy^ 
 head. " It was an usual thing in those days," says honest 
 Anthony Wood, " to set a great name to a book or books, by 
 the sharking booksellers or snivelling writers, to get bread." 
 
 Such authors as these ai'e unfortunate, before they are cri- 
 minal ; they often tire out their youth before they discover 
 that "Author by Profession" is a denomination ridiculously 
 assmned, for it is none ! The first efforts of men of genius 
 are usually honom-able ones ; but too often they suffer that 
 genius to be debased. Many who would have composed 
 history have turned voluminous party-writers ; many a noble 
 satirist has become a himgry libeller. Men who ai'e starved 
 
 * Poverty and the gaol alternated with tavern carouses or the place of 
 honour among the wild young gallants at the playhouses. They were 
 gentlemen or beggars as daUy circumstances ordained. When this was the 
 case with such authors as Greene, Peele, and Massinger, we need not 
 wonder at finding * ' a whole knot" of \\'riters in infinitely worse plight, who 
 lived (or starved) by writing ballads and pamphlets on temporary subjects. 
 In a brief tract, called " The Downfall of Temporising Poets," published 
 1641, they are said to be "an indifterent strong corporation, twenty-three of 
 you sufiicient writers, besides Martin Parker," who was the great ballad and 
 pamphlet writer of the day. The shifts they were put to, and the diflicul- 
 ties of their living, is denoted in the reply of one of the characters in this 
 tract, who on being asked if he has money, replies "Money? I wonder 
 where you ever see poets have money two days together ; I sold a copy last 
 night, and have spent the money ; and now have another copy to sell, but 
 nobody will buy it." — En.
 
 24 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 in society, hold to it but loosely. They are the children of 
 Nemesis ! they avenge themselves — and with the Satan of 
 Milton they exclaim, 
 
 Evil, be thou my good ! 
 Never were their feelings more vehemently echoed than by 
 this Nash — the creature of genius, of famine, and despair. 
 He lived indeed in the age of Elizabeth, but writes as if he 
 had lived in our own. He proclaimed himself to the world 
 as Fierce Pennilesse, and on a retrospect of his literary life, 
 observes that he had " sat up late and rose early, contended 
 with the cold, and conversed with scarcitie ;" he says, " all 
 my labours turned to losse, — I was despised and neglected, 
 my paines not regarded, or slightly rewarded, and I myself, in 
 prime of my best wit, laid open to povertie. Whereupon I 
 accused my fortune, railed on my patrons, bit my pen, xent 
 my papers, and raged." — And then comes the after-reflection, 
 which so frequently provokes the anger of genius : " How 
 many base men that wanted those parts I had, enjoyed con- 
 tent at will, and had wealth at command ! I called to mind 
 a cobbler that was worth five hvinda-ed pounds ; an hostler 
 that had built a goodly inn ; a carman in a leather pilche that 
 had whipt a thousand pound out of his horse's tail — and have 
 I more than these ? thought I to myself ; am I better born ? 
 am I better brought up ? yea, and better favom-ed ! and yet 
 am I a beggar ? How am I crost, or whence is this curse ? 
 Even from hence, the men that should employ such as I am, 
 are enamom-ed of their own wits, though they be never so 
 scurvie ; that a scrivener is better paid than a scholar ; and 
 men of art must seek to live among cormorants, or be kept 
 under by dunces, who count it policy to keep them bare to 
 follow their books the better." And then, Nash thus utters 
 the cries of — 
 
 A DESPAIRING AUTHOR ! 
 
 Why is't damnation to despair and die 
 
 When life is my true happiness' disease ? 
 My soul ! my soul ! thy safety makes me fly 
 
 The faulty means that might my pain appease ; 
 Divines and dying men may talk of hell ; 
 But in my heart her several torments dwell. 
 Ah worthless wit, to train me to this woe ! 
 
 Deceitful arts that nourish discontent ! 
 Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so ! 
 
 Vain thoughts, adieu ! for now I will repent j 
 And yet my wants persuade me to proceed, 
 Since none take pity of a scholar's need ! —
 
 A Mendicant Author. 25 
 
 Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth, 
 And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch ! 
 
 For misery hath daunted all my mirth — 
 
 Without redress complains my careless verse, 
 And Midas' ears relent not at my moan ! 
 
 In some far land will I my griefs rehearse, 
 
 'Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan ! 
 
 England, adieu ! the soil that brought me forth ! 
 
 Adieu, unkiude ! where skill is nothing worth ! 
 
 Such was the miserable crj of an " Author by Profession" 
 in the reign of EHzabeth. Nash not only renounces his 
 country in his despair — and hesitates on " the faulty means" 
 which have appeased the pangs of many of his unhappy bro- 
 thers, but he proves also the weakness of the moral principle 
 among these men of genius ; for he promises, if any Maecenas 
 will bind him by his bounty, he will do him " as much honour 
 as an}^ poet of my beardless years in England — but," he adds, 
 " if he be sent away with a Ilea in his ear, let him look that 
 I will rail on him soundly ; not for an hour or a day, while 
 the injury is fresh in my memory, but in some elaborate 
 polished poem, which I will leave to the world when I am 
 dead, to be a living image to times to come of his beggarly 
 parsimony." Poets might imagine that Ciiatteeton had 
 written all this, about the time he struck a balance of his 
 profit and loss by the death of Beckford the Lord Mayor, 
 in which he concludes with " I am glad he is dead by 
 3^. V?js. GcV* 
 
 A MENDICANT AUTHOR, 
 
 AKD THE PATRONS OP FORMER TIMES. 
 
 It must be confessed, that before " Authors by Profession" 
 had fallen into the hands of the booksellers, they endm'ed 
 peculiar grievances. They were pitiable retainers of some 
 
 * Chatterton had written a political essay for "The North Briton," 
 which opened with the preluding flourish of " A spirited people freeing 
 themselves from insupportable slavery :" it was, however, though accepted, 
 not printed, on account of the Lord Mayor's death. The patriot thus cal- 
 culated the death of his great patron ! 
 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Lost by his death in this Essay 
 
 . 
 
 1 11 6 
 
 Gained in Elegies 
 
 £2 2 
 
 
 in Essays 
 
 3 3 
 
 
 5 5 
 
 Am glad he is dead by . . . . £3 13 6
 
 26 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 great family. The miseries of such an author, and the inso- 
 lence and penm'iousness of his patrons, who would not retiu'n 
 the poetry they liked and would not pay for, may be traced in 
 the eventful life of Thomas Chuechtaed, a poet of the age 
 of Elizabeth, one of those unfortunate men who have written 
 poetry all their days, and lived a long life to complete the 
 misfortune. His muse was so fertile, that his works pass all 
 enumeration. He com*ted numerous patrons, who valued the 
 poetry, while they left the poet to his own miserable contem- 
 plations. In a long catalogue of his works, which this poet 
 has himself given, he adds a few memoranda, as he proceeds, 
 a little ludicrous, but very melancholy. • He wrote a book 
 which he could never afterwards recover from one of his 
 patrons, and adds, " all which book was in as good verse as 
 ever I made; an honourable knight dwelling in the Black 
 Friers can witness the same, because I read it unto him." 
 Another accorded him the same remuneration — on which he 
 adds, " An infinite number of other songs and sonnets given, 
 where they cannot be recovered, nor purchase any favour 
 when they are craved." Still, however, he announces " Twelve 
 long Tales for Christmas, dedicated to twelve honom'able 
 lords." Well might Churchyard write his own sad life, under 
 the title of " The Tragicall Discourse of the Haplesse Man's 
 Life."* 
 
 It will not be easy to parallel this pathetic description of 
 the wretched age of a poor neglected poet mom-ning over a 
 youth vainly spent. 
 
 Higli time it is to haste my carcase lience : 
 Youth stole away and felt no kind of joy, 
 And age he left in travail ever since ; 
 The vranton days that made me nice and coy 
 Were but a dream, a shadow, and a toy — 
 
 * This author, now little known but to the student of our rarer early 
 poets, was a native of Shrewsbury, and had served in the army. He wrote 
 a large number of poetical pieces, all now of the greatest rarity ; their 
 names have been preserved by that industrious antiquary Joseph Eitson, in 
 his BiUiofjraphia Poetica,. The principal one was termed "The Worthi- 
 ness of Wales," and is written in laudation of the Principality. He was 
 frequently employed to supply verses for Court Masques and Pageantry. He 
 composed " all the devises, pastimes, and plays at ITorwich " when Queen 
 Elizabeth was entertained there ; as well as gratulatory verses to her at 
 Woodstock. He speaks of his mind as "never free from studie," and his 
 body "seldom void of toyle" — "and yet both of them neither brought 
 greate benefits to the life, nor blessing to the soule" he adds, in the words 
 of a man whose hope defen-ed has made his heart sick ! — Ed.
 
 A Mendicant Author. 27 
 
 I look in glass, ami find my cheeks so lean 
 That every hour I do but wish me dead ; 
 Now back bends down, and f(jr\yards falls the head, 
 And hollow eyes in wrinkled brow doth shroud 
 As though two stars were creeping under cloud. 
 
 The lips wax cold, and look both pale and thin, 
 The teeth fall out as nutts forsook the shell, 
 The bare bald head but shows where hair hath been, 
 The lively joints wax weary, stiif, and still, 
 •The ready tongue now falters in his tale ; 
 The courage quails as strength decays and goes. . . . 
 
 The thatcher hath a cottage poor you see : 
 The shepherd knows where he shall sleep at night ; 
 The daily drudge from cares can quiet be : 
 Thus fortune sends some rest to every wight ; 
 And I was born to house and land by right. . . . 
 
 "Well, ere my breath my body do forsake 
 
 My spirit I bequeath to God above ; 
 
 My books, my scrawls, and songs that I did make, 
 
 I leave with friends that freely did me love. . . . 
 
 Now, friends, shake hands, I must be gone, my boys I 
 
 Our mirth takes end, our triumph all is done ; 
 
 Our tiekUng talk, our sports and merry toys 
 
 Do glide away like shadow of the sun. 
 
 Another comes when I my race have run, 
 
 Shall pass the time with you in better plight, 
 
 And find good cause of greater things to write. 
 
 Yet Churchyard was no contemptible bard ; he composed a 
 national poem, " The Worthiness of Wales," which has been 
 reprinted, and will be still dear to his " Fatherland," as the 
 Hollanders expressivel}' denote their natal spot. He wrote in 
 the " MuTour of Magistrates," the Life of Wolsey, which has 
 parts of great dignity ; and the Life of Jane Shore, which 
 was much noticed in his day, for a severe critic of the times 
 writes : 
 
 Hath not Shore's wife, although a light-skirt she. 
 
 Given him a chaste, long, lasting memorie ? 
 
 Churchyard, and the miseries of his poetical life, are alluded 
 to by Spenser. He is old Palemon in "Colin Clout's come 
 Home again." Spenser is supposed to describe this laborious 
 writer for half a century, Avhose melancholy pipe, in his old 
 age, may make the reader " rew :" 
 
 Yet he himself may rewed be more right, 
 That sung so long untill quite hoarse he grew.
 
 28 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 His epitaph, preserved by Camden, is extremely instructive 
 to all poets, could epitaphs instruct them: — 
 
 Poverty and 2^oeir}/ his tomb doth inclose ; 
 Wherefore, good neighbours, be merry in prose. 
 
 It appears also by a confession of Tom Nash, that an 
 author would then, pressed by the res angusta clomi, when 
 " the bottom of his purse was turned upward," submit to 
 compose pieces for gentlemen who aspired to authorship. He 
 tells us on some occasion, that he was then in the country 
 composing poetry for some country squire ; — and says, " I am 
 faine to let my plow stand still in the midst of a furrow, 
 to follow these Senior Fantasticos, to whose amorous vil- 
 lanellas* I prostitute my pen," and this, too, "twice or thrice 
 in a month;" and he complains that it is " poverty which 
 alone maketh me so unconstant to my determined studies, 
 trudging from place to place to and fro, and prosecuting the 
 means to keep me from idlenesse." Ap author was then much 
 like a vagrant. 
 
 Even at a later period, in the reign of the literary James, 
 great authors were reduced to a state of mendicity, and lived 
 on alms, although their lives and their fortunes had been con- 
 sumed in forming national labours. The antiquary Stowe 
 exhibits a strilving example of the rewards conferred on such 
 valued authors. Stowe had devoted his life, and exhausted 
 his patrimony, in the study of English antiquities ; he had 
 travelled on foot throughout the kingdom, inspecting all mo- 
 numents of antiquity, and rescuing what he could from the 
 dispersed libraries of the monasteries. His stupendous col- 
 lections, in his own handwriting, still exist, to provoke the 
 feeble industry of literary loiterers. He felt through life the 
 enthusiasm of study ; and seated in his monkish library, 
 living with the dead more than with the living, he was still a 
 student of taste : for Spenser the poet visited the library of 
 Stowe ; and the first good edition of Chaucer was made so 
 chiefly by the labours of our author. Late in life, worn-out 
 with study and the cares of poverty, neglected by that proud 
 metropolis of which he had been the historian, his good- 
 humour did not desert him ; for being afflicted with sharp 
 pains in his aged feet, he observed that " his affliction lay in 
 that part which formerly he had made so much use of." 
 
 * Villancllas, or rather " VUlancicas, are properly country rustia 
 songs, but commonly taken for ingenious ones made in imitation of them." 
 — Pineda,
 
 A Mendicant Author. 29 
 
 IMany a mile had he wandered and much had he expended, for 
 those treasures of antiquities which had exhausted his for- 
 tune, and with which he had formed works of great pubhc 
 utility. It was in his eightieth year that Stowe at length 
 i-eceived a publi^' acknowledgment of his services, which will 
 appear to us ot a very extraordinary nature. He was so re- 
 duced in his circumstances that he petitioned James I. for a 
 licence to collect alms for himself! "as a recompense for his 
 labours and travel of forty-Jive years, in setting forth the 
 Chronicles of England, and eight years taken up in the Survey 
 of the Cities of London and Westminster, towai'ds his relief now 
 in his old age ; having left his former means of living, and only 
 employing himself for the service and good of his country." 
 Letters-patent under the great seal were granted. After no 
 penurious commendations of Stowe's labours, he is permitted 
 " to gather the benevolence of well-disposed people within 
 this realm of England ; to ask, gather, and take the alms of 
 all our loving subjects." These letters-patent were to be 
 published by the clergj'- from their pulpits ; they produced so 
 little, that they were renewed for another twelvemonth : one 
 entire parish in the city contributed seven shillings and sis- 
 pence ! Such, then, was the patronage received by Stowe, to 
 be a licensed beggar throughout the kingdom for one twelve- 
 month ! Such was the public remuneration of a man who 
 had been useful to his nation, but not to himself! 
 
 Such was the first age of Patronage, which branched out 
 in the last century into an age of Subscriptions, when an 
 author levied contributions before his work appeared ; a mode 
 which inundated om" literature with a great portion of its 
 worthless volumes : of these the most remarkable are the 
 splendid publications of Richard Blome ; they may be called 
 fictitious works ; for the}' are only mutilated transcripts from 
 Camden and Speed, but richly ornamented, and pompously 
 printed, which tliis literary adventurer, said to have been a 
 gentleman, loaded the world with, by the aid of his sub- 
 scribei's. Another age was that of Dedications,* when the 
 
 * This practice of dedications had indeed flourished before ; for authors 
 had even prefixed numerous dedications to the same work, or dedicated to 
 different patrons the separate divisions. Fuller's "Church History" is 
 disgraced by the introduction of twelve title-pages, besides the general one ; 
 with as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty inscrip- 
 tions, addressed to benefactors ; for which he is severely censured by Heylin. 
 It was an expedient to procure dedication fees ; for publishing books by 
 siibicrlption was an art not then discovered.
 
 30 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 author was to lift his tiny patron to the skies, in an inverse 
 ratio as he lowered himself, in this puhlic exhibition. Some- 
 times the party haggled about the price ;* or the statue, 
 while stepping into his niche, would turn round on the author 
 to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissa- 
 tisfied with Peter's colder temperament, composed the super- 
 lative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the 
 author by subscribing it with Motteux's name !t Worse 
 fared it when authors were the unlucky hawkers of their own 
 works ; of which I shall give a I'emarkahle instance in Mtles 
 Davies, a learned man maddened by want and indignation. 
 
 The subject before us exhibits one of the most singular 
 spectacles in these volumes ; that of a scholar of extensive 
 erudition, whose life seems to have passed in the study of 
 languages and the sciences, while his faculties appear to have 
 been disordered from the simplicity of his nature, and driven 
 to madness by indigence and insult. He formed the wild re- 
 solution of becoming a mendicant author, the hawker of his 
 own works ; and by this mode endured all the aggravated 
 sufferings, the great and the petty insults of all ranks of society, 
 
 * Tlie price of the dedication of a play was even fixed, from five to ten 
 guineas, from the Revolution to the time of George I., when it rose to 
 twenty — but sometimes a bargain was to be struck — when the author and 
 the play were alike indifferent. Even on these terms could vanity be 
 gratified with the coarse luxury of panegyric, of which every one knew the 
 price. 
 
 i" This circumstance was so notorious at the time, that it occasioned a 
 poetical satire in a dialogue between Motteux and his patron Henningham 
 — preserved in that vast flower-bed or dunghill, for it is both, of " Poems 
 on Afi"airs of State," vol. ii. 251. The patron, in his zeal to omit no pos- 
 sible distinction that could attach to him, had given one circumstance 
 which no one but himself could have known, and which he thus regrets : 
 
 " PATRON. 
 
 I must confess I was to blame 
 That one particular to name ; 
 The rest could never have been known, 
 / viade the style so like thy ovm. 
 
 POET. 
 
 I beg your pardon. Sir, for that ! 
 
 PATRON. 
 
 Why d e what would you be at ? 
 
 / vjrit hcloio myself, you sot ! 
 Avoiding figures, tropes, whatnot; 
 For fear I shuuld my fancy raise 
 Above the level of thy plays .'"
 
 A Mendicant Author. 31 
 
 and even sometimes from men of learning themselves, wlio 
 denied a mendicant author the sympathy of a brother. 
 
 Mtles Dayies and his works are imperfectly known to 
 the most curious of our literary collectors. His name has 
 scarcely reached a few ; the author and his works are equally 
 extraordinary'', and claim a right to be preserved in this trea- 
 tise on the " Calamities of Authors." 
 
 Our author commenced printing a work, difficult, from its 
 miscellaneous character, to describe ; of which the volumes 
 appeai'ed at different periods. The early and the most valuable 
 volumes were the first and second ; they are a kind of biblio- 
 graphical, biographical, and critical work, on English Authors. 
 They all bear a general title of " Athenge Britannicse."* 
 
 Collectors have sometimes met with a very cm'ious volume, 
 entitled " Icon Libellorum," and sometimes the same book, 
 under another title — "A Critical Histoiy of Pamphlets." 
 This rare book forms the first volume of the " Athense JBri- 
 tannicse." The author was My les Davies, whose biography is 
 quite unknown : he may now be his own biographer. He 
 was a Welsh clergyman, a vehement foe to Popery, Arianism, 
 and Socinianism, of the most fervent loyalty to George I. and 
 the Hanoverian succession ; a scholar, skilled in Greek and 
 Latin, and in all the modern languages. Quitting his native 
 spot with political disgust, he changed his character in the 
 metropolis, for he subscribes himself " Counsellor- at-Law." 
 In an evil hour he commenced author, not only surrounded 
 by his books, but with the more urgent companions of a wife 
 
 * " Athenoi Britanniccv, or a Critical History of the Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge Writers and Writings, with those of the Dissenters and Romanists, 
 as well as other Authors and Worthies, both Domestic and Foi-eign, both 
 Ancient and Modern. Together with an occasional freedom of thought, in 
 criticising and comparing the parallel qualifications of the most eminent 
 authors and their performances, both in MS. and print, both at home and 
 abroad. By M. D. London, 1716." On the first volume of this series, Dr. 
 Farmer, a bloodhound of unfailing scent in curious and obscure English 
 books, has written on the leaf " This is the only copy I have met with." 
 Even the great bibliographer, Baker, of Cambridge, never met but with 
 three volumes (the edition at the British Museum is in seven), sent him as 
 a great curiosity by the Earl of Oxford, and now deposited in his collection 
 at St. John's College. Baker has written this memorandum in the first 
 volume : " Few copies were printed, so the work has become scarce, and 
 for that reason will be valued. The book in the greatest part is borrowed 
 from modern historians, but yet contains some things more uncommon, and 
 not easily to be met with." How superlatively rare must be the English, 
 volumes which the eyes of Farmer and Baker never lighted on !
 
 33 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 and family; and with that childhke simphcity which some- 
 times marks the mind of a retired scholar, we perceive him 
 imagining that his immense reading would prove a source, 
 not easily exhausted, for their subsistence. 
 
 From the first volumes of his series much curious literary 
 history may be extracted, amidst the loose and wandering 
 elements of this literary chaos. In his dedication to the 
 Prince he professes " to represent writers and writings in a 
 catoptriek view." 
 
 The preface to the second volume opens his plan ; and no- 
 thing as yet indicates those rambling humours which his sub- 
 sequent labours exhibit. 
 
 A.S he proceeded in forming these volumes, I suspect, either 
 that his mind became a little disordered, or that he discovered 
 that mere literature found but penurious pati'ons in " the 
 Few;" for, attempting to gain over all classes of society, he 
 varied his investigations, and courted attention, by writing 
 on law, physic, divinity, as well as literary topics. By his 
 account — 
 
 "The avarice of booksellers, and the stinginess of hard- 
 hearted patrons, had driven him into a cursed company of 
 door-keeping herds, to meet the irrational brutality of those 
 uneducated mischievous animals called footmen, house-porters, 
 poetasters, mumpers, apothecaries, attorneys, and such like 
 beasts of prey," who were, like himself, sometimes barred up 
 for hours in the menagerie of a great man's antechamber. 
 In his addresses to Drs. Mead and Freind, he declares — " My 
 misfortunes drive me to publish my writings for a poor live- 
 lihood ; and nothing but the utmost necessity could make 
 any man in his senses to endeavour at it, in a method so 
 burthensome to the modesty and education of a scholar." 
 
 In French he dedicates to George I. ; and in the Harleian 
 MSS. I discovered a long letter to the Earl of Oxford, by our 
 autlior, in French, with a Latin ode. Never was more inno- 
 cent bribery proffered to a minister ! He composed what he 
 calls Strictures Pindaric(E on the " Mughouses," then poli- 
 tical clubs ;* celebrates English authors in the same odes, 
 
 * These clubs are described iuMacky's "Journey through England," 1724. 
 He says they were formed to uphold the Royalist party on the accession of 
 King George I. " This induced a set of gentlemen to establish Blurjhouses 
 in all the corners of this great city, for well-affected tradesmen to meet and 
 keep up the spirit of loyalty to the Protestant succession," and to be ready 
 to join their forces for the suppression of the other party. "Many an 
 encounter they had, till at last the Parliament was obliged by a law to put
 
 A Mendicant Author. 33 
 
 and inserts a political Latin drama, called " Pallas Anglicana." 
 Mffivius and Bavius were never more indefatigable ! The 
 author's intellect gradually discovers its confusion amidst the 
 loud cries of penury and despaii*. 
 
 To paint the distresses of an author soliciting alms for a 
 book which he presents — and which, whatever may be its 
 value, comes at least as an evidence that the suppliant is a 
 learned man — is a case so uncommon, that the invention of 
 the novelist seems necessary to fill up the picture. But 
 Myles Davies is an artist in his own simple narrative. 
 
 Our author has given the names of several of his unwilling 
 customers : — 
 
 " Those squeeze-farthing and hoard-penny ignoramus doc- 
 tors, with several great personages who formed excuses for 
 not accepting m^' books ; or they would receive them, but 
 give nothing for them ; or else deny they had them, or re- 
 membered anything of them ; and so gave me nothing for 
 my last present of books, though they kept them gratis et 
 ingratiis. 
 
 " But his Grace of the Dutch extraction in Holland (said 
 to be akin to Mynheer Yander B — nek) had a peculiar grace 
 in receiving my present of books and odes, which, being 
 bundled up together with a letter and ode upon his Graceship, 
 and earned in by his porter, I was bid to call for an answer 
 five yeai's hence. I asked the porter what he meant by that ? 
 I suppose, said he, four or five days hence ; but it proved five 
 or six months after, before I could get any answer, though I 
 had writ five or six letters in French with fresh odes upon 
 his Graceship, and an account where I lived, and what noble- 
 men had accepted of my present. I attended about the door 
 three or fom- times a week all that time constantly from 
 twelve to fom* or five o'clock in the evening; and walkino- 
 under the fore windows of the parlours, once that time his 
 and her Grace came after dinner to stare at me, with open 
 
 an end to this city strife, wliicli had this good eflect, that upon the pulling 
 down of the Mughouse in Salisbury Court, for which some boys were 
 hanged on this act, the city has not been troubled with them since." It 
 •was the custom in these houses to allow no other drink but ale to be con- 
 sumed, which was brought in mugs of earthenware ; a chairman was elected, 
 and he called on the members of the company for songs, which were gene- 
 rally party ballads of a strongly-worded kind, as may be seen in the small 
 collection printed in 1716, entitled "A Collection of State Songs, Poems, 
 &c., published since the Rebellion, and sung in the several Mughouses in 
 the cities of London and Westminster." — Ed.
 
 34 Calamities of Authors, 
 
 windows and shut mouths, but filled with fair water, which 
 they spouted with so much dexterity that they twisted the 
 water through theu* teeth and mouth-skrew, to flash near my 
 face, and yet just to miss me, though my nose could not well 
 miss the natural flavour of the orange-water showering so 
 very near me. Her Grace began the water-work, but not very 
 gracefully, especially for an English lady of her description, 
 airs, and qualities, to make a stranger her spitting-post, who 
 had been guilty of no other ofience than to offer her husband 
 some writings. — His Grace followed, yet first stood lookmg so 
 wistfully towards me, that I verily thought he had a mind to 
 throw me a guinea or two for all these indignities, and two or 
 three months' then sleeveless waiting upon him — and accord- 
 ingly 1 advanced to address his Grace to remember the poor 
 author ; but, instead of an answer, he immediately undams 
 his mouth, out fly whole showers of lymphatic rockets, which 
 had hke to have put out my mortal eyes." 
 
 Still he was not disheartened, and still appHed for his 
 bundle of books, which were returned to him at length un- 
 opened, with "half a guinea tipon top of the cargo," and 
 " with a desire to receive no more. I plucked up courage, 
 murmuring within myself — 
 
 'Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.'" 
 
 He sarcastically observes, 
 
 " As I was still jogging on homewards, I thought that, a 
 great many were called their Graces, not for any grace or 
 favour they had truly deserved with God or man, but for the 
 same reason of contraries, that the Parcce or Destinies, were 
 so called, because they spared none, or were not truly the 
 ParccE, quia no7i parcehant.'''' 
 
 Our indigent and indignant author, by the faithfulness of 
 his representations, mingles with his anger some ludicrous 
 scenes of literary mendicity. 
 
 " I can't choose (now I am upon the fatal subject) but 
 make one observation or two more upon the various rencon- 
 tres and adventures I met withall, in presenting my books to 
 those who were likely to accept of them for their own in- 
 formation, or for that of helping a poor scholar, or for their 
 own vanity or ostentation. 
 
 " Some parsons would hollow to raise the whole house and 
 posse of the domestics to raise a poor croivn ; at last all that 
 flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea,
 
 Coivley — of his Melancholy. 35 
 
 and then 'tis reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the 
 fatal crown can be picked out, which must be taken as it is 
 given, with all the parade of almsgiving, and so to be re- 
 ceived with all the active and passive ceremonial of mendica- 
 tion and alms-receiving — as if the books, printing and paper, 
 were worth nothing at all, and as if it were, the greatest 
 charity for them to touch them or let them be in the house ; 
 ' For I shall never read them,' saj^s one of the five-shilling- 
 piece chaps ; ' I have no time to look in them,' says another ; 
 ' 'Tis so much money lost,' sajf's a grave dean ; ' My eyes 
 being so bad,' said a bishop, ' that I can scarce read at all.' 
 ' What do you want with me ?' said another ; ' Sir, I pre- 
 sented you the other day ■with my Athence BritanniccB, being 
 the last part published.' ' I don't want books, take them 
 again ; I don't understand what they mean.' ' The title is 
 very plain,' said I, ' and they are writ mostly in English.' 
 ' I'll give you a crown for both the volumes.' ' They stand 
 me, sir, in more than that, and 'tis for a bare subsistence I 
 present or sell them ; how shall I live ?' ' I care not a far- 
 thing for that ; Hve or die, 'tis all one to me.' ' Damn my 
 master !' said Jack, ' 'twas but last night he was commend- 
 ing yom" books and youi- learning to the skies ; and now he 
 would not care if you were starving before his eyes ; nay, he 
 often makes game at your clothes, though he thinks you the 
 greatest scholar in England.' " 
 
 Such was the life of a leai'ned mendicant author ! The 
 scenes which are here exhibited appear to have disordered an 
 intellect which had never been firm ; in vain our author at- 
 tempted to adapt his talents to all orders of men, still " To 
 the crazy ship all winds are contrary." 
 
 COWLEY. 
 
 OP HIS ilELAKCnOLT. 
 
 The mind of CowxEt was beautiful, but a querulous ten- 
 derness in his natm-e breathes not only through his works, 
 but infiuenced his habits and his views of human affairs. 
 His temper and his genius would have opened to us, had not 
 the strange decision of Sprat and Clifford withdrawn that 
 full correspondence of his heart which he had carried on 
 many years. These letters were suppressed because, as 
 Bishop Sprat acknowledges, " in this kind of prose Mr. 
 
 d2
 
 36 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 Cowley was excellent ! They had a domestical plainness, 
 and a peculiar kind of familiarity." And then the florid 
 writer runs off, that, " in letters, where the souls of men 
 should appear undressed, in that negligent habit they may be 
 fit to be seen b}^ one or two in a chamber, but not to go 
 abroad into the streets." A false criticism : which not only 
 has proved to be so since their time by Mason's " Memoirs 
 of Gray," but which these friends of Cowley might have 
 themselves perceived, if they had recollected that the Letters 
 of Cicero to Atticus form the most delightful chronicles of 
 the heart — and the most authentic memorials of the man. 
 Peck obtained one letter of Cowley's, preserved by Johnson, 
 and it exhibits a remarkable picture of the miseries of his 
 poetical solitude. It is, perhaps, not too late to inquire 
 whether this correspondence was destroyed as well as sup- 
 pressed ? Would Sprat and ClifFoi'd have burned what they 
 have told us they so much admired ?* 
 
 * My researches could never obtain more than one letter of Cowley's — it 
 is but an elegant trifle — returning thanks to his friend Evelyn for some 
 seeds and plants. " The Garden " of Evelyn is immortalised in a delightful 
 Ode of Cowley's, as well as by Evelyn himself. Even in this small note 
 we may discover the touch of Cowley. The original is in Astle's collection. 
 
 MK. ABRAHAM COWLEY TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQ. 
 
 ''Barn Elms, March 23, 1663. 
 
 " SiK, — There is nothing more pleasant than to see kindness in a person for 
 whom we have great esteem and respect : no, not the sight of your garden 
 in May, or even the having such an one ; which makes me more obliged 
 to return you my most humble thanks for the testimonies I have lately 
 received of you, both by your letter and your presents. I have already 
 sowed such of j'our seeds as I thought most proper upon a hot-bed ; but 
 cannot find in all my books a catalogue of these plants which require that 
 culture, nor of such as must be set in pots ; which defects, and all others, 
 I hope shortly to see supplied, as I hope shortly to see your work of Horti- 
 culture finished and ijublished ; and long to be in all things your disciple, 
 as I am in all things now, 
 
 " Sir, your most humble and most obedient Servant, 
 
 " A. Cowley." 
 
 [Barn Elms, from whence this letter is dated, was the first country resi- 
 dence of Cowley. It lies low on tlie banks of the Thames, and hei-e the poet 
 was first seized with a fever, which obliged him to remove ; but he chose an 
 equally improper locality for a man of his temperament, in Chertsey, where 
 he died from the eflects of a severe cold.] 
 
 Such were the ordinary letters which passed between two men whom it 
 would be difficult to i)arallel for their elegant tastes and gentle dispositions. 
 Evelyn's beautiful retreat at Sayes Court, at Deptford, is described by a 
 contemporary as " a garden exquisite and most boscaresque, and, as it were, 
 an exemplar of his book of Forest-trees." It was the entertainment and
 
 Coioley — of his Melancholy. 37 
 
 Fortunately for our literary sympathy, the fatal ei-ror of 
 these fastidious critics has been in some degree repaired by 
 the admirable genius himself whom they have injured. 
 When Cowle}' retreated from society, he determined to draw 
 up an apology for his conduct, and to have dedicated it to his 
 patron, Lord St. Albans. His death interrupted the entire 
 design ; but his Essays, which Pope so finely calls " the lan- 
 guage of his heart," are evidently parts of these precious 
 Confessions. All of Cowley's tenderest and undisguised 
 feelings have therefore not perished. These Essays now form 
 a species of composition in our language, a mixture of prose 
 and verse — the man with the poet — the self-painter has sat 
 to himself, and, with the utmost simplicity, has copied out 
 the image of his soul. 
 
 Why has this poet twice called himself the melancliohj 
 Cowley .^ He employed no poetical cheville* for the metre of 
 a verse which his own feelings inspired. 
 
 Cowley, at the begiiming of the Civil War, joined the 
 Eoyalists at Oxford ; followed the queen to Paris ; yielded his 
 days and his nights to an emploj-ment of the highest con- 
 fidence, that of deciphering the royal correspondence ; he 
 transacted their business, and, almost divorcing himself from 
 his neglected muse, he yielded up for them the tranquillity so 
 necessary to the existence of a poet. From his earliest da3-s 
 he tells us how the poetic affections had stamped themselves 
 on his heart, " like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, 
 which, with the tree, will grow proportionably." 
 
 He describes his feelings at the court : — 
 
 " I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life the nearer 
 I came to it — that beauty which I did not fall in love with 
 when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or 
 
 ■wonder of the gi"eatest men of those times, and inspired the following lines 
 of Cowley, to Evelyn and his lady, who excelled in the arts her husband 
 loved ; for she designed the frontispiece to his version of Lucretius — 
 "In books and gardens thou hast placed aright 
 
 (Things well which thou dost understand, 
 And both dost mak( with thy laborious hand) 
 
 Thy noble innocent delight ; 
 And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet 
 Both pleasures more refined and sweet ; 
 The fairest garden in her looks, 
 And in her mind the wisest books." 
 * A term the French ajiply to those botches which bad poets use ti> 
 make out their metre.
 
 38 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 entice me when I saw it v/as adulterate. I met with seve- 
 ral great persons whom I liked very well, but could not per- 
 ceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or de- 
 shed. I was in a crowd of good company, in business of 
 great and honourable trust ; I eat at the best table, and en- 
 joyed the best conveniences that ought to be desired by a man 
 of my condition ; 3'et I could not abstain from renewing my 
 old schoolboy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect : — 
 
 Well then ! I now do plainly see. 
 
 This busie world and I shall ne'er agree !" 
 
 After several years' absence from his native country, at a 
 most critical period, he was sent over to mix with that 
 trusty band of loyalists, who, in secrecy and in silence, were 
 devoting themselves to the royal cause. Cowley was seized 
 on by the ruling powers. At this moment he published a 
 preface to his works, wbich some of his party interpreted as 
 a relaxation of his loyalty. He has been fully defended. 
 Cowley, with all his delicacy of temper, wished sincerely to 
 rethe from all parties ; and saw enough among the fiery 
 zealots of his own, to grow disgusted even with Koyalists. 
 
 His wish for retirement has been half censured as 
 cowardice by Johnson ; but there was a tenderness of feeling 
 which had ill-formed Cowley for the cunning of party in- 
 triguers, and the company of little villains. About this time 
 he might have truly distinguished himself as " The melan- 
 choly Cowley." 
 
 I am only tracing his literary history for the purpose of 
 this work : but I cannot pass without noticing the fact, that 
 this abused man, whom his enemies were calumniating, was 
 at this moment, under the disguise of a doctor of physic, 
 occupied by the novel studies of botany and medicine ; and as 
 all science in the mind of the poet naturally becomes poetry, 
 he composed his books on plants in Latin verse. 
 
 At length came the Restoration, which the poet zealously 
 celebrated in his "Ode" on that occasion. Both Charles the 
 Fii-st and Second had promised to reward his fidehty with 
 the mastership of the Savoy ; but. Wood says, " he lost it by 
 certain persons enemies of the muses." Wood has said no 
 more ; and none of Cowley's biographers have thrown any 
 light on the circumstance : perhaps we may discover this 
 literary calamity. 
 
 That Cowley caught no warmth from that promised sun-
 
 Cowley — of his Melancholy. 39 
 
 shine which the new monarch was to scatter in prodigal 
 gaiety, has been distinctly told by the poet himself; his 
 muse, in " The Complaint," having reproached him thus : — 
 
 Thou young prodigal, who didst so loosely waste 
 
 Of all thy youthful years, the good estate — 
 
 Thou changeling then, bewitch'd with noise and show, 
 
 Wouldst into courts and cities from me go — 
 
 Go, renegado, cast up thy account — 
 
 Behold the public storm is spent at last; 
 
 The sovereign is toss'd at sea no more. 
 
 And thou, with all the noble company, 
 
 Art got at last to shore — 
 But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see. 
 All march' d up to possess the promis'd land ; 
 Thou still alone (alas !) dost gaping stand 
 Upon the naked beach, upon the baiTen sand. 
 
 But neglect was not all Cowley had to endture ; the royal 
 party seemed disposed to calumniate him. When Cowley was 
 young he had hastily composed the comedy of " The Guar- 
 dian ;" a piece which served the cause of loyalty. After the 
 Restoration, he rewrote it under the title of " Cutter of Cole- 
 man Street;" a comedy which may still be read with equal 
 curiosity and interest : a spirited picture of the peculiar 
 characters which appeai'ed at the Revolution. It was not only 
 ill received by a faction, but by those vermin of a new court, 
 who, without meiit themselves, put in their claims, by crying- 
 down those who, with great merit, are not in favour. All 
 these to a man accused the author of having written a satire 
 against the king's pai'ty. And this wretched party prevailed, 
 too long for the author's repose, but not for his fame.* Many 
 years afterwards this comedy became popular. Dryden, who 
 was present at the representation, tells us that Cowley 
 " received the news of his ill success not with so much firm- 
 jiess as might have been expected from so great a man." 
 Cowley was in truth a great man, and a greatly injured man. 
 
 * This comedy was first presented very hurriedly for the amusement of 
 Prince Charles as he passed tkrough Cambridge to York. Cowley himself 
 describes it, then, as " neither made nor acted, but rougli-dra^vn by him, 
 a,ndLrepeated by his scholars" for this temporary purpose. After the Eestora- 
 tion he endeavoured to do more justice to his juvenile work, by remodelling 
 it, and producing it at the Duke of York's theatre. But as many of the 
 characters necessarily retained the features of the older play, and times had 
 changed ; it was easy to affix a false stigma to the poet's pictures of the old 
 Cavaliers ; and the play was universally condemned as a satire on the 
 Royalists. It was reproduced with success at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, as long afterwards as the year 1730.— Ed.
 
 40 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 His sensibility and delicacy of temper were of another texture 
 than Dryden's. What at that moment did Cowley expe- 
 rience, when he beheld himself neglected, calumniated, and, 
 in his last appeal to public favour, found himself still a victim 
 to a vile faction, who, to court their common master, were 
 trampling on their honest brother ? 
 
 We shall find an imbroken chain of evidence, clearly de- 
 monstrating the agony of his literar}'' feelings. The cynical 
 Wood tells us that, " not finding that preferment he expected, 
 while others for their money carried away most places, he 
 retired discontentd into Surrey." And his panegyrist, Sprat, 
 describes him as " weary of the vexations and formalities of 
 an active condition — he had been perplexed with a long com- 
 pliance with foreign manners. He was satiated with the 
 arts of a court, which sort of life, though his virtue made it 
 innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These 
 were the reasons that moved him to follow the violent incli- 
 nation of his own mind," &c. I doubt if either the sarcastic 
 antiquary or the rhetorical panegyrist have developed the 
 simple truth of Cowley's " violent inclination of his own 
 mind." He does it himself more openly in that beautiful 
 picture of an injured poet, in " The Complaint," an ode warm 
 with individual feeling, but which Johnson coldly passes over, 
 by telling us that " it met the usual fortune of complaints, 
 and seems to have excited more contempt than pity." 
 
 Thus the biographers of Cowley have told us nothing, and 
 the poet himself has probably not told us all. To these 
 calumnies respecting Cowley's comedy, raised up by those 
 whom Wood designates as " enemies of the muses," it would 
 appear that others were added of a deeper dye, and in malig- 
 nant whispers distilled into the ear of royalty. Cowley, in 
 an ode, had commemorated the genius of Brutus, with all the 
 enthusiasm of a votary of liberty. After the king's return, 
 when Cowley solicited some reward for his sufferings and 
 services in the royal cause, the chancellor is said to have turned 
 .•n him with a severe countenance, saying, " Mr. Cowley, your 
 f)ardon is your reward !" It seems that ode was then considered 
 to be of a dangerous tendency among half the nation ; Brutus 
 would be the model of enthusiasts, who were sullenly bending 
 their neck under the yoke of royalty. Charles II. feared the 
 attempt of desperate men ; and he might have forgiven 
 iiochester a loose pasquinade, but not Cowley a solemn invo- 
 cation. This fact, then, i.s said to have been the true cause
 
 Cowley — of his Melancholy, 41 
 
 of the despondency so prevalent in the lattei* poetry of " the 
 melanclioly Cowley." And hence the indiscretion of the 
 muse, in a single flight, condemned her to a painful, rather 
 than a voluntary solitude ; and made the poet complain of 
 " barren praise " and " neglected verse."* 
 
 While this anecdote harmonises with better known facts, it 
 throws some light on the outcry raised against the comedy, 
 which seems to have been but an echo of some preceding one. 
 Cowley retreated into solitude, where he found none of the 
 agrestic charms of the landscapes of his muse. When in the 
 world. Sprat says, " he had never wanted for constant health 
 and strength of body ;" but, thrown into solitude, he carried 
 with him a wounded spirit — the Ode of Brutus and the con- 
 demnation of his comedy were the dark spirits that haunted his 
 cottage. Ill health soon succeeded low spirits — he pined in 
 dejection, and perished a victim of the finest and most injured 
 feelings. 
 
 But before we leave the melanclioly Cowley, he shall speak 
 the feelings, which here are not exaggerated. In this Chro- 
 nicle of Literar}^ Calamity no passage ought to be more 
 memorable than the solemn confession of one of the most 
 amiable of men and poets. 
 
 Thus he expresses himself in the preface to his " Cutter of 
 Coleman Street." 
 
 " We are therefore wonderful wise men, and have a fine 
 business of it ; we, who spend our time in poetry. I do some- 
 times laugh, and am often angry with myself, when I think 
 on it ; and if I had a son inclined hy nature to the same 
 folly, I believe I should bind him from it by the strictest con- 
 jurations of a paternal blessing. For what can be more 
 ridiculous than to labour to give men delight, whilst they 
 labour, on their part, most earnestly to take ofience ?" 
 
 And thus he closes the preface, in all the solemn expression 
 of injured feehngs : — " This I do afiirm, that from all lohicli 
 I have loritten, I never received the least henefit or the least 
 advantage ; hut, on the contrary, have felt sometimes the effects 
 of malice and misfortune .'" 
 
 Cowley's ashes were deposited between those of Chaucer 
 and Spenser ; a marble monument was erected by a duke ; 
 and his eulogy was pronounced, on the day of his death, from 
 
 * The anecdote, probably little kno-mi, may be found in " The Judgment 
 of Dr. Prideaux in Condemning the Murder of Julius Csesar by the Con- 
 spirators as a most villanous act, maintained," 1721, p. 41.
 
 43 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 the lips of royalty. The learned wrote, and the tuneful 
 wept : well might the neglected bard, in his retirement, com- 
 pose an epitaph on himself, living there "entombed, though not 
 dead." 
 
 To this ambiguous state of existence he applies a conceit, 
 not inelegant, from the tenderness of its imagery : 
 
 Hie sparge flores, sparge breves rosas, 
 
 Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus ; 
 Herbisque odoratis corona 
 
 Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem. 
 
 Here scatter flowers and short-lived roses bring. 
 For life, though dead, enjoys the flowers of spring; 
 With breathing wreaths of fragrant herbs adorn 
 The yet wai'm embers in the poet's urn. 
 
 THE PAINS OF FASTIDIOUS EGOTISM. 
 
 I MUST place the author of " The Catalogue of Royal and 
 Noble Authors," who himself now ornaments that roll, among 
 those who have participated in the misfortunes of literature. 
 Horace Walpole was the inheritor of a name the most 
 popular in Europe ;* he moved in the higher circles of 
 society ; and fortune had never denied him the ample gratifi- 
 cation of his lively tastes in the elegant arts, and in curious 
 knowledge. These were particular advantages. But Horace 
 Walpole panted with a secret desire for literary celebrity ; a' 
 full sense of his distinguished rank long suppressed the desire 
 of venturing the name he bore to the uncertain fame of an 
 author, and the caprice of vulgar critics. At length he pre- 
 tended to shun authors, and to slight the honours of author- 
 ship. The cause of this contempt has been attributed to the 
 perpetual consideration of his rank. But was this bitter con- 
 tempt of so early a date ? Was Horace Walpole a Socrates 
 beibre his time ? was he born that prodigy of indiiference, to 
 despise the seci-et object he languished to possess ? His early 
 associates were not only noblemen, but literary noblemen ; 
 and need he have been so petulantly fastidious at bearing the 
 venerable title of author, when he saw Lyttleton, Chester- 
 
 * He was the youngest sou of the celebrated minister. Sir Robert 
 Walpole.— Ed.
 
 The Pains of Fastidious Egotism. 43 
 
 field, and other peers, proud of wearing the blue riband of 
 literature ? No ! it was after he had become an author that 
 he contemned authorship : and it was not the precocity of 
 his sagacity, but the matmity of his experience, that made 
 him willing enough to undervalue literary honom's, which 
 were not sufficient to satisfy his desires. 
 
 Let us estimate the genius of Horace Walpole by analysing 
 his talents, and inquiring into the nature of his works. 
 
 His taste was highly polished ; his vivacity attained to 
 brilliancy ;* and his picturesque fancy, easily excited, was soon 
 extinguished ; his playful wit and keen irony were perpetually 
 exercised in his observations on life, and his memory was stored 
 with the most amusing knowledge, but much too lively to be 
 accurate ; for his studies were but his sports. But other 
 qualities of genius must distinguish the great author, and 
 even him who would occupy that leading rank in the literary 
 republic our author aspired to fill. He lived too much in 
 that class of society v/hich is little favourable to genius ; he 
 exerted neither profound thinking, nor profound feeling ; and 
 too volatile to attain to the pathetic, that higher quality of 
 genius, he was so imbued with the petty elegancies of society 
 that ever)'- impression of grandem- in the human character was 
 deadened in the breast of the polished cynic. 
 
 Horace Walpole was not a man of genius, — his most pleas- 
 ing, if not his great talent, lay in letter-writing ; here he was 
 
 * In his letters there are uncommon instances of vivacity, whenever 
 pointed against authors. The following have not yet met the public eye. 
 What can be more maliciously pungent than this on Spence ? " As I know 
 Mr. J. Spence, I do not think I should have been so much delighted as Dr. 
 Kippis with reading his letters. He was a good-natured harmless little 
 soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius. It was a neat fiddle- 
 faddle bit of sterling, that had read good books, and kept good company ; 
 but was too trifling for use, and only fit to jjlease a child." — On Dr. Nash's 
 first volume of ' Worcestershire ' : " It is a folio of prodigious corpulence, 
 and yet dry enough ; but it is finely dressed with "many heads and views." 
 He characterises Pennant ; "i/e is not one of our plodders (alluding to 
 Gough) ; rather the other extreme ; his corporal spirits (for I cannot call 
 them animal) do not allow him to digest anything. He gave a round jump 
 from ornithology to antiquity, and, as if they had any relation, thought he 
 understood everything that lay between them. The report of his being 
 disordered is not true ; he has been with me, and at least is as composed as 
 ever I saw him." Eis literary correspondence vdih. his friend Cole abounds 
 with this easy satirical criticism — he delighted to ridicule authors ! — as 
 well as to starve the miserable artists he so grudgingly paid. In the very 
 volumes he celebrated the arts, he disgraced them by his penuriousness ; so 
 that he loved to indulge his avarice at the expense of his vanity !
 
 44 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 without a rival ;* but he probably divined, when he conde- 
 scended to become an author, that something more was re- 
 quired than the talents he exactly possessed. In his latter 
 days he felt this more sensibly, which will appear in those 
 confessions which I have extracted from an unpublished cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 Conscious of possessing the talent which amuses, yet feel- 
 ing his deficient energies, he resolved to provide various sub- 
 stitutes for genius itself ; and to acquire reputation, if he could 
 not grasp at celebrity. He raised a printing-press at his 
 Gothic castle, by which means he rendered small editions of 
 his works valuable from their rai'ity, and much talked of, be- 
 cause seldom seen. That this is true, appears from the fol- 
 lowing extract from his unpublished correspondence with a 
 literary friend. It alludes to his " Anecdotes of Painting in 
 England," of which the first edition only consisted of 300 
 copies. 
 
 " Of my new fourth volume I printed 600 ; but, as they 
 can be had, I believe not a third part is sold. This is a very 
 plain lesson to me, that my editions sell for their curiositj'', 
 and not for any merit in them — and so they would if I printed 
 Mother Goose's Tales, and but a few. If I am hmnbled as an 
 author, I may be vain as a printer ; and when one has nothing 
 else to be vain of, it is certainly very little worth while to be 
 proud of that." 
 
 There is a distinction between the author of great con- 
 nexions and the mere author. In the one case, the man may 
 give a temporary existence to his books ; but in the other, it 
 is the book which gives existence to the man. 
 
 Walpole's writings seem to be constructed on a certain 
 principle, b}' which he gave them a sudden, rather than a 
 lasting existence. In historical research our adventurer star- 
 tled the world by maintaining paradoxes which attacked the 
 
 * This opinion on Walpole's talent for letter-writing was published in 
 1812, many years before the public had the present collection of his letters ; 
 my prediction lias been amply verified. He wrote a great number to 
 Bentley, the son of Dr. Bentley, who ornamented Gray's works with soaie 
 extraordinary designs. Walpole, who was always proud and capricious, 
 observes liis friend Cole, broke with Bentley because he would bring his 
 wife with him to Strawberry-hill. He then asked Bentley for all his letters 
 back, but he would not in return give Bentley's own. 
 
 This whole correspondence abounded with literature, criticism, and wit 
 of the most original and brilliant composition. This is the opinion of no 
 friend, but au admirer, and a good judge ; for it was Bentley's own.
 
 The Pains of Fastidious Egotism. 45 
 
 opinions, or changed tlie characters, established for centuries. 
 Singularity of opinion, \dvacity of ridic-ule, and polished epi- 
 grams in prose, were the means by which Horace Walpole 
 sought distinction. 
 
 In his works of imagination, he felt he could not trust to 
 himself — the natural pathetic was utterly denied him. But 
 he had fancy and ingenuity ; he had recom-se to the marvel- 
 lous in imagination on the principle he had adopted the para- 
 doxical in history. Thus, "The Castle of Otranto," and 
 " The Mysterious Mother," are the productions of ingenuity 
 rather than genius ; and display the miracles of art, rather 
 than the spontaneous creations of nature. 
 
 All his literary works, like the ornamented edifice he inha- 
 bited, were constnicted on the same artificial principle ; an old 
 paper lodging-house, converted by the magician of taste into a 
 Gothic castle, full of scenic effects.* 
 
 '• A Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors" was itself a 
 classification which only an idle amateur could have projected, 
 and only the most agreeable narrator of anecdotes could have 
 seasoned. These splendid scribblers are for the greater part 
 no authors at all.f 
 
 His attack on our peerless Sidney, whose fame was more 
 
 * This is the renowned Strawberry-hill, a villa still standing on the 
 banks of the Thames, between Teddington and Twickenham, but now 
 despoiled of the large collection of pictures, curiosities, and articles of rertu 
 so assiduously collected by Walpole during a long life. The ground on 
 which it stands was originally partially occupied by a small cottage, built 
 by a nobleman's coachman for a lodging-house, and occupied by a toy- 
 woman of the name of Chevenix. Hence Walpole says of it, in a letter to 
 (Jeneral Conway, "it is a little plaything house that I got out of Mrs. 
 Chevenix's shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw." — Ed. 
 
 ■f* Walpole's characters are not often to be relied on, witness his injustice 
 to Hogarth as a painter, and his insolent calumny of Charles I. His 
 literary opinions of .James I. and of Sidney might have been written with- 
 out any acquaintance with the works he has so maliciously criticised. In 
 his account of Sidney he had silently passed over the "Defence of Poetry ;" 
 and in his second edition has written this avowal, that "he had forgotten 
 it ; a proof that I at least did not think it sufficient foundation for so high 
 a character as he acquired." How heartless was the polished cynicism 
 which could dare to hazard this false criticism ! Nothing can be more im- 
 posing than his volatile and caustic criticisms on the works of James I., yet 
 he had probably never opened that folio he so poignantly ridicules. He 
 doubts whether two pieces, " The Prince's Cabala," and " The Duty of a 
 King in his Eoyal Office," were genuine productions of James I. The truth 
 is that both these works are nothing more than extracts printed with those 
 separate titles and drawn from the king's " Basilicon Doron." He had 
 probably neither read the extracts nor the original.
 
 46 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 iTiatiire than his life, was formed on the same principle as his 
 " Historic Doubts" on Eicharcl III. Horace Walpole was as 
 willing to vilify the truly great, as to beautify deformity ; 
 when he imagined that the fame he was destroying or confer- 
 ring, reflected back on himself. All these works were plants 
 of sickly delicacy, which could never endure the open air, and 
 only lived in the artificial atmosphere of a private collection. 
 Yet at times the flowers, and the planter of the flowers, were ' 
 roughly shaken by an uncivil breeze. 
 
 His " Anecdotes of Painting in England" is a most enter- 
 taining catalogue. He gives the feelings of the distinct eras 
 with regard to the arts ; yet his pride was never gratified 
 when he reflected that he had been writing the work of Vertue, 
 who had collected the materials, but could not have given the 
 philosophy. His great age and his good sense opened his 
 eyes on himself; and Horace Walpole seems to have judged 
 too contemptuously of Horace Walpole. The truth is, he 
 was mortified he had not and never could obtain a literary 
 peerage ; and he never respected the commoner's seat. At 
 these moments, too frequent in his life, he contemns authors, 
 and returns to sink back into all the self-complacency of aris- 
 tocratic indifierence. 
 
 This cold unfeeling disposition for literary men, this dis- 
 guised malice of envy, and this eternal vexation at his own 
 disappointments, — bi-eak forth in his correspondence with one 
 of those literary characters with whom he kept on terms 
 while they were kneeling to him in the humility of worship, 
 or moved about to fetch or to carry his little quests of curio- 
 sity in town or country.* 
 
 The following literary confessions illustrate this character: — 
 
 * It was such a person as Cole of jVIilton, liis correspondent of forty years, 
 who lived at a distance, and obsequious to his wishes, always looking up to 
 him, though never with a parallel glance — with whom he did not quarrel, 
 though if Walpole could have read the private notes Cole made in his MSS. 
 at the time he was often writing the civilest letters of admiration, — even 
 Cole would have been cashiered from his correspondence. Walpole could 
 not endure equality in literary men. — Bentley observed to Cole, that 
 Walpole's pride and hauteur were excessive ; which betrayed themselves ia 
 the ti-eatment of Gray who had himself too much pride and spirit to for- 
 <jive it when matters were made up between them, and Walpole invited 
 Gray to Strawberry-hill. When Gray came, he, without any ceremony, told 
 Walpole that though he waited on him as civility required, yet by no 
 means would he ever he there on the terms of their former friendship, 
 which he had totally cancelled. — From Cole's MSS.
 
 The Pains of Fastidious Egotism. 47 
 
 "Jane, 1778. 
 " I Lave taken a thorougli dislike to being an author ; and, 
 if it would not look like begging you to compliment one by- 
 contradicting me, I would tell you what I am most seriously 
 convinced of, that I find what small share of parts I had grown 
 dulled. And when I perceive it myself, I may well believe that 
 others would not be less sharp-sighted. It is very natural ; 
 mine were spirits rather than^ar^^; and as time has rebated the 
 one, it must surely destroy their resemblance to the other." 
 
 In another letter: — 
 
 " I set very little value on myself ; as a man, I am a very 
 faulty one ; and as an autJior, a very middling one, which ivho- 
 ever thinks a comfortahle ranJc, is not at all of my opinion. 
 Pray convince me that you think I mean sincerely, by not 
 answering me with a compliment. It is very weak to be 
 pleased with flattery; the stupidest of all delusions to beg it. 
 From you I should take it ilL We have known one another 
 almost forty years." 
 
 There were times when Horace Walpole's natural taste for 
 his studies returned with all the vigour of passion — but his 
 volatility and his desujtory life perpetually scattered his 
 firmest resolutions into air. This conflict appears beautifully 
 described when the view of King's College, Cambridge, throws 
 his mind into meditation ; and the passion for study and seclu- 
 sion instantly kindled his emotions, lasting, perhaps, as long 
 as the letter which describes them occupied in writing. 
 
 "if ay 22, 1777. 
 " The beauty of King's College, Cambridge, now it is 
 restored, penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk 
 in it. Though my life has been passed in tm-bulent scenes, 
 in pleasures or other pastimes, and in much fashionable dissi- 
 pation, still, books, antiquity, and virtue kept hold of a 
 corner of my heart : and since necessity has forced me of late 
 years to be a man of business, my disposition tends to be a 
 recluse for what remains — but it will not be my lot ; and 
 though there is some excuse for the young doing what they 
 like, I doubt an old man should do nothing but what he 
 ought, and I hope doing one's duty is the best preparation for 
 death. Sitting with one's arms folded to think about it, is a 
 very long way for preparing for it. If Charles V. had resolved 
 to make some amends for his abominable ambition by doing
 
 48 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 good (his duty as a king), there would liave been infinitely 
 more merit than going to doze in a convent. One may avoid 
 actual guilt in a sequestered life, l)ut the virtue of it is merely 
 negative; the innocence is beautiful." 
 
 There had been moments when Horace Walpole even ex- 
 pressed the tenderest feelings for fame ; and the following 
 passage, written prior to the preceding ones, gives no indica- 
 tion of that contempt for literary fame, of which the close of 
 this character will exhibit an extraordinary instance. 
 
 This letter relates an affecting event — he had just returned 
 from seeing General Conway attacked by a paralytic stroke. 
 Shocked by his appearance, he writes — 
 
 " It is, perhaps, to vent my concern that I write. It has 
 operated such a revolution on my mind, as no time, at ony 
 age, can efface. It has at once damped every pm-suit which 
 m}^ spirits had even now prevented me from being weaned 
 from, I mean of virtu. It is like a mortal distemper in my- 
 self ; for can amusements amuse, if there is but a glimpse, a 
 vision of outliving one's friends ? / have had dreams in 
 which I thought 1 wished for fame — it loas not certainly 
 posfhmnous fame at any distance ; J^ feel, I feel it teas con- 
 fined to the memory of those I love. It seems to me impos- 
 sible for a man who has no friends to do anything for fame — 
 and to me the first position in friendship is, to intend one's 
 friends should survive one — but it is not reasonable to oppress 
 you, who are suffering gout, with my melancholy ideas. 
 What I have said will tell you, what I hope so many years 
 have told you, that I am very constant and sincere to friends 
 of above forty years." 
 
 In a letter of a later date there is a remarkable confession, 
 which harmonises with those already given. 
 
 " My pursuits have always been light, trifling, and tended 
 to nothing but my casual amusement. I will not say, with- 
 out a little vain ambition of showing some parts, but never 
 with industry suflicient to make me apply to anything solid. 
 My studies, if the}^ could be called so, and my productions, 
 were alike desultory. In my latter age I discovered the 
 futility both of my objects and writings — I felt how insig- 
 nificant is the reputation of an author of mediocrity ; and 
 that, being no genius, I only added one name more to a list 
 of writers ; but had told the world nothing but what it
 
 The Pains of Fastidious Egotism. 49 
 
 could as well be without. These reflections were the best 
 proofs of my sense ; and when I could see through my own 
 vanity, there is less wonder in my discovering that such 
 talents as I might have had are impaired at seventy-two." 
 
 Thus humbled was Horace Walpole to himself ! — there is 
 an intellectual dignity, which this man of wit and sense was 
 incapable of reaching — and it seems a retribution that the 
 seorner of true greatness should at length feel the poisoned 
 chalice return to his own lips. He who had contemned the 
 eminent men of former times, and quarrelled with and ridi- 
 culed every contemporary genius ; who had affected to laugh 
 at the literary fame he could not obtain, — at length came to 
 scorn himself! and endured "the penal fires" of an author's 
 hell, in undervaluing his own works, the productions of a 
 long life ! 
 
 The chagrin and disappointment of such an author were 
 never less carelessly concealed than in the following extraor- 
 dinary letter : — 
 
 HOEACE WAIPOLE TO 
 
 ^^ Arlington Street, April 27, 1773. 
 " Mr. Gough wants to be introduced to me ! Indeed ! I 
 would see him, as he lias been midwife to Masters ; but he is 
 so dull that he would only be troublesome — and besides, you 
 know I shun authors, and would never have been one my- 
 self, if it obliged me to keep such bad company. They are 
 always in earnest, and think their profession serious, and 
 dwell upon trifles, and reverence learning. I laugh at all 
 these things, and write only to laugh at them and divert 
 myself. None of us are authors of any consequence, and it 
 is the most ridiculous of all vanities to be vain of being me- 
 diocre. A page in a great author humbles me to the dust, 
 and the conversation of those that are not superior to myself 
 reminds me of what will be thought of myself. I blush to 
 flatter them, or to be flattered by them ; and should ch-ead 
 letters being published some time or other, in which they 
 would relate our interviews, and we should appear like those 
 puny conceited witlings in Shenstone's and Hughes's corres- 
 pondence, who give themselves airs from being in possession 
 of the soil of Parnassus for the time being ; as peers are 
 proud because they enjoy the estates of great men who went 
 before them. Mr, Gough is very welcome to see Strawberry- 
 
 E
 
 50 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 hill, or I would help him to any scraps in my possession that 
 would assist his publications, though he is one of those in- 
 dustrious who are only re-burying the dead — but I cannot be 
 acquainted with him ; it is contrary to my system and my 
 humour ; and besides I know nothing of barrows and Danish 
 entrenchments, and Saxon barbarisms and Phoenician cha- 
 racters — in short, I know nothing of those ages that knew 
 nothing — then how should I be of use to modern literati ? 
 All the Scotch metaphysicians have sent me their works. I 
 did not I'ead one of them, because I do not understand what 
 is not understood by those that write about it ; and I did not 
 get acquainted with one of the writers. I should like to be 
 intimate with Mr. Anstej^, even though he wrote Lord 
 Buckhorse, or with the author of the Heroic Epistle — I have 
 no thirst to know the rest of my contemporaries, from the 
 absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to the silly Dr. Gold- 
 smith, though the latter changeling has had bright gleams of 
 parts, and the former had sense, till he changed it for words, 
 and sold it for a pension. Don't think me scornful. Recol- 
 lect that I have seen Pope, and lived with Gray. — Adieu !" 
 
 Such a letter seems not to have been written by a literary 
 man — it is the babble of a thoughtless wit and a man of the 
 world. But it is worthy of him whose contracted heart 
 could never open to patronage or friendship. From such we 
 might expect the unfeeling observation in the " Anecdotes of 
 Painting," that "want of patronage is the apology for want 
 of genius. Milton and La Fontaine did not write in the 
 bask of court favour. A poet or a painter may want an 
 equipage or a villa, by wanting protection ; they can always 
 aliord to buy ink and paper, colours and pencil. Mr. Ho- 
 garth has received no honours, but universal admiration." 
 Patronage, indeed, cannot convert dull men into men of 
 genius, but it ma}- preserve men of genius from becoming 
 dull men. It might have afforded Dry den that studious 
 leisure which he ever wanted, and which would have given 
 us not imperfect tragedies, and uncorrected poems, but the 
 regulated llights of a noble genius. It might have animated 
 Gainsborough to have created an English school in landscape, 
 which I have heard from those who knew him was his fa- 
 vourite yet neglected pursuit. But Walpole could insult that 
 genius, which he wanted the generosity to protect ! 
 
 The whole spirit of this man was penury. Enjoying an
 
 Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism. 51 
 
 affluent income he only appeared to patronise the arts which 
 amused his tastes, — employing the meanest artists, at reduced 
 prices, to ornament his own works, an economy which he 
 bitterly reprehends in others who were compelled to practise 
 it. He gratified his avarice at the expense of his vanity ; 
 the strongest passion must prevail. It was the simplicity of 
 childhood in Chatterton to imagine Horace Walpole could be 
 a patron — but it is melancholy to record that a slight pro- 
 tection might have saved such a j'^outh. Gray abandoned 
 this man of birth and rank in the midst of their journey 
 through Europe ; Mason broke with him ; even his humble 
 correspondent Cole, this " friend of forty years," was often 
 sent away in dudgeon ; and he quarrelled with aU the 
 authors and artists he had ever been acquainted with. The 
 Gothic castle at Strawberry-hill was rarely graced with 
 living genius — there the greatest was Horace Walpole him- 
 self; but he had been too long waiting to see realised a ma- 
 gical vision of his hopes, which resembled the prophetic 
 fiction of his own romance, that " the owner should grow 
 too lai'ge for his house." After many years, having dis- 
 covered that he still retained his mediocrity, he could never 
 paixlon the presence of that preternatural being whom the 
 world considered a great man. — Such was the feeling which 
 dictated the close of the above letter ; Johnson and Gold- 
 smith were to be " scorned," since Pope and Gray were no 
 more within the reach of his envy and his feai*. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF A BAD TEMPER IN CRITICISM. 
 
 Unfeieis'dlt to the literary character, some have imputed 
 the brutality of certain authors to theh literary habits, when 
 it may be more truly said that they derived their literature 
 from their brutality. The spirit was envenomed before it 
 entered into the fierceness of literary controversy, and the 
 insanity was in the evil temper of the man before he roused 
 our notice by his ravings. Eitson, the late antiquary of 
 poetry (not to call him poetical), amazed the world by his 
 vituperative railing at two authors of the finest taste in 
 poetry, Warton and Percy ; he carried criticism, as the dis- 
 cerning few had first surmised, to insanity itself ; the cha- 
 racter before us only approached it. 
 
 Dennis attained to the ambiguous honour of being dis- 
 
 E 2
 
 r.9. 
 
 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 tinguished as " The Critic," and he may yet instruct us how 
 the moral influences the literary character, and how a certain 
 talent that can never mature itself into genius, like the pale 
 fruit that hangs in the shade, ripens only into sourness. 
 
 As a critic in his own day, party for some time kept him 
 alive ; the art of criticism was a novelty at that period of 
 our literature. He flattered some great men, and he abused 
 three of the greatest ; this was one mode of securing popu- 
 larity ; because, by this contrivance, he divided the town into 
 two parties ; and the irascibility and satire of Pope and 
 Swift were not less serviceable to him than the partial 
 panegyrics of Dryden and Congreve. Johnson revived him, 
 for his minute attack on Addison ; and Kippis, feebly volu- 
 minous, and with the cold affectation of candour, allows him 
 to occupy a place in our literary history too large in the eye 
 of Truth and Taste. 
 
 Let us say all the good we can of him, that we may not 
 be interrupted in a more important inquiry. Dennis once 
 lu'ged fair pretensions to the office of critic. Some of his 
 "Original Letters," and particularly the "Remarks on 
 Prince Arthur," written in his vigour, attain even to clas- 
 sical criticism.* Aristotle and Bossu lay open before him, 
 and he developes and sometimes illustrates their principles 
 •with close reasoning. Passion had not yet blinded the j'oung 
 critic with rage ; and in that happy moment, Virgil occupied 
 his attention even more than Blackmore. 
 
 The prominent feature in his literary character was good 
 sense ; but in literature, though not in life, good sense is a 
 penurious virtue. Dennis could not be carried beyond the 
 cold line of a precedent, and before he ventm-ed to be pleased, 
 he was compelled to look into Aristotle. His learning was 
 the bigotry of literature. It was ever Aristotle explained by 
 Dennis. But in the explanation of the obscure text of his 
 master, he was led into such frivolous distinctions, and taste- 
 less propositions, that his works deserve inspection, as ex- 
 amples of the manner of a true mechanical critic. 
 
 This blunted feeling of the mechanical critic was at first 
 
 * It is curious to observe that Kippis, who classifies with the pomp of 
 enumeration his heap of pamphlets, imagines that, as Blaciimore's Epic is 
 consigned to oblivion, so likewise must be the criticism, which, however, 
 he confesses be could never meet with. An odd fate attends Dennis's 
 works : his criticism on a bad work ought to survive it, as good works have 
 survived his criticisms.
 
 Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism. 53 
 
 concealed from the world in the pomp of critical erudition ; 
 but when he trusted to himself, and, destitute of taste and 
 imagination, became a poet and a dramatist, the secret of the 
 Eoyal Midas was revealed. As his evil temper prevailed, he 
 forgot his learning, and lost the moderate sense which he 
 seemed once to have possessed. Rage, malice, and dulness, 
 were the heavy residuum ; and now he much resembled that 
 congenial soul whom the ever-witt}' South compared to the 
 tailor's goose, which is at once hot and heavy. 
 
 Dennis was sent to Cambridge by his father, a saddler, who 
 imagined a genius had been born in the family. He travelled 
 in France and Italy, and on his return held in contempt every 
 pursuit but poetry and criticism. He haunted the literary 
 coteiies, and dropped into a galaxy of wits and noblemen. 
 At a time when our literature, like our politics, was divided 
 into two factions, Dennis enlisted himself under Dryden and 
 Congreve ;* and, as legitimate criticism was then an awful 
 novelty in the nation, the young critic, recent from the 
 Stagirite, soon became an important, and even a tremendous 
 spirit. Pope is said to have regarded his judgment ; and 
 Mallet, when young, tremblingly submitted a poem, to live 
 or die by his breath. One would have imagined that the 
 elegant studies he was cultivating, the views of life which had 
 opened on him, and the polished circle around, would have 
 influenced the grossness which was the natural growth of the 
 soil. But ungracious Nature kept fast hold of the mind of 
 Dennis ! 
 
 His personal manners were characterised by their abrupt 
 violence. Once dining with Lord Halifax he became so im- 
 patient of contradiction, that he rushed out of the room, 
 overthrowing the sideboard. Inquiring on the next day how 
 he had behaved, Moyle observed, " You went away hke the 
 devil, taking one corner of the house with you." The wits, 
 perhaps, then began to suspect their young Zoilus's dogmatism. 
 
 The actors refused to perform one of his tragedies to empty 
 houses, but they retained some excellent thunder which 
 
 * See in Dennis's "Original Letters" one to Tonson, entitled, "On the 
 conspiracy against the reputation of Mr. Dryden." It was in favour of 
 folbj against wisdom, weakness against poiycr, kc. ; Pope against Dryden. 
 He closes with a well-turned period. " Wherever genius runs through a 
 work, I forgive its faults ; and wherever that is wanting, no beauties can 
 touch me. Being struck by Mr. Dryden's genius, I have no eyes for his 
 errors ; and I have no eyes for his enemies' beauties, because I am not 
 struck by their genius."
 
 54< Calamities of Autfiors. 
 
 Dennis had invented ; it rolled one night when Dennis was 
 in the pit, and it was applauded ! Suddenly starting up, he 
 cried to the audience, " By Gr — , they wont act my tragedy, 
 but they steal my thunder!" Thus, when reading Pope's 
 " Essay on Criticism," he came to the character of Appius, 
 he suddenly flmig down the new poem, exclaiming, " By G — , 
 he means me !" He is painted to the life. 
 
 Lo I Appius reddens at each word you speak, 
 And stares tremendous with a threatening eye, 
 Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry. 
 
 I complete this picture of Dennis with a very extraordinary 
 -caricature, which Steele, in one of his papers of " The Theatre," 
 has given of Dennis. I shall, however, disentangle the 
 threads, and pick out what I consider not to he caricature, 
 hut resemblance. 
 
 " His motion is quick and sudden, turning on all sides, with 
 a suspicion of every object, as if he had done or feared some 
 extraordinary mischief. You see wickedness in his meaning, 
 but folly of countenance, that betrays him to be unfit for the 
 execution of it. He starts, stares, and looks round him. This 
 constant shuffle of haste without speed, makes the man thought 
 a little touched ; but the vacant look of his two eyes gives 
 you to understand that he could never run out of his wits, 
 Avhich seemed not so much to be lost, as to want employment; 
 they are not so much astray, as they are a wool-gathering. 
 He has the face and surliness of a mastiff, which has ofteu 
 saved him from being treated like a cur, till some more saga- 
 cious than ordinary found his nature, and used him accord- 
 ingly. Unhappy "being ! terrible without, fearful within ! 
 Not a wolf in sheep's clothing, but a sheep in a wolf's."* 
 
 However anger may have a little coloured this portrait, its 
 truth may be confirmed from a variety of sources. If Sallust, 
 with his accustomed penetration in characterising the violent 
 emotions of Catiline's restless mind, did not forget its indi- 
 
 * In the uan-a(ive of his frenzy (quoted p. 56), his jyersonnel is thus 
 given. "His aspect was furious, his eyes were rather fiery than lively, 
 which he rolled about in an uncommon manner. He often opened his 
 mouth as' if lie would have uttered some matter of importance, but the 
 sound seemed lost inwardly. His beard was grown, which they told me he 
 would not sufi'cr to be shaved, believing the modern dramatic poets had 
 corrupted all the barbers of the town to take tbe first opportunity of cutting 
 his throat. His eyebrows were gi'ey, long, and grown together, which he 
 knit with indignation when anything was spoken, insomuch that he seemed 
 not to have smoothed his forehead for many years." — Ed.
 
 Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism. 55 
 
 cation in " his walk now quick and now slow," it may be 
 allowed to think that the character of Dennis was alike to be 
 detected in his habitual surliness. 
 
 Even in his old age — for our chain must not drop a link — 
 his native brutality never forsook him. Thomson and Pope 
 charitably supported the veteran Zoilus at a benefit play ; 
 and Savage, Avho had nothing but a verse to give, returned 
 them very poetical thanks in the name of Dennis. He was 
 then blind and old, but his critical ferocity had no old age ; 
 liis svirliness overcame every grateful sense, and he swore as 
 usual, " They could be no one's but thatyboZ Savage's" — an 
 evidence of his sagacity and brutality ! * This was, perhaps, 
 the last peevish snuff shaken from the dismal link of criti- 
 cism ; for, a few days after, was the redoubted Dennis num- 
 bered with the mighty dead. 
 
 He carried the same fierceness into his style, and commits 
 the same ludicrous extravagances in literary composition as 
 in his manners. Was Pope really sore at the Zoilian style ? 
 He has himself spared me the trouble of exhibiting Dennis's 
 gross personalities, by having collected them at the close of 
 the Duuciad — specimens which show how low false wit and 
 malignity can get to by hard pains. I will throw into the 
 note a curious illustration of the anti-poetical notions of a 
 mechanical critic, who has no wing to dip into the hues of 
 the imagination.f 
 
 * There is an epigram on Dennis by Savage, which Johnson has preserved 
 in his Life ; and I feel it to be a very correct likeness, although Johnson 
 censures Savage for writing an eijigram against Dennis, while he was living 
 in great familiarity with the critic. Perhaps that was the happiest moment 
 to write the epigram. The anecdote in the text doubtless prompted " the 
 fool " to take this fair revenge and just chastisement. Savage has brought 
 out the features strongly, in these touches — 
 
 " Say what revenge on Dennis can be had. 
 Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad. 
 On one so poor you cannot take the law, 
 On one so old your sword you scorn to draw. 
 Uncaged then, let the harmless monster rage, 
 Secure in dulness, madness, want, and age !" 
 + Dennis points his heavy cannon of criticism and thus bombards that 
 aerial edifice, the " Rape of the Lock." He is inquiring into the nature of 
 poetical ■macliinerii, which, he oracularly pronounces, should be religious, 
 or allegorical, or political ; asserting the " Lutrin" of Boileau to be a trifle 
 only in appearance, covering the deep political design of reforming the 
 Popish Church ! — With the yard of criticism he takes measure of the 
 slender graces and tiny elegance of Pope's aerial machines, as "less con- 
 siderable than thQ human persons, which is loithoiU precedent. Nothing
 
 56 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 In life and in literature we meet with men who seem en- 
 dowed with an obliquity of understanding, yet active and 
 busy spirits ; but, as activity is only valuable in proportion 
 to the capacity that puts all in motion, so, when ill directed, 
 the intellect, warped by nature, only becomes more crooked 
 and fantastical. A kind of frantic enthusiasm breaks forth 
 in their actions and their language, and often they seem 
 ferocious when they are onXj foolish. We may thus account 
 for the manners and style of Dermis, pushed almost to the 
 verge of insanity, and acting on him very much like insanitj^ 
 itself — a circumstance which the quick vengeance of wit seized 
 on, in the humorous " Narrative of Dr. liobert Norris, con- 
 cerning the Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis, an officer of the 
 Custom-house." * 
 
 can be so contemptible as the persons or so foolish as the understandings of 
 these hoh'johlins. Ariel's speech is one continued impertinence. After he 
 has talked to them of black omens and dire disasters that threaten his 
 heroine, those bugbears dwindle to the breaking a piece of china, to stain- 
 ing a petticoat, the losing a fan, or a bottle of sal volatile — and what makes 
 Ariel's speech more ridiculous is the j)lace where it is spoken, on the sails 
 and cordage of Belinda's barge." And then he compares the Sylphs to the 
 Discord of Homer, whose feet are upon the earth, and head in the skies. 
 " They are, indeed, beings so diminutive tliat they bear the same propor- 
 tion to the rest of the intellectual that Eels in vinegar do to the rest of 
 the material world ; the latter ai-e only to be seen through microscopes, and 
 the former only through the false optics of a Rosicrucian understanding." 
 And finally, he decides that " these diminutive beings are only Sawney 
 (that is, Alexander Pope), taking the change ; for it is he, a little lump of 
 tlesh, that talks, instead of a little spirit." Dennis's profound gravity con- 
 tributes an additional feature of the burlesque to these heroi-comic poems 
 themselves, only that Dennis cannot be playful, and will not be good- 
 humoured. 
 
 On the same ta.steless principle he decides on the improbability of that 
 incident in the "Conscious Lovers" of Steele, raised by Bevil, who, having 
 received great obligations from his father, has promised not to marry with- 
 out his consent. On this Dennis, who rarely in his critical progress will 
 stir a foot without authority, quotes four formidable pages from Locke's 
 " Essay on Government," to prove that, at the age of discretion, a man is 
 free to dispose of his own actions ! One would imagine that Dennis was 
 arguing like a special pleader, rather than developing the involved action 
 of an atfecting drama. Are there critics who would pronounce Dennis to be 
 a very sensible brother? It is here too he calls Steele "a twopenny 
 author, " alluding to the price of the ' ' Tatlers " — but this cost Dennis dear ! 
 
 * " The narrative of the frenzy of Mr. John Dennis," published in the 
 Miscellanies of Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, and said to have been written 
 by Pope, is a grave banter on his usual violence. It professes to be the ac- 
 count of the physician who attended him at the request of a servant, who 
 describes the first attack of his madness coming on when "a poor simple 
 child came to him from the printers ; the boy had no sooner entered the
 
 Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism. 57 
 
 It is curious to observe tliat Dennis, in the definition of 
 genius, describes himself; he says — " Genius is caused by a 
 furious joy and pride of soul on the conception of an extra- 
 ordinary hint. Many men have their hints without their 
 motions of fury and 2^'1'ide of soul, because they want fire 
 enough to agitate their spirits ; and these we call cold writers. 
 Others, who have a great deal of fire, but have not excellent 
 organs, feel the fore-mentioned motions, without the extra- 
 ordinary hints; and these we call fustian writers." His 
 motions and his hi7its, as he describes them, in regard to cold 
 or fustian writers, seem to include the extreme points of his 
 own genius. 
 
 Another feature strongly marks the race- of the Dennises. 
 With a half-consciousness of deficient genius, they usually 
 idolize some chimera, by adopting some extravagant principle ; 
 and they consider themselves as original when they are only 
 absurd. 
 
 Dennis had ever some misshapen idol of the mind, which 
 he was perpetually caressing with the zeal of perverted judg- 
 ment or monstrous taste. Once his frenzy ran against the 
 Italian Opera; and in his "Essay on Public Spirit," he 
 ascribes its decline to its unmanly warblings. I have seen 
 a long letter by Dennis to the Earl of Oxford, written to 
 congratulate his lordship on his accession to power, and the 
 high hopes of the nation ; but the greater part of the letter 
 runs on the Italian Opera, while Dennis instructs the Minis- 
 ter that the national prosperity can never be effected while 
 this general corruption of the three kingdoms lies open ! ' 
 
 Dennis has more than once recorded two material circum- 
 stances in the life of a true critic ; these are his ill-nature 
 and the public neglect. 
 
 " I make no doubt," says he, " that upon the perusal of 
 the critical part of these letters, the old accusation will be 
 brought against me, and there will be a fresh outcry among 
 thoughtless people that I am an ill-natured man." 
 
 He entertained exalted opinions of his own powers, and he 
 deeply felt their public neglect. 
 
 " While others," he says in his tracts, " have been too much 
 
 room, but he cried out 'the devil was come !' " The constant idiosyncrasy 
 he had that his writings against France and the Pope might endanger his 
 liberty, is amusingly hit oflf ; "he perpetually starts and runs to the window 
 wheu any one knocks, crying out ' 'Sdeath ! a messenger from the French 
 King : I shall die in the IJastile !' " — Ed.
 
 58 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 encouraged, I have been too much neglected^'' — his favourite 
 system, that rehgion gives principally to great poetry its 
 spirit and enthusiasm, was an important point, which, he 
 says, " has been left to be treated by a person who has the 
 honour of being your lordshi])'s countryman — your lordship 
 knows that persons so much and so tong oppressed as I have 
 heen have been always allowed to say things concerning them- 
 selves which in others might be offensive." 
 
 His vanit}^, we see, was equal to his vexation, and as he 
 grew old he became more enraged ; and, writing too often 
 without Ai'istotle or Locke by his side, he gave the town pure 
 Dennis, and almost ceased to be read. " The oppression" of 
 which he complains might not be less imaginary than his 
 alarm, while a treaty was pending with France, that he should 
 be delivered up to the Grrand Monarque for having written a 
 tragedy, which no one could read, against his majesty. 
 
 It is melancholy, but it is useful, to record the mortifica- 
 tions of such authors. Dennis had, no doubt, laboured with 
 zeal which could never meet a reward ; and, perhaps, amid his 
 critical labours, he turned often with an aching heart from 
 their barren contemplation to that of the tranquillity he 
 might have derived from an humbler avocation. 
 
 It was not literature, then, that made the mind coarse, 
 brutalising the habits and inflaming the stjde of Dennis. He 
 had thrown liimself among the walks of genius, and aspired 
 to fix himself on a throne to which Nature had refused him 
 a legitimate claim. What a lasting source of vexation and 
 rage, even for a long-lived patriarch of criticism ! 
 
 Accustomed to suspend the scourge over the heads of the 
 first authors of the age, he could not sit at a table or enter 
 a coffee-house without exerting the despotism of a literary 
 dictator. How could the mind that had devoted itself to the 
 contemplation of masterpieces, only to reward its industry by 
 detailing to the public their human frailties, experience one 
 hour of amenity, one idea of grace, one generous impulse of 
 sensibility F 
 
 But the poor critic himself at length fell, really more the 
 victim of his criticisms than the genius he had insulted. 
 Having incurred the public neglect, the blind and helpless 
 Cacus in his den sunk fast into contempt, dragged on a life 
 of misery, and in his last days, scarcely vomiting his fire and 
 smoke, became the most pitiable creature, receiving the alms 
 he craved from triumphant genius.
 
 59 
 
 DISAPPOINTED GENIUS 
 
 TAKES A FATAL DIRECTION BY ITS ABUSE, 
 
 How the moral and literary character are reciprocally influ- 
 enced, may be traced in the character of a personage pecu- 
 liarly apposite to these inquiries. This worthy of literature 
 is Okatob Henley, who is rather known traditionally than 
 historically.* He is so overwhelmed with the echoed satire of 
 Pope, and his own extravagant conduct for many years, that 
 I should not care to extricate him, had I not discovered a 
 featm-e in the character of Henley not yet drawn, and con- 
 stituting no inferior calamity among authors. 
 
 Henley stands in his "gilt tub" in the Dunciad ; and a 
 portrait of him hangs in the picture-gallery of the Commen- 
 tary. Pope's verse and Warburton's notes are the pickle 
 and the bandages for any Egyptian mummy of dulness, who 
 will last as long as the pyramid that encloses him. I shall 
 transcribe, for the reader's convenience, the lines of Pope : — 
 
 Embrown'd with native bronze, lo ! Henley stands. 
 Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands ; 
 How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue ! 
 How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung ! 
 Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain. 
 While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson, preach in vain. 
 Oh ! great restorer of the good old stage. 
 Preacher at once, and Zany of thy age ! •j' 
 
 It will surprise when I declare that this buffoon was an 
 indefatigable student, a proficient in all the learned languages, 
 an elegant poet, and, withal, a wit of no inferior class. It 
 remains to discover why " the Preacher" became " the Zany." 
 
 Henley was of St. John's College, Cambridge, and was dis- 
 tinguished for the ardour and pertinacity of his studies ; he 
 gave evident marks of genius. There is a letter of his to the 
 
 * So little is known of this singular man, that Mr. Dibdin, in his very 
 curious "Bibliomania," was not able to recollect any other details than 
 those he transcribed from Warburton's " Commentary on the Dunciad." 
 In Ml-. Nichols' "History of Leicestershire" a more copious account of 
 Henley*' may be found ; to their facts something is here added. It was, 
 however, difficult to glean after so excellent a harvest-home. To the author 
 of the "Life of Bowyer," and other works devoted to our authors, our 
 literary history is more indebted, than to the labours of any other contem- 
 porary. He is the Prosper Marchand of English literature. 
 
 + It is, perhaps, unnecessary to point out this allusion of Pope to our 
 ancient mysteries, where the Clergy were the actors ; among which, the 
 Vice or Punch was introduced. (See " Curiosities of Literature.")
 
 60 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 " Spectator," signed Peter de Quir, which abounds with local 
 wit and quaint humour.* He had not attained his twenty- 
 second year when he published a poem, entitled " Esther, 
 Queen of Persia," f written amid graver studies; for three 
 years after, Henley, being M.A., published his " Complete 
 Linguist," consisting of grammars often languages. 
 
 The poem itself must not be passed by in silent notice. 
 It is preceded by a learned preface, in which the poet dis- 
 covers his intimate knowledge of oriental studies, with some 
 etymologies from the Persic, the Hebrew, and the Greek, 
 concerning the name and person of Ahasuerus, whom he 
 makes to be Xerxes. The close of this preface gives another 
 unexpected feature in the character of him who, the poet tells 
 us, was "embrowned with native bronze" — an unaflFected 
 modesty ! Henley, alluding to a Greek paraphrase of Bai-nes, 
 censures his faults with acrimony, and even apologises for 
 them, by thus gracefully closing the preface : " These can 
 only be alleviated by one plea, the youth of the author, which 
 is a circumstance I hope the candid will consider in favour of 
 the present writer!" 
 
 The poem is not destitute of imagination and harmony. 
 
 The pomp of the feast of Ahasuerus has all the luxuriance 
 of Asiatic splendour ; and the circumstances are selected with 
 some fancy. 
 
 The higher guests approach a room of state, 
 "Where tissued couches all around were set 
 Labour'd with art ; o'er ivory tables thrown, 
 Embroider'd carpets fell in folds adown. 
 The bowers and gardens of the court were near, 
 ' And oi)en lights indulged the breathing air. 
 
 Pillars of marble bore a silken sky, 
 While cords of purple and fine linen tie 
 In silver rings, the azure canopy. 
 Distinct with diamond stars the blue was seen, 
 And earth and seas were feign'd in emerald green; 
 A globe of gold, ray'd with a pointed crown, 
 Form'd in the midst almost a real sun. 
 
 Nor is Henley less skilful in the elegance of his sentiments, 
 
 * Specimens of Henley's style may be most easily referred to in the 
 "Spectator," Nos. 94 and 518. The communication on punning, in the first ; 
 and that of judging character by exteriors, in the last ; are both attributed 
 to Henley. — Ed. 
 
 + The title is, "Esther, Queen of Persia, an historical Poem, in four 
 books ; by John Henley, B.A. of St. John's College, Cambridge. 1714."
 
 Disappointed Genius. 61 
 
 and in his development of the human character. When Esther 
 is raised to the throne, the poet says — 
 
 And Esther, though in robes, is Esther still. 
 And then sublimely exclaims — 
 
 The heroic soul, amidst its bliss or woe, 
 Is never swell'd too high, nor sunk too low ; 
 Stands, like its origin above the skies. 
 Ever the same great self, sedately wise; 
 Collected and prepared in every stage 
 To scorn a courting world, or bear its rage. 
 
 But wit which the " Spectator" has sent down to pos- 
 terity, and poetry which gave the promise of excellence, did 
 not bound the noble ambition of Henley ; ardent in more 
 important labours, he was perfecting himself in the learned 
 languages, and carrying on a correspondence with eminent 
 scholars. 
 
 He officiated as the master of the free-school at his native 
 town in Leicestershire, then in a declining state ; but he 
 introduced many original improvements. He established a 
 class for public elocution, recitations of the classics, orations, 
 &c. ; and arranged a method of enabling every scholar to give 
 an account of his studies without the necessity of consulting 
 others, or of being examined by particular questions. These 
 miracles are indeed a little apocryphal ; for they are di-awn 
 from that pseudo-gospel of his life, of which I am inclined to 
 think he himself was the evangelist. His grammar of ten 
 languages was now finished ; and his genius felt that obscure 
 spot too circumscribed for his ambition. He parted from the 
 inhabitants with their regrets, and came to the metropolis 
 with thirty recommendatory letters. 
 
 Henley probably had formed those warm conceptions of 
 patronage in which youthful genius cradles its hopes. Till 
 1724 he appears, however, to have obtained only a small 
 living, and to have existed by translating and writing. Thus, 
 after persevering studies, many successful literary efforts, and 
 much heavy taskwork, Henley found he was but a hireling 
 author for the booksellers, and a salaried " Hyp-doctor" for 
 the minister; for he received a stipend for this periodical 
 paper, which was to cheer the spirits of the people by ridi- 
 culing the gloomy forebodings of Amhurst's " Craftsman." 
 About this time the complete metamorphosis of the studious 
 and ingenious John Henley began to branch out into its 
 grotesque figure ; and a curiosity in human nature was now
 
 62 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 about to be opened to public inspection. " The Preacher " 
 was to personate " The Zany." His temper had become 
 brutal, and he had gradually contracted a ferocity and gross- 
 ness in his manners, which seem by no means to have been 
 indicated in his purer days. His youth was disgraced by no 
 irregulai'ities — it was studious and honourable. But he was 
 now quick at vilifying the greatest characters ; and having a 
 perfect contempt for all mankind, was resolved to live by 
 making one half of the world laugh at the other. Such is the 
 direction which disappointed genius has too often given to 
 its talents. 
 
 He first affected oratory, and something of a theatrical 
 attitude in his sermons, which greatly attracted the populace : 
 and he startled those preachers who had so long dozed over 
 their own sermons, and who now finding themselves with but 
 few slumberers about them, envied their Ciceronian brother, 
 
 Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands. 
 
 It was alleged against Henley, that " he drew the people 
 too much from their parish churches, and was not so proper 
 for a London divine as a rxiral pastor." He was offered a 
 rustication, on a better living ; but Henley did not come from 
 the country to return to it. 
 
 There is a narrative of the life of Henley, which, sub- 
 scribed by another person's name, he himself inserted in his 
 " Oratory Transactions."* As he had to publish himself this 
 highly seasoned biographical morsel, and as his face was then 
 beginning to be "embrowned with bronze," he thus • very 
 impudently and very ingeniously apologises for the pane- 
 gyric :— 
 
 " If any remark of the writer appeal's favourable to myself, 
 and be judged apocryphal, it may, however, weigh in the 
 opposite scale to some things less obligingly said of me ; false 
 praise being as pardonable as false reproach. "f 
 
 * Many of the rough drafts of his famed discourses delivered at the 
 Oratory are preserved in the library of the Guildhall, London. The 
 advertisements he drew up for the papers, announcing their subject, 
 are generally exceedingly whimsical, and calculated to attract popular 
 attention. — Ed. 
 
 + This narrative is subscribed A. Welstede. Warburton maliciously 
 quotes it as a life of Henley, written by Welsted — doubtless designed to 
 lower the writer of that name, and one of the heroes of the Dunciad. The 
 public have long been deceived by this artifice ; the effect, I believe, of 
 Warburton's dishonesty.
 
 Disappointed Genius. 65 
 
 In this narrative we are told, that when at college — 
 
 " He began to be uneasy that he had not the liberty of 
 thinking, without incurring the scandal of heterodoxy ; he 
 was impatient that systems of all sorts were put into his 
 hands ready carved out for him ; it shocked him to find that 
 he was commanded to believe against his judgment, and 
 resolved some time or other to enter his protest against any 
 person being bred like a slave, who is born an Englishman." 
 
 This is all very decorous, and nothing can be objected to the 
 first cry of this reforming patriot but a reasonable suspicion 
 of its truth. If these sentiments were I'eally in his mind at 
 college, he deserves at least the praise of retention : for 
 fifteen years were sufl^ered to pass quietly without the patriotic 
 volcano giving even a distant rumbling of the sulphurous 
 matter concealed beneath. All that time had passed in the 
 contemplation of church preferment, with the aerial perspec- 
 tive lighted by a visionary mitre. But Henley grew indignant 
 at his disappointments, and suddenly resolved to reform " the 
 gross impostures and faults that have long prevailed in the 
 received institutions and establisliments of knowledge and 
 religion " — simply meaning that he wished to pull down the 
 Church and the tfniversity ! 
 
 But he was prudent before he was patriotic ; he at first 
 grafted himself on "VVliiston, adopting his opinions, and sent 
 some queries by which it appeal's that Henlej', previous to 
 breaking with the church, was anxious to learn the power it 
 had to punish him. The Arian Whiston was himself, from 
 pure motives, suffering expulsion from Cambridge, for refusing 
 his subscription to the Athanasian Creed ; he was a pious man, 
 and no buffoon, but a little crazed. Whiston afterwards dis- 
 covered the character of his correspondent, he then requested 
 the Bishop of London 
 
 " To summon Mr. Henley, the orator, whose vile history I 
 knew so well, to come and tell it to the church. But the 
 bishop said he could do nothing ; since which time Mr. Hen- 
 ley has gone on for about twenty years without control every 
 week, as an ecclesiastical mountebank, to abuse religion." 
 
 The most extraordinary project was now formed by Henley ; 
 he was to teach mankind universal knowledge from his lec- 
 tures, and primitive Christianity from his sermons. He took 
 apartments in Newport market, and opened his " Oratory." 
 He declared, 
 
 " He .would teach more in one year than schools and uni-
 
 64 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 versities did in five, and write and study twelve hours a-day, 
 and yet appear as untouched by the yoke, as if he never 
 bore it." 
 
 In his " Idea of what is intended to be taught in the 
 Week-days' Universal Academy^'' we may admire the fertility, 
 and sometimes the grandeur of his views. His lectures and 
 orations* are of a very different nature from what they are 
 imagined to be ; literary topics are treated with perspicuity 
 and with erudition, and there is something original in the 
 manner. They were, no doubt, larded and stuffed with 
 many high-seasoned jokes, which Henley did not send to the 
 printer. 
 
 Henley was a charlatan and a knave ; but in all his charla- 
 tanerie and his knavery he indulged the reveries of genius ; 
 
 * Every lecture is dedicated to some branch of the royal family. Among 
 them one is on "University Learning," an attack. — "On the English 
 History and Historians," extremely curious. — " On the Languages, Ancient 
 and Modern," full of erudition. — "On the English Tongue," a valuable 
 criticism at that moment when our style was receiving a new polish from 
 Addison and Prior. Henley, acknowledging that these writers had raised 
 correctness of expression to its utmost height, adds, though, " if I mistake 
 not, something to the detriment of that/orcc and freedom that ought, with 
 the most concealed art, to be a perfect copy of nature in all compositions." 
 This is among the first notices of that artificial style which has vitiated our 
 native idiom, substituting for its purity an affected delicacy, and for its 
 vigour profuse ornament. Henley observes that, "to be perspicuous, pure, 
 elegant, copious, and harmonious, are the chief good qualities of writing the 
 English tongue ; they are attained by study and practice, and lost by the 
 contrary : but imitation is to be avoided ; they cannot be made our own but 
 by keeping the force of our understandings superior to our models ; by 
 rendering our tJwughts the original, and our vmrds the coj^y." — " On Wit 
 and Imagination," abounding with excellent criticism. — " On grave conun- 
 drums and serious buffoons, in defence of burlesque discourses, from the 
 most weighty authorities." — "A Dissertation upon Nonsense." At the 
 close he has a fling at his friend Pope ; it was after the publication of the 
 Dunciad. " Of Nonsense there are celebrated professors ; Mr. Pope grows 
 witty like Bays in the 'Rehearsal,' by selling bargains (his subscriptions 
 for Homer), praising himself, laughing at his joke, and making his own 
 works the test of any man's criticism ; but he seems to be in some jeopardy; 
 for the ghost of Homer has lately spoke to him in Greek, and Shakspeare 
 re.solves to bring him, as he has brought Shakspeare, to a tragical conclu- 
 sion. Mr. Pope suggests the last choice of a subject for writing a book, by 
 making the Nonsense of others his argument ; while his own puts it out of 
 any writei-'s power to confute him." In another fling at Pope, he gives the 
 reason why Mr. Pupe adds tlie dirty dialect to that of the water, and is in 
 love with the Nymphs of Fleet ditch ; and in a lecture on the spleen he 
 announced " an anatomical discovery, that Mr. Pope's spleen is bigger than 
 his head !"
 
 Disajipointed Genius. 65* 
 
 many of which have been realised since ; and, if we continue 
 to laugh at Henley, it will indeed be cruel, for wc shall be- 
 laughing at ourselves ! Among the objects which Henley 
 discriminates in his general design, were, to supply the want 
 of a university, or universal school, in this capital, for persons 
 of all ranks, professions, and capacities ; — to encourage a hte- 
 rary correspondence with great men and learned bodies ; the- 
 communication of all discoveries and experiments in science 
 and the ai'ts ; to form an amicable society for the encourage-- 
 ment of learning, " in order to cultivate, adorn, and exalt the 
 genius of Britain ;" to lay a foundation for an English 
 Academy ; to give a standard to our language, and a digest to 
 om* history ; to revise the ancient schools of philosophy and 
 elocution, which last has been reckoned by Pancirollus among- 
 the artes jyerditee. All these were " to bring all the parts of 
 knowledge into the narrowest compass, placing them in the' 
 clearest light, and fixing them to the utmost certainty." The 
 religion of the Oratory was to be that of the primitive church 
 in the first ages of the four first general councils, approved by 
 parliament in the first year of the reign of Elizabeth. " The 
 Church of England is really with us ; we appeal to her own 
 principles, and we shall not deviate from her, unless she 
 deviates from herself." Yet his "Primitive Christianity" 
 had all the sumptuous pomp of popery ; his creeds and doxolo- 
 gies are printed in the red letter, and his liturgies in the 
 black ; his pulpit blazed in gold and velvet (Pope's " gilt 
 tub ") ; while his " Primitive Eucharist " was to be dis- 
 tributed with all the ancient forms of celebrating the sacrifice 
 of the altar, which he says, " are so noble, so just, sublime^ 
 and perfectly harmonious, that the change has been made to 
 an unspeakable disadvantage." It was restoring the decora- 
 tions and the mummery of the mass ! He assumed even a 
 higher tone, and dispersed medals, like those of Louis XIV., 
 with the device of a sun near the meridian, and a motto, Ad 
 summa, with an inscription expressive of the genius of this 
 new adventurer, Inveniam viam aut faciam ! There was a 
 snake in the grass ; it is obvious that Henley, in improving- 
 literature and philosophy, had a deeper design — to set up a 
 new sect ! He called himself "a Rationahst," and on his 
 death-bed repeatedly cried out, " Let my notorious enemies 
 know I die a Rational."* 
 
 * TLus he anticipated the term, since become so notorious among 
 German theologians.
 
 '66 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 His address to the town* excited public curiosity to the 
 utmost ; and the floating crowds were repulsed by their own 
 "violence from this new paradise, where " The Tree of 
 Xnowledge" was said to be planted. At the succeeding 
 meeting ''the Restorer of Ancient Eloquence" informed 
 " persons in chairs that they must come sooner." He first 
 •commenced by subscriptions to be raised from " persons emi- 
 nent in Arts and Literature," who, it seems, were lured by 
 the seductive promise, that, " if they had been virtuous or 
 penitents, they should be commemorated ;" an oblique hint 
 at a panegyrical puff. In the decline of his popularity he 
 permitted his doorkeeper, whom he dignifies with the title of 
 Ostiari/, to take a shilling ! But he seems to have been po- 
 pular for many years ; even when his auditors were but few, 
 they were of "the better order ;t and in notes respecting him 
 which I have seen, by a contemporary, he is called " the 
 reverend and learned." His fiivourite character was that of 
 a Restorer of Eloquence ; and he was not destitute of the 
 qualifications of a fine orator, a good voice, graceful gesture, 
 and forcible elocution. Warburton justly remarked, " Some- 
 times he broke jests, and sometimes that bread which he 
 called the Primitive Eucharist." He would degenerate into 
 buffoonery on solemn occasions. His address to the Deity 
 was at first awful, and seemingly devout ; but, once expa- 
 tiating on the several sects who would certainly be damned, 
 he prayed that the Dutch might be undamm'd ! He under- 
 took to show the ancient use of the petticoat, by quoting the 
 Scriptures where the mother of Samuel is said to have made 
 him '' a little coat^'' ergo, a PETTi-coa^ !:|: His advertise- 
 
 * It is preserved in tlie "Historical Register," vol. xi. for 1726. It is 
 curious and well written. 
 
 + "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. Ivii. p. 876, 
 
 X His "Defence of the Oratory " is a curious performance. He pretends 
 to derive his own from great authority. " St. Paul is related, Acts 28, to 
 have dwelt two xchvle years in his own hired hotisc, and to have received 
 all that came in unto him, teaching those things which concern the Lord 
 Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. This was at 
 Home, and doubtless was his practice in his other travels, there being the 
 same reason in the thing to produce elsewhere the like circumstances." 
 He proceeds to sliow "the calumnies and reproaches, and the novelty and 
 impiety, with which Cliristianity, at its first setting out, was charged, as a 
 mean, abject institution, not only useless and unserviceable, but pernicious 
 to the public and its professors, as the refuse of the world." — Of tlio false 
 . accusations raised against Jesus — all this he applies to himself and his
 
 Disappointed Genius. 67 
 
 ments were mysterious ribaldry to attract curiosity, while 
 his own good sense would frequently chastise those who 
 could not resist it ; his auditors came in folly, but they de- 
 parted in good-humour.* These advertisements were usually 
 preceded by a sort of motto, generally a sarcastic allusion to 
 some public transaction of the preceding week.f Henley 
 pretended to great impartiality ; and when tv/o preachers 
 had animadverted on him, he issued an advertisement, an- 
 nouncing " A Lecture that will be a challenge to the Rev. 
 Mr, Batty and the Eev. Mr. Albert. Letters are sent to 
 them on this head, and a free standing-ijlace is there to be 
 had ffrafis.'" Once Henley offered to admit of a disputation, 
 iind that he would impartially determine the merits of the 
 contest. It happened that Henley this time was over- 
 oratory — and lie concludes, that "Bringing men to think rightly will 
 always be reckoned a depraving of their minds by those who are desirous to 
 keep them in a mistake, and who measure all truth by the standard of 
 their own narrow opinions, views, and passions. The principles of this 
 institution are those of right reason : the first ages of Christianity ; true 
 facts, clear criticism, and polite literature — if these corrupt the mind, to 
 find a place where the mind will not be corrupted will be impracticable." 
 Thus speciously could "the Orator" reason, raising himself to the height 
 of apostolical purity. And when he was accused that he did all for lucre, 
 he retorted, that "some do notldn'j for it ;" and that "he preached more 
 charity sermons than any clergj-man in the kingdom." 
 
 * He once advertised an oration on marriage, which drew together an 
 overflowing assembly of females, at which, solemnly shaking his head, he 
 told the ladies, that "he was afraid, that oftentimes, as well as now, they 
 came to church in hopes to get husbands, rather than be instructed by the 
 preacher ;" to which he added a piece of wit not quite decent. He congre- 
 gated the trade of shoemakers, by ofi"ering to show the most expeditious 
 method of making shoes : he held out a boot, and cut ofl' the leg part. He 
 gave a lecture, which he advertised was "for the instruction of those who 
 do not like it ; it was on the philosophy, history, and great use of Nonsense 
 to the learned, political, and polite world, who excel in it." 
 
 f Dr. Cobden, one of George the Second's chaplains, having, in 1748, 
 preached a sermon at St. James's from these words, "Take away the 
 "wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in 
 righteousness," it gave so much displeasure, that the doctor was struck out 
 of the list of chaplains ; and the next Saturday the following parody of his 
 text appeared as a motto to Henley's advertisement : 
 
 "Away with the wicked before the king, 
 And away with the wicked behind him ; 
 His throne it -will bless 
 With righteousness. 
 And we shall know where to find him. " 
 
 Chalmers's " Biographical Dictionary." 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 matclied ; for two Oxonians, supported by a strong party to 
 awe his "marrow-boners," as the butchers were called, said 
 to be in the Orator's pay, entered the list ; the one to defend 
 the ignorance, the other the impudence, of the Kestorer of 
 Eloquence himself. As there was a door behind the rostrum, 
 which led to his house, the Orator silently dropped out, 
 postponing the award to some happier day.* 
 
 This age of lecturers may find their model in Henley's 
 *■ Universal Academy," and if any should aspire to bi-ing 
 themselves down to his genius, I furnish them Avith hints of 
 anomalous topics. In the second number of " The Oratory 
 Transactions," is a diary from July 1726, to August 1728. 
 It forms, perhaps, an unparalleled chronicle of the vagaries of 
 the human mind. These archives of cunning, of folly, and 
 of literature, are divided into two diaries ; the one " The Theo- 
 logical or Lord's days' subjects of the Oratory ;" the other, 
 " The Academical or Week-days' subjects." I can only note 
 a few. It is easy to pick out ludicrous specimens ; for he had 
 a quaint humour peculiar to himself; but among these 
 numerous topics are many curious for their knowledge and 
 ingenuity. 
 
 "The last Wills and Testaments of the Patriarchs." 
 " An Argument to the Jews, with a proof that they ought 
 to be Christians, for the same reason which they ougiit to be 
 Jews." 
 
 " St. Paul's Cloak, Books, and Parchments, left at Troas." 
 " The tears of Magdalen, and the joy of angels." 
 " New Converts in Religion.' ' After pointing out the names 
 of " Courayer and others, the D of W n, the Pro- 
 
 * The history of the closing years of Henley's life is thus given in " The 
 History of the Kobin Hood Society," 1764, a political club, whose debates 
 he occasionally enlivened : — "The Orator, with various success, still kept 
 up his Oratory, Khifj George's, or Charles's Chapel, as he differently 
 termed it, till the year 1759, when he died. At its first establishment it 
 ■was amazingly crowded, and money flowed in upon him apace; and between 
 •whiles it languished and drooped : but for some years before its author's 
 death it dwindled away so much, and fell into such an hectic state, that 
 the few friends of it feared its decease was very near. The doctor, indeed,, 
 kept it up to the last, determined it .should live as long as he did, and 
 actually exhibited many evenings to empty benches. Finding no one at length 
 would attend, he admitted the acquaintances of his door-keeper, runner, 
 mouth-piece, and some other of his followers, gratis. On the 13th of 
 October, however, the doctor died, and the Oratory ceased ; no one having 
 iniquity or impudence sufficient to continue it on." — Ed.
 
 . Disappointed Genius. 69 
 
 testantism of the P , the conversion of the Hcv. Mr. 
 
 B e, and Mr. Har y" he closes with " Origen's opi- 
 nion of Satan's conversion ; with the choice and bahince of 
 Keligion in all countries." 
 
 There is one remarkable entry : — 
 
 " Feb. 11. This week all Mr. Henley's writings were 
 seized, to be examined by the State. Vide Maf/nam Char- 
 tam, and Eiiq Lib." 
 
 It is evident by what follows that the j^ersonalities he 
 made use of were one means of attracting auditors. 
 
 " On the action of Cicero, and the beauty of Eloquence, 
 and on living characters ; of action in the Senate, at the Bar, 
 and in the Pulpit — of the Theatrical in all men. The 
 
 manner of my Lord , Sir , Dr. , the B. of -, 
 
 being a proof how all life is pla3'ing something, but with 
 Jifterent action." 
 
 In a Lecture on the History of Bookcraft, an account was 
 given 
 
 " Of the plent}'- of books, and dearth of sense ; the advan- 
 tages of the Oratory to the booksellers, in advertising for 
 them ; and to their customers, in making books useless ; with 
 all the learning, reason, and wit more than are proper for one 
 advertisement." 
 
 Amid these eccentricities it is remarkable that " the 
 Zany" never forsook his studies ; and the amazing multi- 
 plicity of the MSS. he left behind him confirm this extra- 
 ordinary fact. " These," he says, " are six thousand more or 
 less, that I value at one guinea apiece ; with 150 volumes of 
 commonplaces of wit, memoranda," &c. They wei'o sold for 
 much less than one hundred pounds ; I have looked over 
 many ; they are written with great care. Every leaf has an 
 opposite blank page, probably left for additions or corrections, 
 so that if his nonsense were spontaneous, his sense was the 
 fruit of study and correction. 
 
 Such was " Orator Henley !" A scholar of great acquire- 
 ments, and of no mean genius ; hai-dy and inventive, elo- 
 quent and witty ; he might have been an ornament to litera- 
 ture, which he made ridiculous ; and the pride of the pulpit, 
 which he so egregiously disgraced ; but, having blunted and 
 worn out that interior feeling, which is the instinct of the 
 good man, and the wisdom of the wise, there was no balance 
 in his passions, and the decorum of life was sacrificed to its
 
 70 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 selfishness. He condescended to live on the follies of the 
 people, and his sordid nature had changed him till he crept, 
 "licking the dust witli the serpent."* 
 
 THE MALADIES OF AUTHOKS. 
 
 The practice of every art subjects the artist to some par- 
 ticular inconvenience, usually inflicting some malady on that 
 member which has been over-wrought by excess : nature 
 abused, pursues man into his most secret corners, and avenges 
 herself. In the athletic exercises of the ancient Gymnasium, 
 the pugilists were observed to become lean from their hips 
 downwards, while the superior parts of their bodies, which 
 they over-exercised, were prodigiously swollen ; on the con- 
 trary, the racers were meagre upwards, while their feet ac- 
 quired an unnatural dimension. The secret source of life 
 seems to be carried forwards to those parts which are making 
 the most continued efforts. 
 
 In all sedentary labours, some particular malady is con- 
 tracted by every worker, derived from particular postures of 
 the body and peculiar habits. Thus the weaver, the tailor, 
 the painter, and the glass-blower, have all their respective 
 maladies. The diamond-cutter, with a furnace before him, 
 may be said almost to live in one ; the slightest air must be 
 shut out of the apartment, lest it scatter away the precious 
 dust — a breath would ruin him ! 
 
 The analogy is obvious ;t and the author must participate 
 in the common fate of all sedentary occupations. But his 
 maladies, from the very nature of the delicate organ of 
 thinking, intensely exercised, are more terrible than those of 
 any other profession ; they are more complicated, more hidden 
 
 * Hogartli has preserved his features in the parson who figures so con- 
 spicuously in his "Modern Jlidnight Conversation." His off-hand style of 
 discourse is given in the Graifs-Inn Journal, 1753 (No. IS), in an 
 imaginary meeting of the political Robin Hood Society, where he figures as 
 Orator Bronze, and exclaims : — " I am pleased to see this assembly— you're 
 a twig from me ; a chip of the old block at Clare Market ; — I am the old 
 block, invincible ; coup de f/racc as yet unanswered. We arc Ijrother 
 rationalists ; logicians upon fundamentals ! I love ye all — I love mankind 
 in general — give me some of that porter." — Ed. 
 
 + Hawkesworth, in the second paper of the "Adventurer," has com- 
 posed, from his own feelings, an elegant description of intellectual and 
 corporeal labour, and the sufferings of an author, with the uncertainty of 
 his labour and his reward.
 
 The Maladies of Authors. 71 
 
 in their causes, and the mysterious union and secret influence- 
 of the faculties of the soul over those of the body, are 
 visible, yet still incomprehensible ; they frequently produce a 
 perturbation in the faculties, a state of acute irritabilit}^ and 
 many sorrows and infirmities, which are not likel}^ to create 
 much sympathy from those around the author, who, at a 
 glance, could have discovered where the pugilist or the racer 
 became iiieagre or monstrous : the intellectual malady eludes 
 even the tenderness of friendship. 
 
 The more obvious maladies engendered by the life of a 
 student arise from over-stud3^ These have furnished a curious 
 volume to Tissot, in his treatise " On the Health of Men of 
 Letters;" a book, however, which chills and terrifies more 
 than it does good. 
 
 The unnatural fixed postures, the perpetual activity of the 
 mind, and the inaction of the body ; the brain exhausted with 
 assiduous toil deranging the nerves, vitiating the digestive 
 powers, disordering its own machinery, and breaking the calm 
 of sleep b}' that previous state of excitement which study 
 throws us into, are some of the calamities of a studious life : 
 for like the ocean when its swell is subsiding, the waves of 
 the mind too still heave and beat ; hence all the small feverish 
 symptoms, and the whole train of hypochondriac affections, 
 as well as some acute ones.* 
 
 * Dr. Fuller's "Medicina Gyinnastica, or, a treatise concerning tlie 
 power of Exercise, with respect to the Animal CEconomy, fifth edition, 
 1718," is useful to remind the student of what he is apt to forget ; for the 
 object of this volume is to substitute exercise for medicine. He wrote the 
 book before he became a physician. He considers horse-riding as the best 
 and noblest of all exercises, it being "a mixed exercise, partly active and 
 partly passive, while other sorts, such as walking, running, stooping, or the 
 like, require some labour and more strength for their performance." 
 Cheyne, in his well-known treatise of "The English Malady," published 
 about twenty years after Fuller's work, acknowledges that riding on horse- 
 back is the best of all exercises, for which he details his reasons. " Walk- 
 ing," he says, "though it will answer the same end, yet is it more 
 laborious and tiresome ;" but amusement ought always to be comoined with 
 the exercise of a student ; the mind will receive no refreshment by a solitary 
 walk or ride, unless it be agreeably withdrawn from all thoughtfulness and 
 anxiety ; if it continue studying in its recreations, it is the sure means 
 of obtaining neither of its objects — a friend, not an author, will at such a 
 moment be the better companion. 
 
 The last chapter in Fuller's work contains much curious reading on the 
 ancient physicians, and their gymnastic courses, which Asclepiades, the 
 pleasant est of all the ancient physicians, greatly studied ; he was most 
 fortunate in the invention of exercises to supply the place of much physic, 
 and (says Fuller) no man in any age ever bad the happiness to obtain so
 
 "72 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 Among the correspondents of the poets Hughes and Thom- 
 son, there is a pathetic letter from a student. Alexander Bayne, 
 to prepare his lectures, studied fourteen hours a-day for eight 
 months successivel}', and wrote 1,600 sheets. Such intense 
 application, which, however, not greatly exceeds that of many 
 authors, hrought on the hodily complaints he has minutely 
 described, with " all the dispiriting syinptoms of a nervoixs 
 illness, commonly called vapours, or lowness of spirits." 
 Bayne. who was of an athletic temperament, imagined he had 
 not paid attention to his diet, to the lowness of his desk, and 
 liis habit of sitting with a particular compression of the body ; 
 in future all these were to be avoided. He prolonged his 
 life for five years, and, perhaps, \vas still flattering his hopes 
 of sharing one day in the literary celebrity of his friends, 
 when, to use his words, " the same illness made a fierce 
 iittack upon me again, and has kept me in a very bad state 
 .of inactivity and disrelish of all my ordinary amusements :" 
 those amusements were his serious studies. There is a fasci- 
 nation in literary labour : the student feeds on magical drugs ; 
 to withdraw him irom them requires nothing less than that 
 greater magic wdiich could break his own spells. A few 
 months after this letter was written Ba^'ne died on the way 
 to Bath, a martj^r to his studies. 
 
 The excessive labour on a voluminous work, which occupies 
 a long life, leaves the student with a broken constitution, and 
 his sight decayed or lost. The most admirable observer of 
 mankind, and the truest painter of the human heart, declares, 
 " The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthy 
 tabernacle weigheth down tlie mind that museth oii many 
 things.''^ Of this class was old E-andle Cotgrave, the curious 
 collector of the most copious dictionary of old French and 
 old English words and phrases. The work is the only treasury 
 of our genuine idiom. Even this labour of the lexicographer, 
 
 general an applause ; Pliny calls him the delight of mankind. Admirable 
 physician, who had so many ways, it appears, to make physic agreeable ! 
 lie invented the Icdi jicnsilfs, or hanging beds, that the sick might be 
 rocked to sleep ; which took so much at that time, t^at they became a great 
 luxury among the Eomans. 
 
 Fuller judiciously does not recommend the gymnastic courses, because 
 horse-riding, for ]iersons of delicate constitutions, is ])referable ; he discovers 
 too the reason why the ancients did not introduce this mode of exercise — it 
 arose from the simple circumstance of their not knowing the use of stirrups, 
 wliicJi was a later invention. Hiding with the ancients was, therefore, 
 only an exercise for the healthy and tlie robust ; a horse without stirrups 
 was a formidable animal for a valetudinnriau.
 
 TJie Maladies of Authors. 73 
 
 so copious and so elaborate, must have been projected with 
 rapture, and pursued with pleasure, till, in the progress, "the 
 mind was musing on many things." Then came the melan- 
 choly doubt, that drops mildew from its enveloping wings 
 over the voluminous labour of a laborious author, whether he 
 be wisely consuming his da3^s, and not perpetually neglecting 
 some higher duties or some happier amusements. Still the 
 enchanted delver sighs, and strikes on in the glimmering mine 
 of hope. If he live to complete the great labour, it is, per- 
 haps, reserved for the applause of the next age ; for, as our 
 great lexicographer exclaimed, " In this gloom of solitude I 
 have protracted my work, till those whom I wished to please 
 have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are 
 empty sounds ;" but, if it be applauded in his own, that praise 
 has come too late for him whose literary labour has stolen 
 away his sight. Cotgrave had grown blind over his dictionary, 
 and was doubtful whether this work of his laborious days and 
 nightly vigils was not a superliuous labour, and nothing, after 
 all, but a "poor bundle of words." The reader may listen 
 to the gray-headed martyr addressing his patron, Lord 
 Burghley : 
 
 " I present to your lordship an account of the expense of 
 onany hours, which, in your service, and to mine own benefit, 
 might have heen otherwise employed. My desires have aimed 
 at more substantial marks ; but mine eyes failed them, and 
 forced me to spend out their vigour in this bundle of words, 
 which ma}^ be uuworth}'' of your lordship's great patience, 
 and, perhaps, ill-suited to the expectation of others.'''' 
 
 A great number of young authors have died of over-study. 
 An intellectual enthusiasm, accompanied by constitutional 
 delicacy, has swept away half the rising genius of the age. 
 Curious calculators have affected to discover the average num- 
 ber of infants who die under the age of five years : had they 
 investigated those of the children of genius who perish before 
 their thirtieth year, we should not be less amazed at this 
 waste of man. There are few scenes more afflicting, nor 
 which more deeply engageour sympathy, than that of a youth, 
 glowing with the devotion of study, and resolute to distin- 
 guish his name among his countrymen, while death is stealing 
 on him, touching with premature age, before he sti-ikes the 
 last blow. The author perishes on the very pages which give 
 a charm to his existence. The tine taste and tender melan- 
 choly of Headley, the fervid genius of Henrj^ Kirke White,
 
 74- Calamities of Authors. 
 
 will not easily pass away ; but how many youths as noble- 
 minded have not had the fortune of Kirke White to be com- 
 memorated by genius, and have perished without their fame ! 
 Henry Wharton is a name well known to the student of 
 English literature ; he published historical criticisms of high 
 value ; and he left, as some of the fruits of his studies, sixteen 
 volumes of MS., preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at 
 Lambeth. These great labours were pursued with the ardour 
 that only could have produced them ; the author had not ex- 
 ceeded his thirtieth year when he sank under his continued 
 studies, and perished a martyr to literature. Our literary 
 history abounds with instances of the sad effects of an over 
 indulgence in study : that agreeable writer, Howel, had nearly 
 lost his life by an excess of this nature, studying through long 
 nights in the depth of winter. This severe study occasioned 
 an imposthume in his head; he was eighteen days without 
 sleep ; and the illness was attended with many other afflicting 
 symptoms. The eager diligence of Blackmore, protracting 
 his studies through the night, broke his health, and obliged 
 him to fly to a country retreat. Harris, the historian, died 
 of a consumption hj midnight studies, as his friend Hollis 
 mentions. I shall add a recent instance, which I myself wit- 
 nessed : it is that of John Macdiarmid. He was one of those 
 Scotch students whom the golden fame of Hume and 
 Itobertson attracted to the metropolis. He mounted the first 
 steps of literary adventure with credit ; and passed through 
 the probation of editor and reviewer, till he strove for more 
 heroic adventures. He published some volumes, whose sub- 
 jects display the aspirings of his genius: "An Inquiry into 
 the Nature of Civil and Military Subordination ;" another 
 into "the System of Military Defence." It was during these 
 labours I beheld this inquirer, of a tender frame, emaciated, 
 and study-worn, with hollow eyes, where the mind dimly shone 
 like a lamp in a tomb. With keen ardour he opened a new 
 plan of biographical politics. When, by one who wished 
 the author was in better condition, the dangers of excess in. 
 study were brought to his recollection, he smiled, and, with 
 something of a mysterious air, talked of unalterable confi- 
 dence in the powers of his mind ; of the indefinite improve- 
 ment in our faculties : and, with this enfeebled frame, con- 
 sidered himself capable of continuous labour. His whole 
 life, indeed, was one melancholy trial. Often the day cheer- 
 fully passed without its meal, but never without its page.
 
 Literary Scotchmen. 75 
 
 The new system of political biography was advancing-, when 
 our young author lelt a paralytic stroke. He afterwards 
 resumed his pen ; and a second one proved futaL He lived 
 just to pass through the press his " Lives of British States- 
 men," a splendid quarto, Avhose publication lie owed to the 
 generous temper of a friend, who, when the author could not 
 readily procure a publisher, would not see the dying author's 
 last hope disappointed. Some research and reflection are com- 
 bined in this literary and civil history of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centm-ies ; but it was written with the blood of 
 the author, for Macdiarmid died of over-study and exhaustion. 
 Among the maladies of poor authors, who procure a pre- 
 carious existence by their pen, one, not the least considerable, 
 is their old age ; their flower and maturity of life were shed 
 for no human comforts ; and old age is the withered root. 
 The late Thomas Moetimer, the compiler, among other 
 things, of that useful work, "The Student's Pocket Dic- 
 tionary," felt this severely — he himself experienced no abate- 
 ment of his ardour, nor deficienc}'- in his intellectual powers, 
 at near the age of eighty; — but he then would complain "of 
 the paucity of literary emplo^'ment, and the preference given 
 to young adventurers." Such is the youth, and such the old 
 arje of ordinary authors ! 
 
 LITERARY SCOTCHMEN. 
 
 "What literary emigrations from the North of young men of 
 genius, seduced by a romantic passion for literary fame, and 
 lured by the golden prospects which the happier genius of 
 some of their own countrymen opened on them. • A volume 
 might be written on literary Scotchmen, who have perished 
 immaturely in this metropolis ; little known, and slightly 
 connected, they have dropped away among us, and scarcely 
 left a vestige in the wrecks of their genius. Among them 
 some authors may be discovered who might have ranked, 
 perhaps, in the first classes of our literature. I shall select 
 four out of as many hundred, who were not entirely unknown 
 to me ; a romantic youth — a man of genius — a brilliant prose 
 writer — and a labourer in literature. 
 
 Isaac Eitson (not tho poetical antiquary) was a young 
 man of genius, who perisliied immaturely in this metropolis 
 by attempting to exist by the efforts of his pen.
 
 76 Calamines of Authors. 
 
 In early youth he roved among his native mountains, with 
 the battles of Homer in his head, and his bow and arrow in his 
 hand ; in calmer hours, he nearly completed a spirited version 
 of Hesiod, which constantly occupied his after-studies ; yet 
 our minstrel-archer did not less love the severer sciences. 
 
 Selected at lengtli to rise to the eminent station of the 
 Village Schoolmaster, — from the thankless office of pouring 
 cold rudiments into heedless ears, Ritson took a poetical 
 night. It was among the mountains and wild scenery of 
 Scotland that our young Homer, picking up fragments of 
 heroic songs, and composing some fine ballad poetry, would, 
 in his wanderings, recite them with such passionate expres- 
 sion, that he never failed of auditors ; and found even the 
 poor generous, when their better passions were moved. Thus 
 he lived, like some old troubadour, by his rhymes, and his 
 chants, and his virelays ; and, after a year's absence, our bard 
 returned in the triumph of verse. This was the most seducing 
 moment of life ; RiTSOX felt himself a laureated Petrarch ; but 
 he had now quitted his untutored but feeling admirers, and the 
 child of fancy was to mix with the everyda}^ business of life. 
 
 At Edinburgh he studied medicine, lived by writing theses 
 for the idle and the incompetent, and composed a poem on 
 Medicine, till at length his hopes and his ambition conducted 
 him to London. But the golden age of the imagination soon 
 deserted him in his obscure apartment in the glittering metro- 
 polis. He attended the hospitals, but these were crowded by 
 students who, if they I'elished the science less, loved the trade 
 more : he published a hasty version of Homer's Hj'mn to 
 Venus, which was good enough to be praised, but not to sell ; 
 at length his fertile imagination, withering over the taskwork 
 of literature, he resigned fame for bread ; wrote the preface 
 to Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, compiled medical articles 
 for the Monthly Review ; and, wasting fast his ebbing spirits, 
 be retreated to an obscure lodging at Islington, where death 
 relieved a hopeless author, in tlic twenty-seventh year of 
 his life. 
 
 The following unpolished lines were struck off at a heat in 
 trying his pen on the back of a letter ; he wrote the names 
 of the Sister Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos — the sud- 
 den recollection of his own fate rushed on him — and thus the 
 rhapsodist broke out : — 
 
 I wonder inucli, .is yet ye're spinnini::, Fates ! 
 ^Vllat threads yet twisted out for mc, old jades !
 
 Literary Scotchmen. 7T 
 
 Ah, Atropos ! perhaps for me thou spinn'st 
 Neglect, contempt, and penury and woe ; 
 Be't so ; whilst that foul fiend, the spleen, 
 And moping melancholy spare me, all the rest 
 I'll bear, as should a man ; 'twill do me good, 
 And teach me what no better fortune could, 
 Humility, and sympathy with others' ills. 
 
 Ye destinies, 
 
 I love yoii much ; ye flatter not my pride. 
 
 Your mien, 'tis true, is wrinkled, hard, and sour ; 
 
 Your words are harsh and stern ; and sterner still 
 
 Your purposes to me. Yet I forgive 
 
 Whatever j'ou have done, or mean to do. 
 
 Beneath some baleful planet born, I've found, 
 
 In all this world, no friend with fostering hand 
 
 To lead me on to science, which I love 
 
 Beyond all else the world could give ; yet still 
 
 Your rigour I forgive ; ye are not yet my foes ; 
 
 My own untutor'd will's my only curse. 
 
 We grasp asphaltic apples ; blooming poison ! 
 
 We love what we should hate ; how kind, ye Fates, 
 
 To tbwart our wishes ! you're kind to scourge ! 
 
 And flay us to the bone to make us feel ! — 
 
 Thus deeply he enters into his own feelings, and abjures- 
 his errors, as he paints the utter desolation of the soul while 
 falling into the grave opening at his feet. 
 
 The town was once amused almost every morning by a 
 series of humorous or burlesque poems by a writer under the. 
 assumed name of Matthew BramhJe — he was at that very 
 moment one of the most moving spectacles of human melan- 
 choly I have ever witnessed. 
 
 It was one evening I saw a tall, famished, melancholy man 
 enter a bookseller's shop, his hat flapped over his eyes, and his- 
 whole frame evidently feeble from exhaustion and utter misery. 
 The bookseller inquired how he proceeded in his new ti'agedy. 
 " Do not talk to me about my tragedy ! Do not talk to me 
 about my tragedy ! I have indeed more tragedy than I can. 
 bear at home!" was the reply, and the voice laltered as he 
 spoke. This man was Matthew Bramble, or rather — 
 M'DoxALD, the author of the tragedy of Vimonda, at that 
 moment the writer of comic poetry — his tragedy was indeed 
 a domestic one, in which he himself was the greatest actor 
 amid his disconsolate family; he shortly afterwards perished. 
 M'Donald had walked from Scotland with no other fortune than, 
 the novel of " The Independent" in one pocket, and the tragedy 
 of " Vimonda" in the other. Yet he lived some time in all the 
 bloom and flush of poetical confidence. Vimonda was even
 
 78 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 performed several nights, but not with the success the romantic 
 poet, among his native rocks, had conceived was to crown his 
 anxious labours — the theatre disappointed him — and after- 
 wards, to his feelings, all the world ! 
 
 Logan had the dispositions of a poetic spirit, not cast in a 
 common mould ; with fancy he combined learning, and with 
 eloquence philosophy. 
 
 His claims on our sympathy arise from those circumstances 
 in his life which open the secret sources of the calamities of 
 authors ; of those minds of finer temper, who, having tamed 
 the heat of their j^outh b}^ the patient severity of study, from 
 causes not always difficult to discover, find their favourite 
 objects and their fondest hopes barren and neglected. It is 
 then that the thoughtful melancholy, which constitutes so 
 large a portion of their genius, absorbs and consumes the very 
 faculties to which it gave birth. 
 
 Logan studied at the University of Edinburgh, was ordained 
 in the Church of Scotland — and early distinguished as a poet 
 bj' tlie simplicity and the tenderness of his verses, yet the 
 philosophy of history had as deeply interested his studies. He 
 gave two courses of lectures. I have heard from his pupils 
 their admiration, after the lapse of many years ; so striking 
 were those lectures for having successfully applied the science 
 of moral philosophy to the history of nations. All wished 
 that Logan should obtain the chair of the Professorship of 
 Universal History — but from some point of etiquette he failed 
 in obtaining that distinguished office. 
 
 This was his first disappointment in life, yet then perhaps 
 but lightly felt ; for the public had approved of his poems, 
 and a successful poet is easily consoled. Poetry to such a 
 gentle being seems a universal specific for all the evils of life ; 
 it acts at the moment, exhausting and destroying too often the 
 constitution it seems to restore. 
 
 He had finished the tragedy of " Runnymcde ;" it was 
 accepted at Co vent-garden, but interdicted by the Lord Cham- 
 berlain, from some suspicion that its lofty sentiments con- 
 tained allusions to the politics of the day. The Barons-in- 
 arms who met John were conceived to be deeper politicians 
 than the poet himself was aware of. This was the second 
 • disappointment in the life of this man of genius. 
 
 The third calamity was the natural consequence of a tragic 
 poet being also a Scotch clergyman. Logan had inflicted a 
 wound on the Presbytery, heirs of the genius of old Prynne,
 
 Literary Scotchmen. 79 
 
 whose puritanic fanaticism had never forgiven Home for 
 his " Douglas," and now groaned to detect genius still lurking 
 among them.* Logan, it is certain, expressed his contempt 
 for them ; they their hatred of him : folly and pride in a poet, 
 to beard Presbyters in a land of Presbyterians If 
 
 He gladly abandoned them, retiring on a small annuit}'. 
 They had, however, hurt his temper — they had irritated the 
 nervous system of a man too susceptible of all impressions, 
 gentle or unkind — his character had all those unequal habi- 
 tudes which genius contracts in its boldness and its tremors ; 
 he was now vivacious and indignant, and now fretted and 
 melancholy. He flew to the metropolis, occupied himself in 
 literature, and was a frequent contributor to the " English 
 lleview." He published " A lleview of the Principal Charges 
 against Mr. Hastings." Logan wrestled with the genius of 
 Burke and Sheridan ; the House of Commons ordered the 
 publisher Stockdale to be prosecuted, but the author did not 
 live to rejoice in the victory obtained by his genius. 
 
 This elegant philosopher has impressed on all his works the 
 seal of genius ; and his posthumous compositions became even 
 popular ; he who had with difficulty escaped excommunication 
 by Presbyters, left the world after his death two volumes of 
 sermons, which breathe all that piety, morality, and eloquence 
 admire. His unrevised lectures, published under the name of 
 a person, one Rutherford, who had purchased the MS., were 
 given to the world in " A View of Ancient Histor3^" But one 
 highly-finished composition he had himself published ; it is a 
 philosophical review of Despotism : had the name of Gibbon 
 been affixed to the title-page, its authenticity had not been 
 suspected. :{: 
 
 * Home was at the time when he wrote " Douglas " a clergyman in the 
 Scottish Church ; the theatre was then looked upon by the religious Scotsmen 
 with the most perfect abhorrence. Many means were taken to deter the 
 performance of the play ; and as they did not succeed, others were tried to 
 annoy the author, until their persevering eflbrts induced him to withdraw 
 himself entirely from the clerical profession. — En, 
 
 T The objection to his tragedy was made chiefly by his parishioners at 
 South Leith, who were strongly opposed to their minister being in any way 
 connected with the theatre. He therefore resigned his appointment, and 
 settled in London, which he never afterwards abandoned, dying there in 
 1788.— Ed. 
 
 t This admirable little work is entitled "A Dissertation on the Govern- 
 ments, Manners, and Spirit of Asia; Murray, 1787." It is anonymous; but 
 the publisher informed me it was written by Logan. His "Elements of the 
 Philosophy of History" are valuable. His ' ' Sermons" have been republished.
 
 80 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 From one of liis executors, Mr. Donald Grant, who wrote 
 the life prefixed to his poems, I heard of the state of his 
 numerous MSS. ; the scattered, yet warm embers of the 
 unhappy hard. Several tragedies, and one on Mary Queen 
 of Scots, abounding with all that domestic tenderness and 
 poetic sensibility which formed the soft and natural feature 
 of his muse ; these, with minor poems, thirty lectures on the 
 Roman History, and portions of a periodical paper, were the 
 wrecks of genius ! He resided here, little known out of a 
 very private circle, and perished in his fortieth year, not of 
 penury, but of a broken heart. Such noble and well-founded 
 expectations of fortune and fame, all the plans of literary 
 ambition overturned : his genius, with all its delicacy, its 
 spirit, and its elegance, became a prey to that melancholy 
 which constituted so large a portion of it. 
 
 Logan, in his " Ode to a Man of Letters," had formed this 
 lofty conception of a great author : — 
 
 Won from neglected wastes of time, 
 Apollo hails his fairest clime, 
 
 The provinces of mind ; 
 An Egypt with eternal towers ; * 
 See Montesquieu redeem the hours 
 
 From Louis to mankind. 
 
 No tame remission genius knows, 
 No interval of dark repose, 
 
 To quench the ethereal flame ; 
 From Thebes to Troy, the victor hies, 
 And Homer with his hero vies, 
 
 In varied paths to Fame. 
 
 Our children will long repeat his " Ode to the Cuckoo," 
 one of the most lovely poems in our language ; magical 
 stanzas of picture, melody, and sentiment.f 
 
 These authors were undoubtedly men of finer feelings, wlio 
 all perished immaturely, victims in tlie higher department of 
 literature ! But this article would not be complete without 
 furnishing the reader with a picture of the fate of one who, 
 Avith a pertinacity of industry not common, having vmdergone 
 
 * The finest provinces of Egypt gained from a neglected waste. 
 + An atteni])t has been made to deprive Logan of the authorship of this 
 poem. He had edited (very biully) the poems of a deceased friend, Michael 
 Bruce ; and the friends of the hitter claimed this poem as one of them. In 
 the words of one who has examined the evidence it may be sufficient to say, 
 " his claim is not only supported by internal evidence, but the charge was 
 never advanced against him while he was alive to repel it." — Ed.
 
 Literary Scotchmen. ;81 
 
 re^ulav studies, not very injudiciously deemed that the life 
 'of a man of letters could provide for the simple wants of a 
 philosopher. 
 
 This man was the late Eobeut Heeon, who, in the follow- 
 ing letter, transcribed from the original, stated his history to 
 the Literary Fund. It was written in a moment of extreme 
 bodily suffering and mental agony in the house to which 
 he had been hurried for debt. At such a moment he found 
 eloquence in a narrative, pathetic irom its simplicity, and 
 valuable for its genuineness, as giving the results of a life of 
 literary industry, productive of great infelicity and disgrace ; 
 one would imagine that the author had been a criminal rather 
 than a man of letters. 
 
 ^' The Case of a Man of Letters, ofrerjidar education, living 
 hy honest literary industry. 
 
 " Ever since I was eleven years of age I have mingled with 
 my studies the labour of teaching or of writing, to support 
 •and educate mj'self. 
 
 " During about twenty years, while I was in constant or 
 occasional attendance at the University of Edinburgh, I 
 taught and assisted young persons, at all periods, in the 
 course of education ; from the Alphabet to the highest 
 branches of Science and Literature. 
 
 " I read a course of Lectures on the Law of Nature, the 
 Law of Nations ; the Jewish, the Grecian, the Roman, and 
 the Canon Law ; and then .ou the Feudal Law ; and on 
 the several forms of Municipal Jurisprudence established in 
 Modern Europe. I printed a S^'Uabus of these Lectures, 
 which was approved. They were intended as introductory 
 to the professional study of Law, and to assist gentlemen 
 who did not study it professionally, in the understanding of 
 History. 
 
 " I translated ' Fourcroy's Chemistry' twice, from both 
 the second and the third editions of the original ; ' Fourcroy's 
 Philosophy of Chemistry;' ' Savary's Travels in Greece;' 
 ' Dumourier's Letters;' ' Gessner's Idylls' in part ; an ab- 
 stract of ' Zimmerman on Solitude,' and a great diversity of 
 smaller pieces. 
 
 " I wrote a ' Journey through the Western Parts of Scot- 
 land,' which has passed through two editions ; a ' History 
 of Scotland,' in six volumes 8vo ; a ' Topographical Account 
 of Scotland,' which has been several times reprinted ; a num- 
 
 G
 
 8.2 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 "ber of communications in the ' Edinburgh Magazine ;' many 
 Prefaces and Critiques ; a ' Memoir of the Life of Burns the 
 Poet,' which suggested and promoted the subscription for 
 his family — has been many times reprinted, and formed the 
 basis of Dr. Currie's Life of him, as I learned by a letter 
 from the doctor to one of his friends ; a variety of Jeux 
 d' Esprit in verse and prose ; and many abridgments of large 
 works. 
 
 " In the beginning of 1799 I was encouraged to come to 
 London. Here I have written a great multiplicity of articles 
 in almost every branch of science and literature ; my educa- 
 tion at Edinburgh having comprehended them all. The 
 ' London Eeview,' the ' Agricultural Magazine,' the ' Anti- 
 Jacobin Eeview,' the ' Monthly Magazine,' the ' Universal 
 Magazine,' the ' Public Characters,' the ' Annual Necro- 
 logy,' with several other periodical works, contain many of 
 my communications. In such of those publications as have 
 been reviewed, I can show that my anonymous pieces have 
 been distinguished with very higli praise. I have written 
 also a short system of Chemistry, in one volume 8vo ; and I 
 published a kw weeks since a small work called ' Comforts 
 of Life,' * of which the first edition was sold in one week, 
 and the second edition is now in rapid sale. 
 
 " In the Newspapers — the Oracle, the Porciipine when it 
 existed, the General Evening Post, the Morning Post, the 
 Pritish Press, the Courier, &c., I have published many 
 Eeports of Debates in Parliament, and, I believe, a greater 
 variety of light fugitive pieces than I know to have been 
 written by any one other person. 
 
 " I have written also a variety of compositions in the Latin 
 and the French languages, in favour of which I have been 
 honoured with the testimonies of liberal approbation. 
 
 " I have invariably written to serve the cause of x'eligion, 
 morality, pious christian education, and good order, in the 
 most direct manner. I have considered wliat I have written 
 as mere trifles ; and have incessantly^ studied to qualify my- 
 self for something better. I can prove tliat I have, for manj' 
 years, read and written, one day with another, from twelve to 
 sixteen hours a day. As a human being, I have not been ^i'qq 
 
 * "The Comforts of Life" were written ia prison; "The Miseries" 
 (by Jas. Beresford) necessarily in a drawing-room. The works of authors 
 are often in contrast with then}selves ; melancholy authors are the most 
 jocular, and the most humorous the most melancholy.
 
 Laborious Authors. 85 
 
 from lollies and errors. But the tenor of my life has been 
 temperate, laborious, humble, quiet, and, to the utmost of 
 my power, beneficent. I can prove the general tenor of my 
 writings to have been candid, and ever adapted to exhibit the 
 most favourable views of the abihties, dispositions, and exer- 
 tions of others. 
 
 " For these last ten months I have been brought to the 
 \iivj extremity of bodily and pecuniary distress. 
 
 " I shudder at the thought of perishing in a gaol. 
 
 "92, Chancery-lane, Feb. 2, 1807. 
 
 " (In confinement)." 
 
 The physicians reported that Robert Heron's health was 
 such " as rendered him totally incapable of extricating him- 
 self from the difficulties in which he was involved, by the 
 indiscreet exertion of Ids viind, in inotracted and incessant 
 literary lahours.^^ 
 
 About three months after, Heron sunk under a fever, and 
 perished amid the walls of Newgate. We are disgusted with 
 this horrid state of pauperism ; we are indignant at beholding 
 an author, not a contemptible one, in this last stage of human 
 wretchedness ! after early and late studies — after having read 
 and written from twelve to sixteen hours a day ! 0, ye popu- 
 lace of scribblers ! before ye are diiven to a gaiTet, and your 
 eyes are filled with constant tears, pause — recollect that few 
 of you possess the learning or the abilities of Heron. 
 
 The fate of Heron is the fate of hundreds of authors by 
 profession in the present day — of men of some literary talent, 
 ■wlio can never extricate themselves from a degrading state of 
 poverty. 
 
 LABORIOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 This is one of the groans of old Bueton over his laborious 
 work, when he is anticipating the reception it is like to meet 
 with, and personates his objectors. He saj's : — 
 
 " This is a thinge of meere industrie — a collection without 
 wit or invention — a very toy ! So men are valued ! — their 
 labours vilified by fellowes of no worth themselves, as things 
 of nought ; who could not have done as much." 
 
 There is, indeed, a class of authors who are liable to forfeit 
 all claims to genius, whatever their genius may be — these 
 are the laborious writers of voluminous works ; but they are 
 
 g2
 
 84 ' Calamities of Authors. 
 
 farther subject to heavier grievances — to be undervalued or 
 neglected by the apathy or the ingratitude of the public. 
 
 Industry is often conceived to betray the absence of intel- 
 lectual exertion, and the magnitude of a work is imagined 
 necessarily to shut out all genius. Yet a laborious work has 
 often had an original growth and raciness in it, requiring a 
 genius whose peculiar feeling, like invisible vitality, is spread 
 through the mighty body. Feeble imitations of such labo- 
 rious works have proved the master's mind that is in the 
 original. There is a talent in industry which every indus- 
 trious man does not possess ; and even taste and imagination 
 may lead to the deepest studies of antiquities, as well as mere 
 tmdiscerning curiosity and plodding dulness. 
 
 But there are other more striking characteristics of intel- 
 lectual feeling in authors of this class. The fortitude of mind 
 which enables them to complete labours of which, in many 
 instances, they are conscious that the real value will only be 
 appreciated by dispassionate posterity, themselves rarel}'' living 
 to witness the fame of their own work established, while they 
 ondure the captiousness of malicious cavillers. It is said that 
 the Optics of Newton had no character or credit here till 
 noticed in France. It would not be the only instance of an 
 author writing above his own age, and anticipating its more 
 advanced genius. How many works of erudition might be 
 adduced to show their author's disappointments ! Prideatjx's 
 learned work of the " Connexion of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment," and Shuckpord's similar one, were both a long while 
 before they could obtain a publisher, and much longer before 
 they found readers. It is said Sir Walter Raleigh burned 
 the second volume of his History, from the ill success the 
 first had met with. Prince's " Worthies of Devon" was so 
 unfavourably received by the public, that the laborious and 
 patriotic author was so discouraged as not to print the second 
 •volume, which is said to have been prepared for the press. 
 Farneworth's elaborate Translation, with notes and disser- 
 tations, of Macliiavel's works, was hawked about the town ; 
 and the poor author discovered that he understood Machiavel 
 better than the public. After other labours of this kind, he 
 left his family in distressed circumstances. Observe, this 
 excellent book now bears a high price ! The fate of the 
 " Biographia Britannica," in its iirst edition, must be noticed : 
 the spirit and acutencss of CAMruELL, the curious industry of 
 Oldys, and the united labours of very able writers, could not
 
 Laborious Authors. SS 
 
 secure public favour ; this treasure of our literary history \vas> 
 on the point of being suspended, when a poem by Gilbert- 
 West drew the public attention to that elaborate work^ 
 which, however, still languished, and was hastily concluded. 
 Gkanger sa3's of his admirable work, in one of his letters — - 
 " On a fair state of my account, it would appear that my 
 labours in the improvement of my work do not amount to 
 half the fay of a scavenger / " He received only one hundred 
 pounds to the times of Charles I., and the rest to depend ox)s, 
 public favour for the continviation. The sale was sluggish ; 
 even Walpole seemed doubtful of its success, though he pro- 
 bably secretly envied the skill of our portrait-painter. lb 
 was too philosophical for the mere collector, and it took near 
 ten years before it reached the hands of philosophers ; the- 
 author derived little profit, and never lived to see its popu- 
 larity established ! "VVe have had many highly valuable works 
 suspended for their want of public patronage, to the utter 
 disappointment, and sometimes the ruin of their authors ; 
 such are Oldts's " British Librarian," Moega>''s " Phojnis 
 Britannicus," Dr. BERKE>'noTJT's " Biographia Literaria," 
 Professor Martin's and Dr. Lettice's " Antiquities of 
 Herculaneum :" all these are Jirst volumes, there are no- 
 seco7ids ! They are now rare, curious, and high priced ! 
 Ungrateful public ! Unhappy authors ! 
 
 That noble enthusiasm which so strongly characterises genius, 
 in productions whose originality is of a less ambiguous nature, 
 has been experienced by some of these laborious authors, who 
 have sacrificed their lives and fortunes to their beloved, 
 studies. The enthusiasm of literature has often been that of 
 heroism, and many have not shrunk from the forlorn hope. 
 
 ErsHWORTn and Rymer, to whose collections our history 
 stands so deeply indebted, must have strongly felt this lite- 
 rary ardour, for they passed their lives in forming them ; till 
 Rymer, in the utmost distress, was obliged to sell his books 
 and his fifty volumes of MS. which he could not get printed ;. 
 and Rushworth died in the King's Bench of a broken heart. 
 Many of his papers still remain unpublished. His ruling 
 passion was amassing state matters, and he voluntarily 
 neglected great opportunities of acquiring a large fortune for 
 this entire devotion of his life. The same fate has awaited the- 
 similar labours of many authors to whom the history of our 
 country lies under deep obligations. Arthtir Collins, the- 
 historiographer of our Peerage, and the curious collector of
 
 86 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 the valuable " Sydney Papers," and other collections, passed 
 his life in rescuing- these works of antiquity, in giving au- 
 thenticity to our history, or contributing fresh materials to it ; 
 but his midnight vigils were cheered by no patronage, nor his 
 labours valued, till the eye that pored on the mutilated MS. 
 was for ever closed. Of all those curious works of the late 
 Mr. Stkutt, wliich are now bearing such high prices, all were 
 produced by extensive reading, and illustrated by his own 
 drawings, from the manuscripts of different epochs in our his- 
 tory. What was the result to that ingenious artist and 
 author, who, under the plain simplicity of an antiquary, con- 
 cealed a fine poetical mind, and an enthusiasm for his beloved 
 pursuits to which only we are indebted for them ? Strutt, 
 living in the greatest obscurity, and voluntarily sacrificing all 
 the ordinary views of life, and the trade of his burin, solely 
 attached to national antiquities, and charmed by calling them 
 into a fresh existence under his pencil, I have witnessed at the 
 British Museum, forgetting for whole days his miseries, in 
 sedulous research and delightful labour ; at times even doubt- 
 ful whether he could get his works printed ; for some of 
 which he was not regaled even with the Roman supper of "a 
 radish and an egg-^' How he left his domestic affairs, his son 
 can tell ; how his works have tripled their value, the book- 
 sellers. In writing on the calamities attending the love of 
 literary labour, Mr. John Nichols, the modest annalist of the 
 literary histoiy of the last century, and the friend of half the 
 departed genius of our country, cannot but occur to me. He 
 zealously' published more than fifty works, illustrating the 
 literature and the antiquities of the country ; labours not 
 given to the world without great sacrifices. Bishop Hurd, 
 with friendly solicitude, writes to Mr Nichols on some of his 
 own publications, " While you are enriching the Antiquarian 
 world " (and, by the Life of Bowyer, may be added the Lite- 
 rary), " I hope you do not forget yourself. The jjrofession of 
 an autlior, I know from experience, is not a lucrative one. — 
 I only mention this because I see a large catalogue of your 
 publications." At another time the Bishop writes, " You are 
 very good to excuse my freedom with you ; but, as times go, 
 almost any trade is better than that of an author," «&c. On 
 these notes Mr. Nichols confesses, " I have had some occasion 
 to regret that I did not attend to the judicious suggestions.'' 
 We owe to the late Thomas Davies, the author of " Gar- 
 rick's Life," and other literary works, beautiful editions of
 
 Laborious Authors. 87 
 
 some of our elder poets, which are now eagerly sought after, 
 yet, though all his piiblications were of the best kiuds, and 
 are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice 
 ended in bankruptc3^ It is to be lamented for the cause of 
 literature, that even a bookseller ma}'' have too refined a taste 
 for his trade ; it must al\va3's be his interest to float on the 
 current of public taste, whatever that may be ; should he have 
 an ambition to create it, he will be anticipating a more culti- 
 vated curiosit}'' by half a century ; thus the business of a 
 bookseller rarely accords with the design of advancing our 
 literature. 
 
 The works of literature, it is then but too evident, receive 
 no equivalent ; let this be recollected by him who would draw 
 his existence from them. A young writer often resembles 
 that imaginary author whom Johnson, in a humorous letter in 
 "The Idler" (No. 55), represents as having composed a work 
 " of universal curiosit}^, computed that it would call for many 
 editions of his book, and that in five years he should gain 
 fifteen thousand pounds by the sale of thirty thousand 
 copies." There are, indeed, some who have been dazzled by 
 the good fortune of Gibbox, Eobertson, and Hume ; we 
 are to consider these favourites, not merely as authors, but as 
 possessing, by their situation in life, a certain independence 
 Avhich preserved them from the vexations of the authors I have 
 noticed. Observe, however, that the uncoiaimon sum Gibbon 
 received for copyright, though it excited the astonishment of 
 the philosopher himself, Avas for the continued labour of a 
 wlioJe life, and probably the libra)'// he had purchased for his 
 work equalled at least in cost the produce of his j;>e?^ ; the 
 tools cost the workman as much as he obtained for his work. 
 Six thousand pounds gained on these terms will keep an author 
 indigent. 
 
 Many great labours have been designed by their authors 
 even to be posthumous, prompted only by their love of study 
 and a patriotic zeal. Bishop Kennett's stupendous " lleglster 
 and Chronicle," volume I., is one of those astonishing la- 
 bours which could only have been produced by the pleasure of 
 study urged by the strong love of posterity.* It is a diary 
 
 * Kennett was characterised tliroughout life by a strong party feeling, 
 which he took care to display on every occasion. He was born at Dover in 
 1660, and his first publication, at the age of twenty, gave great offence to 
 the Whig party ; it was in the form of a letter from a Student at Oxford to a 
 friead in the country, concerning the approaching parliament. He scarcely
 
 88 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 in which the bishop, one of our most studious and active 
 authors, has recorded every matter of fact, " dehvered in the 
 words of the most authentic books, papers, and records."^ 
 The design was to preserve our Hterary history from the 
 Eestoration. This silent labour he had been pursuing all his 
 life, and published the first volume in his sixty-eighth year, 
 the very year he died. But he was so sensible of the coyness 
 of the public taste for what he calls, in a letter to a literary 
 friend, "a tedious heavy book," that he gave it away to the 
 publisher. " The volume, too large, brings me no profit. In 
 good truth, the scheme was laid for conscience' sake, to re- 
 store a good old principle that history should be purely matter 
 of fact, that every reader, by examining and comparing, may 
 make out a history by his own judgment. I have collections 
 transcribed for another volume, if the bookseller will run the 
 hazard of printing." This volume has never appeared, and 
 the bookseller probably lost a considerable sum by the one 
 published, which valuable volume is now procured with 
 difficulty.* 
 
 These laborious authors have commenced their literary life 
 with a glowing ardour, though the feelings of genius have 
 been obstructed by those niimerous causes which occur too 
 frequently in the life of a literary man. 
 
 Let us listen to Stkutt, whom we have just noticed, and 
 let us learn what he proposed doing in the first age of fancy. 
 
 Having obtained the first gold medal ever given at the 
 Eoyal Academy, he writes to his mother, and thus thanks her 
 and his friends for their deep interest in his success : — 
 
 " I will at least strive to the utmost to give my benefac- 
 tors no reason to think their pains thrown away. If I should 
 
 ever published a sermon without so far mixing party matters ia it as to 
 obtain replies and rejoinders ; the rector of Whitechapel empkiyed an artist 
 to place his head on Judas's shoulders in the picture of the Last Supper 
 done for that church, and to make the figure unmistakeable, placed the 
 patch on the forehead which Kennett wore, to conceal a scar he got by the 
 bursting of a gun. His diligence and application through life was extraor- 
 dinary. He assisted Anthony Wood in collecting materials for his. 
 " Athense Oxonienses ;" and, like Oldys, was continually employed in 
 noting books, or in forming manuscript collections on various subjects, all 
 of which were purchased by the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of 
 Lansdowne, and were sold with the rest of his manuscripts to the British 
 Museum. He died in 1714, of a fever he had contracted in a journey to 
 Italy.— Ed. 
 
 * See Bishop Kennett's Letter in NichoLi's " Life of Bowyer," vol i, 
 383.
 
 Laborious Authors. 8& 
 
 not be able to abound in riches, yet, by God's help, I will 
 strive to pluck that palm which the greatest artists of fore- 
 going ages have done before me ; / icill strive to leave mi/ 
 name behind one in tlie world, if not in the splendour that 
 some have, at least with some marks of assiduity/ and study; 
 which, I can assure you, shall never be wanting in me. Who 
 can bear to hear the names of Raphael, Titian, Michael 
 Angelo, &e., the most famous of the Italian masters, in the 
 mouth of every one, and not wish to be like them ? And 
 to be like them, we must study as they have done, take such 
 pains, and labour continually like them ; the which shall not 
 be wanting on my side, I dare affirm ; so that, should I not 
 succeed, I ma}-- rest contented, and say I have done my utmost. 
 God has blessed me with a mind to undertake. You, dear 
 madam, will excuse my vanity ; you know me, from my child- 
 ish days, to have been a vain boy, always desirous to execute 
 sometliing to gain me praises from every one; always scheming 
 and imitating whatever I saw done by anybody." 
 
 And when Strutt settled in the metropolis, and studied at 
 the British Museum, amid all the stores of knowledge and 
 art, his imagination delighted to expatiate in its future pros- 
 spects. In a letter to a friend he has thus chronicled his 
 feelings : 
 
 " I would not only be a great antiquary, but a refined 
 thinker ; I would not only discover antiquities, but would, by 
 explaining their use, render them useful. Such vast funds of 
 knowledge lie hid in the antiquated remains of the earlier 
 ages ; these I would bring forth, and set in their true light." 
 
 Poor Strutt, at the close of life, was returning to his own 
 first and natural energies, in producing a work of the imagi- 
 nation. He had made considerable progress in one, and the- 
 early pai'ts which he had finished bear the stamp of genius ; 
 it is entitled " Queenhoo-hall, a Eomance of ancient times," 
 full of the picturesque manners, and costume, and characters- 
 of the age, in which he was so conversant ; with many 
 lyrical pieces, which often are full of poetic feeling — but he 
 was called off froni the work to prepare a more laborious 
 one. "Queenhoo-hall" remained a heap of fragments at his 
 death ; except the first volume, and was filled up by a 
 stranger hand. The stranger was Sir "Walter Scott, and 
 " Queenhoo-hall" was the origin of that glorious series of 
 romances where antiquarianism has taken the shape of ima- 
 gination.
 
 90 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 "Writing on the calamities attached to literature, I must 
 notice one of a more recondite nature, yet perhaps few lite- 
 I'arj agonies are more keenl}'- felt. I would not excite an 
 •undue sympathy for a class of writers who are usually con- 
 sidered as drudges ; but the present case claims our sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 There are men of letters, who, early in life, have formed 
 some favourite plan of literary labour, which they have un- 
 remittingly pursued, till, sometimes near the close of life, 
 they either discover their inability to terminate it, or begin to 
 depreciate their own constant labour. The literary architect 
 has grown gray over his edifice ; and, as if the black wand 
 of enchantment had waved over it, the colonnades become 
 interminable, the pillars seem to want a foundation, and all 
 the rich materials he had collected together, lie before him in 
 all the disorder of ruins. It may be urged that the reward 
 of literary labour, like the consolations of virtue, must be 
 drawn with all their sweetness from itself; or, that if the 
 author be incompetent, he must pay the price of his incapa- 
 city. This may be Stoicism, but it is not humanity. The 
 truth is, there is always a latent love of fame, that prompts 
 to this strong devotion of labour ; and he who has given a 
 long life to that which he has so much desired, and can never 
 enjoy, might well be excused receiving our insults, if he can- 
 not extort our pity. 
 
 A remarkable instance occurs in the fate of the late Rev. 
 William Cole;* he was the college friend of Walpole, 
 
 * The best account of tlie Eev. Win. Cole is to be found in Nichols's 
 " Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century," vol. i. His life was eventless, 
 and passed in studious drudgery. He had all that power of continuous ap- 
 plication which will readily form immense manuscript collections. In this 
 way his life was passed, occasionally aiding from his enormous stores the 
 labours of others. He was an early and intimate acquaintance of Horace 
 Walpole's, and they visited France together in 1765. Browne Willis, the 
 antiquary, gave him the rectory of Blecheley, in Buckinghamshire, and 
 he was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Burnham, near Etou. He 
 died in 1782, iu the 6Sth year of his age, having chiefly employed a long 
 life in noting on all subjects, until his manuscripts became a small library 
 of themselves, which he bequeathed to the British Museum, with an order 
 that they should not be opened for twenty years. They are correctly 
 characterised by'Nichols : he says, '* many of the volumes exhibit striking 
 traits of Mr. Cole's own character ; and a man of sullicient leisure might 
 pick out of them abundance of curious matter." He left a diary behind 
 liim which for puerility could not be exceeded, and of which Nichols 
 gives several ridiculous specimens. If his pan-ot died, or his man-servant 
 was bled ; if he scut a loin of pork to a friend, and got a quarter of lamb
 
 Laborious Autliors. 91 
 
 Mason, and Gray ; a striking proof how dissimilar habits and 
 opposite tastes and feehngs can associate in Hterary friend- 
 ship ; for Colo, indeed, the public had informed him that his 
 friends were poets and men of wit ; and for them, Cole's pa- 
 tient and curious turn was useful, and, by its extravagant 
 trifling, must have been very amusing. He had a gossip's 
 ear, aud a tatler's pen — and, among better things, wrote 
 down every grain of literary scandal his insatiable and 
 minute curiosity could lick up ; as patient and voracious as an 
 ant-eater, he stretched out his tongue till it was covered by 
 the tiny creatures, and drew them all in at one digestion. 
 All these tales were registered with the utmost simplicit}', as 
 the reporter received them ; but, being but tales, the exactness 
 of his truth made them still more dangerous lies, by being per- 
 petuated ; in his reflections he spared neither friend nor foe ; 
 yet, still anxious after truth, and usually telling lies, it is very 
 amusing to observe, that, as he proceeds, he very laudably 
 contradicts, or explains away in subsequent memoranda what 
 he had before registered. "VValpole, in a correspondence of 
 forty years, he was perpetually flattering, though he must 
 imperfectly have relished his fine taste, while he abhorred his 
 more liberal principles, to which sometimes he addressed a 
 submissive remonstrance. He has at times written a letter 
 coolly, and, at the same moment, chronicled his suppressed 
 feelings in his diary, with all the flame and sputter of his 
 strong prejudices. He was expressly nicknamed Cardinal 
 Cole. These scandalous chronicles, which onl}'' show the 
 violence of his prejudices, without the force of genius, or the 
 acuteness of penetration, were ordered not to be opened till 
 twenty j'ears after his decease; he wished to do as little 
 mischief as he could, but loved to do some. I well remem- 
 ber the cruel anxiety which prevailed in the nineteenth year 
 of these inclosures ; it spoiled the digestions of several of om' 
 literati who had had the misfortune of Cole's intimate 
 friendship, or enmity. One of these was the writer of the 
 Life of Thomas Baker, the Cambridge Antiquary, who prog- 
 nosticated all the evil he among others ivas to endure ; and, 
 writhing in fancy under the whip not yet untwisted, justly 
 enough exclaims in his agony, " The attempt to keep these 
 
 in return; "drank coffee with Mrs. Willis," or " sent two French wigs to 
 a London barber," all is faithfully recorded. It is a true picture of a lover 
 of labour, whose constant energy must be employed, and will write even if 
 the labour be worthless. — Ed.
 
 93 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 characters from the puhlic till the subjects of them shall be 
 110 more, seems to be peculiarly cruel and ungenerous, since it 
 is precluding them from vindicating themselves from such 
 injurious aspersions, as their friends, perhaps however willing, 
 may at that distance of time be incapable of removing." 
 With this author, Mr. Masters, Cole had quarrelled so often, 
 that Masters writes, " I am well acquainted with the fickle- 
 ness of his disposition for more than forty years past." 
 
 When the lid was removed from this Pandora's box, it 
 happened that some of his intimate friends were alive to 
 perceive in what strange figures they were exhibited by their 
 quondam admirer ! 
 
 Cole, however, bequeathed to the nation, among his un- 
 published works, a vast mass of antiquities and historical 
 collections, and one valuable legacy of literary materials. 
 When I turned over the papers of this literary antiquary, I 
 found the recorded cries of a literary mart^-r. 
 
 Cole had passed a long life in the pertinacious labour of 
 forming an " Athense Cantabrigienses," and other literary 
 collections — designed as a companion to the work of 
 Anthony Wood. These mighty labours exist in more than 
 fifty folio volumes in his own writing. He began these col- 
 lections about the year 1745 ; in a fly-leaf of 1777 I found 
 the following melancholy state of his feelings and a literary 
 confession, as forcibly expressed as it is painful to read, when 
 we consider that they are the wailings of a most zealous 
 votary : 
 
 " In good truth, whoever undertakes this drudgery of an 
 ' Athente Cantabrigienses' must be contented with no pros- 
 pect of credit and reputation to himself, and with the mor- 
 tifying reflection that after all his pains and study, through 
 life, he must be looked upon in a humble light, and only as a 
 journeyman to Anthony Wood, whose excellent book of the 
 same sort will ever preclude any other, who shall follow him 
 in the same track, from all hopes of fame ; and will only re- 
 present him as an imitator of so original a pattern. For, at 
 this time of day, all great characters, both Cantabrigians and 
 Oxonians, are already published to the world, either in his 
 book, or various others ; so that the collection, unless the 
 same characters are reprinted here, must be made up of 
 second-rate persons, and the refuse of authorship. — However, 
 as I have begun, and made so large a progress in this under- 
 taking, ii is death to think of leaving it oJ}\ though, from the
 
 Laborious Authors. 93 
 
 former considerations, so little credit is to be expected 
 from it." 
 
 Such were the fruits, and such the agonies, of nearly half 
 a century of assiduous and zealous literary labour ! Cole 
 ui'ges a strong claim to be noticed among our literary cala- 
 mities. Another of his miseries was his uncertainty in what 
 manner he should dispose of his collections : and he has put 
 down this naive memorandum — " I have long wavered how 
 to dispose of all my MS. volumes ; to give them to King's 
 College, would be to throw them into a liorsepond ; and I had 
 as lieve do one as the other ; they are generally so conceited of 
 their Latin and^ GreeJc, that all other studies are barbarism.^'* 
 
 The dread of incompleteness has attended the life-labours 
 (if the expression may be allowed) of several other authors 
 who have never published their works. Such was the 
 learned Bishop Lloyd, and the Kev. Thomas Baker, who 
 was first engaged in the same pursuit as Cole, and carried it 
 on to the extent of about forty volumes in folio. Lloyd is 
 described by Burnet as having " many volumes of materials 
 upon all subjects, so that he could, with very little labour, 
 write on any of them, with more life in his imagination, and 
 a truer judgment, than may seem consistent with such a 
 laborious course of study ; but he did not lay out his learn- 
 ing with the same diligence as he laid it in." It is mortify- 
 ing to learn, in the words of Johnson, that " he was always 
 hesitating and inquiring, raising objections, and removing 
 them, and waiting for clearer light and fuller discover3^" 
 Many of the labours of this learned bishop were at length 
 consumed in the kitchen of his descendant. " Baker (saj's 
 Johnson), after many years passed in biography, left his 
 manuscripts to be buried in a librar^^, because that was im- 
 perfect which could never be perfected." And to complete 
 the absurdity, or to heigliten the calamity which the want 
 of these useful labours makes e\^ery literary man feel, half of 
 the collections of Baker sleep in their dust in a turret of the 
 University ; while the other, deposited in our national library 
 at the British Museum, and frequently used, are rendered 
 imperfect by this unnatural divorce. 
 
 I will illustrate the character of a laborious author by that 
 of A^'THO^'Y Wood. 
 
 * Cole's collection, ultimately bequeathed by liim to the British Museum, 
 is comprised in 92 volumes, and is arranged among the additional manu- 
 scripts there, of which it forms Nos. 5798 to 5S87. — Ee.
 
 94 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 "Wooii's " Atlienre Oxonienses" is a history of near a 
 thousand of our native authors ; he paints their characters, 
 and enters into the spirit of their writings. But authors of 
 tliis complexion, and works of this nature, are Hable to be 
 shghted ; for the fastidious are petulant, the volatile inexpe- 
 rienced, and those who cultivate a single province in lite- 
 rature are disposed, too often, to lay all others under a state 
 of interdiction. 
 
 Wakbueton, in a work thrown out in the heat of un- 
 chastised youth, and afterwards withdrawn from public in- 
 quiry, has said of the " Athena? Oxonienses" — 
 
 " Of all those writings given us by the learned Oxford 
 antiquary, there is not one that is not a disgrace to letters ; 
 most of them are so to common sense, and some even to 
 human nature. Yet how set out ! how tricked ! how 
 adorned! how extolled!"* 
 
 The whole tenor of Wood's life testifies, as he himself tell* 
 us, that " books and MSS. formed his Elysium, and he wished 
 to be dead to the world." This sovereign passion marked him 
 earlyin life, and the image of death could not disturb it. 
 When young, " he walked mostly alone, was given much to 
 thinking and melancholy." The delicice of his life were the 
 more liberal studies of painting and music, intermixed with 
 those of antiquity ; nor could his family, who checked such 
 unproductive studies, ever check his love of them. With 
 what a firm and noble spirit he says — 
 
 " When he came to full yeai's, he perceived it was his na- 
 tural genie, and he could not avoid them — they crowded on 
 him — he could never give a reason why he should delight in 
 those studies, more than in others, so prevalent was nature, 
 mixed with a generosity of mind, and a hatred to all that 
 was servile, sneaking, or advantageous for lucre-sake." 
 
 These are not the roundings of a period, but the pure ex- 
 pressions of a man who had nil the simplicity of childhood in 
 his feelings. Could such vehement emotions have been ex- 
 cited in the unanimated breast of a clod of literature ? Thus 
 eai"ly Anthony Wood betrayed the characteristics of genius ; 
 nor did the literary passion desert him in his last moments. 
 With his dying hands he still grasped his beloved papers, 
 and his last mortal thoughts dwelt on his AthencB Oxonienses. -f 
 
 * In his "Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of 
 Prodigies." 
 
 t This, his most valuable work, has been most carefully edited, with
 
 Laborious Authors. 95 
 
 It is no common occurrence to view an author speechless 
 in the hour of death, yet fervently occupied by his posthumous 
 fame. Two friends went into his study to sort that vast 
 multitude of papers, notes, letters — his more private ones he 
 had ordered not to be opened for seven j^ears ; about two 
 bushels full were ordered for the fire, which they had lighted 
 for the occasion. " As he was expiring, he expressed both his 
 knowledge aud approbation of what was done by throwing 
 out his hands," 
 
 Turn over his Herculean labour ; do not admire less his 
 fearlessness of danger, than his indefatigable pursuit of truth. 
 He wrote of his contemporaries as if he felt a right to judge 
 of them, and as if he were living in the succeeding age; 
 courtier, fanatic, or papist, were much alike to honest An- 
 thony ; for he professes himself " such an universal lover of all 
 mankind, that he wished there might be no cheat put upon 
 readers and writers in the business of commendations. And 
 (says he) since every one will have a double balance, one for 
 his own party, and another for his adversary, all he could do 
 is to amass together what ever}^ side thinks will make best 
 weight for themselves. Let posterity hold the scales." 
 
 Anthony might have added, " I have held them." This 
 uninterrupted activity of his spirits was the action of a sage, 
 not the bustle of one intent merely on heaping up a book. 
 
 " He never wrote in post, with his body and thoughts in a 
 hurry, but in a fixed abode, and with a deliberate pen. And 
 he never concealed an ungrateful truth, nor flourished over a 
 weak place, but in sincerity of meaning and expression." 
 
 Anthony Wood cloistered an athletic mind, a hermit critic 
 abstracted from the world, existing more with posterity than 
 amid his contemporaries. His prejudices were the keener 
 from the very energies of the mind that produced them ; but, 
 as he practises no deception on his reader, we know the causes 
 of his anger or his love. And, as an original thinker creates 
 a style for himself, from the circumstance of not attending 
 to style at all, but to feeling, so Anthony Wood's has all the 
 peculiarity of the writer. Critics of short views have at- 
 tempted to screen it from ridictde, attributing his uncouth 
 style to the age he lived in. But ■ not one in his own time 
 nor since, has composed in the same style. The austerity 
 
 numerous additions by Dr. Bliss, and is the great authority for Lives of 
 Oxford men. Its author, born at Oxford in 1632, died there in 1695, having 
 devoted his life strictly to study. — Ed.
 
 96 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 and the quickness of his feeHngs vigorously stamped all their 
 roughness and vivacity on every sentence. He describes his 
 own style as " an honest, plain English dress, without flou- 
 rishes or affectation of style, as best becomes a history of 
 truth and matters of fact. It is the first (work) of its na- 
 ture that has ever been printed in our own, or in any other 
 mother-tongue." 
 
 It is, indeed, an honest Montaigne-like simplicity. Acri- 
 monious and cynical, he is always sincere, and never dull. 
 Old Antliony to me is an admirable character-painter, for 
 anger and love are often picturesque. And among our lite- 
 rar}^ historians he might be compared, for the effect he pro- 
 duces, to Albert Durer, whose kind of antique rudeness has a 
 sharp outline, neither beautiful nor flowing ; and, without a 
 genius for the magic of light and shade, he is too close a 
 copier of Nature to affect us by ideal forms. 
 
 The independence of his mind nerved his ample volumes, 
 his fortitude he displayed in the contest with the University 
 itself, and his firmness in censuring Lord Clarendon, the head 
 of his own party. Could such a work, and such an original 
 manner, have proceeded from an ordinary intellect ? Wit 
 may sparkle, and sarcasm may bite ; but the cause of lite- 
 rature is injured when the industry of such a mind is ranked 
 with that of "the hewers of wood, and drawers of water:" 
 ponderous compilers of creeping commentators. Such a work 
 as the " Athena? Oxonienses" involved in its pursuits some of 
 the higher qualities of the intellect ; a voluntary devotion of 
 life, a sacrifice of personal enjoyments, a noble design com- 
 bining many views, some present and some prescient, a clear 
 vigorous spirit equally (hffused over a vast surface. But it is 
 the liard fate of authors of this class to be levelled with their 
 infei'iors ! 
 
 Let us exhibit one more picture of the calamities of a labo- 
 rious author, in the character of JosnuA BAUisrES, editor of 
 Homer, Euripides, and Anacreon, and the writer of a vast 
 number of miscellaneous compositions in history and poetry. 
 Besides the works he published, he left behind him nearly fifty 
 unfinished ones ; many were epic poems, all intended to be in 
 twelve books, and some had reached their eighth ! His folio 
 volume of " The History of Edward III." is a labour of valu- 
 able research. He wrote with equal facility in Greek, Latin, 
 and his own language, and he wrote all his days ; and, in a 
 word, having little or nothing but his Greek professorship,
 
 Laborious Authors. 97 
 
 not exceeding forty pounds a j'ear, Barnes, who had a great 
 iTiemory, a little imagination, and no judgment, saw the close 
 of a life, devoted to the studies of humanit}'', settle around 
 him in gloom and despair. The great idol of his mind was 
 the edition of his Homer, which seems to have completed 
 his ruin ; he was haunted all his days with a notion that he 
 was persecuted by envy, and much undervalued in the world ; 
 the sad consolation of the secondary and third-rate authors, 
 who often die persuaded of the existence of ideal enemies. 
 To be enabled to publish his Homer at an enormous charge, 
 he wrote a poem, the design of which is to prove that Solomon 
 was the author of the Iliad ; and it has been said that this 
 was done to interest his wife, who had some property, to lend 
 her aid towards the publication of so divine a work. This 
 happy pun was applied for his epitaph : — 
 
 Joshua Barnes, 
 
 Felicis memorise, judicium expectans. 
 
 Here lieth 
 
 Joshua Barnes, 
 Of happy memory, awaiting judgment! 
 
 The year before he died he addressed the following letter 
 to the Earl of Oxford, which 1 transcribe from the original. 
 It is curious to observe how the veteran and unhappy scribbler, 
 after his vows of retirement from the world of letters, 
 thoroughly disgusted with " all human learning," gently hints 
 to his patron, that he has ready for the press, a singular 
 variety of contrasted works ; yet even then he did not ven- 
 ture to disclose one-tenth part of his concealed treasures ! 
 
 " TO THE EAEL OF OXEOKD. 
 
 " Mt Hon. Lord, Oct. 16, 1711. 
 
 " This, not in any doubt of your goodness and high 
 respect to learning, for 1 have fresh instances of it every day ; 
 but because I am prevented in my design of waiting per- 
 sonally on you, being called away by my business for 
 Cambridge, to read Greek lectures this term ; and my circum- 
 stances are pressing, being, through the combination of book- 
 sellers, and the meaner arts of others, too much prejudiced in 
 the sale. I am not neither sufficiently ascertained whether 
 my Homer and letters came to your honour ; surely the vast 
 charges of that edition has almost broke my courage, there 
 being much more trouble in putting off the impression, and 
 
 u
 
 98 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 contending with a subtle and unkind world, tlian in all the 
 study and management of the press. 
 
 " Others, my lord, are younger, and their hopes and helps 
 are fresher ; I have done as much in the way of learning as 
 any man living, but have received less encouragement than 
 any, having nothing but my Greek professorship, which is 
 but ibrty pounds per annum, that I can call my own, and 
 more than half of that is taken up by my expenses of lodging 
 and diet in terme time at Cambridge. 
 
 " I was obliged to take up three hundred and fifty pounds 
 on interest towards this last work, whereof 1 still owe two 
 hundred pounds, and two hundred more for the printing ; the 
 whole expense arising to about one thousand pounds. I 
 have lived in the university above thirty years, fellow of a 
 college now above forty yeai's' standing, and fifty-eight years 
 of age ; am bachelor of divinity, and have preached before 
 kings ; but am now your honour's suppliant, and would fain 
 retire from the study of humane learning, which has been so 
 little beneficial to me, if I might have a little prebend, or 
 sufficient anchor to lay hold on ; only I have two or three 
 matters ready for the press — an ecclesiastical history, Latin ; 
 an heroic poem of the Black Prince, Latin ; another of Queen 
 Anne, English, finished ; a treatise of Columnes, Latin ; and 
 an accurate treatise about Homer, Greek, Latin, &c. I would 
 fain be permitted the honour to make use of your name in 
 some one, or most of these, and to be, &c., 
 
 " Joshua Baeistes."* 
 
 He died nine months afterwards. Homer did not improve 
 in sale ; and the sweets of patronage were not even tasted. 
 This, then, is the history of a man of great learning, of the 
 most pertinacious industry, but somewhat allied to the family 
 of the Scribleri. 
 
 THE DESPAIR OF YOCTNG POETS. 
 
 WiLTiiAM Pattison was a young poet who perished in his 
 twentieth year ; his character and his fate resemble those of 
 Chatterton. He was one more child of that family of genius, 
 whose passions, like the torch, kindle but to consume them- 
 selves. 
 
 • Harleiau MSS. 7623.
 
 The Despair of Young Poets. 99 
 
 The youth of Pattison was that of a poet. Many become 
 irrecoverably poets by local influence ; and Beattie could 
 hardly have thrown his "Minstrel" into a more poetical 
 solitude than the singular spot which was haunted by our 
 young bard. His first misfortune was that of having an 
 anti-poetical parent ; his next was that of having discovered 
 a spot which confirmed his poetical habits, inspiring all the 
 melancholy and sensibility he loved to indulge. This spot, 
 which in his fancy resembled some favourite description in 
 Cowley, he called " Cowley's Walk." Some friend, who was 
 himself no common painter of fancy, has delineated the whole 
 scenery with minute touches, and a freshness of colouring, 
 warm with reality. Such a poetical habitation becomes a 
 part of the poet himself, reflecting his character, and even 
 descriptive of his manners. 
 
 "On one side of 'Cowley's "Walk' is a huge rock, grown 
 over with moss and ivy climbing on its sides, and in some 
 parts small trees spring out of the crevices of the rock ; at 
 the bottom are a wild plantation of irregular trees, in every 
 part looking aged and venerable. Among these cavities, one 
 larger than the rest was the cave he loved to sit in : arched 
 like a canopy, its rustic borders were edged with iv}^ hanging 
 down, overshadowing the place, and hence he called it (for 
 poets must give a name to every object they love) ' Hede- 
 rinda,' bearing ivy. At the foot of this grotto a stream of 
 water ran along the walk, so that its level path had trees 
 and water on one side, and a wild rough precipice on the 
 other. In winter, this spot looked full of horror — the naked 
 trees, the dark rock, and the desolate waste ; but in the 
 spring, the singing of the birds, the fragrancy of the flowers, 
 and the murmuring of the stream, blended all their enchant- 
 ment." 
 
 Here, in the heat of the day, he escaped into the " Hede- 
 rinda," and shared with friends his rapture and his solitude; 
 and here through summer nights, in the light of the moon, 
 he meditated and melodised his verses by the gentle fall of 
 the waters. Thus was Pattison fixed and bound up in the 
 strongest spell the demon of poetry ever drew around a sus- 
 ceptible and careless youth. 
 
 He was now a decided poet. At Sidney College, in Cam- 
 bridge, he was greatly loved ; till, on a quarrel with a rigid 
 tutor, he rashly cut his name out of the college book, and 
 quitted it for ever in utter thoughtlessness and gaietv, leaving 
 
 h2'
 
 100 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 his gown behind, as his loctun ienens, to make his apology, by 
 pinning on it a satirical farewell. 
 
 Whoever gives himself the pains to stoop, 
 And take nij' venerable tatters up, 
 To his presuming inquisition I, 
 In loco Pattisoiri, thus reply : 
 " Tired with the senseless jargon of the gown, 
 ]\Iy master left the college for the town, 
 And scoi'ns his precious minutes to regale 
 With wretched college-wit and college-ale." 
 
 He flew to the metropolis to take up the trade of a poet, 
 
 A translation of Ovid's " Epistles" had engaged his atten- 
 tion during two years ; his own genius seemed inexhaustible ; 
 and pleasure and fame were awaiting the poetical emigrant. He 
 resisted all kind importunities to return to college ; he could 
 not endure submission, and declares " his spirit cannot bear 
 control." One friend " fears the innumerable temptations to 
 which one of his complexion is liable in such a populous 
 place." Pattison was much loved ; he had all the generous 
 impetuosity of youthful genius ; but he had resolved on run- 
 ning the perilous career of literary glory, and he added one 
 more to the countless thousands who perish in obscurity. 
 
 His first letters are written with the same spirit that dis- 
 tinguishes Chatterton's ; all he hopes he seems to realise. He 
 mixes among the wits, dates from Button's, and drinks with 
 Concanen healths to college friends, till they lose their own ; 
 more dangerous Muses condescend to exhibit themselves to 
 the young poet in tlie park ; and he was to be introduced to 
 Pope. All is exultation ! Miserable youth ! The first thought 
 of prudence appears in a resolution of soliciting subscriptions 
 from all persons, for a volume of poems. 
 
 His young friends at college exerted their warm patronage ; 
 those in his native North condemn him, and save their 
 crowns ; Pope admits of no interview, but lends his name, 
 and bestows half-a-crown for a volume of poetry, which he 
 did not want ; the poet wearies kindness, and would extort 
 charity even i'rom brother-poets ; petitions lords and ladies ; 
 and, as his wants grow on him, his shame decreases. 
 
 How the scene has changed in a few months ! He acknow- 
 ledges to a friend, that " his heart was broke through the 
 misfortunes he had fallen under;" he declares "he feels him- 
 self near the borders of death." In moments like these he 
 probably composed the following lines, awfully addressed,
 
 The Despair oj Young Poets. 101 
 
 AD CffiLUM ! 
 
 Good heaven ! this mystery of life explain, 
 Nor let me think I bear the load in vain ; 
 Lest, with the tedious passage cheerless grown, 
 Urged by despair, I throw the burden down. 
 
 But the torture of genius, when all its passions are strained 
 on the rack, was never more pathetically expressed than in the 
 following letter : — 
 
 " SiE, — If 3^ou was ever touched with a sense of humanity, 
 consider my condition : what 1 am, my proposals will inform 
 you ; what I have bee^i, Sidney College, in Cambridy-e, can 
 witness ; but what I shall be some few hours hence, I tremble 
 to think ! Spare my blushes ! — I have not enjoyed the com- 
 mon necessaries of life for these two d{iys, and can hardly 
 hold to subscribe myself, 
 
 "Yours, &c." 
 
 The picture is finished — it admits not of another stroke. 
 Such was the complete misery which Savage, Boj^se, Chat- 
 terton, and more innocent spirits devoted to literature, 
 have endured — but not long — for they must perish in their 
 youth ! 
 
 Heney Caeet was one of our most popular poets ; he, 
 indeed, has unluckily met with only dictionary critics, or 
 what is as fatal to genius, the cold and undistinguishing com- 
 mendation of grave men on subjects of humour, wit, and the 
 lighter poetry. The works of Care}^ do not appear in any of 
 our great collections, where Walsh, Duke, and Yalden slumber 
 on the shelf. 
 
 Yet Carey was a true son of the Muses, and the most suc- 
 cessful writer in our language. He is the author of several 
 little national poems. In early life he successfully burlesqued 
 the affected versification of Ambrose Philips, in his bab}'- 
 poems, to which he gave the fortunate appellation of " Namhy 
 Pamhy, a panegyric on the new versification ;" a term descrip- 
 tive in sound of those chiming follies, and now become a tech- 
 nical term in modern criticism. Carej^'s " Namby Pamby" was 
 at first considered by Swift as the satirical efi'usion of Pope, 
 and by Pope as the humorous ridicule of Swift. His ballad of 
 " Sally in our Alley" was more than once commended for its 
 nature by Addison, and is sung to this day. Of the national 
 song, " God save the King," it is supposeoi he was the autlior
 
 103 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 both of the words and of the music* He was very successful 
 on the stage, and wrote admirable burlesques of the Italian 
 Opera, in " The Dragon of Wantley," and " Tlie Dragoness;" 
 and the mock tragedy of " Chrononhotonthologos" is not 
 forgotten. Among his Poems lie still concealed several ori- 
 ginal pieces ; those which have a political turn are pai'ticu- 
 larly good, for the politics of Carey were those of a poet and 
 a patriot. I refer the politician who has any taste for poetry 
 and humour to " The Grumbletonians, or the Dogs without 
 doors, a Fable," very instructive to those grown-up folks, 
 " The Ins and the Outs." " Carey's Wish" is in this class; 
 and, as the purity of election remains still among the desi- 
 derata of every true Briton, a poem on that subject by the 
 patriotic author of our national hymn of " God save the King" 
 may be acceptable. 
 
 Carey's wish. 
 
 Cursed be the wretch that's bought and sold, 
 
 And barters liberty for gold; 
 
 For when election is not free, 
 
 In vain we boast of liberty : 
 
 And he Tivho sells his single right, 
 
 Would sell his country, if he might. 
 
 "When liberty is put to sale 
 For wine, for money, or for ale. 
 The sellers must be abject slave?, 
 The buyers vile designing knaves; 
 A proverb it has been of old. 
 The devil's bought but to be sold. 
 
 This maxim in the statesman's school 
 Is always taught, divide and rule. 
 All parties are to him a joke : 
 While zealots foam, he fits the yoke. 
 Let men their reason once resume ; 
 'Tis then the statesman's turn to fume. 
 
 * The late Richard Clark, of the Chapel Eoyaland Westminster Abbey, 
 published in 1823 "An Account of the National Anthem, entitled God 
 save the King," in which he satisfactorily proves " that Carey neither had, 
 nor could have had, any claim at all to this composition," which he traces 
 back to the celebrated composer, Dr. John Bull, who he believes composed 
 it for the entertainment given by the Merchant Taylors Company to King 
 James I., in 1C07. Ward, in his "Lives of the Gresbam Professors," 
 gives a list of Bull's compusitiuns, then in the possession of Dr. Pepusch 
 (who arranged the music for the Bc</f/ar's Opera), and Art. 56 is "God 
 save the King." At the Doctor's death, his manuscripts, amounting to 
 two cartloads, were scattered or sold for waste-paper, and this was one of 
 the number. Clark ultimately recovered this MS. — Ed.
 
 The Despair of Young Poets. 103 
 
 Learn, learn, ye Britons, to unite ; 
 Leave off the old exploded bite ; 
 Henceforth let Whig and Tory cease, 
 And turn all party rage to peace ; 
 Rouse and revive your ancient glory ; 
 Unite, and drive the world before you. 
 
 To the ballad of " Sally in our Alley" Carey has prefixed 
 an argument so full of nature, that the song may hereafter 
 derive an additional interest from its simple origin. Tlie 
 author assures the reader that the popular notion that tlie 
 subject of his ballad had been the noted Sally Salisbury, 
 is perfectly en-oneous, he being a stranger to her name at the 
 time the song was composed. 
 
 " As innocence and virtue were ever the boundaries of his 
 Muse, so in this little poem he had no other view than to set 
 forth the beaut}' of a chaste and disinterested passion, even 
 in the lowest class of human life. The real occasion was this : 
 A shoemaker's 'prentice, making holiday with his sweetheart, 
 treated her with a sight of Bedlam, the puppet-shows, the 
 fl^'ing-chairs, and all the elegancies of Moorfields; from wlience, 
 proceeding to the Farthing P^^e-house, he gave her a collation 
 of buns, cheesecakes, gammon of bacon, stuffed beef, and bot- 
 tled ale ; through all which scenes the author dodged them 
 (cliarmed with the simplicity of their courtship), from whence 
 he drew this little sketch of Nature ; but, being then young 
 and obscure, he was very much ridiculed for this perform- 
 ance ; which, nevertheless, made its way into the polite world, 
 and amply recompensed him by the applause of the divine 
 Addison, who was pleased (more than once) to mention it 
 with approbation." 
 
 In " The Poet's Kesentment " poor Carey had once for- 
 sworn " the harlot Muse :" — 
 
 Far, far away then chase the harlot Muse, 
 
 Nor let her thus thy noon of life abuse ; 
 
 Mix with the common crowd, unheard, unseen, 
 
 And if again thou tempt'st the vulgar praise, 
 
 Mayst thou be crown'd with birch instead of bays ! 
 
 Poets make such oaths in sincerit}', and break them in 
 rapture. 
 
 At the time that this poet could neither walk the streets 
 nor be seated at the convivial board, without listening to his 
 own songs and his own music — for, in truth, tlie whole nation 
 was echoing his verse, and crowded theatres were applauding
 
 104 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 his wit and humour — while this very man himself, urged by 
 his strong humanity, founded a " Fund for decayed Musi- 
 cians " — he was so broken-hearted, and his own common com- 
 forts so utterly neglected, that in despair, not waiting for 
 nature to relieve him from the burden of existence, he laid 
 violent hands on himself; and when found dead, had only a 
 halfpenny in his pocket ! Such was the fate of the author of 
 some of the most popular pieces in our language. He left a 
 son, who inherited his misery, and a gleam of his genius. 
 
 THE MISERIES OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COMMENTATOR. 
 
 De. Zachaet Geet, the editor of "Hudibras," is the father of 
 our modern commentators.* His case is rather peculiar ; I 
 know not whether the father, by an odd anticipation, was 
 doomed to suffer for the sins of his children, or whether his 
 own have been visited on the third generation ; it is certain 
 that never was an author more overpowered by the attacks he 
 received from the lis^ht and indiscriminatinsr shafts of ignorant 
 wits. He was ridiculed and abused for having assisted us to 
 comprehend the wit of an author, which, without that aid, at 
 this day would have been nearly lost to us ; and whose singu- 
 lar subject involved persons and events which requu'ed the very 
 thing he gave, — historical and explanatory notes. 
 
 A first thought, and all the danger of an original invention, 
 which is always imperfectly understood by the superficial, was 
 poor Dr. Grey's merit. He was modest and laborious, and 
 he had the sagacity to discover what Butler wanted, and 
 what the public required. His project was a happy thought, 
 to commentate on a singidar work which has scarcely a parallel 
 in modern literature, if we except the " Satyre Menippee " 
 of the French, which is, in prose, the exact counterpart of 
 "Hudibras" in rhyme; for our rivals have had the same state 
 revolution, in which the same dramatic personages passed 
 
 * Dr. Zachary Grey was throughout a long life a busy contributor to 
 literature. The mere list of his productions, in divinity and history, 
 occupy some pages of our hicipraphical dictionaries. He was born 1687, 
 and died at Ainpthill, in Bedfcirdbliire, in 1766. In private he was noted 
 for mild and pleasing manners. His "Hudibras," which was first pub- 
 lished in \1ii, in two octavo volumes, is now the standard edition. — Ed,
 
 The Miseries of the First English Commentator. 105 
 
 over their national stage, with the same incidents, in the civil 
 wars of the ambitious Guises, and the citizen-reformers. They, 
 too, found a Butler, though in prose, a Grey in Duchat, and, 
 as well as they could, a Hogarth. An edition, which 
 appeared in 1711, might have served as the model of Grey's 
 Hubidras. 
 
 It was, however, a happy thought in our commentator, to 
 turn over the contemporary writers to collect the events and 
 discover the personages alluded to by Butler ; to read what 
 the poet read, to observe what the poet observed. This was 
 at once throwing himself and the reader back into an age, of 
 which even the likeness had disappeared, and familiarisingus with 
 distant objects, which had been lost to us in the haze and mists 
 of time. For this, not only a new mode of travelling, but a 
 new road was to be opened ; the secret history, the fugitive 
 pamphlet, the obsolete satire, the ancient corned}- — such were 
 the many curious volumes whose dust was to be cleared away, 
 to cast a new radiance on the fading colours of a moveable 
 picture of manners ; the wittiest ever exhibited to mankind. 
 This new mode of research, even at this moment, is imperfectly 
 comprehended, still ridiculed even by those who could never 
 have understood a writer who will only be immortal in the 
 degree he is comprehended — and whose wit could not have 
 been felt but for the laborious curiosity of him whose " read- 
 ing " has been too often aspersed for " such reading " 
 
 As was never read. 
 
 Grey was outrageously attacked by all the wits, first by 
 Warburton, in his preface to Shakspeare, who declares that 
 " he hardW thinks there ever appeared so execrable a heap of 
 nonsense under the name of commentaries, as hath been lately 
 given us on a certain satyric poet of the last age." It is 
 odd enough, Warburton had himself contributed towards these 
 very notes, but, for some cause which has not been discovered, 
 had quarrelled with Dr. Grey. I will venture a conjecture 
 on this great conjectural critic. Warburton was always medi- 
 tating to give an edition of his own of our old writers, and 
 the sins he com'mitted against Shakspeare he longed to 
 practise on Butler, wliose times were, indeed, a favourite period 
 of his researches. Grey had anticipated him, and though 
 Warburton had half reluctantly yielded the few notes he had 
 prepared, his proud heart sickened when he beheld the
 
 106 Calamities of Authors 
 
 amazing subscription Grey obtained for his first edition of 
 "Hudibras ;" be received for that work 1500Z.* — a proof that 
 this pubHcation was felt as a want by the public. 
 
 Such, however, is one of those blunt, dogmatic censures in 
 which Warburton abounds, to impress his readers with the 
 w^eight of his opinions ; tliis great man wrote more for effect 
 than any other of our authors, as appears by his own or some 
 friend's confession, that if his edition of Shakspeare did no 
 honour to that bard, this was not the design of the commen- 
 tator — which was only to do honour to himself by a display 
 of his own exuberant erudition. 
 
 The poignant Fiehling, in his preface to his " Journey to 
 Lisbon," has a fling at the gravity of our doctor. "The 
 laborious, much-read Dr. Z. Grey, of whose redundant notes 
 on ' Hudibras' I shall only say that it is, I am confident, the 
 single book extant in which above 500 authors are quoted, not 
 one of which could be found in the collection of the late Dr. 
 Mead." Mrs. Montague, in her letters, severely characterises 
 the miserable father of English commentators ; she wrote in 
 youth and spirits, with no knowledge of books, and before 
 even the unlucky commentator had published his work, but wit 
 is the bolder by anticipation. She observes that " his dul- 
 ness may be a proper ballast for doggrel ; and it is better that 
 his stupidity should make jest dull than serious and sacred 
 things ridiculous ;" alluding to his numerous theological 
 tracts. 
 
 Such then are the hard returns which some authors are 
 doomed to receive as the rewards of useful labours from those 
 who do not even comprehend their nature ; a wit should not 
 be admitted as a critic till he has first proved by his gravity, 
 or his dulness if he chooses, that he has some knowledge ; for 
 it is the privilege and nature of wit to write fastest and best 
 on what it least understands. Knowledge only encumbers and 
 confines its fliichts. 
 
 THE LIFE OF AN AUTHORESS. 
 
 Of all the sorrows in which the female character may partici- 
 pate, there are few more affecting than those of an authoress ; 
 — often insulated and un])rotccted in society — witli all the 
 sensibility of the sex, encountering miseries which break the 
 
 * Cole's MSS.
 
 The Life of mi Authoress. 107 
 
 spirits of men ; with the repugnance arising from that dehcacy 
 whicli trembles when it quits its retirement. 
 
 My acquaintance with an unfortunate lady of the name of 
 Eliza Rta'ES, was casual and interrupted ; yet I witnessed 
 the bitterness of " hope deferred, which maketh the heart 
 sick." She sunk, by the slow wastings of grief, into a grave 
 which probably does not record the name of its martyr of 
 literature. 
 
 She was descended from a family of distinction in Ireland ; 
 but as she expressed it, " she had been deprived of her birth- 
 right by the chicanery of law." In her former hours of tran- 
 quillity she had published some elegant odes, had wi'itten a 
 traced}'- and comedies — all which remained in MS. In her 
 distress she looked up to her pen as a source of existence ; and 
 an elegant genius and a woman of polished manners com- 
 menced the life of a female trader in literature. 
 
 Conceive the repulses of a modest and delicate woman in 
 her attempts to appreciate the value of a manuscript with its 
 purchaser. She has frequently returned from the booksellers 
 to her di-eadful solitude to hasten to her bed — in all the bodily 
 pains of misery, she has sought in uneasy slumbers a tempo- 
 rary forgetfulness of griefs which were to recur on the 
 morrow. Elegant literature is always of doubtful acceptance 
 Vvdth the public, and Eliza Ryves came at length to try the 
 most masculine exertions of the pen. She wrote for one news- 
 paper much political matter ; but the proprietor was too great 
 a politician for the writer of politics, for he only praised the 
 labour he never paid ; much poetry for another, in which, 
 being one of the correspondents of Delia Crusca, in payment 
 of her verses she got nothing- but verses ; the most astonish- 
 ing exertion for a female pen w'as the entire composition of 
 the historical and political portion of some Annual Register. 
 So little profitable were all these laborious and original efforts, 
 that every day did not bring its " daily bread." Yet even iu 
 her poverty her native benevolence could make her generous; 
 for she has deprived herself of her meal to provide with one 
 an unhappjr family dwelling under the same roof. 
 
 Advised to adopt the mode of translation, and being igno- 
 rant of the French language, she retired to an obscure lodging 
 at Islington, which she never quitted till she had produced a 
 good version of Rousseau's " Social Compact," Ra^'nal's 
 " Letter to the National Assembly," and finally translated 
 De la Croix's " Review of the Constitutions of the principal
 
 108 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 States in Europe," in two large volumes with intelligent 
 notes. All these works, so much at variance with her taste, 
 left her with her health much broken, and a mind which might 
 be said to have nearly survived the body. 
 
 Yet even at a moment so unfavourable, her ardent spirit 
 engaged in a translation of Froissart. At the British Museum 
 I liave seen her conning over the magnificent and voluminous 
 MS. of the old chronicler, and by its side Lord Berners' ver- 
 sion, printed in the reign of Henry VIII. It was evident 
 that his lordship was employed as a spy on Froissart, to inform 
 her of what was going forward in the French camp ; and she 
 soon perceived, for her taste was delicate, that it required an 
 ancient lord and knight, with all his antiquity of phrase, 
 to break a lance with the still more ancient chivalric 
 Frenchman. The familiar elegance of modern style failed 
 to preserve the picturesque touches and the naive graces 
 of the chronicler, who wrote as the mailed knight combated 
 — roughly or gracefull}^ as suited the tilt or the field. She 
 vailed to Lord Bernei's ; while she felt it was here necessary 
 to understand old French, and then to write it in old 
 English.* During these profitless labours hope seemed to be 
 whispering in her lonely study. Her comedies had been in 
 possession of the managers of the theatres during several 
 years. They had too much merit to be rejected, perhaps too 
 little to be acted. Year passed over year, and the last still 
 repeated the treacherous promise of its brother. The mys- 
 terious arts of procrastination are by no one so well system- 
 atised as by the theatrical manager, nor its secret sorrows so 
 deeply felt as by the dramatist. One of her comedies. The 
 Debt of Honotir, had been warmly approved at both theatres 
 — where probably a copy of it may still be found. To the 
 honour of one of the managers, he presented her with a 
 hundred pounds on his acceptance of it. Could she avoid then 
 flattering herself with an annual harvest ? 
 
 But even this generous gift, which involved in it such 
 golden promises, could not for ten years preserve its delusion. 
 "I feel," said Eliza Kyves, "the necessity of some powerful 
 patronage, to bring my comedies forward to the world with 
 eclat, and secure them an admiration which, should it even be 
 deserved, is seldom bestowed, unless some leading judge of 
 literary uK'rit gives the sanction of his applause ; and then 
 
 * This version of Lord Berners has been reprinted.
 
 The Life of an Authoress. 109 
 
 the world will chime in with his opinion, without taking the 
 trouble to inform themselves whether it he founded in justice 
 or partiality." She never suspected that her comedies were 
 not comic ! — but who dare hold an argument with an ingenious 
 mind, when it reasons from a right principle, with a wrong 
 application to itself? It is true that a writer's connexions 
 have often done a great deal for a small author, and enabled 
 some favourites of literary fashion to enjoy a usurped reputa- 
 tion ; but it is not so evident that Eliza Ryves was a comic 
 writer, although, doubtless, she appeared another Menander 
 to herself. And thus an author dies in a delusion of self- 
 flattery ! 
 
 The character of Eliza Ryves was rather tender and melan- 
 choly, than brilliant and gay ; and like the bruised perfume 
 — breathing sweetness when broken into pieces. She traced 
 her sorrows in a work of fancy, where her feelings were at 
 least as active as her imagination. It is a small volume, en- 
 titled " The Hermit of Snowden." Albert, opulent and 
 fashionable, feels a passion for Lavinia, and meets the kindest 
 return ; but, having imbibed an ill opinion of women from his 
 licentious connexions, he conceived they were slaves of pas- 
 sion, or of avarice. He wrongs the generous nature of 
 Lavinia, by suspecting her of mercenary views ; hence arise 
 the perplexities of the hearts of both. Albert affects to be 
 ruined, and spreads the report of an advantageous match. 
 Lavinia feels all the delicacy of her situation ; she loves, but 
 " she never told her love." She seeks for her existence in 
 her literary labours, and perishes in want. 
 
 In the character of Lavinia, our authoress, with all the 
 melancholy sagacity of genius, foresaw and has described her 
 own death ! — the dreadful solitude to which she was latterly 
 condemned, when in the last stage of her poverty ; her frugal 
 mode of life ; her acute sensibility; her defrauded hopes ; and 
 her exalted fortitude. She has here formed a register of all 
 that occurred in her solitary existence. I will give one scene 
 — to me it is pathetic — for it is like a scene at which I was 
 present : — 
 
 " Lavinia's lodgings were about two miles from town, in 
 an obscure situation. I was showed up to a mean apartment, 
 where Lavinia was sitting at work, and in a di'ess which in- 
 dicated the greatest economy. I inquired what success she 
 had met with in her dramatic pursuits. She waved her 
 head, and, with a melancholy smile, replied, ' that her hopes
 
 110 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 of ever bringing any piece on the stage were now entirely 
 over ; for she found that more interest was necessary for the 
 purpose than she could command, and that she had for that 
 reason laid aside her comedy for ever !' While she was talk- 
 ing, came in a favourite dog of Lavinia's, which I had used 
 to caress. The creature sprang to my arms, and I received 
 him with my usual fondness. Lavinia endeavoured to conceal 
 a tear v/hich trickled down her cheek. Afterwards she said, 
 ' Now that I live entirely alone, I show Juno more attention 
 than I had used to do formerly. Tlie heart wants something 
 to he hind to ; and it consoles us for the loss of societv, to 
 see even an animal derive happiness from the endearments we 
 bestow upon it.' " 
 
 Such was Eliza Ryves ! not beautiful nor interesting in 
 her person, but with a mind of fortitude, susceptible of all 
 the delicacy of feminine softness, and virtuous amid her 
 despair.* 
 
 THE INDISCRETION OF AN HISTORIAN. 
 
 THOMAS CARTE. 
 
 " Caete," saj'-s Mr. Hallam, " is the most exact historian we 
 have;" and Daines Barrington prefers his authority to that 
 of any other, and many other writers confirm this opinion. 
 Yet had this historian been an ordinary compiler, he could 
 not have incurred a more mortifying fate ; for he was com- 
 pelled to retail in shilling numbers that invaluable history 
 which we have only learned of late times to appreciate, and 
 which was the laborious fruits of self-devotion. 
 
 Carte was the first of our historians who had the sagacity 
 and the fortitude to ascertain where the true sources of our 
 history lie. He discovered a new world beyond the old one 
 of our research, and not satisfied in gleaning the res historica 
 from its original writers — a merit which has not always been 
 possessed by some of our popular historians — Carte opened 
 those subterraneous veins of secret history from whence even 
 the original writers of our history, had they possessed them, 
 
 * Those who desire to further investigate the utter misery of female 
 authorship may be referred to Whyte's vivid description of an interview 
 with Mrs. Clarke (the daughter of Colley Gibber), about the purchase of a 
 novel. It is appended to an edition of his own poems, printed at Dublin, 
 1792; antl has been reproduced iu Hone's " Table Book," vol. i. — Ed.
 
 The Indiscretion of an Historian. Ill 
 
 might have drawn fresh knowledge and more ample views. 
 Our domestic or civil history was scarcely attempted till 
 Carte planned it ; while all his laborious days and his literary 
 travels on the Continent were absorbed in the creation ol" a 
 History of England and of a Piihlic Library in the metro- 
 polis, for we possessed neither. A diligent foreigner, liapin, 
 had comjjiled our history, and had opportunely Ibund in 
 the vast collection of Rymer's " Foedera" a rich accession of 
 knowledge ; but a foreigner could not sympathise with the 
 feelings, or even understand the language, of the domestic 
 story of our nation ; our rolls and records, our state-letters, the 
 journals of parliament, and those of the privy-council ; an 
 abundant source of private memoirs ; and the hidden treasures 
 in the state-paper office, the Cottonian and Harleian libraries ; 
 all these, and much besides, the sagacity of Carte contem- 
 plated. He had further been taught — hj his own examina- 
 tion of the true documents of history, which he found preserved 
 among the ancient families of France, who with a warm 
 patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, " often carefully preserved 
 in their families the acts of their ancestors ;" and the tresor 
 des chartes and the depot pour les affaires etrangeres (the state- 
 paper office of France), — that the history of om' country is 
 interwoven with that of its neighbours, as well as with that of 
 our own countrymen.* 
 
 Carte, with these enlarged views, and firm with diligence 
 which never paused, was aware that such labours — both tor the 
 expense and assistance they demand — exceeded the powers of 
 a private individual ; but " what a single man cannot do," 
 he said, " may be easily done by a society, and the value of an 
 opera subscription would be sufficient to patronise a History 
 of England." His valuable " History of the Duke of Ormond" 
 had sufficiently announced the sort of man who solicited this 
 necessary aid ; nor was the moment unpropitious to his fondest 
 hopes, for a Society for the Encouragement of Learning had 
 been formed, and this impulse of public spirit, however weak, 
 had, it would seem, roused into action some unexpected 
 quarters. When Carte's project was made known, a large 
 subscription was raised to defray the expense of transcripts, 
 and afford a sufficient independence to the historian ; many of 
 the nobility and the gentry subscribed ten or twenty guineas 
 
 * It is much to the honour of Carte, that the French acknowledge that 
 his publication of the " Rolles Gascognes" gave to them the first idea of 
 their learned work, the "Notice des Diplomes."
 
 112 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 annually, and several of the corporate bodies in the city 
 honourably appeared as the public patrons of the literatui'e of 
 their nation. He had, perhaps, nearly a thousand a year 
 subscribed, which he employed on the History. Thus every- 
 thing promised fair both for the history and for the historian 
 of our ftitherland, and about this time he zealously published 
 another proposal for the erection of a public library in the 
 Mansion-house. " There is not," observed Carte, " a great 
 city in Europe so ill-provided with public libraries as London." 
 He enters into a very interesting and minute narrative of the 
 public libraries of Paris.* He then also suggested the pur- 
 chase of ten thousand manuscripts of the Earl of Oxford, 
 which the nation now possess in tbe Harleian collection. 
 
 Though Carte failed to persuade our opulent citizens to 
 purchase this costly honour, it is probably to his suggestion 
 that the nation owes the British Museum. The ideas of the 
 literary man are never thrown away, however vain at the 
 moment, or however profitless to himself. Time preserves 
 without injuring the image of his mind, and a following age 
 often performs what the preceding failed to comprehend. 
 
 It was in 1743 that this work was projected, in 1747 the 
 first volume appeared. One single act of indisci'etion, an un- 
 lucky accident rather than a premeditated design, overturned 
 in a moment this monument of history ; — for it proved that 
 om" Carte, however enlarged were his views of what history 
 ought to consist, and however experienced in collecting its 
 most authentic materials, and accurate in their statement, was 
 infected by a superstitious jacobitism, which seemed likely to 
 spread itself through his extensive history. Carte indeed was 
 no philosopher, but a very faithful historian. 
 
 Having unhappily occasion to discuss whether the King of 
 England had, from the time of Edward the Confessor, tbe 
 power of healing inherent in him before his unction, or 
 whether the gift was conveyed by ecclesiastical hands, to 
 show the efficacy of the royal touch, he added an idle story, 
 which had come under his own observation, of a person who 
 appeared to have been so healed. Carte said of this unlucky 
 personage, so unworthily introduced five hundred years before 
 he was born, that he had been sent to Paris to be touched by 
 " the eldest lineal descendant of a race of kings who had 
 indeed for a long succession of ages cured that distemper by 
 
 * This paper, wliich is a great literary curiosity, is preserved by Mr. 
 Nichols ill bis "Literary History," vol. ii.
 
 TJie Indiscretion of an Historian. 113 
 
 the royal toncli." The insinuation was unquestionably in 
 favour of the Pretender, although the name of the prince was 
 not avowed, and was a sort of promulgation of the right 
 divine to the English throne. 
 
 The first news our author heard of his elaborate history 
 was the discovery of this unforeseen calamity ; the public 
 indignation was roused, and subscribers, public and private, 
 hastened to withdraw their names. The historian was left 
 forlorn and abandoned amid his extensive collections, and 
 Truth, which was about to be drawn out of her well by 
 this robust labourer, was no lonarer imagined to lie concealed 
 at the bottom of the waters. 
 
 Thunderstruck at this dreadful reverse to all his hopes, and 
 witnessing the unrequited labour of more than thirty years 
 withered in an hour, the unhappy Carte drew up a faint 
 appeal , rendered still more weak by a long and improbable 
 tale, that the objectionable illustration had been merely a 
 private note which by mistake had been printed, and only 
 designed to show that the person who had been healed im- 
 properly attributed his cure to the sanative virtue of the 
 regal unction ; since the prince in question had never been 
 anointed. But this was plunging from Scylla into Cha- 
 rybdis, for it inferred that the Stuarts inherited the heavenly- 
 gifted touch by descent. This could not avail ; yet heavy 
 was the calamity ! for now an historian of the utmost pro- 
 bity and exactness, and whose labours were never equalled 
 for their scope and extent, was ruined for an absurd but not 
 peculiar opinion, and an indiscretion which was more ludi- 
 crous than dishonest. 
 
 This shock of public opinion was met with a fortitude 
 which only strong minds experience ; Carte was the true 
 votary of study, — by habit, b^^ devotion, and by pleasure, he 
 persevered in producing an invaluable folio every two years ; 
 but from three thousand copies he was reduced to seven 
 hundred and fifty, and tlie obscure patronage of the few who 
 knew how to appreciate them. Death only arrested the his- 
 torian's pen — in the fourth volume. We have lost the im- 
 portant period of the reign of the second Charles, of which 
 Carte declared that he had read " a series of memoirs from 
 the beginning to the end of that reign which would have 
 laid open all those secret intrigues which Burnet with all his 
 genius for conjecture does not pretend to account for." 
 
 So precious were the MS. collections Carte left behind 
 
 I
 
 114- Calamities of Authors. 
 
 him, that the proprietor vakied them at loOOl. ; Phihp Earl 
 of Hardwicke paid 2001. only for the perusal, and Macpher- 
 son a larger sum for their use; and Hume, without Carte, 
 would scarcely have any authorities. Such was the cala- 
 mitous result of Carte's historical labours, who has left 
 others of a more philosophical cast, and of a finer taste in 
 composition, to reap the harvest whose soil had been broken 
 by his hand. 
 
 LITERARY RIDICULE. 
 
 ILLUSTRiTED BY SOME ACCOUNT OF A LITEKAET SATIRE. 
 
 Ridicule may be considered as a species of eloquence ; it 
 has all its vehemence, all its exaggeration, all its power of 
 diminution ; it is irresistible ! Its business is not with 
 truth, but with its appearance ; and it is this similitude, in 
 perpetual comparison with the original, which, raising con- 
 tempt, produces the ridiculous. 
 
 There is nothing real in ridicule ; the more exquisite, the 
 more it borrows from the imagination. When directed to- 
 wards an individual, by preserving a unity of character in all 
 its parts, it produces a fictitious personage, so modelled on the 
 prototype, that we know not to distinguish the true one from 
 the false. Even with an intimate knowledge of the real 
 object, the ambiguous image slides into our mind, for we are 
 at least as much influenced in our opinions by our imagina- 
 tion as by our judgment. Hence some great characters have 
 come down to us spotted with the taints of indelible wit ; 
 and a satirist of this class, sporting with distant resem- 
 blances and fanciful analogies, has made the fictitious accom- 
 pany for ever the real character. Piqued with Akenside for 
 some reflections against Scotland, Smollett has exhibited a 
 man of great genius and virtu.e as a most ludicrous person- 
 age ; and who can discriminate, in the ridiculous physician in 
 " Peregrine Pickle," what is real from what is fictitious ?* 
 
 • Of Akenside few particulars have been recorded, for the friend who 
 best knew him was of so cold a temper with regard to public opinion, that 
 he has not, in his account, revealed a solitary feature in the character of 
 the poet. Yet Akenside's mind and manners were of a fine romantic cast, 
 drawn from the moulds of classical antiquity. Such was the charm of his 
 converse, that he even heated the cold and sluggish mind of Sir John Haw- 
 kins, who has, with unusual vivacity, described a day spent with him in 
 the country. As I have mentioned the fictitious physician iu " Peregrine
 
 Literary Ridicule. 115 
 
 The banterers and ridiculers possess this provoking advan- 
 tage over sturdy honesty or nervous sensibility — their amu- 
 sing fictions alfect the world more than the plain tale tliat 
 would put them down. They excite our risible emotions, 
 while they are reducing their adversary to contempt — other- 
 wise they would not be distinguished from gross slanderers. 
 AVhen the wit has gained over the laughers on his side, he 
 has struck a blow which puts his adversary liors de combat. 
 A grave reply can never wound ridicule, which, assuming all 
 forms, has really none. Witty calumny and licentious rail- 
 lery are airy nothings that float about us, invulnerable from 
 their very nature, like those chimeras of hell which the 
 sword of TEneas could not pierce — yet these shadows of 
 truth, these false images, these fictitious realities, have made 
 heroism tremble, turned the eloquence of wisdom into folly, 
 and bowed down the spirit of honour itself. 
 
 Not that the legitimate use of ridicule is denied : the 
 wisest men have been some of the most exquisite ridiculers ; 
 from Socrates to the Fathers, and from the Fathers to Eras- 
 mus, and from Erasmus to Butler and Swift. Ridicule is 
 mors efiicacious than argument ; when that keen instrument 
 cuts what cannot be untied. " The Rehearsal" wrote down 
 the unnatural taste for the rhyming heroic tragedies, and 
 brought the nation back from sound to sense, from rant to 
 passion. More important events may be traced in the history 
 of Ridicule. When a certain set of intemperate Puritans, in 
 the reign of Elizabeth, the ridiculous reformists of abuses in 
 Church and State, congregated themselves under the literary 
 
 Pickle," let the same page show the real one. I shall transcribe Sir John's 
 forgotten words — omitting his " neat and elegant dinner :" — " Akenside's 
 conversation was of the most delightful kind, learned, instructive, and, 
 without any affectation of wit, cheerful and entertaining. One of the 
 pleasantest days of my life I passed with him, ]\Ir. Dyson, and another 
 friend, at Putney — where the enlivening sunshine of a summer's day, and 
 the view of an unclouded sky, were the least of our gratifications. In per- 
 fect good-humour with himself and all about him, he seemed to feel a joy 
 that he lived, and poured out his gratulations to the great Dispenser of all 
 felicity in expressions that Plato himself might have uttered on such an 
 occasion. In conversations with select friends, and those whose studies 
 had been nearly the same with his own, it was a usual thing with him, in 
 libations to the memory of eminent men among the ancients, to bring their 
 characters into view, and expatiate on those particulars of their lives that 
 had rendered them famous." Observe the arts of the ridiculer ! he seized 
 on the romantic enthusiasm of Akenside, and turned it to tlte cookery of 
 the ancients I 
 
 i2
 
 116 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 nom de guerre of 3Iartin Mar-prelate, a stream of libels ran 
 throughout the nation. The grave discourses of the arch- 
 bishop and the prelates could never silence the hardy and 
 concealed libellers. They employed a moveable printing- 
 press, and the publishers perpetually shifting their place, long 
 escaped detection. They declared their works were " printed 
 in Europe, not far from some of the bouncing priests;" or 
 thev were " printed over sea, in Europe, within two furlongs 
 of a bouncing priest, at the cost and charges of Martin Mar- 
 prelate, gent." It was then that Tom Nash, whom I am 
 about to introduce to the reader's more familiar acquaintance, 
 the most exquisite banterer of that age of genius, turned ou 
 them their own weapons, and annihilated them into silence 
 wlien they found themselves paid in their own base coin. 
 He rebounded their popular ribaldry on themselves, with such 
 replies as " Pap with a hatchet, or a fig for my godson ; or, 
 crack me this nut. To be sold, at the sign of the Crab-tree 
 Cudgel, in 'J'hwack-coat lane."* Not less biting was his 
 " Almond for a Parrot, or an Alms for Martin." Nash first 
 silenced Martin Mar-prelate, and the government afterwards 
 hanged him ; Nash might be vain of the greater honour. A 
 ridiculer then is the best champion to meet another ridiculer ; 
 their scurrilities magically undo each other. 
 
 But the abuse of ridicule is not one of the least calamities 
 of literature, when it withers genius, and gibbets whom it 
 ought to enshrine. Never let us forget that Socrates before 
 his judges asserted that " his persecution originated in the 
 licensed raillery of Aristophanes, which had so unduly influ- 
 enced the popular mind during several years T^ And thus a 
 fictitious Socrates, not the great moralist, was condemned. 
 Armed with the most licentious ridicule, the Aretine of our 
 own country and times has proved that its chief magistrate 
 was not protected by the shield of domestic and public 
 virtues ; a false and distorted image of an intelligent monarch 
 could cozen the gross many, and aid the purposes of the 
 subtle few. 
 
 There is a plague-spot in ridicule, and the man who 
 
 * This pamphlet has been ascribed to John Lilly, but it must be con- 
 fessed that it« native vigour strangely contrasts with the famous Euphuism 
 of that refined writer. [There can, however, be little doubt that he was 
 the author of this tract, as he is alluded to more than once as such by 
 Harvey in his " Pierce's Supererogation ;"' — " would that Lilly had al waits 
 been Euphues and never Fap-hatchet.'" — Ei>.]
 
 Literarij Ridicule. 117 
 
 is touched with it can be sent forth as the jest of his 
 country. 
 
 The literary reign of Elizabeth, so fertile in every kind of 
 genius, exhibits a I'emarkable instance, in the controversy be- 
 tween the witty Tom Nash and the learned Gabriel Harvey. 
 It will illustrate the nature of the fictions of ridicule, expose 
 the materials of which its shafts are composed, and the 
 secret arts by which ridicule can level a character which 
 seems to be placed above it. 
 
 Gabuiel Harvey was an author of considerable rank, but 
 with two learned brothers, as Wood tells us, " had the ill 
 luck to fall into the hands of that noted and restless buffoon, 
 Tom Nash." 
 
 Harvey is not unknown to the lover of poetry, from his 
 connexion with Spenser, who loved and revered him. He is 
 the Hobynol whose poem is prefixed to the " Faery Queen," 
 who introduced Spenser to Sir Philip Sidney : and, besides 
 his intimacy with the literary characters of his times, he was 
 a Doctor of Laws, an erudite scholar, and distinguished as a 
 poet. Such a man could hardly be contemptible ; and yet, 
 when some little peculiarities become aggravated, and his 
 works are touched by the caustic of the most adroit banterer 
 of that age of wit, no character has descended to us with such 
 grotesque deformity, exhibited in so ludicrous an attitude. 
 
 Harvey was a pedant, but pedantry was part of the eru- 
 dition of an age when our national literature was passing from 
 its infjincy ; he introduced hexameter verses into our language, 
 and pompously laid claim to an invention which, designed for 
 the reformation of English verse, was practised till it was 
 found sufficiently ridiculous. His style was infected with his 
 pedantic taste ; and the hard outline of his satirical humour 
 betrays the scholastic cynic, not the airy and fluent wit. He 
 had, perhaps, the foibles of a man who was clearing himself 
 from obscurity ; he prided himself on his family alliances, 
 while he fastidiously looked askance on the trade of his father 
 — a rope-manufacturer. 
 
 He was somewhat rich in his apparel, according to the rank 
 in society he held ; and, hungering after the notice of his 
 friends, they fed him on soft sonnet and relishing dedication, 
 till Harve}"^ ventured to publish a collection of panegyrics on 
 himself — and thus gravely stepped into a niche erected to 
 Vanity. At length he and his two brothers — one a divine 
 and the other a physician — became students of astronomy j
 
 118 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 then an astronomer usually ended in an almanac-maker, and 
 above all, in an astrolc^ger — an avocation which tempted a 
 man to become a prophet. Their " sharp and learned judg- 
 ment on earthquakes" drove the people out of their senses 
 (says Wood) ; but when nothing happened of their predic- 
 tions, the brothers received a severe castigation from those 
 great enemies of prophets, the wits. The buffoon, Tarleton, 
 celebrated for his extemi)ore humour, jested on them at 
 the theatre;* Elderton, a drunken ballad-maker, "consumed 
 his ale-crammed nose to nothing in bear-bating them with 
 bundles of ballads." f One on the earthquake commenced 
 with "Quake! quake! quake!" They made the people 
 laugh at their false terrors, or, as Nash humorously describes 
 their fanciful panic, " when they sweated and were not a 
 haire the worse." Thus were the three learned brothers 
 beset by all the town-wits ; Gabriel had the hardihood, with 
 all undue gravity, to charge pell-mell among the whole 
 knightliood of drollery ; a circumstance probably alluded to 
 by Spenser, in a sonnet addressed to Harvey — 
 
 Harvey, the happy above happier men, 
 I read ; that sitting like a looker-on 
 Of this worlde's stage, dost note with critique pen 
 The sharp dislikes of each condition ; 
 And, as one carelesse of suspition, 
 Ne fawnest for the favour of the great ; 
 Ne fairest foolish reprehension 
 Of faulty men, which daunr/er io thee threat, 
 But freely doest of what thee list, entreat. 
 Like a great lord of peerlesse liberty. — " 
 
 The " foolish reprehension of faulty men, threatening Har- 
 vey with danger," describes that gregarious herd of town- 
 wits in the age of Elizabeth — Kit Marlow, Robert Greene, 
 Dekker, Nash, &c. — men of no moral principle, of high 
 passions, and the mast pregnant Lucianic wits who ever 
 
 * Tarleton appears to have had considerable power of extemporising 
 satirical rhymes on the ileeting events of his own day. A collection of his 
 Jests was published in 1611 ; tlie following is a favourable specimen : — 
 *' There was a nobleman asked Tarleton what he thought of soldiers in time 
 of peace. Marry, quoth he, they are like chimneys in summer." — Ed. 
 
 + A long list of Elderton's jiopular rhymes is given by Ritson in his 
 *' Bibliogrri])hia Pootica." One of them, on the " King of Scots and Andrew 
 Browne," is ])ublished in Percy's " lleliques," who speaks of him as "a 
 facetious fuddling companion, whose tipi^ling and whose rhymes rendered 
 him famous among his contemporaries." Ritson is more condensed and less 
 civil in his analysis ; he simply describes him as '' a ballad-maker by pro- 
 fession, and drunkard by habit."— Ed.
 
 Literary Ridicule. 119 
 
 flourished at one period.* Unfortunately for the learned 
 Harvey, his "critique pen," which is strange in so polished 
 a mind and so curious a student, indulged a sharpness of 
 invective which would have been peculiar to himself, had his 
 adversary, Nash, not quite outdone him. Their pamphlets 
 foamed against each other, till Nash, in his vehement invec- 
 tive, involved the whole generation of the Harveys, made one 
 brother more ridiculous than the other, and even attainted 
 the fair name of Gabriel's respectable sister. Gabriel, indeed, 
 after the death of Robert Greene, the crony of Nash, sitting 
 like a vampyre on his grave, sucked blood from his corpse, in 
 a memorable narrative of the debaucheries and miseries of 
 this town-wit. I throw into the note the most awful satirical 
 address I ever read.f It became necessary to dry up the 
 
 * Harvey, in the titlepage of his " Pierce's Supererogation," has placed 
 an emblematic woodcut, expressive of his own confidence, and his contempt 
 of the wits. It is a lofty palm-tree, with its durable and impenetrable 
 trunk ; at its feet lie a heap of serpents, darting their tongues, and filthy 
 toads, in vain attempting to pierce or to pollute it. The Italian motto, 
 vtreathed among the branches of the palm, declares, II vostro nudiynare 
 non giova nulla : Your malignity avails nothing. 
 
 + Among those Sonnets, in Harvey's "Foure Letters, and certaine Son- 
 nets, especially touching Kobert Greene and other parties by him abused, 
 1592," there is one, which, with great originality of conception, has an 
 equal vigour of style, and causticity of satire, on Robert Gi'eene's death. 
 John Harvey the physician, who was then dead, is thus made to address 
 the town-wit, and the libeller of himself and his family. If Gabriel was 
 the writer of this singular Sonnet, as he undoubtedly is of the verses to 
 Spenser, subscribed Hobynol, it must be confessed he is a Poet, which he 
 never appears in his English hexameters : — 
 
 John Harvey the Physician's Welcome to Robert Gkeene ! 
 "Come, fellow Greene, come to thy gaping grave, 
 
 Bid vanity and foolery farewell. 
 That ouerlong hast plaid the mad brained knaue, 
 
 And ouerloud hast rung the bawdy liell. 
 Vermine to vermine must repair at last ; 
 
 No fitter house for busie folke to dwell ; 
 Thy conny-catehing pageants are past +, 
 
 Some other must those arrant stories tell ; 
 These hungry wormes thinke long for their repast ; 
 
 Come on ; I pardon thy offence to me ; 
 It was thy living ; be not so aghast ! 
 
 A fool and a physitian may agree ! 
 
 And for my brothers never vex thyself; 
 
 They are not to disease a buried elfe." 
 
 + Greene had written "The Art of Coney-catching." He was a great 
 adept iu the arts of a town-life.
 
 120 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 floodgates of these rival ink-horns, by an order of the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. The order is a remarkable fragment 
 of our literary history, and is thus expressed : — " That all 
 Nashe's bookes and i)r. Harvey's bookes be taken whereso- 
 ever they may be found, and that none of the said bookes be 
 ever printed hereafter." 
 
 This extraordinary circumstance accounts for the excessive 
 rarity of Harvey's " Foure Letters, 1592," and that literary 
 scourge of Nash's, " Have with you to Saffron -Walden (Har- 
 vey's residence), or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is vp, 1596;" 
 pamphlets now as costly as if they consisted of leaves of 
 gold.* 
 
 Nash, who, in his other works, writes in a style as flowing 
 as Addison's, with hardly an obsolete vestige, has rather 
 injured this literary invective by the evident burlesque he 
 affects of Harvey's pedantic idiom ; and for this Mr. Malone 
 has hastily censured him. without recollecting the aim of 
 this modern Lucian.f The delicacy of irony ; the sous- 
 entendu, that subtlety of indicating what is not told ; all 
 that poignant satire, which is the keener for its polish, were 
 
 * Sir Egerton Brydges in his reprint of "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit," 
 has given the only passage fmm " The Quip for an Upstart Courtier," 
 which at all alludes to Harvey's father. He says with great justice, "there 
 seems nothing in it sufficiently ofl'ensive to account for the violence of 
 Harvey's anger." The Rev. A. Dyce, so well known from his varied re- 
 searches in our dramatic literature, is of opinion that the offensive passage 
 has been removed from the editions which have come down to us. Without 
 some such key it is impossible to comprehend Harvey's implacable hatred, 
 or the words of himself and friends when they describe Greene as an " im- 
 pudent railer in an odious and desperate mood," or his satire as " spiteful 
 and villanous abuse." The occasion of the quarrel was an attack by 
 Kichard Harvey, who had the folly to " mis-term all our poets and writers 
 about London, piperhj make-plays and make-bates,''' as Nash informs us ; 
 "hence Greene being chief agent to the company, for he writ more than 
 four other, took occasion to canvass him a little, — about some seven or 
 eight lines, which hath plucked on an invective of so many leaves." — Ed. 
 
 + Nash was a great favourite with the wits of his day. One calls him 
 "our true English Aretine," another, "Sweet satyric Nash," a third 
 describes his Muse as "armed with a gag-tooth (a tusk), and his pen pos- 
 sessed with Hercules's furies." He is well characterised in " The Return 
 from Parnassus." 
 
 " His style was witty, tho' he had some gall ; 
 
 Something he might have mended, so may all ; 
 
 Yet this I say, that for a mother s wit, 
 
 Few men have ever seen the like of it." 
 Nash abounds with "Mother-wit;" but he was also educated at the 
 University, with every advantage of classical studies.
 
 Literary Ridicule. 121 
 
 not practised by our first vehement satirists ; but a banter- 
 ing masculine bumour, a style stamped in the heat of fancy, 
 with all the life-touches of strong individuality, characterise 
 these lieenticus wits. They wrote then as the old fahliers 
 told their tales, nan)ing everything by its name ; our refine- 
 ment cannot approve, but it cannot diminish their real nature, 
 and among our elaborate graces, their naivete must be still 
 wanting. 
 
 In tiiis literary satire Nash has interwoven a kind of 
 ludicrous biograpliy of Harvey ; and seems to have antici- 
 pated the character of Martinus Scriblerus. I leave the 
 grosser parts of this invective untouched ; for my business 
 is not with slander, but with ridicule. 
 
 Nash opens as a skilful lampooner ; he knew well that 
 ridicule, without the appearance of truth, was letting fly an 
 arrow upwards, touching no one. Nash accounts for his 
 protracted silence by adroitly declaring that he had taken 
 these two or thi-ee years to get perfect intelligence of Har- 
 vey's " Life and conversation ; one true point whereof well 
 sat downe will more excruciate him than knocking him about 
 the ears with his own style in a hundred sheets of paper." 
 
 And with great humour says — 
 
 " As long as it is since he writ against me, so long have I 
 given him a lease of his life, and he hath only held it by my 
 mercy ; and now let him thank his friends for this heavy load 
 of disgrace 1 la}' upon him, since I do it but to show my 
 sufficiency ; and they urging what a triumph he had over 
 me, hath made me ransack my standish more than I 
 would." 
 
 In the history of such a literary hero as Gabriel, the birth 
 has ever been attended by portents. Gabriel's mother 
 " dreamt a dream," that she was delivered " of an immense 
 elder gun that can shoot nothing but pellets of chewed 
 paper ; and thought, instead of a boy, she was brought to 
 bed of one of those kistrell birds called a wind-sucker." At 
 the moment of his birth came into the world " a calf with a 
 double tongue, and eares longer than any ass's, with his feet 
 turned backwards." Facetious analogies of Gabriel's literary 
 genius ! 
 
 He then paints to the life the grotesque portrait of Har- 
 vey ; so that the man himself stands alive before us. " He 
 was of an adust swarth choleric dye, like restie bacon, or a 
 dried scate-fish ; his skin riddled and crumpled like a piece
 
 123 Calamities of Autho'rs. 
 
 of burnt parchment, with channels and creases in his face, 
 and wrinkles and frets of old age." Nash dexterously attri- 
 butes this premature old age to his own talents ; exulting 
 humorously — 
 
 " I have brovight him low, and shrewdly broken him ; look 
 on his head, and you shall find a gray haire for euerie line I 
 have writ against him ; and you shall haue all his beard white 
 too by the time he hath read ouer this booke." 
 
 To give a finishing to the portrait, and to reach the climax 
 of personal contempt, he paints the sordid miser}'- in which 
 he lived at Safiron-Walden : — " Enduring more hardness than 
 a camell, who will hue four dayes without water, and feedcs 
 on nothing but thistles and wormwood, as he feeds on his 
 estate on trotters, sheep porknells, and buttered rootes, in an 
 hexameter meditation." 
 
 In his Venetian velvet and pantofles of pride, we are told — 
 
 " He looks, indeed, like a case of tooth-pickes, or a lute-pin 
 stuck in a suit of apparell. An Vsher of a dancing-schoole, 
 he is such a hasia de vn^hra de vmbra de los pedes ; a kisser of 
 the shadow of your feetes shadow he is !" 
 
 This is, doubtless, a portrait resembling the original, with 
 its Cervantic touches ; Nash would not have risked what the 
 eyes of his readers would instantly have proved to be fic- 
 titious ; and, in fact, though the Grangerites know of no 
 portrait of Gabriel Harvey, they will find a woodcut of him 
 by the side of this descrij)tion ; it is, indeed, in a most piti- 
 able attitude, expressing that gripe of criticism which seized 
 on Gabriel " upon the news of the going in hand of my 
 booke." 
 
 The ponderosity and prolixity of Gabriel's " period of a 
 mile," are described with a facetious extravagance, which 
 may be given as a specimen of the eloquence of ridicule. 
 Harvey entitled his various pamphlets " Letters." 
 
 " More letters yet from the doctor ? Out upon it, here's a 
 packet of cpistling, as bigge as a packe of woollen cloth, or a 
 stack of salt fish. Carrier, didst thou bring it by wayne, or 
 by horsebacke ? By wayne, sir, and it hath crackt me three 
 axle-trees. — Heavie nevves ! Take them again ! I will never 
 open them. — M}'' cart (quoth he, deep-sighing,) hath cryde 
 creake under them fortie times euerie furlong ; wherefore if 
 you be a good man rather make mud-walls with them, mend 
 highways, or damme up quagmires with Lhem.
 
 Literary Ridicule. 123 
 
 " When I came to unrip and unbumbast* tliis Gargantuan 
 bag pudding, and found nothing in it but dogs tripes, swines 
 livers, oxe galls, and sheepes guts, I was in a bitterer chafe 
 than anie cooke at a long sermon, when his meat burnes. 
 
 " 'tis an vnsconscionable vast gor-bellied volume, bigger 
 bulkt than a Dutch hoy, and more cumbersome than a payre 
 of Switzer's galeaze breeches. "f 
 
 And in the same ludicrous style he writes — 
 
 " One epistle thereof to John Wolfe (Harvey's printer) I 
 took and weighed m an ironmonger's scale, and it counter 
 poyseth a cadej of herrings with three Holland cheeses. It 
 was rumoured about the Court that the guard meant to trie 
 masteries with it before the Queene, and instead of throwing 
 the sledge, or the hammer, to hurle it foorth at the armes end 
 for a wager. 
 
 " Sixe and thirtie sheets it comprehendeth, which with him 
 is but sixe and thirtie full points (periods) ; for he makes no 
 more difference 'twixt a sheet of paper and a full pointe, than 
 there is 'twixt two black puddings for a pennie, and a pennie 
 for a pair of black puddings. Yet these are but the shortest 
 prouerbes of his wit, for he never bids a man good morrow, 
 but he makes a speech as long as a proclamation, nor drinkes 
 • to anie, but he reads a lecture of three howers long, de Arte 
 hihencli. O 'tis a precious apothegmatical pedant." 
 
 It was the foible of Harvey to wish to conceal the humble 
 avocation of his father : this forms a perpetual source of the 
 bitt( mess or the pleasantry of Nash, who, indeed, calls his 
 jjamphlet " a full answer to the eldest son of the halter 
 maker," which, he says, "is death to Gabriel to remember; 
 wherefore from time to time he doth nothing but turmoile 
 his thoughts how to invent new pedigrees, and what great 
 nobleman's bastard he was likely to be, not whose sonne he 
 is reputed to be. Yet he would not have a shoo to put on 
 
 * Bombast was the tailors' term in the Elizabethan era for the stuffing 
 of horsehair or wool used for the large breeches then in fashion ; hence the 
 term was applied to high-sounding phrases — "all sound and fury, signify- 
 ing nothing." — Ed. 
 
 + These were the loose heavy breeches so constantly worn by Swiss 
 soldiers as to become a national costume, and which has been handed down 
 to us by the artists of the day in a variety of forms. They obtained the 
 name of galeaze, from their supposed resemblance to the broad-bottomed 
 fihip called a galliass. — Ed. 
 
 J A cade is 500 herrings; a great quantity of an article of no value.
 
 124 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 his foote if his fiitber had not traffiqued with the Iiangman. — 
 Harvey nor his brotliers cannot bear to be called the sonnes 
 of a rope-maker, which, by his private confession to some of 
 my friends, was the only thing that most set him afire 
 against me. Turne over his two bookes he hath ])Liblished 
 against me, wherein he hath clapt paper God's plentie, if 
 that could press a man to death, and see if, in the waye of 
 answer, or otherwise, he o:ioe mentioned the word rope- 
 vmJcer, or come within forty foot of it ; except in one place 
 of his first booke, where he nameth it not neither, but goes 
 thus cleanly to worke : — ' and may not a good sonne have a 
 reprobate ibr his lather ?' a periphrase of a rope-maker, 
 which, if I should shryue myself, I never heard before." 
 According to Nash, Gabriel took his oath before a justice, 
 that his lather was an honest man, and kept his sons at the 
 Universities a long time. " I confirmed it, and added. Ay ! 
 which is more, three proud sonnes, that when they met the 
 hangman, their father's best customei", would not put off 
 their hats to him — " 
 
 Such repeated raillery on this foible of Harvey touched him 
 more to the quick, and more raised the public laugh, than any 
 other point of attack ; for it was merited. Another foible 
 was, perhaps, the finical richness of Harvey's dress, adopting 
 the Italian fashions on his return from Italy, " when he 
 made no bones of taking the wall of Sir Philip Sidney, in his 
 black Venetian velvet."* On this the fertile invention of 
 Nash raises a scandalous anecdote concernmg Gabriel's ward- 
 robe ; " a tale of his hobby-horse reuelling and domineering 
 at Audley-end, when the Queen was there ; to which place 
 Gabriel came ruffling it out, hufty tufty, in his suit of 
 veluet — " which he had " untrussed, and pelted the outside 
 from the lining of an old velvet saddle he had borrowed !" 
 "The rotten mould of that worm-eaten relique, he means, 
 
 * Harvey's love of dress, and desire to indulge it cheaply, is satirically 
 alluded to by Nash, in confuting Harvey's assertion that Greene's wardrobe 
 at his death was not worth more than three shillings — "I know a broker 
 in a spruce leather jerkin shall give you thirty shillings for the doublet 
 alone, if you can help him to it. Hark in your ear ! he had a very fair 
 cloak, •«ith sleeves of a goose green, it would serve you as tine as may be. 
 No more words ; if you be wise, play the good husband, and listen after it, 
 you may buy it ten shillings better cheap than it cost him. By St. Silver, 
 it is good to be circumspect in casting for the world ; there's a great many 
 ropes go to ten shillings ? If you want a greasy pair of silk stockings to 
 shew yourself in the court, they are there to be had too, amongst his 
 moveables."— Ed.
 
 Literary Ridicule. 125 
 
 when he dies, to hang over his tomb for a monument."* 
 Harvey was proud of his refined skill in " Tuscan authors," 
 and too fond of their worse conceits. Nash alludes to his 
 travels in Italy, " to fetch him twopenny worth of Tuscan- 
 isrn, quite renouncing his natural English accents and ges- 
 tures, wrested himself wholly to the Italian punctilios, 
 painting himself like a courtezan, till the Queen declared, 
 ' he looked something like an Italian !' At which he roused 
 his plumes, pricked his ears, and run away with the bridle 
 betwixt his teeth." These were malicious tales, to make his 
 adversary contemptible, whenever the merry wits at court 
 were willing to sharpen themselves on him. 
 
 One of the most difficult points of attack was to break 
 through that bastion of sonnets and panegyrics with which 
 Harvey had fortified himself by tlie aid of his friends, 
 against the assaults of Nash, Harvey had been commended 
 by the learned and the ingenious. Our Lucian, with his 
 usual adroitness, since he could not deny Harvey's intimacy 
 with Spenser and Sidney, gets rid of their suffrages by this 
 malicious sarcasm : " It is a miserable thing for a man to be 
 said to have had friends, and now to have near a one left !" 
 As for the others, whom Harvey calls " his gentle and libe- 
 rall friends," Nash boldly caricatures the grotesque crew, as 
 " tender itchie brained infants, that cared not what they did, 
 so they might come in print ; worthless whippets, and jack- 
 straws, who meeter it in his commendation, whom he would 
 com.pare with the highest." The works of these young 
 writers he describes by an image exquisitely ludicrous and 
 satirical : — 
 
 " These mushrumpes, who pester the world with their 
 pamphlets, are like those barbarous people in the hot coun- 
 tries, who, when they have bread to make, doe no more than 
 clap the dowe upon a post on the outside of their houses, 
 and there leave it to the sun to bake ; so their indigested 
 conceipts, far rawer than anie dowe, at all adventures upon 
 the post they clap, pluck them off who will, and think they 
 have made as good a batch of poetrie as may be." 
 
 Of Harvey's list of friends he observes : — 
 
 * This unlucky Venetian velvet coat of Harvey had also produced a 
 "Quippe for an Vpstart Courtier, or a quaint dispute between Veluet- 
 breeches and Cloth- breeches," which poor Harvey declares was "one of 
 the most licentious and intolerable invectives." This blow had been struck 
 by Greene on the " Italianated" Courtier.
 
 126 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 " To a bead-roll of learned men and lords, he appeals, 
 whether he be an asse or no ?" 
 
 Harvey had said, " Thomas Nash, from the top of his wit 
 looking down upon simple creatures, calleth Grabriel Harvey 
 a dunce, a foole, an ideot, a dolt, a goose cap, an asse, and so 
 forth ; for some of the residue is not to be spoken but with 
 his owne mannerly mouth ; but he should have shewed par- 
 ticularlie which wordes in my letters were the wordes of a 
 dunce ; which sentences the sentences of a foole ; which 
 arguments the arguments of an ideot ; which opinions the 
 opinions of a dolt; which judgments the judgments of a 
 goose-cap ; which conclusions the conclusions of an asse."* 
 
 Thus Harvey reasons, till he becomes unreasonable; one 
 would have imagined that the literary satires of our English 
 Lucian had been voluminous enough, without the mathe- 
 matical demonstration. The banterers seem to have put poor 
 Harvey nearly out of his wits ; he and his friends felt their 
 blows too profoundly ; they were much too thin-skinned, and 
 the solemn air of Harvey in his graver moments at their 
 menaces is extremely ludicrous. They frequently called him 
 Gahrielissime Gabriel, which quintessence of himself seems 
 to have mightily affected him. They threatened to confute 
 his letters till eternity — which seems to have put him in de- 
 spair. The following passage, descriptive of Gabriel's dis- 
 tresses, may excite a smile. 
 
 " This grand confuter of my letters says, ' Gabriel, if there 
 be any wit or Industrie in thee, now I will dare it to the 
 vttermost ; write of what thou wilt, in what language thou 
 wilt, and 1 will confute it, and answere it. Take Truth's 
 part, and 1 will proouve truth to be no truth, marching ovt 
 of thy dung-voiding mouth.' He will never leave me as 
 long as he is able to lift a pen, ad infinitum; if I reply, he 
 has a rejoinder ; and for my brief triplication, he is prouided 
 with a qiiadntplication, and so he mangles m}'' sentences, 
 hacks my arguments, wrenches m}'- words, chops and changes 
 my phrases, even to the disjoyning and dislocation of my 
 whole meaning." 
 
 Poor Harvey ! he knew not that there was notliing real in 
 ridicule, no end to its merry malice ! 
 
 Harvey's taste for hexameter vferses, which he so unna- 
 turally forced into our language, is admirably ridiculed. 
 
 * " Pierce's Supererogation, or a new praise of tlie Old Asse," 1593.
 
 Literary Ridicule. 137 
 
 Harvey had shown his taste for these metres by a variety of 
 poems, to whose subjects Nash tlius sarcastically alludes : — 
 
 " It had grown with him into such a dictionary custom, 
 that no may-pole in the street, no wethercocke on anie 
 church-steeple, no arbour, no lawrell, no yewe-tree, he would 
 ouerskip, without hayling in this manner. After supper, if 
 he chancst to play at cards with a queen of harts in his 
 hands, he would run upon men's and women's hearts all the 
 night." 
 
 And he happily introduces here one of the miserable hexa- 
 meter conceits of Harvey — 
 
 Stout hart and sweet hai-t, yet stoutest hart to be stooped. 
 
 Harvey's " Encomium Lauri" thus ridiculously commences, 
 
 What might I call this tree? A lawrell? bonny lawrell, 
 Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto ; 
 
 which Nash most happily burlesques by describing Harvey 
 imder a yew-tree at Trinit3'-hall, composing verses on the 
 weathercock of AUhallows in Cainbridge : — 
 
 thou wether-coeke that stands on the top of Allhallows, 
 Come thy wales down, if thou darst, for thy crowne, and take the 
 ■wall on us. 
 
 " The hexameter verse (says Nash) I graunt to be a gentle- 
 man of an auncient house (so is many an English beggar), 
 yet this clyme of our's hee cannot thrive in ; our speech is 
 too craggy for him to set his plough in ; hee goes twitching 
 and hopping in our language, like a man running vpon quag- 
 mires, vp the hill in one syllable and down the dale in another, 
 retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts 
 himself with amongst the Greeks and Latins." 
 
 The most humorous part in this Scribleriad, is a ludicrous 
 narrative of Harvey's expedition to the metropolis, for the sole 
 purpose of writing his " Pierce Supererogation," pitted 
 against Nash's " Pierce's Pennilesse." The facetious Nash 
 describes the torpor and pertinacity of his genius, by telling 
 us he had kept Harvey at work— 
 
 " For seaven and thirtie weekes space while he lay at his 
 printer's, Wolfe, never stirring out of doors, or being churched 
 all that while — and that in the deadest season that might bee, 
 hee lying in the ragingest furie of the last plague where there 
 dyde above ICOO a weeke in London, ink-squittring and 
 saracenically printing against mee. Three quarters of a year
 
 128 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 thus immured hee remained, with his spirits yearning empas- 
 sionment, and agonised fury, thirst of revenge, neglecting soul 
 and bodies health to compasseit — sweating and deahng upon 
 it most intentively."* 
 
 The narrative proceeds with the many perils which Harvey's 
 printer encountered, by expense of diet, and printing for this 
 bright genius and his friends, whose works " would rust and 
 iron-spot paper to have their names breathed over it ;" and 
 that Wolfe designed " to get a privilege betimes, forbidding of 
 all others to sell waste-paper but himselfe." The climax of 
 the narrative, after many misfortunes, ends with Harvey being 
 arrested by the printer, and confined to Newgate, where his 
 sword is taken from him, to his perpetual disgrace. So 
 much did Gabriel endure lor having written a book against 
 Tom Nash ! 
 
 But Harvey might deny some of these ludicrous facts. — 
 Will he deny ? cries Nash — and here he has woven every tale 
 the most watchful malice could collect, varnished for their 
 full effect. Then he adds, 
 
 " You see I have brought the doctor out of request at court ; 
 and it shall cost me a fall, but I will get him howted out of 
 the Vniuersitle too, ere I giue him ouer," He tells us Harvey 
 was brought on the stage at Trinity-college, in " the exquisite 
 comedie of Pedantius," where, under" the finical fine school- 
 master, the just manner of his phrase, thej'^ stufFt his mouth 
 with ; and the whole buffianisme throughout his bookes, they 
 bolstered out his part with — euen to the carrying of his gowne, 
 his nice gate in his pantofles, or the affected accent of his 
 speech — Let him deny that there was a shewe made at Clare- 
 hall of him and his brothers, called Tarrarantantara turba 
 tumultuosa Trigonum Tri-Harveyorum Ti'i-harmonia ; and 
 another shewe of the little minnow his brother, at Peter-house, 
 called Duns fur^ns, Dick Harvey in a frensie." The sequel is 
 thus told : — " Whereupon Dick came and broke the college 
 glass windows, and Dr.Perne caused him to be set in the stockes 
 till the shewe was ended." 
 
 This " Duns furens, Dick Harvey in a frensie," was not 
 
 * Harvey's opponents were mncli nimbler penmen, and could strike off 
 these lampoons with all the facility of writers for the stage. Thus Nash 
 declares, in his " Have with you to Saffron Waklen," that he leaves Lilly, 
 who was also attacked, to defend himself, because "in as much time as he 
 spends in taking tobacco one week, lie can compile that would make 
 (Jabriell repent himself all his life after." — Ed.
 
 Literary Ridicule. 120 
 
 only the brother of one who ranked high in society and htera- 
 ture, but himself a learned professor. Nash brings him down 
 to " Pigmey Dick, that lookes like a pound of goldsmith's 
 candles, who had like to commit folly last year with a milk- 
 maid, as a friend of his very soberly informed me. Little and 
 little-wittied Dick, that hath vowed to live and die in defence 
 of Brutus and his Trojans."* An Herculean feat of this 
 "Duns furens," Nash tells us, was his setting Aristotle with 
 his heels upwards on the school-gates at Cambridge, and put-- 
 ting ass's ears on his head, which Tom here records in perpe- 
 tuam rei memoriam. But Wood, our grave and keen literary 
 antiquary, observes — 
 
 " To let pass other matters these vain men (the wits) report' 
 of Richard Harvey, his works show him quite another person 
 than what the}'' make him to be." 
 
 Nash then forms a ludicrous contrast between " witless 
 Gabriel and ruffling Richard." The astronomer Richard was 
 continually baiting the great bear in the firmament, and in his 
 lectures set up atheistical questions, which Nash maliciously 
 adds, " as I am afraid the earth would swallow me if I should 
 but rehearse." And at his close, Nash bitterly regrets he has- 
 no more room ; " else I should make Gabriel a fugitive out of 
 England, being the rauenousest slouen that ever lapt porridge 
 in noblemen's houses, where he has had already, out of two, 
 his mittimus of Ye may be gone ! for he was a sower of sedi- 
 tious paradoxes amongst kitchen-boys." Nash seems to have 
 considered himself as terrible as an Archilochus, whose satires 
 were so fatal as to induce the satirised, after having read them, 
 to hang themselves. 
 
 How ill poor Harvey passed through these wit-duels, and' 
 how profoundly the wounds inflicted on him and his brothers 
 were felt, appears by his own confessions. In his " Foure 
 Letters," after some curious observations on invectives and 
 satires, from those of Archilochus, Lucian, and Aretine, to 
 Skelton and Scoggin, and " the whole venomous and viperous- 
 brood of old and new raylers," he proceeds to blame even his 
 beloved friend the gentle Spenser, for the severity of his 
 " Mother Hubbard's Tale," a satire on the court. "I must 
 needes say, Mother Hubbard in heat of choller, forgetting the 
 
 * He had written an antiquarian ■w^ork on the descent cf Brutus on our 
 island. — The party also who at the University attacked the opinions of 
 Aristotle were nicknamed the Trojans, as determined enemies of the 
 Greelcs. 
 
 K
 
 130 Calamities of Authors, 
 
 pure sanguine of her Sweete Feary Queene, artfully ouershott 
 iier malcontent-selfe ; as elsewhere I have specitiecl at large, 
 with the good leaue of vnspotted friendship. — Sallust and 
 dlodius learned of Tully to frame artificiall declamations and 
 patheticall invectives against Tully himselfe ; if Mother Hub- 
 bard, in the vaine of Chawcer, happen to tel one canicular tale, 
 father Elderton and his son Greene, in the vaine of Skelton. 
 or Scoggin, will counterfeit an hundred dogged fables, libles, 
 slaunders, lies, for the whetstone. But many will sooner lose 
 their Hues than the least jott of their reputation. What mortal 
 feudes, what cruel bloodshed, what terrible slaughterdome 
 have been committed for the point of honour and some few 
 courtly ceremonies." 
 
 The incidents so plentifully narrated in this Lucianic bio- 
 graphy, the very nature of this species of satire throws into 
 <loubt ; yet they still seem shadowed out fi om some truths ; 
 but the truths who can unravel from the fictions ? And thus 
 a narrative is consigned to posterity which involves illustrious 
 characters in an inextricable network of calumny and genius. 
 
 Writers of this class alienate themselves from human kind, 
 they break the golden bond which holds them to society ; and 
 they live among us like a polished banditti. In these copious 
 •extracts, I have not noticed the more criminal insinuations 
 against the Harveys ; I have left the grosser slanders un- 
 touched. My object has been only to trace the effects of 
 ridicule, and to detect its artifices, by which the most digni- 
 fied characters may be deeply injured at the pleasure of a 
 llidiculer. The wild mirth of ridicule, aggravating and 
 taunting real imperfections, and fastening imaginary ones on 
 the victim in idle sport or ill-humour, strikes at the most 
 brittle thing in the world, a man's good reputation, for delicate 
 matters which are not under the protection of the law, but in 
 which so much of personal happiness is concerned. 
 
 LITERARY HATRED. 
 
 EXniBITINQ A COKSPIRACY AGAINST AN AUTHOR. 
 
 In the peaceful walks of literature we are startled at discover- 
 ing genius Avith the mind, and, if we conceive the instrument 
 it guides to be a stiletto, with the liand of an assassin — iras- 
 cible, vindictive, ai-med with indiscriminate satire, never
 
 Literary Hatred. 131 
 
 pardoning the merit of rival genius, but fastening on it 
 throughout life, till, in the moral retribution of human nature, 
 these very passions, by their ungratified cravings, have tended 
 to annihilate the being who fostered them. These passions 
 among literary men are with none more inextinguishable than 
 among provincial toriters. — Their bad feelings are concen- 
 trated by their local contraction. The proximity of men of 
 genius seems to produce a familiarity which excites hatred or 
 contempt ; while he who is afflicted with disordered passions 
 imagines that he is ui-ging his own claims to genius by deny- 
 ing them to their possessor. A whole life passed in harassing 
 the industry or the genius which he has not equalled ; and 
 instead of running the open career as a competitor, only 
 skulking as an assassin by their side, is presented in the object 
 now before us. 
 
 Dr. Gilbert Stuart seems early in life to have devoted 
 himself to literature ; but his habits were irregular, and his 
 passions fierce. The celebrity of Robertson, Blair, and Henry, 
 with other Scottish brothers, diseased his mind with a most 
 envious rancour. He confined all his literary efforts to the 
 pitiable motive of destroying theirs ; he was prompted to 
 ever}^ one of his historical works by the mere desire of discre- 
 diting some work of Robertson ; and his numerous critical 
 labours were all directed to annihilate the genius of his coun- 
 try. How he converted his life into its own scourge, how 
 wasted talents he might have cultivated into perfection, lost 
 every trace of humanity, and finally perished, devoured by his 
 own fiend-like passions, — shall be illustrated b}^ the fol- 
 lowing narrative, collected from a correspondence now lying 
 before me, which the author carried on with his publisher 
 in London. I shall copy out at some length the hopes and 
 disappointments of the literaiy adventurer — the colours are 
 not mine ; I am dipping my pencil in the palette of the artist 
 himself. 
 
 In June, 1773, was projected in the Scottish capital " The 
 Edinburgh Magazine and Review." Stuart's letters breathe 
 the spirit of rapturous confidence. He had combined the 
 sedulous attention of the intelligent Smellie, who was to be 
 the printer, with some very honourable critics ; Professor 
 Baron, Dr. Blacklock, and Professor Richardson ; and the first 
 numbers were executed with more talent than periodical pub- 
 lications had then exhibited. But the hardiness of Stuart's 
 ■opinions, his personal attacks, and the acrimony of his literary
 
 132 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 libels, presented a new feature in Scottish literature, of such 
 ugliness and horror, that every honourable man soon averted 
 his face from this houtefeu. 
 
 He designed to ornament his first number with — 
 
 "A print of my Lord Monboddo in his quadruped form. I 
 must, therefore, most earnestly beg that you will purchase for 
 me a copy of it in some of the Macaroni print shops. It is 
 not to be procured at Edinburgh. They are afraid to vend it 
 here. We are to take it on the footing of a figure of an ani- 
 mal, not yet described ; and are to give a grave, yet satirical 
 account of it, in the manner of Buffbn. It woidd not be proper 
 to allude to his lordship but in a very distant manner." 
 
 It was not, however, ventured on ; and the nondescript 
 animal was still confined to the windows of " the Macaroni 
 print shops." It was, however, the bloom of the author's 
 fancy, and promised all the mellow fruits it afterwards pro- 
 duced. 
 
 In September this ardour did not abate : — 
 
 " The proposals are issued ; the subscriptions in the book- 
 sellers' shops astonish ; correspondents flock in ; and, what 
 will surprise you, the timid proprietors of the ' Scots' Maga- 
 zine' have come to the resolution of dropping their work. 
 You stare at all this, and so do I too." 
 
 Thus he flatters himself he is to annihilate his rival, with- 
 out even striking the first blow. The appearance of his first 
 number is to be the moment when their last is to come forth. 
 Authors, like the discoverers of mines, are the most sanguine 
 creatures in the world : Gilbert Stuart afterwards flattered 
 himself Dr. Henry was lying at the point of death from the 
 scalping of his tomahawk pen ; but of this anon. 
 
 On the publication of the first number, in November, 
 1773, all is exultation ; and an account is facetiously expected 
 that " a thousand copies had emigrated from the Row and 
 Fleet-street." 
 
 There is a serious composure in the letter of December, 
 which seems to be occasioned by the tempered answer of his 
 London correspondent. The work was more suited to the 
 meridian of Edinburgh ; and from causes sufticiently obvious, 
 its personality and causticity. Stuart, however, assures his 
 friend that " the second number you will ilnd better than the 
 first, and the third better tlian the second." 
 
 The next letter is dated March 4, 1774, in which I find our 
 author still in good spirits : —
 
 » Literary Hatred. 133 
 
 " The Magazine rises, and promises much, in this quarter. 
 Our artillery has silenced all opposition. The rogues of the 
 ' uplifted hands' decline the combat." These rogues are the 
 clergy, and some others, who had " uplifted hands " from the 
 vituperative nature of their adversary ; for he tells us that, 
 " now the clergy are silent, the town-council have had the 
 presumption to oppose us ; and have threatened Creech (the 
 publisher in Edinburgh) with the terror of making him a 
 constable for his insolence. A pamphlet on the abuses of 
 Heriot's Hospital, including a direct proof of perjury in the 
 provost, was the punishment inflicted in return. And new 
 papers are forging to chastise them, in regard to the poors' 
 rate, which is again started ; the improper choice of professors ; 
 and violent stretches of the impost. Theliberfi/ of the press, 
 in its fullest extent, is to be employed against them." 
 
 Such is the language of reform, and the spirit of a refor- 
 mist ! A little private malignity thus ferments a good deal of 
 public spirit ; but patriotism must be independent to be pure. 
 If the " Edinburgh Review " continues to succeed in its sale, 
 as Stuart fancies, Edinburgh itself may be in some danger. 
 His perfect contempt of his contemporaries is amusing : — 
 
 " Monboddo's second volume is published, and, with Kaimes, 
 will appear in our next ; the former is a childish perfor- 
 mance ; the latter rather better. We are to treat them with 
 a good deal of freedom. I observe an amazing falling off in 
 the English Keviews. We beat them hollow. I fancy they 
 have no assistance but from the Dissenters, — a dull body of 
 men. The Monthly will not easily recover the death of 
 Hawkesworth ; and I suspect that Langhorue has forsaken 
 them ; for I see no longer his pen." 
 
 We are now hastening to the sudden and the moral cata- 
 strophe of our tale. The thousand copies which had emi- 
 grated to London remained there, little disturbed by public 
 inquiry ; and in Scotland, the personal animosity against 
 almost ever}'^ literary character there, which had inflamed the 
 sale, became naturally the latent cause of its extinction ; for 
 its life was but a feverish existence, and its florid complexion 
 carried with it the seeds of its dissolution. Stuai-t at length 
 quarrelled with hiscoadjutoi', Smellie, for altering his reviews. 
 Smellie's prudential dexterity was such, that, in an article 
 designed to level Lord Kaimes with Lord Monboddo, the 
 whole libel was completely metamorphosed into a panegyric. 
 They were involved in a lawsuit about " a blasphemous
 
 134- Calamities of Authors. * 
 
 paper." And now the enraged Zoilus complains of "his 
 hours of peevishness and dissatisfection." He acknowledges 
 that " a circumstance had happened which had broke his 
 peace and ease altogether for some weeks." And now he 
 resolves that this great work shall quietly sink into a mere 
 compilation from the London periodical works. Such, then, 
 is the progress of mahgnant genius ! The author, like him 
 who invented the brazen bull of Phalaris, is writhing in that 
 machine of tortures he had contrived for others. 
 
 We now come to a very remarkable passage : it is the 
 frenzied language of disappointed wickedness. 
 
 ''11 June, 1774. 
 
 " It is an infinite disappointment to me that the Magazine 
 does not grow in London ; I thought the soil had been richer. 
 But it is my constant fate to be disappointed in everything I 
 attempt ; I do not think I ever had a wish that was gratified ; 
 and never dreaded an event that did not come. With this 
 felicity of fate, I wonder how the devil I could turn projector. 
 I am now sorry that I left London ; and the moment that I 
 have money enough to carry me back to it, I shall set off. 
 I mortalhj detest and ciblior tills 'place, and everybody in it. 
 Never was there a city where there was so much pretension 
 to knowledge, and that had so little of it. The solemn fop- 
 pery, and the gross stupidity of the Scottish literati, are per- 
 fectly insupportable. I shall drop my idea of a Scots news- 
 paper. Nothing will do in this country that has common 
 sense in it ; only cant, hypocrisy, and superstition will flourish 
 here. A curse on tlie country, and all the men, women, and 
 children of it!" 
 
 Again. — " The publication is too good for the country. 
 There are very few men of taste or erudition on this side of 
 the Tweed. Yet every idiot one meets with lays claim to 
 both. Yet the success of the Magazine is in reality greater 
 than we could expect, considering that we have every clergy- 
 man in the kingdom to oppose it, and that the magistracy of 
 the place are every moment threatening its destruction." 
 
 And, therefore, this recreant Scot anathematizes the 
 Scottish people for not applauding blasphemy, calumny, and 
 every species of literary criminality ! Such are the monstrous 
 passions that swell out the poisonous breast of genius, deprived 
 of every moral restraint ; and such was the demoniac irrita- 
 bility which prompted a wish in CoUot d'Herbois to set firo
 
 Literary Hatred. 135 
 
 to the four quarters of the citj'' of Lyons ; while, in his " ten- 
 der mercies," the kennels of the streets were running with 
 the blood of its inhabitants — remembering still that the 
 Lyonese had, when he was a miserable actor, hissed him off 
 the stage ! 
 
 Stuart curses his country, and retreats to London. Fallen,, 
 but not abject ; repulsed, but not altered ; degraded, but still 
 haughty. No change of place could operate any in his heart. 
 He was born in literary crime, and he perished in it. It was 
 now " The English Eeview " was instituted, with his idol 
 Wliitaker, the historian of Manchester, and others. He says^ 
 "To Whitaker he assigns the palm of history in preference to 
 Hume and Eobertson." I have heard that he considered him- 
 self higher than Whitaker, and ranked himself with Montes- 
 quieu. He negotiated for Whitaker and himself a Doctor of 
 Laws' degree ; and they were now in the titular possession of 
 all the fame which a dozen pieces could bestow ! In " The 
 English Review " broke forth all the genivis of Stuart in aa 
 unnatural warfare of Scotchmen in London against Scotch- 
 men at Edinburgh. " The bitter herbs," which seasoned it 
 against Blair, Eobertson, Gibbon, and the ablest authors of 
 the age, at first provoked the public appetite, which afterwards 
 indignantly rejected the palatable garbage. 
 
 But to proceed with our Literary Conspiracy, which was 
 conducted by Stuart with a pertinacity of invention perhaps- 
 not to be paralleled in literai-y history. That the peace of 
 mind of such an industrious author as Dr. Henry was for a 
 considerable time destroyed ; that the sale of a work on which 
 Henry had expended much of his fortune and his life was 
 stopped; and that, when covered with obloquy and ridicule, 
 in despair he left Edinburgh for London, still encountering the 
 same hostility ; that all this was the work of the same hand 
 perhaps was never even known to its victim. The multi- 
 plied forms of this Proteus of the Malevoli were still but one 
 devil ; fire or water, or a bull or a lion ; still it was the same- 
 Proteus, the same Stuart. 
 
 From the correspondence before me I am enabled to collect 
 the commencement and the end of this literary conspiracy^ 
 with all its intermediate links. It thus commences : — 
 
 ''25 Nov. 1773. 
 " We have been attacked from different quarters, and Dr. 
 Henry in particular has given a long and a duU defence of his
 
 136 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 sermon. I have replied to it with a degree of spirit altogether 
 unknown in this country. The reverend historian was perfectly 
 astonished, and has actually invited the Society for Propa- 
 gating Christian Knowledge to arm in his cause ! I am 
 about to be persecuted by the whole clergy, and I am about 
 to persecute them in my turn. They are hot and zealous ; 
 I am cool and dispassionate, like a determined sceptic ; since 
 I have entered the lists, I must fight ; I must gain the vic- 
 tory, or perish like a man." 
 
 " 13 Z»ec. 1773. 
 
 " David Hume wants to review Henry ; but that task is so 
 precious that I will undertake it myself. Moses, were he to 
 ask it as a favour, should not have it ; 3'ea, not even the man 
 -after God's own heart." 
 
 "i: March, 1774. 
 
 " This month Henry is utterly demolished ; his sale is 
 •stopped, many of his copies are returned ; and his old friends 
 have forsaken him ; pray, in what state is he in London ? 
 Henry has delayed his London journey ; you cannot easily 
 conceive how exceedingly he is humbled.* 
 
 " I wish I could transport mj^self to London to review him 
 for the Monthly. A fire there, and in the Critical, would 
 perfectly annihilate him. Could you do nothing in the latter ? 
 To the former I suppose David Hume has transcribed the 
 criticism he intended for us. It is precious, and would divert 
 you. I keep a proof of it in my cabinet for the amusement 
 ■of friends. This great philosopher begins to dote." f 
 
 * It may he curious to present Stuart's idea of the literary talents of 
 Henry. Henry's unhappy turn for humour, and a style little accordant 
 with historical dignity, lie fairly open to the critic's animadversion. But the 
 research and ap])lication of the writer, for that day, were considerable, and 
 are still appreciated. But we are told that " he neither furnishes enter- 
 t linment nor instruction. Diffuse, vulgar, and uugrammatical, he strips 
 history of all her ornaments. As an antiquary, he wants accuracy and 
 knowledge ; and, as an historian, he is destitute of fire, taste, and senti- 
 ment. His work is a gazette, in which we find actions and events, without 
 their causes ; and in which we meet with the names, without the chai'acters 
 of i)ersonages. He has amassed all the refuse and lumber of the times he 
 TVould record." Stuart never imagined that the time would arrive when 
 the name of Henry would be familiar to English readers, and by many that 
 of Stuart would not be recollected. 
 
 + The critique on Henry, in the Montlihj lieviexv, was written by 
 Hume — and, because the philosopher was candid, he is here said to 
 Lave doted.
 
 Literary Hatred. 137 
 
 Stuart prepares to assail Henry, on his arrival in London, 
 from various quarters — to lower the value of his history in 
 the estimation of the purchasers. 
 
 "21 March, 1774. 
 
 " To-morrow morning Henry sets off for London, with 
 immense hopes of selHng his histor}'. I wish he had delayed 
 till our last review of him had reached your city. But I 
 really suppose that he has little prohability of getting any 
 gratuity. The trade are too sharp to give precious gold for 
 perfect nonsense. I wish sincerely that I could enter Hol- 
 born the same hour with him. He should have a repeated 
 fire to combat with. I entreat that you may be so kind as 
 to let him. feel some of your thunder. I shall never forget 
 the favour. If Whitaker is in London, he could give a blow. 
 Paterson will give him a knock. Strike by all means. The 
 wretch will tremble, grow pale, and retm'n with a conscious- 
 ness of his debilitjr. I entreat I may hear from you a day or 
 two after you have seen him. He will complain grievously 
 of me to Strahan and Rose. I shall send you a paper about 
 him — an advertisement from Parnassus, in the manner of 
 Boccalini." 
 
 "March, 1774. 
 
 " Dr. Henry has by this time reached you. I think you 
 ought to pay your respects to him in the Morning Chronicle, 
 If you would only transcribe his jests, it would make him 
 perfectly ridiculous. See, for example, what he says of St. 
 Dunstan. A word to the wise." 
 
 ''March 21, 1774. 
 
 " I have a thousand thanks to give you for your insertion 
 of the paper in the London Clironicle, and for the part you 
 propose to act in regard to Henrj'. I could wish that 3'ou 
 knew for certain his being in London before you strike the 
 first blow. An inquir}'- at Cadell's will give this. When 
 you have an enemy to attack, I shall in return give my best 
 assistance, and aim at him a mortal blow, and rush forward 
 to his overthrow, though the flames of hell should start up 
 to oppose me. 
 
 " It pleases me, beyond what I can express, that Whitaker 
 has an equal contempt for Henry. The idiot threatened, 
 when he left Edinburgh, that he would find a method to 
 manage the Reviews, and that he would oppose their pane- 
 gyric to our censure. Hume has behaved ill in the affair,
 
 138 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 and I am preparing to chastise him. You may expect a 
 series of papers in the Magazine, pointing out a multitude of 
 his errors, and ascertaining his ignorance of English history. 
 It was too much for VL\y temper to be assailed both by infidels 
 and believers. My pride could not submit to it. I shall act 
 in my defence with a spirit which it seems they have not 
 expected." 
 
 "11 AiMl, 1774. 
 
 " I received with infinite pleasure the annunciation of the 
 great man into the capital. It is forcible and excellent ; and 
 3'ou have my best thanks for it. You improve amazingly. 
 The poor creature will be stupified with amazement. In- 
 closed is a paper for him. Boccalini will follow. I shall 
 fall upon a method to let David know Henry's transaction 
 about his review. It is mean to the last degree. But what 
 could one expect from the most ignorant and the most con- 
 temptible man alive ? Do you ever see Macfarlane ? He 
 owes me a favour for his history of George III., and would 
 give a fire for the packet. The idiot is to be Moderator for 
 the ensuing Assembly. It shall not, however, be without 
 opposition. 
 
 " Would the paragraph about him from the inclosed leaf 
 of the ' Edinburgh Review' be any disgrace to the Morning 
 Clironicle?'''' 
 
 ''20th May, 1774. 
 
 " Boccalini I thought of transmitting, when the reverend 
 historian, for whose use it was intended, made his appearance 
 at Edinburgh. But it will not be lost. He shall most cer- 
 tainly see it. David's critique was most acceptable. It is 
 a curious specimen in one view of insolent vanity, and in 
 another of contemptible meanness. The old historian begins 
 to dote, and the new one was never out of dotage." 
 
 ''Z April, 1775. 
 " I see every day that what is written to a man's disparage- 
 ment is never forgot nor forgiven. Poor Henry is on the point 
 of death, and his friends declare that I have killed him. I 
 received the information as a compliment, and begged they 
 would not do me so much honour." 
 
 But Henry and his history long survived Stuart and hi& 
 critiques ; and Ilobertson, Blair, and Kaimes, with others he 
 assailed, have all taken their due ranks in public esteem. 
 What niche does Stuart occupy ? His historical works pos-
 
 Undue Severity of Criticism. 139 
 
 sess the show, without the sohdity, of research ; hardy para- 
 doxes, and an artificial style of momentary brilliancy, are 
 none of the lasting materials of histor3^ This shadow of 
 '• Montesquieu," for he conceived him only to he his fit rival, 
 derived the last consolations of life from an obscure corner of 
 a Burton ale-house — there, in rival potations, with two or 
 three other disappointed authors, they regaled themselves on 
 ale they could not always pay for, and recorded their own 
 literary celebrity, which had never taken place. Some time 
 before his death, his asperity was almost softened by melan- 
 choly ; with a broken spirit, he reviewed himself; a victim 
 to that unrighteous ambition which sought to build up its 
 greatness with the ruins of his fellow-countrymen ; prema- 
 turely wasting talents which might have been directed to 
 literary eminence. And Gilbert Stuart died as he had lived, 
 a victim to intemperance, physical and moral ! 
 
 UNDUE SEVERITY OF CRITICISM. 
 
 DR. KENRICK. SCOTT OP AMWELL. 
 
 We have witnessed the malignant influence of illiberal criti- 
 cism, not only on literary men, but over literature itself, since 
 it is the actual cause of suppressing works which lie neglected, 
 though completed b}' their authors. The arts of literary con- 
 demnation, as they may be practised by men of wit and arro- 
 gance, are well known ; and it is much less difficult than it is 
 criminal, to scare the modest man of learning, and to rack the 
 man of genius, in that bright vision of authorship sometimes 
 indulged in the calm of their studies — a generous emotion to 
 inspire a generous purpose! With suppressed indignation, 
 shrinking from the press, such have condemned themselves to 
 a Carthusian silence ; but the public will gain as little by 
 silent authors as by a community of lazy monks ; or a choir 
 of singers who insist they have lost their voice. That undue 
 severity of criticism which diminishes the number of good 
 authors, is a greater calamity than even that mawkish pane- 
 gyric which may invite indifferent ones ; for the truth is, a 
 bad book produces no great evil in literature ; it dies soon, 
 and naturally ; and the feeble bii'th only disappoints its un- 
 lucky parent, with a score of idlers who are the dupes of their 
 rage after novelty. A bad book never sells unless it be
 
 140 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 addressed to the passions, and, in that case, the severest criti- 
 cism will never impede its circulation ; malignitj^ and curiosity 
 being passions so much stronger and less delicate than taste 
 or truth. 
 
 And who are the authors marked out for attack ? Scarcely 
 one of the populace of scribblers ; for wit will not lose one 
 silver shaft on game which, struck, no one would take up. It 
 nmst level at the Historian, whose novel researches throw a 
 light in the depths of antiquity ; at the Poet, who, addressing 
 himself to the imagination, perishes if that sole avenue to the 
 heart be closed on him. Such are those who receive the criti- 
 cism which has sent some nervous authors to their graves, and 
 embittered the life of many whose talents we all regard.* 
 
 But this species of criticism, though ungenial and nip- 
 ping at first, does not always kill the tree which it has frozen 
 over. 
 
 In the calamity before us, Time, that great autocrat, who 
 in its tremendous march destroys authors, also annihilates 
 critics ; and acting in this instance with a new kind of bene- 
 volence, takes up some who have been violently thrown down, 
 and fixes them in their proper place; and daily enfeebling 
 unjust criticism, has restored an injured author to his full 
 honours. 
 
 It is, however, lamentable enough that authors must par- 
 ticipate in that courage which faces the cannon's mouth, or 
 cease to be authors ; for military enterprise is not the taste 
 of modest, retired, and timorous characters. The late Mr, 
 Cumberland used to say that authors must not be thin- 
 skinned, but shelled like the rhinoceros; there are, however, 
 more delicately tempered animals among them, new-born 
 lambs, who shudder at a touch, and die imder a pressure. 
 
 As for those great authors (though the greatest shrink 
 from ridicule) who still retain public favour, they must be 
 
 * So sensible was even the calm Newton to critical attacks, that Whiston 
 tells us lie lost his favour, which he had enjoyed for twenty years, for con- 
 tradicting Newton in his old age ; for no man was of "a more fearful tem- 
 per." Whiston declares that he would not have thought proper to have 
 published his work against Newton's "Chronology" in his lifetime, "be- 
 cause I knew his temper so well, that I should have expected it would have 
 killed him ; as Dr. Bentley, Bishop Stillingfleet's chaplain, told me, that 
 he believed Mr. Locke's thorough confutation of the Bishop's metaphysics 
 about tlic Trinity hastened his end." Pope writhed in his chair from the 
 liglit sliafts which Gibber darted on him ; yet they were not tipped with the 
 jjoison of the Java-tree. Dr. Ilawkesworth died of criticism. — Singing- 
 birds cannot live in a storm.
 
 Undue Severity of Criticism. 141 
 
 patient, proud, and fearless — patient of that oLloquy which 
 still will stain their honour from literary echoers ; proud, 
 while they are sensible that their literary offspring is not 
 
 Deformed, unfinisted, sent before its time 
 Into this breathing world, scarce half made up. 
 
 And fearless of all critics, when they recollect the reply of 
 Bentley to one who threatened to write him down, " that na 
 author was ever written down hut by himself." 
 
 An author must consider himself as an arrow shot into the 
 world ; his impulse must be stronger than the current of air 
 that carries him on — else he fall ! 
 
 The character I had proposed to illustrate this calamity 
 ■was the caustic Dr. Kenkick, who, once during several years, 
 was, in his "London Review," one of the great disturbers of 
 literary repose. The turn of his criticism ; the airiness, or 
 the asperity of his sarcasm ; the arrogance with which he 
 treated some of our great authors, would prove very amusing, 
 and serve to display a certain talent of criticism. The life of 
 Kenrick, too, would have afforded some wholesome instruction 
 concernmg the morality of a critic. But the rich materials 
 are not at hand ! He was a man of talents, who ran a race 
 with the press ; could criticise all the genius of the age faster 
 than it could be produced ; could make his own malignity 
 look like wit, and turn the wit of others into absurdity, by 
 placing it topsy-turvy. As thus, when he attacked " The 
 Traveller" of Goldsmith, which he called "a flimsy poem," 
 he discussed the subject as a grave political pamphlet, con- 
 demning the whole system, as raised on false principles. 
 "The Deserted Village" was sneeriugly pronounced to be 
 " pretty ;" but then it had " neither fancy, dignity, genius, or 
 fire." When he reviewed Johnson's "Tour to the Hebrides," 
 he decrees that the whole book was written " by one who had 
 seen but little," and therefore could not be very interesting. 
 His virulent attack on Johnson's Shakspeare may be preserved 
 for its total want of literary decency ; and his " Love in the 
 Suds, a Town Eclogue," where he has placed Garrick with an 
 infamous character, may be useful to show how f;\r witty ma- 
 lignity will advance in the violation of moral decency. He 
 libelled all the genius of the age, and was proud of doing it.* 
 
 * In one of his own publications he quotes, with great self-complaconcy^ 
 the following lines on himself : —
 
 142 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 Johnson and Akenside preserved a stern silence : but poor 
 Goldsmith, the child of Nature, could not resist attempting 
 to execute martial law, by caning the critic ; for whicli being 
 blamed, he published a defence of himself in the papers, I 
 shall transcribe his feelings on Kenrick's excessive and illiberal 
 criticism. 
 
 " The law gives us no protection against this injury. The 
 insults we receive before the public, by being more open, are 
 the more distressing ; by treating them with silent contempt, 
 we do not pay a sufficient deference to the opinion of the 
 world. By recurring to legal redress, we too often expose 
 the weakness of the law, which only serves to increase our 
 mortification by failing to relieve us. In short, every man 
 should singly consider himself as a guardian of the libei'ty of 
 the press, and, as far as his influence can extend, should 
 endeavour to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last the 
 grave of its freedom."* 
 
 Here then is another calamity arising from the calamity of 
 undue sevei*ity of criticism, which authors bring on them- 
 selves by their excessive anxiety, which throws them into 
 some extremely ridiculous attitudes ; and surprisingly in- 
 fluences even authors of good sense and temper. Scott, of 
 Amwell, the Quaker and Poet, was, doubtless, a modest and 
 amiable man, for Johnson declared " he loved him." When 
 his poems were collected, they were reviewed in the " Critical 
 Review" ver}^ off'ensively to the poet; for the critic, alluding 
 to the numerous embellishments of the volume, observed 
 that 
 
 " There is a profusion of ornaments and finery about this 
 
 " The wits who drink water and suck sugar-candy, 
 Impute the strong spirit of Keurick to bi-andy : 
 They are not so much out ; the matter in short is, 
 He sips aqua-vitcc and spits aqua-forlis." 
 ■'■ Dr. Kenrick's character and career is thus summed up in the " Biogra- 
 phia Dramatica:" — "This author, with singular abilities, was neither 
 happy or successful. Few persons were ever less respected by the world ; 
 still fewer have created so many enemies, or dropped into the grave so 
 little regretted by their contemporaries. He was seldom without an enemy 
 to attack or defend himself from." He was the son of a London citizen, 
 and is said to have served an apprenticeship to a brass-rule maker. One 
 of his best known literary works was a comedy called Falstaff's Wedding, 
 which met with considerable success upon the stage, although its author 
 ventured on the dithcult task of adopting Shakespeare's characters, and 
 putting new words into tlie mouth of the immortal Sii" John and his satel- 
 lites, — Ed.
 
 Undue Severity of Criticism, 143 
 
 "book not quite suitable to the plainness and simplicity of the 
 Barclean system ; but Mr. Scott is fond of the Muses, and 
 Avishes, we suppose, like Captain Macheath, to see his ladies 
 well dressed." 
 
 Such was the cold affected witticism of the critic, whom I 
 intimately knew — and I believe he meant little harm ! His 
 friends imagined even that this was the solitary attempt at 
 wit he had ever n:ade in his life ; for after a lapse of years, 
 he would still recur to it as an evidence of the felicity of his 
 fancy, and the keenness of his satire. The truth is, he was a 
 physician, whose name is prefixed as the editor to a great 
 medical compilation, and who never pretended that he had 
 any taste for poetry. His great art of poetical criticism was 
 always, as Pope expresses a character, " to dwell in decencies;" 
 his acumen, to detect that terrible poetic crime false rhj'mes, 
 and to employ indefinite terms, which, as they had no precise 
 meaning, were applicable to all things ; to commend, occa- 
 sionally, a passage not always the most exquisite ; sometimes 
 to hesitate, while, with delightful candour, he seemed to give 
 up his opinion ; to hazard sometimes a positive condemnation 
 on parts which often unluckily proved the most favourite 
 with the poet and the reader. Such was this poetical re- 
 viewer, whom no one disturbed in his periodical course, till 
 the circumstance of a plain Quaker becoming a poet, and llut- 
 tering in the finical ornaments of his book, provoked him 
 from that calm state of innocent mediocrity, into miserable 
 humour, and illiberal criticism. 
 
 The effect, however, this pert criticism had on poor Scott 
 was indeed a calamity'. It produced an inconsiderate " Letter 
 to the Critical Reviewers." Scott was justly offended at the 
 stigma of Quakerism, applied to the author of a literary com- 
 position ; but too gravely accuses the critic of his scuiTilous 
 allusion to Macheath, as comparing him to a highwayman ; 
 he seems, however, more provolicd at the odd account of his 
 poems ; he sa^'s, " You rank all mj' poems together as had, 
 then discriminate some as good, and, to complete all, recom- 
 mend the volume as an agreeable and amusing collection.''^ 
 Had the poet been personally acquainted with this tantalizing 
 critic, he would have comprehended the nature of the criti- 
 cism — and certainly would never have replied to it. 
 
 The critic, employing one of his indefinite terms, had said 
 of " Amwell," and some of the early " Elegies," that "they 
 had their share of poetical merit ;" he does not ventm-e to
 
 144 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 assign the proportion of that share, but " the Amoebean and 
 oriental eclogues, odes, epistles, &c., now added, are of a much 
 weaker feature, and many of them incorrect.''^ 
 
 Here Scott loses all his dignity as a Quaker and a poet — 
 he asks \Yhat the critic means by the affected phrase much 
 weaker feature ; the style, he says, was designed to be some- 
 what less elevated, and thus addresses the critic : — 
 
 " You may, however, be safely defied to pronoixnce them, 
 with truth, deficient either in strength or melody of versifi- 
 cation ! They were designed to be, like Virgil's, descriptive 
 of Nature, simple and correct. Had you been disposed to do 
 me justice, 3'ou might have observed that in these eclogues I 
 had drawn from the great prototype Nature, much imagery 
 that had escaped the notice of all my predecessors. You 
 might also have remarked that when I introduced images 
 that had been already introduced by others, still the arrange- 
 ment or combination of those images was my own. The 
 praise of originality you might at least have allowed me." 
 
 As for their incorrectness ! — Scott points that accusation 
 with a note of admiration, adding, "with whatever defects 
 my works may be chargeable, the last is that of incorrect- 
 ness.^' 
 
 We are here involuntarily reminded of Sir Fretful, in Tlie 
 Critic: — 
 
 " I think the interest rather declines in the foiarth act." 
 
 " Rises ! you mean, my dear friend !" 
 
 Perhaps the most extraordinary examples of the irritation 
 of a poet's mind, and a man of amiable temper, are those 
 parts of this letter in which the author quotes large portions 
 of his poetry, to refute the degrading strictiu'es of the re- 
 viewer. 
 
 This was a fertile principle, admitting of very copious ex- 
 tracts ; but the ludicrous attitude is that of an Adonis in- 
 specting himself at his mirror. 
 
 That provoking see-saw of criticism, which our learned 
 physician usually adopted in his critiques, veas pai'ticularly 
 tantalizing to the poet of Amwell. The critic condemns, in 
 the gross, a whole set of eclogues ; but immediately asserts 
 of one of them, that " the whole of it has great poetical 
 merit, and paints its subject in the warmest colours." When 
 he came to review the odes, he discovers that " he does not 
 meet with those polished numbers, nor that freedom and 
 spirit, which that species of poetry requires ;" and quotes half
 
 Undue Severity of Criticism. 145 
 
 a stanza, which he declares is "abrupt and insipid." " From 
 tvventj^-seven odes!" exclaims the writhing poet — "are the 
 whole of my lyric productions to be stigmatised lor four lines 
 which are flatter than those that preceded them ?" But 
 what the critic could not be awai'e of, the poet tells us — he 
 designed them to be just what they are. " I knew they were 
 so when they were first written, but ihej were thought suf- 
 ficiently elevated for the place." And then he enters into an 
 inquiry what the critic can mean by " polished numbers, free- 
 dom, and spirit." The passage is curious : — 
 
 " By your first criticism, polished numhers, if you mean 
 melodious versification, this perhaps the general ear will not 
 deny me. If you mean classical, chaste diction, free from 
 tautologous repetitions of the same thoughts in different ex- 
 pressions ; fi'ee from bad rhj^mes, unnecessary epithets, and in- 
 congruous metaphors, I believe you may be safely challenged 
 to produce many instances wherein I have failed. 
 
 " By freedom, your second criterion, if you mean daring 
 transition, or arbitrary and desultor}"" disposition of ideas, 
 liowever this may be required in the greater ode, it is now, 
 I believe, for the first time, expected in the lesser ode. If 
 you mean that careless, diffuse composition, that conversation- 
 verse, or verse loitering into prose, now so fashionable, this is 
 an excellence which 1 am not very ambitious of attaining. 
 3ut if you mean sti'ong, concise, yet natural easy expression, 
 I apprehend the general judgment will decide in my favour. 
 To the general ear, and the general judgment, then, do I 
 appeal as to an impartial tribunal." Here several odes are 
 transcribed. " By spirit, your third criticism, I know nothing 
 you can mean but enthusiasm ; that which transports us to 
 •every scene, and interests us in every sentiment. Poetry 
 without this cannot subsist ; every species demands its pro 
 portion, from the greater ode, of which it is the principal 
 characteristic, to the lesser, in which a small portion of it 
 only has hitherto been thought reqiiisite. My productions, 
 I apprehend, have never before been deemed destitute of this 
 essential constituent. Whatever I have wrote, I have felt, 
 and 1 believe others have felt it also." 
 
 On " the Epistles," which had been condemned in the gross, 
 suddenly the critic turns round courteously to the bard, de- 
 claring " they are written in an easy and familiar style, and 
 seem to flow f^om a good and a benevolent heart." But then 
 sneeringly adds, that one of them being entitled " An Essay 
 
 L
 
 146 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 on Painting, addressed to a young Artist, had better have 
 been omitted, because it had been so fully treated in so mas- 
 terly' a manner by Mr. Hayley." This was letting fall a 
 spark in a barrel of gunpowder. Scott immediately analyses 
 his brother poet's poem, to show they have nothing in com- 
 mon ; and then compares those similar passages the subject 
 naturally produced, to show that " his poem does not suffer 
 greatly in the comparison." "You may," he adds, after 
 giving copious extracts from both poems, " persist in saying 
 that isly. Hayley's are the best. Your business then is to 
 prove it." This, indeed, had been a very hazardous affair for 
 our medical critic, whose poetical feelings were so equable, 
 that he acknowledges " Mr, Scott's poem is just and elegant," 
 but " Mr. Hayley's is likewise just and elegant;" therefore, 
 if one man has written a piece "just and elegant," there is 
 no need of another on the same subject "just and elegant." 
 
 To such an extreme point of egotism was a modest and 
 respectable author most cruelly driven by the callous playful- 
 ness of a poetical critic, who himself had no sympathy for 
 poetry of any quality or any species, and whose sole art con- 
 sisted in turning about the canting dictionary of criticism. 
 Had Homer been a modern candidate for poetical honours, 
 from him Homer had not been distinguished, even from the 
 mediocrity of Scott of Amwell, whose poetical merits are not, 
 however, slight. In his Amoebean eclogues he may be dis- 
 tinguished as the poet of botanists. 
 
 A VOLUMINOUS AUTHOR WITHOUT JUDGMENT. 
 
 Vast erudition, without the tact of good sense, in a volumi- 
 nous author, what a calamity ! for to such a mind no subject 
 can present itself on which he is unprepared to write, and 
 none at the same time on which he can ever write reasonably. 
 The name and the works of William Pbtnne have often 
 come under the eye of the reader ; but it is even now difficult 
 to discover his real character ; for Prynne stood so completely 
 insulated amid all parties, that he was ridiculed by his friends, 
 and execrated by his enemies. The exuberance of his fertile 
 pen, the strangeness and the manner of his subjects, and his 
 pertinacity in voluminous publication, are known, and are 
 nearly unjjaralleled in literary history. 
 
 Could the man himself be separated from the author.
 
 A Voluminous Author without Judgment. 147 
 
 Prynne would not appear ridiculous ; but the unlucky author 
 of nearlj'- two hundred works,* and who, as Wood quaintly 
 computes, " must have written a sheet every day of his life, 
 reckoning from the time that he came to the use of reason 
 and the state of man," has involved his life in his authorship ; 
 the greatness of his character loses itself in his voluminous 
 works ; and whatever Prynne may have been in his own age, 
 and remains to posterity, he was fated to endure all the cala- 
 mities of an author who has strained learning into absurdity, 
 and abused zealous industry by chimerical speculation. 
 
 Yet his activity, and the firmness and intrepidity of his 
 character in public life, were as ardent as they were in his 
 study — his soul was Roman ; and Eachard says, that Charles 
 II., who could not but admire his earnest honesty, his copious 
 leai'ning, and the public persecutions he suffered, and the ten 
 imprisonments he endured, inflicted by all parties, dignified 
 him with the title of " the Cato of the Age ;" and one of his 
 own party facetiously described him as " William the Con- 
 queror," a title he had most hardly earned by his inflexible 
 and invincible natm-e. Twice he had been cropped of his 
 ears ; for at the first time the executioner having spared the 
 two fragments, the inhuman judge on his second trial disco- 
 vering them with astonishment, ordered them to be most un- 
 mercifully cropped — then he was burned on his cheek, and 
 ruinously fined and imprisoned in a remote solitude,t — but 
 
 * That all ttese works should not be wanting to posterity, Prynne de- 
 posited the complete collection in the library of Lincoln's-Iiin, about forty 
 volumes in folio and quarto. Koy, the Attorney- General, Prynne's great 
 adversary, was provoked at the society's acceptance of these ponderous 
 volumes, and promised to send them the voluminous labours of Taylor the 
 water -poet, to place by their side ; he judged, as Wood says, that "Prynne's 
 books were worth little or nothing ; that his proofs were no arguments, and 
 his affirmations no testimonies." But honest Anthony, in spite of his pre- 
 judices against Prynne, confesses, that though " by the generality of 
 scholars they are looked upon to be rather rhapsodical and confused than 
 polite or concise, yet, for antiquaries, critics, and sometimes for divines, 
 they are useful." Such erudition as Prynne's always retains its value — 
 the author who could quote a hundred authors on "the unlovelLness of 
 love-locks," will always make a good literary chest of drawers, well filled, 
 for those who can make better use of their contents than himself. 
 
 + Prynne seems to have considered being debarred from pen, ink, and 
 books as an act more barbarous than the loss of his ears. See his curious 
 book of " A New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny ;" it is a complete col- 
 lection of everything relating to Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton ; three 
 political fanatics, who seem impatiently to have courted the fate of Marsyas. 
 Prynne, in his voluminous argument, proving the illegality of the sentences 
 
 l2
 
 148 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 had they torn him limb by hmb, Prynne had been in his 
 mind a very polypus, which, cut into pieces, still loses none of 
 its individuality. 
 
 His conduct on the last of these occasions, when sentenced 
 to be stigmatised, and to have his ears cut close, must be 
 noticed. Turning to the executioner, he calmly invited him 
 to do his duty — " Come, friend, come, burn me ! cut me ! I 
 fear not ! I have learned to fear the fire of hell, and not what 
 man can do unto me ; come, scar me ! scar me !" In Prynne 
 this was not ferocity, but heroism ; Bastwick was intrepid out 
 of spite, and Burton from fanaticism. The executioner had 
 (been urged not to spare his victims, and he performed his 
 •office with extraordinary severity, cruelly heating his iron 
 twice, and cutting one of Prynne's ears so close, as to take 
 away a piece of the cheek. Prynne stirred not in the torture ; 
 and when it was done, smiled, observing, " The more I am 
 
 lie liad suffered, in bis ninth point thus gives way to all the feelings of 
 JVIartinus Scriblerus : — "Point 9th, that the prohibiting of me pen, ink, 
 paper, and books, is against law." He employs an argument to prove that 
 Ihe abuse of any lawful thing never takes away the use of it ; therefore the 
 law does not deprive gluttons or drunkards of necessary meat and drink ; 
 this analogy he applies to his pen, ink, and books, of which they could not 
 ideprive him, though they might punish him for their abuse. He asserts 
 ihat the popish prelates, in the reign of Mary, were the first who invented 
 ithis new torture of depriving a scribbler of pen and ink. He quotes a long 
 ■passage from Ovid's Tristia, to prove that, though exiled to the Isle of 
 Pontus for his wanton books of love, pen and ink were not denied him to 
 compose new poems ; that St. John, banished to the Isle of Patmos by 
 tthe persecuting Domitian, still was allowed pen and ink, for there he 
 ■wrote the Revelation — and he proceeds with similar facts. Prynne's 
 %ooks abound with uncommon facts on common topics, for he had no 
 discernment ; and he seems to have written to convince himself, and not 
 the public. 
 
 But to show the extraordinary perseverance of Prynne in his love of 
 scribbling, I transcribe the following title of one of his extraordinary 
 'works. He published ' ' Comfortable Cordial against Discomfortable Fears 
 .of Imprisonment, containing some Latin verses, sentences and texts of 
 Scripture, written by Mr. Wm. Prynne on his chamber-walls in the Tower 
 of London during his imprisonment there ; translated by him into English 
 verse," 1C41. Prynne literally verifies Pope's description — 
 
 " Is there who lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls 
 With desperate charcoal round his darken'd walls ?" 
 
 S7e have also a catalogue of printed books written by Wm. Prynne, of 
 
 Lincoln's-Inn, Esq., in these classes — 
 
 Before 1 
 
 During > his imprisonment, with the motto Jucundi acti labores. 1643. 
 
 Since )
 
 A Voluminous Author ivithout Judgment. 149' 
 
 beaten down, the more I am lift up." After this punishment, 
 in going to the Tower by water, he composed the following' 
 verses on the two letters branded on his cheek, S. L., for' 
 schismatical libeller, but which Prynne chose to translate' 
 " Stigmata Laudis," the stigmas of his enemy, the Archbishop' 
 Laud. 
 
 Stigmata maxillis referens insignia Laudis, 
 Exultans remeo, victima grata Deo. 
 
 The heroic man, who could endure agony and insult, and! 
 even thus commemorate his sufferings, with no unpoetical 
 conception, almost degrades his own sublimity when the 
 poetaster sets our teeth on edge by his verse. 
 
 Bearing Laud's stamps on my cheeks I retire 
 Triumphing, God's sweet sacrifice by fire. 
 
 The triumph of this unconquered being was, indeed, signal. 
 History scarcely exhibits so wonderful a reverse of fortune, 
 and so strict a retribution, as occurred at this eventful period. 
 He who had borne from the archbishop and the lords in the 
 Star Chamber the most virulent invectives, wishing them at 
 that instant seriously to consider that some who sat there ont 
 the bench might yet stand prisoners at the bar, and need the- 
 favour they now denied, at length saw the prediction com- 
 pletely verified. What were the feelings of Laud, when 
 Prynne, returning from his prison of Mount Orgueil in 
 triumph, the road strewed with boughs, amid the acclama- 
 tions of the people, entered the apartment in the Tower 
 which the venerable Laud now in his turn occupied. The 
 unsparing Puritan sternly performed the office of rifling his- 
 papers,* and persecuted the helpless prelate till he led him to 
 
 * The interesting particulars of this interview have been preserved hj 
 the Archbishop himself — and it is curious to observe how Laud could now- 
 utter the same tones of murmur and grief to which Prynne himself had 
 recently given way. Studied insult in these cases accompanies power in 
 the hands of a faction. I collect these particulars from " The History of 
 the Troubles and Tryal of Archbishop Laud," and refer to Vicars's "God. 
 in the Mount, or a Parliamentarie Chronicle," p. 344, for the Puritanic 
 triumphs. 
 
 "My implacable enemy, Mr. Pryn, was picked out as a man whose 
 malice might be trusted to make the search upon me, and he did it exactly. 
 The manner of the search upon me was thus : Jlr. Pryn came into the- 
 Tower so soon as the gates were open — commanded the Warder to open my 
 door — he came into my chamber, and found me in bed — Mr. Pryn seeing: 
 me safe in bed, falls first to my pockets to rifle them — it was expressed in 
 the warrant that he should search my pockets. Did they remember, when-
 
 150 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 the block. Prynne, to use his own words, for he could be 
 eloquent when moved by passion, " had struck proud Can- 
 terbury to the heart ; and had undermined all his prelatical 
 designs to advance the bishops' pomp and power;"* Prynne 
 triumphed — but, even this austere Puritan soon grieved over 
 the calamities he had contributed to inflict on the nation ; 
 and, with a humane feeling, he once wished, that " when 
 they had cut off his ears, they had cut off his head." He 
 closed his political existence by becoming an advocate for the 
 Eestoration ; but, with his accustomed want of judgment 
 and intemperate zeal, had nearly injured the cause by his 
 premature activit3\ At the Restoration some difficulty 
 occurred to dispose of " busie Mr. Pryn," asWhitelocke calls 
 him. It is said he wished to be one of the Barons of the 
 
 they gave this warrant, how odious it was to Parliaments, and some of them- 
 selves, to have the pockets of men searched ? I rose, got my gown upon my 
 shoulders, and he held me in the search till past nine in the morning (he 
 had come in betimes in the morning in the month of May). He took from 
 me twenty-one bundles of papers which I had prepared for my defence, kc, 
 a little book or diary, containing all the occurrences of my life, and my 
 book of private devotions ; both written with my own hand. Nor could I 
 get him to leave this last ; he must needs see what passed between Grod 
 and me. The last place he rifled was a trunk which stood by my bed- 
 side ; in that he found nothing but about forty pounds in money, for 
 my necessary expenses, which he meddled not with, and a bundle of some 
 gloves. This bundle he was so careful to open, as that he caused each 
 glove to be looked into ; upon this I tendered him one pair of the gloves, 
 which he refusing, I told him he might take them, and fear no bribe, '/or he 
 had already done me all the mischief he could, and I asked no favour of 
 him ; so he thanked me, took the gloves, and bound up my papers, and went 
 his way." — Prynne had a good deal of cunninr/ in his character, as well 
 as fortitude. lie had all the subterfuges and quirks which, perhaps, form 
 too strong a feature in the character of " an utter Barrister of Lincoln's 
 Inn." His great artifice was secretly printing extracts from the diary of 
 Laud, and placing a copy in the hands of every member of the House, which 
 •was a sudden stroke on the Archbishop, when at the bar, that at the mo- 
 ment overcame him. Once when Prynne was printing one of his libels, he 
 attempted to deny being the author, and ran to the printing-house to 
 distribute the forms, but it was proved he had corrected tlie proof and the 
 revise. Anotlier time, when he had written a libellous letter to the Arch- 
 bishop, Noy, tlie Attorney-General, sent for Prynne from his prison, and 
 demanded of him whether the letter was of his own handwriting. Prynne 
 said he must see and read the letter before lie could detei-mine ; and when 
 Noy gave it to him, Prynne tore it to pieces, and threw the fragments out 
 of the window, that it might not be brought in evidence against him. 
 Noy had preserved a copy, but that did not avail him, as Prynne well 
 knew that the misdemeanour was in the letter itself; and Noy gave up the 
 jn'osecution, as there was now no remedy. 
 
 Brcviatc of the Bishoji's intolerable usurpations, i^. S5,
 
 A Voluminous Author ivithout Judgment. 151 
 
 Exchequer, but lie was made the Keeper of the Records in 
 the Tower, " purposely to employ his head from scribbling 
 against the state and bishops ;" where the}' put him to clear 
 the Augean stable of our national antiquities, and see whe- 
 ther they could weary out his restless vigour. Pr^mne had, 
 indeed, written till he found no antagonist would reply ; and 
 now he rioted in leafy folios, and proved himself to be one 
 of the greatest paper-worms which ever crept into old books 
 and mould}^ records.* 
 
 The literary character of Prjame is described by the happy 
 epithet wdiich Anthony Wood applies to him, " Voluminous 
 Prynne." His great characteristic is opposed to that axiom 
 of Hesiod so often quoted, that " half is better than the 
 whole ;" a secret which the matter-of-fact men rarely dis- 
 cover. Wanting judgment, and the tact of good sense, these 
 detailers have no power of selection from their stores, to 
 make one prominent fact represent the hundred minuter ones 
 that may follow it. Voluminously feeble, they imagine ex- 
 pansion is stronger than compression ; and know not to 
 generalise, while they only can deal in particulars. Prynne's 
 speeches were just as voluminous as his writings ; always 
 deficient in judgment, and abounding in knowledge — he was 
 always weai'ying others, but never could himself. He once 
 made a speech to the House, to persuade them the king's 
 concessions were sufficient ground for a treaty ; it contains a 
 complete narrative of all the transactions between the king, 
 the Houses, and the army, from the beginning of the parlia- 
 ment ; it takes up 1-iO octavo pages, and kept the house so 
 long together, that the debates lasted from Monday morning 
 till Tuesday m.orning ! 
 
 Prynne's literary character may be illustrated by his sin- 
 gular book, " Histriomastix," — where we observe how an 
 author's exuberant learning, like corn heaped in a granary, 
 grows rank and musty, by a want of power to ventilate and 
 stir about the heavy mass. 
 
 This paper-worm may first be viewed in his study, as 
 
 * "While Keeper of tlie Records, he set all the gi-eat energies of his 
 nature to work -upon the national archives. The result appeared in three 
 folio volumes of the greatest value to the historian. They were published 
 irregularly, and at intervals of time — thus the second volume was issued 
 in 1665 ; the first in 1666 ; and the third in 1670. The first two volumes 
 are of the utmost rarity, nearly all the copies having been destroyed in the 
 great fire of Loudon. — Ed.
 
 152 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 painted Ly the picturesque Anthony Wood ; an artist in the 
 Flemish school : — 
 
 " His custom, when he studied, was to put on a long' 
 quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes, serving as an 
 umbrella to defend them from too much light, and seldom 
 eating any dinner, would he every three hours maunching a 
 roll of bread, and now and then refresh his exhausted spirits 
 with ale brought to him by his servant ;" a custom to which 
 Butler alludes. 
 
 Thou that with ale, or viler liquors, 
 Didst inspire "Withers, Prynne, and Vicars, 
 And force them, though it were in spite 
 Of nature, and their stars, to write. 
 
 The " HiSTEiOMASTix, the Player's Scourge, or Actor's 
 Tragedie," is a ponderous quarto, ascending to about 1100 
 pages ; a Puritan's invective against plays and players, ac- 
 cusing them of every kind of crime, including libels against 
 Church and State ;* hut it is more remarkable for the incal- 
 culable quotations and references foaming over the margins. 
 Prynne scarcely ventures on the most trivial opinion, without 
 calhng to his aid whatever had been said in all nations and in 
 all ages ; and Cicero, and Master Stubbs, Petrarch and 
 Minutius Felix, Isaiah and Froissart's Chronicle, oddly asso- 
 ciate in the ravings of erudition. Who, indeed, but the 
 author " who seldom dined," could have quoted perhaps a 
 thousand writers in one volume ?t A Avit of the times re- 
 marked of this Helluo lihrorum, that " Nature makes ever 
 the dullest beasts most laborious, and the greatest feeders ;" 
 and Prynne has been reproached with a weak digestion, for 
 " returning things unaltered, which is a symptom of a feeble 
 stomach." 
 
 When we examine this volume, often alluded to, the birth 
 of the monster seems prodigious and mysterious ; it combines 
 two opposite qualities ; it is so elaborate in its researches 
 among the thousand authors quoted, that these required 
 years to accumulate, and yet the matter is often temporary, 
 
 * Hume, in his History, has given some account of this enormous quarto ; 
 to which I refer the reader, vol. vi. chap. lii. 
 
 t Milton admirably characterises Prynne's absurd learning, as well as 
 his character, in his treatise on "The likeliest means to remove hirelings 
 out of the Church," as " a late hot querist for tythes, whom ye may know 
 by his wit.i It/ivff ever beside him in the mari/in, to he ever beside his wita 
 in the text. A tierce lleformer once ; now rankled with a contrary heat,"
 
 A Voluminous Author without Judgment. 155 
 
 and levelled at fugitive events and particular persons ; thus 
 the very formation of this mighty volume seems paradoxical. 
 The secret history of this book is as extraordinary as the 
 took itself, and is a remarkable evidence how, in a work of 
 immense erudition, the arts of a wily sage involved himself, 
 and whoever was concerned in his book, in total ruin. The 
 author was pilloried, fined, and imprisoned ; his publisher 
 condemned in the penalt}'- of five huncbed pounds, and barred 
 for ever from printing and selling books, and the licenser re- 
 moved and punished. Such was the fatality attending the 
 book of a man whose literary voracity produced one of the 
 most tremendous indigestions, in a malady of writing. 
 
 It was on examining Prynne's trial I discovered the secret 
 history of the " Histriomastix." Prynne was seven years ia 
 writing this work, and, what is almost incredible, it was near 
 four years passing through the press. During that interval 
 the eternal scribbler was daily gorging himself with volu- 
 minous food, and daily fattening his cooped-up capon. The 
 temporary sedition and libels were the gradual Mosaic inlay- 
 ings through this shapeless mass. 
 
 It appears that the volume of 1100 quarto pages originally 
 consisted of little more than a quire of paper ; but Prj-nne 
 found insuperable difficulties in procuring a licenser, even for" 
 this infant Hercules. Dr. Goode deposed that — 
 
 " About eight years ago Mr. Prynne brought to him a- 
 quire of paper to license, which he refused ; and he recol- 
 lected the circumstance by having held an argument with 
 Prxmne on his severe reprehension on the unlawfulness of a 
 man to put on women's apparel, which, the good-humoured 
 doctor asserted was not alwaj's unlawful ; for suppose Mr. 
 Prynne yourself, as a Christian, was persecuted by pagans, 
 think you not if you disguised yourself in your maid's 
 apparel, you did well ? Prjame sternly answered that he 
 thought himself bound rather to yield to death than to- 
 do so." 
 
 Another licenser, Dr. Harris, deposed, that about seven 
 years ago — 
 
 " Mr. Prynne came to him to license a treatise concerning 
 stage-plays; but he would not allow of the same;" — and 
 adds, " So this man did deliver this book when it was young 
 and tender, and would have had it then printed ; but it is 
 since grown seven times bigger, and seven times worse." 
 
 Prynne not being able to procui-e these licensers, had.
 
 154 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 recourse to another, Buckner, chaplain to the Archbishop 'J 
 Canterbury. It was usual for the licenser] to examine th? 
 ]\IS. before it went to the press ; but Prynne either tampered 
 with Buckner, or so confused his intellects by keeping his 
 niultifarious volume in the press for four years ; and some- 
 times, I suspect, by numbering folios for pages, as appears in 
 the work, that the examination of the licenser gradually 
 relaxed ; and he declares in his defence that he had only 
 licensed part of it. The bookseller. Sparks, was indeed a 
 noted publisher of what was then called " Unlawful and un- 
 licensed books ;" and he had declared that it was " an excel- 
 lent book, which would be called in, and then sell well." He 
 confesses the book had been more than three years in the 
 press, and had cost him three hundred pounds. 
 
 The speech of Noy, the Attorney-General, conveys some 
 notion of the work itself ; sufficiently curious as giving the 
 feelings of those times against the Puritans. 
 
 " Who he means by his modern innovators in the chui'ch, 
 and by cringing aiid ducTcing to altars, a fit term to bestow 
 on the church ; he learned it of the canters, being used among 
 them. The musick in the chm'ch, the charitable term he 
 glveth it, is not to be a noise of men, but rather a bleating of 
 hrute leasts ; clioristers helloio the teriior, as it were oxen ; 
 hark a counterpoint as a kennel of dogs ; roar out a treble 
 like a sort of bulls ; grunt out a bass, as it were a number of 
 hogs. Bishops he calls the silk and satin divines ; says Christ 
 was a Puritan, in his Index. Pie falleth on those things 
 that have not relation to stage-plays, musick in the church, 
 dancing, new-years' gifts, &c., — then upon altars, images, 
 hair of men and women, bishops and bonfires. Cards and 
 tables do ofiend him, and perukes do fall within the compass 
 of his theme. His end is to persuade the people that we are 
 returning back again to paganism, and to persuade them to 
 go and serve God in another country, as many are gone 
 alread}'-, and set up new laws and fancies among themselves. 
 Consider what may come of it!" 
 
 Tlie decision of the Lordsof the Star Chamber was dictated 
 by passion as much as justice. Its severity exceeded the 
 crime of having produced an unreadable volume of indigested 
 erudition ; and tlie learned scribbler was too hardly used, 
 scarcely escaping with life. Lord Cottington, amazed at the 
 mighty volume, too bluntly afllrmed that Prynne did not 
 write this book alone ; " he either assisted the devil, or was
 
 Genius and Erudition the Victims of Vanity. 155 
 
 assisted by the devil." But secretary Cooke delivered a sensi- 
 ble and temperate speech ; remarking on all its false erudition 
 that, 
 
 "By this vast book of Mr. Prynne's, it appeareth. that he 
 bath read more than he hath studied, and studied more than 
 be hath considered. He calleth his book ' Histriomastix ;' 
 but therein he showeth himself like unto Ajax Anthropomas- 
 tix, as the Grecians called him, the scourge of all mankind, 
 that is, the whipper and the whip." 
 
 Such is the history of a man whose greatness of chai'dcter 
 was clouded over and lost in a fatal passion for scribbling ; 
 such is the history of a voluminous author whose genius was 
 such that he could write a folio much easier than a page ; 
 and "seldom dined" that be might quote "squadrons 
 of authorities."* 
 
 GENIUS AND ERUDITION THE VICTIMS OF IMMODERATE 
 VANITY. 
 
 Th"E name of Toland is more familiar than his character, yet 
 his literary portrait has great singularity ; he must be classed 
 among the " Authors by Profession," an honour secured by 
 near fifty publications ; and we shall discover that he aimed to 
 combine with the literary character one peculiarly his own.f 
 
 * The very expression Prynce himself uses, see p. 668 of the Histrio- 
 mastix ; where having gone through "three squadrons," he commences a 
 fresh chapter thus : " The fourth squadron of authorities is the venerable 
 troope of 70 several renowned ancient fathers ;" and he throws in more 
 than he promised, all which are quoted volume and page, as so many 
 "play-confounding arguments." He has quoted perhaps from three to 
 four hundred authors on a single point. 
 
 + Toland was born in Ireland, in 1669, of Roman Catholic parents, but 
 became a zealous opponent of that faith before he was sixteen ; after which 
 lie finished his education at Glasgow and Edinburgh ; he retired to study at . 
 Leydeu, where he formed the acquaintance of Leibnitz and other learned 
 men. His first book, published in 1696, and entitled "Christianity not 
 Mysterious," was met by the strongest denunciation from the pulpit, was 
 "presented" by the grand jury of Jliddlesex, and ordered to be burnt by 
 the common hangman by the Parliament of Ireland. He was henceforth 
 driven for employ to literature ; and in 1699 was engaged by the Duke of 
 Newcastle to edit the ' ' Memoirs of Denzil, Lord Hollis ;" and afterwards 
 by the Earl of Oxford on a new edition of Hamngton's " Oceana." He 
 then visited the Courts of Berlin and Hanover. He published many 
 works on politics and religion, the latter all remarkable for their deistical 
 •tendencies, and died in March, 1722, at the age of 53. — Ed.
 
 156 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 With higher talents and more leai'ning than have been con- 
 ceded to him, there ran in his mind an original vein of think- 
 ing. Yet his whole life exhibits in how small a degree great 
 intellectual powers, when scattered through all the forms 
 which Vanity suggests, will contribute to an author's social 
 comforts, or raise him in public esteem. Toland was fruitful 
 in his productions, and still more so in his projects ; yet it is 
 mortifying to estimate the result of all the intense activity of 
 the life of an author of genius, which terminates in being 
 placed among these Calamities. 
 
 Toland's birth was probably illegitimate ; a circimtistance 
 which influenced the formation of his character. Baptised in 
 ridicule, he had nearly fallen a victim to Mr. Shandy's system 
 of Christian names, for he bore the strange ones of Janus 
 Junius, which, when the school-roll was called over every 
 morning, afforded perpetual merriment, till the master blessed 
 him with plain John, v.'hich the boy adopted, and lived in 
 quiet. I must say something on the names themselves, per- 
 haps as ridiculous ! May theynot have influenced the character 
 of Toland, since they certainly describe it ? He had all the 
 shiftings of the double-faced Janus, and the revolutionary 
 politics of the ancient Jtmiiis. His godfathers sent him into 
 the world in cruel mockery, thus to remind their Irish boy of 
 the fortunes that await the desperately bold : nor did Toland 
 forget the strong-marked designations ; for to his most 
 objectionable work, the Latin tract entitled Pantheist ico7i, 
 descriptive of what some have considered as an atheistical 
 society, he subscribes these appropriate names, which at the 
 time were imagined to be fictitious. 
 
 Toland ran away from school and Popery. When in after- 
 life he was reproached with native obscurity, he ostentatiously 
 produced a testimonial of his birth and family, hatched up at 
 a convent of Irish Franciscans in German}', where the good 
 Fathers subscribed, with their ink tinged with their Rhenish, 
 to his most ancient descent, referring to the Irish history t 
 which they considered as a parish register, fit for the suspected 
 son of an Irish Priest ! 
 
 Toland, from early life, was therefore dependent on patrons ; 
 but illegitimate birth creates strong and determined characters, 
 and Toland had all the force and originality of self-indepen- 
 dence. He was a seed thrown by chance, to grow of itself 
 wherever it falls. 
 
 This child of fortune studied at four Universities ; at Glas-
 
 Genius and Erudition the Victims of Vanity. 157 
 
 gow, Edinburgh, and Lcyden ; from the latter he passed to 
 Oxford, and, in the Bodleian Library, collected the materials 
 for his after-studies. 
 
 He loved study, and even at a later period declares that 
 " no employment or condition of life shall make me disrelish 
 the lasting entertainment of books." In his " Description 
 of Epsom," he observes that the taste for retirement, read- 
 hig, and contemplation, promotes the true relish for select 
 company, and say's, 
 
 " Thus I remove at pleasure, as I grow wearj^ of the 
 country or the town, as I avoid a crowd or seek company. — 
 Here, then, let me have books and bread enough without 
 dependence ; a bottle of hermitage and a plate of olives for a 
 select friend ; with an early rose to present a young lady as 
 an emblem of disci'etion no less than of beauty." 
 
 At Oxford appeared that predilection for paradoxes and 
 over-curious speculations, which formed afterwards the mark- 
 ing feature of his literary character. He has been unjustly 
 contemned as a sciolist ; he was the correspondent of Leib- 
 nitz, Le Clerc, and Bayle, and was a learned author when 
 scarcely a man. He first published a Dissertation on the 
 strange tragical death of Regulus, and proved it a Roman 
 legend, A greater paradox might have been his projected 
 speculation on Job, to demonstrate that only the dialogue was 
 genuine ; the rest being the work of some idle Rabbin, who 
 had invented a monstrous story to account for the extraordi- 
 nary afflictions of that model of a divine mind. Speculations 
 of so much learning and ingenuity are uncommon in a young 
 man ; but Toland was so unfortunate as to value his own 
 merits before those who did not care to hear of them. 
 
 Hardy vanity was to recompense him, perhaps he thought, 
 for that want of fortune and connexions, which raised duller 
 spirits above him. Vain, loquacious, inconsiderate, and 
 daring, he assumed the dictatorship of a coffee-house, and 
 obtained easy conquests, which he mistook for glorious ones, 
 over the graver fellows, who had for many a year awfully 
 petrified their own colleges. He gave more violent offence 
 by his new opinions on religion. An anonymous person 
 addressed two letters to this new Heresiarch, solemn and 
 monitory.* Toland's answer is as honourable as that of his 
 monitor's. This passage is forcibly conceived : — 
 
 * These letters will interest every religious person ; they may be found 
 in Toland's posthumous works, vol. ii. p. 295.
 
 158 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 " To what purpose should I study here or elsewhere, were I 
 an afJieisf or deist, for one of the two you take me to be ? 
 What a condition to mention virtue, if I believed there was 
 no God, or one so impotent that could not, or so malicious 
 that would not, reveal himself! Naj^, though I granted a 
 Deity, yet, if nothing of me subsisted after death, what laws 
 could bind, what incentives could move me to common 
 honesty ? Annihilation would be a sanctut^ry for all my sins, 
 and put an end to my crimes with mj^self. Believe me I am 
 not so indifferent to the evils of the present life, but, without 
 the expectation of a better, I should soon suspend the 
 mechanism of my body, and resolve into inconscious atoms." 
 
 This early moment of his life proved to be its crisis, and 
 the first step he took decided his after-progress. His first 
 great work of " Christianity not Mysterious," produced im- 
 mense consequences. Toland persevered in denying that it was 
 designed as any attack on Christianity, but only on those sub- 
 tractions, additions, and other alterations, which have corrupted 
 that pure institution. The work, at least, like its title, is " Mys- 
 terious."* Toland passed over to Ireland, but his book having 
 got there before him, the author beheld himself anathema- 
 tized ; the pulpits thundered, and it was dangerous to be seen 
 conversing with him. A jury who confessed they could not 
 comprehend a page of his book, condemned it to be burned. 
 Toland now felt a tenderness for his person ; and the humane 
 Molyneux, the friend of Locke, while he censures the impru- 
 dent vanity of oiu* author, gladly witnessed the flight of " the 
 poor gentleman." But South, indignant at our English 
 moderation in his own controversy with Sherlock on some doc- 
 trinal points of the Trinity, congratulates the Archbishop of 
 Dublin on the Irish persecution ; and equally witty and into- 
 lerant, he writes on Toland, " Your Parliament presently sent 
 him packing, and without the help of a fagot, soon made the 
 kingdom too hot for him." 
 
 * Toland pretends to prove that "there is nothing in the Christian 
 Heligion, not only which is contrary to reason, but even which is above it." 
 — He made use of some arguments (says Le Clerc) that were drawn from 
 Locke's Treatise on the Human Understanding. I have seen in MS. a 
 finished treatise by Locke on Heligion, addressed to Lady Shaftesbury ; 
 Locke gives it as a translation from the French. I regret my account is 
 so imperfect ; but the possessor may, perhaps, be induced to give it to the 
 public. The French jihilesophers have drawn tlieir first waters from 
 English authors ; and Toland, Tindale, and Woolston, with Shaftesbury, 
 Bolingbroke, and Locke, were among their earliest acauisitions.
 
 Genius and Erudition the Victims of Vanity. 159 
 
 Toland was accused of an intention to found a sect, as South 
 calls them, of " Mahometan-Christians." Many were stig- 
 matised as Tolandists ; but tlie disciples of a man who never 
 procui'ed for their prophet a bit of dinner or a new wig, for he 
 was frequently wanting both, were not to be feared as enthu- 
 siasts. The persecution from the church only rankled in the 
 breast of Tohmd, and excited vmextinguishable revenge. 
 
 He now breathed awhile from the bonfire of theology ; and 
 our Jamis turned his political face. He edited Milton's volu- 
 minous politics, and Harrington's fantastical "Oceana," and, 
 as his " Christianity not Mysterious" had stamped his reli- 
 gion with something worse than heresy, so in politics he was 
 branded as a Commonwealth' s-man. Toland had evidently 
 strong nerves ; for him opposition produced controversy, 
 which he loved, and controversy produced books, by which he 
 li\ed. 
 
 But let it not be imagined that Toland affected to be consi- 
 dered as no Christian, or avowed himself as a Republican. 
 "Civil and religious toleration" (he says) " have been the two 
 main objects of all my writings." He declares himself to be 
 onh' a primitive Christian, and a pure Whig. But an author 
 must not be permitted to understand himself so much more 
 clearly than he has enabled his readers to do. His mysterious 
 conduct may be detected in his want of moral integrity. 
 
 He had the art of explaining away his own words, as in his 
 first controversy about the word om/sten/ in religion, and he 
 exults in his artifice ; for, m a letter, where he is soliciting the 
 minister for employment, he says : — " The church is much 
 exasperated against me ; yet as that is the heaviest article, so 
 it is undoubtedly the easiest conquered, and I know tlie infal- 
 lible metlwd of doing it.''' And, in a letter to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, he promises to reform his religion to that pre- 
 late's liking ! He took the sacrament as an opening for the 
 negotiation. 
 
 What can be more explicit than his recantation at the close 
 of his Vindicius Lilerius ? After telling us that he had 
 withdrawn from sale, after the second edition, his " ' Chris- 
 tianity not Mysterious,' when I perceived what real or pre- 
 tended offence it had given," he concludes thus : — " Being 
 now arrived to years that will not wholly excuse inconsiderate- 
 ness in resolving, or precipitance in acting, I firmly hope that 
 my persuasion and practice will show me to he a true Chris- 
 tian ; that my due coi^'orjnity to the public tcorship may
 
 160 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 prove me to be a good Clmrcliman ; and that my untainted 
 Walty to King William will argue me to be a staunch Com- 
 monwealth's-man. That I shall continue all my life a friend 
 to religion, an enemy to superstition, a supporter of good 
 kings, and a deposer of tyrants." 
 
 Observe, this Vindicius Liherius was published on his re- 
 turn from one of his political tours in Germany. His 
 views were then of a very different nature from those of con- 
 troversial divinity ; but it was absolutely necessary to allay 
 the storm the church had raised against him. We begin now 
 to understand a little better the character of Toland. These 
 literary adventurers, with heroic pretensions, can practise the 
 meanest artifices, and shrink themselves into nothing to creep 
 out of a hole. How does this recantation agree with the 
 " Nazarenus," and the other theological works which Toland 
 was publishing all his life ? Posterity only can judge of men's 
 characters ; it takes in at a glance the whole of a life ; but 
 contemporaries only view a part, often apparently uncon- 
 nected and at variance, when in fact it is neither. This 
 recantation is full of the spirit of Janus Junius Toland. 
 
 But we are concerned chiefly with Toland's literary cha- 
 racter. He was so confirmed an author, that he never pub- 
 lished one book without promising another. He refers to 
 others in MS. ; and some of his most curious works are 
 posthumous. He was a great artificer of title-pages, covering 
 them with a promising luxuriance ; and in this way recom- 
 mended his works to the booksellers. He had an odd taste 
 for running inscriptions of whimsical crabbed terms ; the gold- 
 dust of erudition to gild over a title ; such as " Tetradymus, 
 Hodegus, Clidopharus ;" " Adeisidaemon, or the Unsupersti- 
 tious." He pretends these affected titles indicated their 
 several subjects ; but the genius of Toland could descend to 
 literary quackery. 
 
 He had the art of propagating books ; his small Life of 
 Milton produced several ; besides the complacency he felt in. 
 •extracting long passages from Milton against the bishops. 
 In this Life, his attack on the authenticity of the Eikon Sasi- 
 like of Charles I. branched into another on supposititious 
 writings ; and this included the spurious gospels. Associa- 
 tion of ideas is a nursing mother to the fertility of authorship. 
 The spurious gospels opened a fresh theological campaign, 
 and produced his " Amyntor." There was no end in pro- 
 voking an author, who, in writing tijie life of a poet, could
 
 Genius and Erudition the Victims of Vanity. IGl 
 
 contrive to put the authenticity of the Testament to the 
 proof. 
 
 Amid his philosophical labours, his vanity induced him to 
 seize on all temporary topics to which his facility and inge-- 
 nuity gave currency. The choice of his subjects forms arl' 
 amusing catalogue; for he had " Remarks" and " Projects" 
 as fast as events were passing. He wrote on the " Art of 
 Governing by Parties," on " Anglia Liberia," " Reasons for 
 Naturalising the Jews," on " The Art of Canvassing at Elec- 
 tions," " On raising a National Bank without Capital," 
 " The State Anatomy," " Dunkirk or Dover," &c. &c-. 
 These, and many like these, set off with catching titles, 
 proved to the author that a man of genius may be capable of 
 writing on all topics at all times, and make the country his 
 debtor without benefiting his own creditors.* 
 
 There was a moment in Toland's life when he felt, or 
 thought he felt, fortune in his grasp. He was then floating 
 on the ideal waves of the South Sea bubble. The poor author, 
 elated with a notion that he was rich enough to print at his 
 own cost, dispersed copies of his absurd " Pantheisticon," 
 He describes a society of Pantheists, who worship the uni- 
 verse as God ; a mystery much greater than those he attacked 
 in Christianity. Their prayers are passages from Cicero and 
 Seneca, and they chant long poems instead of psalms ; so that 
 in their zeal they endured a little tediousness. The next 
 objectionable circumstance in this wild ebullition of philoso- 
 phical wantonness is the apparent burlesque of some liturgies ; 
 and a wag having inserted in some copies an impious prayer to- 
 Bacchus,' Toland suffered for the folly of others as well as his 
 own.f With the South Sea bubble vanished Toland's desire 
 
 * In examining the original papers of Toland, which are preserved, I 
 found some of his agreements with booksellers. For his description of 
 Epsom he was to receive only four guineas in case 1000 were sold. He 
 received ten guineas for his pamphlet on Naturalising the Jews, and ten 
 guineas more in case Bernard Lintott sold 2000. The words of this 
 agreement run thus : "Whenever Mr. Toland calls for ten guineas, after 
 the first of February next, I promise to pay them, if I cannot show that 
 200 of the copies remain unsold." What a sublime person is an author ! 
 What a misery is authorship ! The great philosopher who creates systems 
 that are to alter the face of his country, must stand at the counter to count 
 out 200 unsold copies ! 
 
 ■f Des Maiseaux frees Toland from this calumny, and hints at his own 
 personal knowledge of the author — but he does not know what a foreign 
 writer authenticates, that this blasphemous address to Bacchus is a parody 
 of a prayer in the Roman ritual, written two centuries before by a very 
 proper society of Pantheists, a club of drunkards !
 
 .102 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 of printing books at his own risk ; and thus reheved the 
 world from the weight of more Pantheisticons ! 
 
 With all this bustle of authorship, amidst temporary pub- 
 lications which required such prompt ingenuity, and elaborate 
 works which matured the fruits of early studies, Toland was 
 «till not a sedentary writer. I find tliat he often travelled on 
 the continent ; but how could a guinealess author so easily 
 transport himself from Flanders to Germany, and appear at 
 home in the courts of Berlin, Dresden, and Hanover ? Per- 
 haps we may discover a concealed feature in the character of 
 our ambiguous philosopher. 
 
 In the only Life we have of Toland, by Des Maiseaux, pre- 
 fixed to his posthumous works, he tells us, that Toland was 
 at the court of Berlin, but " an incident, too ludicrous to he 
 mentioned, obliged him to leave that place sooner than he 
 expected." Here is an incident in a narrative clearly marked 
 out, but never to be supplied ! Whatever this incident was, 
 it had this important result, that it sent Tolaud away in 
 haste ; but ivJit/ was he there ? Our chronological biographer,* 
 *'good easy man," suspects nothing more extraordinary when 
 he tells us Toland was at Berlin or Hanover, than when he 
 finds him at Epsom ; imagines Toland only went to the Elec- 
 toral Princess Sophia, and the Queen of Prussia, who were 
 '•ladies of sublime genius," to entertain them by vexing some 
 grave German divines, with philosophical conferences, and 
 paradoxical conundrums ; all the ravings of Toland's idleness. f 
 
 This secret history of Toland can only be picked out by 
 fine threads. He professed to be a literary character — he 
 had opened a periodical "literary correspondence," as he 
 terms it, with Prince Eugene ; such as we have witnessed 
 in our days by Grimm and La Harpe, addressed to some 
 northern princes. He was a favourite with the Electoral 
 
 * Warburton has well described Des Maiseaux : "All the Life-writer? 
 we have had ai-e, iudeed, strange insipid creatures. The verbose tasteless 
 Frenchman seems to lay it down as a principle that every life must be a 
 book, and what is worse, it proves a book without a life ; for what do we 
 know of Boileau, after all liis tedious stuff?" 
 
 + One of these philosophical conferences has been preserved by Beausobre, 
 who was indeed the party concerned. He inserted it in the " Bibliotheque 
 Germanique," a curious literary journal, in 50 volumes, written by 
 L' Enfant, Beausobre, and Formey. It is very copious, and very curious, 
 and is preserved in the General Dictionary, art. Tolaud. The parties, 
 after a warm contest, were very wisely interrupted by the Queen, wheu 
 fcbe discovered they had exhausted their learning, and were begimiing to 
 rail at each other.
 
 Genius and Erudition the Victims of Vanity. 163 
 
 Princess Sophia and the Queen of Prussia, to whom he 
 addressed his " Letters to Serena." Was he a poHtical 
 agent ? Yet how was it that Toland was often driven home 
 by distressed circumstances ? He seems not to have been 
 a practical politician, for he managed his own affairs very ill. 
 Was the political intriguer rather a suspected than a confi- 
 dential servant of all his masters and mistresses ? for it is 
 evident no one cared for him! The absence of moral in- 
 tegrity was probably never disguised by the loquacious vanity 
 of this literary adventurer. 
 
 In his posthumous works are several " Memorials" for the 
 Earl of Oxford, which throw a new light over a union of 
 political espionage with the literary chara(;ter, which finally 
 concluded in producing that extraordinary one which the 
 political imagination of Toland created in all the obscurity 
 and heat of his reveries. 
 
 In one of these " Memorials," forcibly written and full of 
 curiosity, Toland remonstrates with the minister for his 
 marked neglect of him ; opens the scheme of a political tour, 
 where, like Guthrie, he would be content with his quarterage. 
 He defines his character ; for the independent Whig affects 
 to spurn at the office, though he might not shrink at the 
 duties of a spy. 
 
 " Wliether such a person, sir, who is neither minister nor 
 spy, and as a lover of learning will he icelcome everywiiere, 
 may not prove of extraordinary use to my Lord Treasurer, as 
 well as to his predecessor Burleigh, who employed such, I 
 leave his lordship and j'ou to consider." 
 
 Still this character, whatever title may designate it, is 
 inferior in dignity and importance to that which Toland 
 afterwards projected, and which portrays him where his life- 
 writer has not given a touch from his brush ; it is a political 
 cm'iosity. 
 
 " I laid an honester scheme of serving my country, your 
 lordship, and myself; for, seeing it was neither convenient for 
 you, nor a thing at all desired b}"" me, that / should appear 
 in any puhlic post, I sincerely proposed, as occasions should 
 offer, to communicate to your lordship my observations on 
 the temper of the ministry, the dispositions of the people, the 
 condition of our enemies or allies abroad, and what I might 
 think most expedient in every conjuncture ; which advice 
 you were to follow in whole, or in part, or not at all, as j^our 
 own superior wisdom should direct. My general acquaint- 
 
 ai2
 
 164 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 ance, the several languages I speak, the experience I have 
 acquired in foreign affairs, and being engaged in no interest 
 at home, besides that of the public, should qualify me in some 
 measure for this province. All wise ministers have eveb 
 HAD such priyate MONITORS. As much as I thought my- 
 self fit, or was thought so by others, for such general obser- 
 vations, so much have I ever abhorred, my lord, tliose par- 
 ticular observers we call Spies ; but I despise the calumny 
 no less than I detest the thing. Of such general observa- 
 tions, you should have perused a far greater number than I 
 thought fit to present hitherto, had I discovered, by due 
 effects, that they were acceptable from me; for they must 
 unavoidably be received from somebody, unless a minister 
 were omniscient — yet I soon had good reason to believe I 
 was not designed for the man, whatever the original sin 
 could be that made me incapable of such a trust, and which 
 I now begin to suspect. Without direct answers to my pro- 
 posals, how could I know whether I helped my friends else- 
 where, or betrayed them contrary to my intentions ! and 
 accordingly I have for some time been very cautious and 
 reserved. But if your lordship will enter into any measures 
 with me to procure the good of my country, I shall be more 
 read}^ to serve your lordship in this, or in some becoming 
 capacity, than any other minister. They who confided to 
 my management affairs of a higher nature have found me 
 exact as well as secret. My impenetrable negociation at 
 Vienna (hid under the pretence of curiosity) was not only 
 applauded by the prince that employed me, but also propor- 
 tionably rewarded. And here, my lord, give me leave to say 
 that 1 have found England miserably served abroad since 
 this change ; and oui" ministers at home are sometimes as 
 great strangers to the genius as to the persons of those with 
 
 whom they have to do. At you have placed the most 
 
 unacceptable man in the world — one that lived in a scan- 
 dalous misunderstanding with the minister of the States at 
 another court — one that has been the laughing-stock of all 
 courts, for his senseless haughtiness and most ridiculous airs 
 — and one that can never judge aright, unless by accident, in 
 anything." 
 
 The discarded, or the suspected private monitor of the 
 Minister warms into tlie tenderest language of political 
 amour, and mourns their rupture but us the quarrels of 
 lovers.
 
 Genius and Erudition the Victims of Vanity. 165 
 
 " I cannot, from all these considerations, but in the nature 
 of a lover, complain of your present neglect, and be solicitous 
 for your future care." And again, " I have made use of the 
 simile of a lover, and as such, indeed, I thought fit, once for 
 all, to come to a thorough explanation, resolved, if my affec- 
 tion be not killed by your unkindness, to become indissolubly 
 yours." 
 
 Such is the nice artifice which colours, with a pretended 
 love of his countr}^ the sordidness of the political intriguer, 
 giving clean names to filthy things. But tiiis view of the 
 political face of our Janus is not complete till we discover the 
 levit}^ he could carry into politics when not disguised b}^ more 
 pompous pretensions. I shall give two extracts from letters 
 composed in a different spirit. 
 
 " I am bound for Germany, though first for Flanders, and 
 next for Holland. I believe I shall be pretty well accommo- 
 dated for this voyage, which I expect will be very short. 
 Lord ! how near was my old icoman being a queen ! and your 
 humble servant being at his ease.'^ 
 
 His old ivomaii was the Electoral Princess Sophia ; and his 
 ease is what patriots distinguish as the love of their country ! 
 Again — 
 
 '• The October Club,* if rightly managed, will be rare stuff 
 to icork the ends of any party. I sent such an account of 
 these wights to an old yentlewoman of 1113' acquaintance, as in 
 the midst of fears (the change of ministrv) will make her 
 laugh." 
 
 After all his voluminous literature, and his refined politics, 
 Toland lived and died the life of an Author by Profession, in 
 an obscure lodging at a country carpenter's, in great distress. 
 He had still one patron left, who was himself poor, Lord 
 Molesworth, who promised him, if he lived, 
 
 " Bare necessaries. These are but cold comfort to a man 
 of 3' our spirit and desert ; but 'tis all I dare promise ! 'Tis 
 an ungrateful age, and we must bear with it the best we may 
 till we can mend it." 
 
 And his lordship tells of his unsuccessful application to 
 some Whig lord for Toland ; and concludes, 
 
 * A political society which obtained its name from tlie malt liquors con- 
 sumed at its meetings, and which was popularly termed October from the 
 month when it was usually brewed. This club advocated the claims of 
 the House of HanoTer, and may have originated the Mughouses noted 
 in p. 32. — Ed.
 
 166 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 " 'Tis a sad monster of a man, and not worthy of further 
 notice." 
 
 I have observed that Toland had strong nerves ; he neither 
 feared controversies, nor that which closes all. Having 
 examined his manuscripts, I can sketch a minute picture of 
 the last days of our " author by profession." At the car- 
 penter's lodgings he drew up a list of all his books — they 
 were piled on four chairs, to the amount of 155 — most of 
 them works which evince the most erudite studies ; and as 
 Toland' s learning has been very lightly esteemed, it may be 
 worth notice that some of his MSS. were transcribed in 
 Greek.* To this list he adds — " I need not recite those in 
 the closet with the unbound books and pamphlets ; nor my 
 trunk, wherein are all my papers and MSS." I perceive he 
 circulated his MSS. among his friends, for there is a list by 
 him as he lent them, among which are ladies as well as 
 gentlemen, esprits forts ! 
 
 Never has author died more in character than Toland ; he 
 may be said to have died with a busy pen in his hand. 
 Having suffered from an unskilful physician, he avenged him- 
 self in his own way ; for there was found on his table an 
 " Essay on Physic without Physicians." The dying patriot- 
 trader was also writing a preface for a political pamphlet on 
 the dancjer of mercenary Parliaments ; and the philosopher 
 
 * I subjoin, for the gratification of the curious, the titles of a few of 
 these books. "Spanhemii Opera;" " Clerici Pentateuchus ;" " Constantini 
 Lexicon Grceco-Latinum ;" " Fabricii Codex Apocryphus Vet. et Nov. Test. ;" • 
 " Synesius de Regno;" " Historia Imaginum Cojlestium (xosselini," 16 
 volumes ; "Caryophili Dissertationes ;" " Vonde Hardt Ephemerides Phi- 
 lologicic ;" " Trismegisti Opera ;" " Recoldus, et alia JIahomedica ;" all the 
 Works of Buxtorf; " Salviani Opera ;" " Reland de llelig. Alahomedica ;" 
 "GalliOpuscula Mythologica ;" "Apollodori Bibliotheca ;" "Palingenius;" 
 " Apuleiiis ;" and every classical author of antiquity. As he was then em- 
 ployed in his curious history of the Druids, of which only a specimen is 
 preserved, we may trace his researches in the following books : " Luydii 
 Archajologia Britannica ;" "Old Irish Testament," &c. ; "Maccurtin's 
 History of Ireland ;" " 0' Flaherty' s Ogygia ;" " Epistolarum Hibernica- 
 rum ;" '* Usher's Iteligion of the ancient Irish ;" "Brand's Isles of Orkney 
 and Zetland ;" " Pezron's Antiquites des Celtes." 
 
 There are some singular papers among these fragments. One title of a 
 work is "Priesthood witliout Priestcraft; or Superstition distinguished 
 from Religion, Dominion from Order, and Bigotry froin Reason, in the most 
 principal Controversies about Church government, which at present divide 
 and deforui Christianity." He has composed " A Psalm before Sermon in 
 praise of Asinity." There are other singular titles and works in the masa 
 of his papers.
 
 Genius and Erudition the Victims of Vanity. 167 
 
 was composing his own epitaph — one more proof of the ruling 
 passion predominating in death ; but why should a Pantheist 
 be solicitous to perpetuate his genius and his fame ! I 
 shall transcribe a few lines ; surely they are no evidence of 
 Atheism ! 
 
 Omnium Literarum excultor, 
 
 ac linguarum plus decern sciens; 
 
 Veritatis propugBator, 
 
 Libertatis assertor ; 
 
 nullus autem sectator aut cliens, 
 
 nee minis, nee malis est inflexus, 
 
 quin quam elegit, viam perageret; 
 
 utili honestum anteferens, 
 
 Spiritus cum rethereo patre, 
 
 a quo prodiit olim, conjungitur ; 
 
 corpus item, A^aturte cedens, 
 
 in materno gremio reponitur. 
 
 Ipse Tero seternum est resurreeturus, 
 
 at idem futurus Tolandus nunquam.* 
 
 One would have imagined that the writer of his own. 
 panegyrical epitaph would have been careful to have trans- 
 mitted to posterity a copy of his featm-es ; but I know of no 
 portrait of Toland. His patrons seem never to liave been 
 generous, nor his disciples grateful ; they mortified rather 
 than indulged the egotism of his genius. There appeared, 
 indeed, an elegy, shortly after the death of Toland, so inge- 
 niously contrived, that it is not clear whether he is eulogised 
 or ridiculed. Amid its solemnity these lines betray the 
 sneer. " Has," exclaimed the eulogist of the ambiguous 
 philosopher, 
 
 Eacli jarring element gone angry home ? 
 
 And Master Toland a Non-ens become? 
 
 LociCE, with all the prescient sagacity of that clear uu- 
 
 * A lover of all literature, 
 
 and knowing more than ten languages ; 
 
 a champion for truth, 
 
 an assertor of liberty, 
 
 but the follower or dependant of no man ; 
 
 nor could menaces nor fortune bend him ; 
 
 the way he had chosen he pursued, 
 
 prefening honesty to his interest. 
 
 His spirit is joined with its ethereal father 
 
 from whom it originally proceeded ; 
 
 his body likewise, yielding to Nature, 
 
 is again laid in the lap of its mother : 
 
 but he is about to rise again in eternity, 
 
 yet never to be the same Toland more.
 
 168 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 derstanding which penetrated under the secret folds of the 
 human heart, anticipated the hfe of Toland at its commence- 
 ment. He admired the genius of the man ; hut, while he 
 valued his parts and learning, he dreaded their result. In a 
 letter I find these passages, which were then so prophetic, 
 and are now so instructive : — 
 
 " If his exceeding great value of himself do not deprive 
 the world of that usefulness that his parts, if rightly con- 
 ducted, might be of, I shall be very glad. — The hopes young 
 men give of what use they will make of their parts is, to 
 me, the encouragement of being concerned for them ; but, if 
 vanity increases with age, I always fear whither it loill lead 
 a man.^' 
 
 GENIUS THE DUPE OF ITS PASSIONS. 
 
 Pope said that Steele, though he led a careless and vicious 
 life, had nevertheless a love and reverence for virtue. The 
 life of Steele was not that of a retired scholar ; hence his 
 moral character becomes more instructive. He was one of 
 those whose hearts are the dupes of their imaginations, 
 and who are hurried through life by the most despotic voli- 
 tion. He always preferred his caprices to his interests ; or, 
 ;according to his own notion, very ingenious, but not a little 
 absurd, " he was always of the humour of preferring the 
 state of his mind to that of his fortune." The result of this 
 principle of moral conduct was, that a man of the most ad- 
 mirable abilities was perpetually acting like a fool, and, with 
 a warm attachment to virtue, was the frailest of human 
 beings. 
 
 In tbe first act of his life we find the seed that developed 
 itself in the succeeding ones. His uncle could not endm*e a 
 hero for his heir : but Steele had seen a marching regiment ; 
 a sufficient reason with him to enlist as a private in the 
 horse-guards : cocking his hat, and putting on a broad-sword, 
 jack-boots, and shoulder-belt, with the most generous feelings 
 lie forfeited a very good estate. — At length Ensign Steele's 
 irank temper and wit conciliated esteem, and extorted admi- 
 ration, and the ensign became a favourite leader in all the 
 dissipations of the town. All these were the ebullitions of 
 genius, which had not yet received a legitimate direction. 
 Amid these o^'gies, however, it was often pensive, and forming
 
 Genius the Dupe of its Passions. 169 
 
 itself; for it was in the height of these irregularities that 
 Steele composed his "Christian Hero," a moral and religious 
 treatise, which the contritions of every morning dictated, and 
 to which the disorders of every evening added another peni- 
 tential page. Perhaps the genius of Steele was never so 
 ardent and so pure as at this period ; and in his elegant letter 
 to his commander, the celebrated Lord Cutts, he gives an in- 
 teresting account of the origin of this production, which 
 none but one deeply imbued with its feelings could have so 
 forcibly desci'ibed. 
 
 " Tower Guard, March 23, 1701. 
 
 " Mt Lord, — The address of the following papers is so very 
 much due to your lordship, that they are but a mere report of 
 what has passed upon my guard to my commander ; for they 
 were writ upon duty, when the mind was perfectly disengaged, 
 and at leisure, in the silent watch of the night, to run over 
 the busy dream of the day ; and the vigilance which obliges 
 us to suppose an enemy always near us, has awakened a sense 
 that there is a restless and subtle one which constantly at- 
 tends our steps, and meditates our ruin."* 
 
 To this solemn and monitory work he prefixed his name, 
 from this honourable motive, that it might serve as " a 
 .standing testin^ony against himself, and make him ashamed 
 of understanding, and seeming to feel what was virtuous, 
 and living so quite contrary a life." Do we not think that 
 no one less than a saint is speaking to us ? And yet he is 
 still nothing more than Ensign Steele ! He tells us that this 
 grave work made him considered, who had been no unde- 
 lightful companion, as a disagreeable fellow — and " The 
 Christian Hero," by his own words, appears to have fought 
 off several fool-hardy geniuses who were for " trying their 
 valour on him," supposing a saint was necessarily a poltroon. 
 Thus "The Christian Hero," finding himself shghted by his 
 loose companions, sat down and composed a most laughable 
 comedy, "The Funeral;" and with all the frankness of a 
 man who cares not to hide his motives, he tells us, that after 
 his religious wotk he wrote the comedy because " nothing 
 can make the town so fond of a man as a successful play."t 
 
 * Mr. Nichols's " Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Ricliard Steele," 
 vol. i. p. 77. 
 
 + Steele has given a delightful piece of self-biography towards the end 
 of his "Apology for Himself and his Writings," p. 80, 4to.
 
 170 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 The historian who had to record such strange events, follow- 
 ing close on each other, as an author publishing a book of 
 piety, and then a farce, could never have discovered the secret 
 motive of the versatile w]"iter, had not that writer possessed 
 the most honest frankness. 
 
 Steele was now at once a man of the town and its censor, 
 and wrote lively essays on the follies of the day in an enor- 
 mous black peruke which cost him fifty guineas ! He built 
 an elegant viUa, but, as he was always inculcating economy, 
 he dates from " The Hovel." He detected the fallacy of the 
 South Sea scheme, while he himself invented projects, neither 
 inferior in magnificence nor in misery. He even turned 
 alchemist, and wanted to coin gold, merely to distribute it. 
 The most striking incident in the life df this man of voli- 
 tion, was his sudden marriage with a young lady who at- 
 tended his first wife's funeral — struck by her angelical 
 beauty, if we trust to his raptures. Yet this sage, who 
 would have written so well on the choice of a wife, united 
 himself to a character the most uncongenial to his own ; cold, 
 reserved, and most anxiously prudent in her attention to 
 money, she was of a temper which every day grew worse by 
 the perpetual imprudence and thovightlessness of his own. 
 He calls her " Prue" in fondness and reproach ; she was 
 Prudery itself! His adoration was permanent, and so were 
 his complaints ; and they never parted but with bickerings — 
 yet he could not suffer her absence, for he was writing to her 
 three or four passionate notes in a day, which are dated from 
 his office, or his bookseller's, or from some friend's house — he 
 has risen in the midst of dinner to despatch a line to 
 " Prue," to assure her of his affection since noon.* — Her 
 presence or her absence was equally painful to him. 
 
 * In the "Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele," edition of 
 1809, are preserved these extraordinary love-despatches ; "Prue" used poor 
 Steele" at times very ill ; indeed Steele seems to have conceived that his 
 warm aifections were all she required, for Lady Steele was usually left 
 whole days in solitude, and frequently in want of a guinea, when Steele 
 could not raise one. He, however, sometimes remonstrates with her very 
 feelingly. The following note is an instance : — » 
 
 " Deau WiFK, — I have been in great pain of body and mind since I 
 came out. You are extremely cruel to a generous nature, which has a ten- 
 derness for you that renders your least dishumonr insupportably afflicting. 
 After short starts of passion, not to be inclined to reconciliation, is what is 
 against all rules of Christianity and justice. When I come home, I beg to 
 be kindly received ; or this will have as ill an effect upon my fortune, as on 
 my mind and body."
 
 Genius the Dupe of its Passiojis. 171 
 
 Yet Steele, gifted at all times witli the susceptibility of 
 genius, was exercising the finest feelings of the heart ; the 
 same generosity of temper which deluded his judgment, and 
 invigorated his passions, rendered him a tender and pathetic 
 dramatist ; a most fertile essayist ; a patriot without private 
 views ; an enemy whose resentment died away in raillery ; 
 and a friend, who could warmly press the hand that chas- 
 tised him. "Whether in administration, or expelled the 
 House ; whether affluent, or flying from his creditors ; in the 
 fulness of his heart he, perhaps, secured his own happiness, 
 and lived on, like some wits, extempore. But such men, with 
 all their virtues and all their genius, live only for themselves. 
 
 Steele, in the waste of his splendid talents, had raised 
 sudden enmities and transient friendships. The world uses 
 such men as Eastern travellers do fountains ; they drink their 
 waters, and when their thirst is appeased, turn their hacks on 
 them. Steele lived to be forgotten. He opened his career 
 with folly ; he hurried through it in a tumult of existence ; 
 and he closed it by an involuntary exile, amid the wrecks of 
 his fortune and his mind. 
 
 Steele, in one of his numerous periodical works, the twelfth 
 number of the "Theatre," has drawn an exquisite contrast 
 
 In a postscript to another billet, Le thus "sneers at Lady Steele's exces- 
 sive attention to money " : — 
 
 "Your man Sam owes me threepence, which must be deducted in the 
 account between you and me ; therefore, pray take care to get it in, or 
 stop it." 
 
 Such despatches as the following were sent off three or four times in a, 
 day : — 
 
 " I beg of you not to be impatient, though it be an hour before you see 
 "Your obliged husband, K. Steele." 
 
 "Dear Prue, — Don't be displeased that I do not come home till eleven 
 o'clock. Yours, ever." 
 
 " Dear Prue, — Forgive me dining abroad, and let Will carry the papers 
 to Buckley's. Your fond devoted E. S." 
 
 "Dear Prue, — I am very sleepy and tired, but could not think of 
 closing my eyes till I had told you I am, dearest creature, your most affec- 
 tionate, faithful husband, 11. Steele. 
 
 " From the Press, One in the morning." 
 
 It would seem by the following note that this hourly account of himself 
 was in consequence of the connubial mandate of his fair despot : — 
 
 " Dear Prue, — It is a strange thing, because you are handsome, that 
 you will not behave yourself with the obedience that people of worse 
 features do — but that I must be always giving you an account of every 
 trifle and minute of my time. I send this to tell you I am waiting to be- 
 sent for again when my Lord Wharton is stirring."
 
 1 72 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 'between himself and his friend Addison : it is a cabinet pic- 
 ture. Steele's careful pieces, when warm with his subject, 
 had a higher spirit, a richer flavour, than the equable softness 
 of Addison, who is only beautiful. 
 
 " There never was a more strict friendship than between 
 these gentlemen ; nor had they ever any difference but what 
 proceeded from their diSerent way of pursuing the same 
 thing : the one, with patience, foresight, and temperate ad- 
 dress, always waited and stemmed tlie torrent ; wliile the 
 other often plunged himself into it, and was as often taken 
 out by the temper of him who stood weeping on the bank 
 for his safety, whom he could not dissuade from leaping into 
 it. Thus these two men lived for some years last past, shun- 
 ning each other, but still preserving the most passionate con- 
 cern for their mutual weli'are. But when they met, they were 
 as unreserved as boys ; and talked of the greatest affairs, upon 
 ■which they saw where they differed, without pressing (what 
 they knew impossible) to convert each other." 
 
 If Steele had the honour of the invention of those periodical 
 jjapers which first enlightened the national genius by their 
 i:)opular instruction, he is himself a remarkable example of the 
 moral and the literary character perpetually contending in 
 the man of volition. 
 
 LITERARY DISAPPOINTMENTS DISORDERING THE INTELLECT, 
 
 LELAND AND COLLINS. 
 
 This awful calamity may be traced in the fate of Leland 
 and Collins : the one exhausted the finer faculties of his 
 mind in the grandest views, and sunk under gigantic tasks ; 
 the other enthusiast sacrificed his reason and his happiness 
 to his imagination. 
 
 Leland, the father of our antiquaries, was an accomplished 
 scholar, and his ample mind had embraced the languages of 
 antiquity, those of his own age, and the ancient ones of his 
 own country : thus he held all human learning by its three 
 vast chains. He travelled abroad ; and he cultivated poetry 
 with the ardour he could even feel lor the acquisition of 
 words. On his return home, among other royal favours, he 
 was appointed by Henry VIIT. the king's antiquary, a title 
 lioiHHU'ably created for Leland ; for with liim it became ex- 
 tinct. By this office he was empowered to search after
 
 Disappointments Disordering the Intellect. T73 
 
 English antiquities ; to review the libraries of all the reli- 
 gious institutions, and to bring the records of antiquity " out 
 of deadly darkness into lively light." This extensive power 
 fed a passion already formed by the study of our old rude 
 historians ; his elegant taste perceived that they wanted those 
 graces which he could lend them. 
 
 Six years were occupied, by uninterrupted travel and study, 
 to survey our national antiquities ; to note down everything 
 observable for the history of the country and the honour of 
 the nation. What a magnificent view has he sketched of 
 this learned journey! In search of knowledge, Leland wan- 
 dered on the sea-coasts and in the midland ; surveyed towns 
 and cities, and rivers, castles, cathedrals, and monasteries ; 
 tumuli, coins, and inscriptions ; collected authors ; transcribed 
 MSS. If antiquarianism pored, genius too meditated in this 
 sublime industry. 
 
 Another six years were devoted to shape and to polish the 
 immense collections he had amassed. All this untired labour 
 and continued study Avere rewarded by Henry VIII. It is 
 delightful, from its rarity, to record the gratitude of a pa- 
 tron : Henry was worthy of Leland ; and the genius of the- 
 author was magnificent as that of the monarch who had 
 created it. 
 
 Nor was the gratitude of Leland silent : he seems to have 
 been in the habit of perpetuating his spontaneous emotions 
 in elegant Latin verse. Our author has fancifully expressed 
 his gratitude to the king : — 
 
 "Sooner," he says, "shall the seas float witliout their si- 
 lent inhabitants ; the thorny hedges cease to hide the birds ; 
 the oak to spread its boughs ; and Flora to paint the meadovva 
 with flowers ; 
 
 Quam Rex dive, tuum labatur pectore nostro 
 Nomen, quod studiis portus et aura meis. 
 
 Than thou, great King, my bosom cease to hail, 
 Who o'er my studies breath'st a favouring gale. 
 
 Leland was, indeed, alive to the kindness of his roj^al 
 patron ; and among his numerous literary projects, was one 
 of writing a history of all the palaces of Henry, in imitation 
 of Procopius, who described those of the Emperor Justinian. 
 He had already delighted the royal ear in a beautiful effusion 
 of fancy and antiquarianism, in his Cijgnea Cantio, the Song 
 of the Swans. The swan of Leland, melodiously floating
 
 174 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 down the Thames, from Oxford to Greenwich, chants, as she 
 passes along, the ancient names and honours of the towns, 
 the castles, and the villages. 
 
 Leland presented his "Strena, or a New Year's Gift," to 
 the king. — It consists of an account of his studies ; and 
 sketches, with a fervid and vast imagination, his magnificent 
 labour, which he had already inscribed with the title De 
 jintiquitate Britannica, and which was to be divided into as 
 many books as there were shires. All parts of this address 
 of the King's Antiquary to the king bear the stamp of his 
 imagination and his taste. He opens his intention of im- 
 proving, by the classical graces of composition, the rude 
 labours of our ancestors ; for, 
 
 " Except Truth be delicately clothed in purpure, her written 
 very tees can scant find a reader." 
 
 Our old writers, he tells his sovereign, had, indeed, 
 
 " From time to time preserved the acts of your prede- 
 cessors, and the fortunes of your realm, with great diligence, 
 and no less faith ; would to God with like eloquence!" 
 
 An exclamation of fine taste, when taste was yet a stranger 
 in the countr3^ And when he alludes to the knowledge of 
 British affairs scattered among the Roman, as well as our 
 own writers, his fervid fancy breaks forth with an image at 
 once simple and sublime : — 
 
 " I trust," says Leland, " so to open the window, that the 
 light shall be seen so long, that is to say, by the space of a 
 whole thousand years stopped up, and the old glory of your 
 Britain to re-flourish through the world."* 
 
 And he pathetically concludes — 
 
 " Should I live to perform those things that are already 
 begun, I trust that your realm shall so well be known, once 
 painted with its native colours, that it shall give place to the 
 glory of no other region." 
 
 The grandeur of this design was a constituent part of the 
 genius of Leland, but not less, too, was that presaging melan- 
 choly which even here betrays itself, and even more frequently 
 in his verses. Everything about Leland was marked by his 
 
 * Leland, in Iiis magnificent plan, included several curious departments. 
 Jealous of the literary glory of the Italians, whom he compares to the 
 (treeks for accounting all nations barbarous and unlettered, he had composed 
 four books "De Viris lUustribus," on English Authors, to force them to 
 acknowledge the illustrious genius, and the great men of Britain. Three 
 books " Dc Nol)ilitate Britannica." were to be " as an ornament and a right 
 comely garland."
 
 Disappointments Disordering the Intellect. 175 
 
 own greatness ; his country and his countrymen were ever 
 present ; and, by the excitement of his feelings, even his 
 humbler pursuits were elevated into patriotism. Henry died 
 the year after he received the " New Year's Gift." From that 
 moment, in losing the greatest patron for the greatest work, 
 Leland appears to have felt the staff which he had used to turn 
 at pleasure for his stay, break in his hands. 
 
 He had new patrons to court, while engaged in labours for 
 which a single life had been too short. The melancholy that 
 cherishes genius may also destroy it. Leland, brooding over 
 his voluminous labours, seemed to love and to dread them ; 
 sometimes to pursue them with rapture, and sometimes to 
 shrink from them with despair. His generous temper had 
 once shot forwards to posterity ; but be now calms his strug- 
 gling hopes and doubts, and confines his literary ambition to 
 his own country and his own age. 
 
 POSTERITATIS AMOK DUBIUS. 
 
 Posteritatis amor mihi perblanditur, et ultro 
 
 Promittit libris secula multa meis. 
 At non tain facile est oculato imponere, nosco 
 
 Quam lion sim tali dignus honore frui. 
 GrtBcia magniloquos vates desiderat ipsa, 
 
 lloma suos etiam disperiisse dolet. 
 Exemplis quum sim claiis edoctus ab istis, 
 
 Qui sperem Jtusas vivere posse meas? 
 Certe mi sat erit prcesenti scribere SiBclo, 
 
 Auribus et patrice complacuisse mete, 
 
 IMITATED. 
 
 Posterity, tlij- soothing love I feel, 
 That o'er my volumes many an age may steal : 
 But hard it is the well-clear'd eye to cheat 
 "With honours undeserved, too fond deceit ! 
 Greece, greatly eloquent, and full of fame, 
 Sighs for the want of many a perish'd name; 
 And Rome o'er her illustrious children mourns, 
 Their fame departing with their mouldering urns. 
 How can I hope, by such examples shown, 
 Jlore than a transient da}', a passing sun ? 
 Enough for me to win the present age. 
 And please a brother with a brother's page. 
 
 Bj' other verses, addressed to Cranmer, it would appear 
 that Leland was experiencing anxieties to which he had not 
 been accustomed, — and one may suspect, by the opening image 
 of his " Supellex," that his pension was irregular, and that he 
 began, as authors do in these hard cases, to value " the fur- 
 niture" of his mind above that of his house.
 
 1 76 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 AD THOMAM CRANMEUUM, CANT. ARCHIFPISCOF. 
 
 Est congesta mihi domi Supellex 
 Ingens, aurea, nobilis, venusta, 
 Qua totus studeo Britauniarum 
 Vero reddere gloriam nitori. 
 Sed Fortuna meis noverca coeptis 
 Jam felicibus invidet maligna. 
 Quare, ne pereant brevi vel hora 
 JIultarum mihi noctium labores 
 Omnes, et patrice simul decora 
 Ornamenta cadant, &c. &c. 
 
 IMITATED. 
 
 The furnitures that fill my house, 
 The vast and beautiful disclose, 
 All noble, and the store is gold ; 
 Our ancient glory here unroU'd. 
 But fortune checks my daring claim, 
 A step-mother severe to fame. 
 A smile malignantly she throws 
 Just at the story's prosperous close. 
 And thus must the unfinish'd tale, 
 And all my many vigils fail, 
 And must my country's honour fall ; 
 In one brief hour must perish all? 
 
 But, conscious of the greatness of his labours, he would 
 obtain the favour of the Archbishop, by promising a share of 
 his own fame — 
 
 pretium sequeturamplum — 
 
 Sic nomen tibi litterje elegantes 
 Recte perpetuum dabunt, suosque 
 Partim vel titulos tibi receptos 
 Concedet memori Britannus ore : 
 Sic te posteritas amabit omnis, 
 Et fama super aethera innotesces. 
 
 IMITATED. 
 
 But take the ample glorious meed, 
 To letter'd elegance decreed, 
 When Britain's mindful voice shall bend, 
 And with her own thy honours blend, 
 As she from thy kind hands receives 
 Her titles drawn on Glory's leaves. 
 And back reflects them on thy name. 
 Till time shall love thy mounting iame. 
 
 Thus was Lcland, Hke the melancholic, withdrawn entirely 
 into the world of his own ideas ; his imagination delighting 
 in reveries, while his industry was exhausting itself in labour. 
 His manners were not free from haughtiness, — his meagre 
 
 \
 
 Disappointrnents Disordering the Intellect. 177 
 
 and expressive physiognomy indicates the melancholy and the 
 majesty of his mind ; it was not old age, but the premature 
 wrinkles of those nightly labours he has himself recorded. 
 All these characteristics are so strongly marked in the bust 
 of Leland, that Lavater had triumphed had he studied it.* 
 
 Labour had been long felt as voluptuousness by Leland ; 
 and this is among the Calamities of Literature, and it is so 
 with all those studies which deeply busy the intellect and the 
 fancy. There is a poignant delight in study, often subversive 
 of human happiness. Men of genius, from their ideal state, 
 drop into the cold formalities of society, to encounter its 
 evils, its disappointments, its neglect, and perhaps its persecu- 
 tions. When such minds discover the world will onlj- become 
 a friend on its own terms, then the cup of their wrath over- 
 flows ; the learned grow morose, and the witty sarcastic ; but 
 more indelible emotions in a highly-excited imagination often 
 produce those delusions, which Darwin calls hallucinations, 
 and which sometimes terminate in mania. The haughtiness, 
 the melancholy, and the aspiring genius of Leland, were 
 tending to a disordered intellect. Licipient insanity is a mote 
 floating in the understanding, escaping all observation, when 
 the mind is capable of observing itself, but seems a constituent 
 part of the mind itself when that is completely covered with 
 its cloud. 
 
 Leland did not reach even the maturity of life, the period 
 at which his stupendous works were to be executed. He was 
 seized by frenzy. The causes of his insanity were never 
 known. The Papists declared he went mad because he had 
 embraced the new religion; his malicious rival Polydore Vergil, 
 because he had promised what he could not perform ; duller 
 prosaists because his poetical turn had made him conceited. 
 The grief and melancholy of a fine genius, and perhaps an 
 irregular pension, his enemies have not noticed. 
 
 The ruins of Leland's mind were viewed in his library ; 
 ■volumes on volumes stupendously heaped together, and masses 
 •of notes scattered here and thei'e ; all the vestiges of his 
 genius, and its distraction. His collections were seized on by 
 honest and dishonest hands ; many were treasured, but some 
 were stolen. Hearne zealously arranged a series of volumes 
 
 * What reason is there to suppose with Granger that his bust, so 
 admirably engraven by Gi-ignion, is supposititious ? Probably struck by 
 the premature old age of a man who died in hisfortietli year, he condemned 
 it by its appearance ; but not with the eye of the physiognomist. 
 
 N
 
 178 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 from the fragments ; but the "Britannia" of Camden, the 
 "London" of Stowe, and the "Chronicles" of Holinshed, 
 are only a few of those public works whose waters silently 
 welled from the spring of Leland's genius ; and that nothing 
 might be wanting to preserve some relic of that fine imagi- 
 nation which was always working in his poetic soul, his own 
 description of his learned journey over the kingdom was a 
 spark, which, falling into the inflammable mind of a poet, 
 produced the singulai* and patriotic poem of the "Polyolbion" 
 of Drayton. Thus the genius of Leland has come to us 
 diffused through a variety of other men's ; and what he 
 intended to produce it has required many to perform. 
 
 A singular inscription, in which Leland speaks of himself, 
 in the style he was accustomed to use, and which Weever 
 tells us was affixed to his monument, as he had heard by 
 tradition, was probably a relic snatched from his general 
 •wreck — for it could not with propriety have been composed 
 after his death.* 
 
 Quautum Ehenano debet Germania docto 
 
 Tantum debebit terra Britanna mihi. 
 Ille suiB gentis ritus et nomina prisca 
 
 ^stivo fecit lucidiora die. 
 Ipse antiquarum rerum quoque magnus amator 
 
 Ornabo patriae lumina clara mese. 
 Quae cum prodierint niveis inscripta tabellis, 
 
 Turn testes nostras sedulitatis erunt. 
 
 IMITATED. 
 
 What Germany to learn'd Rhenanus owes, 
 
 That for my Britain shall my toil unclose ; 
 
 His volumes mark their customs, names, and climes, 
 
 And brighten, with a summer's light, old times. 
 
 I also, touch'd by the same love, will write, 
 
 To ornament my country's splendid light, 
 
 Which shall, inscribed on snowy tablets, be 
 
 Full many a witness of my industry. 
 
 Another example of literary disappointment disordering 
 the intellect may bo contemplated in the fate of the poet 
 Collins. 
 
 Several interesting incidents ma}'^ be supplied to Johnson's 
 narrative of the short and obscure life of this poet, >vho, more 
 than any other of our martyrs to the lyre, has thrown over all 
 his images and his thoughts a tenderness of mind, and breathed 
 a freshness over the pictures of poetry, which the mighty 
 * Ancient Funerall Monuments, p. 692.
 
 Disappointments Disoi'dering the Intellect. l?^ 
 
 Milton has not exceeded, and the laborious Gray has not 
 attained. But he immolated happiness, and at length reason, 
 to his imagination ! The incidents most interesting in the 
 life of Collins would be those events which elude the ordinary 
 biographer ; that invisible train of emotions which were 
 gradually passing in his mind ; those passions which first 
 moulded his genius, and which afterwards broke it ! But who 
 could record the vacillations of a poetic temper, its eai'ly 
 hope and its late despair, its wild gaiety and its settled 
 frenzy, but the poet himself ? Yet Collins has left behind 
 no memorial of the wanderings of his alienated mind but the 
 errors of his life ! 
 
 At college he published his " Persian Eclogues," as they 
 were first called, to which, when he thought they were not 
 distinctly Persian, he gave the more general title of " Oriental." 
 The pubhcation was attended with no success ; but the first 
 misfortune a poet meets will rarely deter him from incurring 
 more. He suddenly quitted the university, and has been 
 censured for not having consulted his friends when he rashly 
 resolved to live by the pen. But he had no friends ! His 
 father had died in embarrassed circumstances ; and Collins- 
 was residing at the university on the stipend allowed him by 
 his uncle, Colonel Martin, who was abroad. He was indignant 
 at a repulse he met with at college ; and alive to the name of 
 author and poet, the ardent and simple youth imagined that 
 a nobler field of action opened on him in the metropolis than 
 was presented by the flat uniformity of a collegiate life. To 
 whatever spot the youthful poet flies, that spot seems Par- 
 nassus, as applause seems patronage. He hurried to town, 
 and presented himself before the cousin who paid his small 
 allowance from his uncle in a fashionable dress with a feather 
 in his hat. The graver gentleman did not succeed in his 
 attempt at sending him back, with all the terror of his infor- 
 mation, that Collins had not a single guinea of his own, and 
 was dressed in a coat he could never pay for. The young 
 bard turned from his obdurate cousin as " a dull fellow ;" a 
 usual phrase with him to describe those who did not think as 
 he would have them. 
 
 That moment was now come, so much desired, and scarcely 
 yet dreaded, which was to produce those eff^usions of fancy 
 and learning, for which Collins had prepared himself by pre- 
 vious studies. About this time Johnson* has given a fines 
 * lu a letter to Joseph Warton. 
 
 n2
 
 3.80 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 picture of the intellectual powers and the literary attainments 
 of Collins than in the life he afterwards composed. " Collins 
 was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, but with 
 the Italian, French, and Spanish languages ; full of hopes and 
 full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and 
 3trong in retention." Such was the language of Johnson, 
 when, warmed by his own imagination, he could write like 
 Longinus ; at that after-period, when assuming the austerity 
 ,of critical discussion for the lives of poets, even in the cold- 
 ness of his recollections, he describes Collins as " a man of 
 extensive literature, and of vigorous faculties." 
 
 A chasm of several years remains to be filled. He was 
 projecting works of labour, and creating productions of 
 taste ; and he has been reproached for irresolution, and even 
 for indolence. Let us catch liis feelings from the facts as they 
 rise together, and learn whether Collins must endure censure 
 or excite sympathy. 
 
 When he was living loosely about town, he occasionally 
 wrote many short poems in the house of a friend, who wit- 
 nesses that he burned as rapidly as he composed. His odes 
 were purchased by Millar, yet though but a slight pamphlet, 
 all the interest of that great bookseller could never introduce 
 them into notice. Not an idle compliment is recorded to have 
 been sent to the poet. When we now consider that among 
 these odes was one the most popular in the language, with 
 some of the most exquisitely poetical, it reminds us of the 
 difficult}^ a young writer without connexions experiences in 
 obtaining the public ear ; and of the languor of poetical con- 
 noisseurs who sometimes suffer poems, that have not yet 
 grown up to authority, to be buried on the shelf. What the 
 outraged feelings of the poet were, appeared when some time 
 afterwards he became rich enough to express them. Having 
 obtained some fortune by the death of his uncle, he made good 
 to the publisher the deficiency of the unsold odes, and, in his 
 haughty resentment at the public taste, consigned the impres- 
 sion to tlie tlames ! 
 
 Who shall now paint the feverish and delicate feelings of a 
 young poet such as Collins, who had twice addressed the 
 ])ublic, and twice had been repulsed ? He whose poetic 
 temi)er Johnson has finely painted, at the happy moment 
 when he felt its influence, as " delighting to rove through the 
 meadows of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden 
 palaces, and repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens !"
 
 Disappointments Disordering the Intellect. 181 
 
 It cannot be doubted, and the recorded facts will demon- 
 strate it, that the poetical disappointments of Collins were 
 secretly preying on his spirit, and repressing his firmest exer- 
 tions. With a mind richly stored with literature, and a soul 
 alive to the impulses of nature and study, he projected a 
 " History of the Revival of Learning," and a translation of 
 "Aristotle's Poetics," to be illustrated by a large com- 
 mentary. 
 
 But " his great fault," says Johnson, " was his irresolu- 
 tion ; or the frequent calls of imviediate necessity broke his 
 schemes, and suffered him to pursue no settled purpose." Col- 
 lins was, however, not idle, though without application ; for, 
 when reproached with idleness by a friend, he showed in- 
 stantly several sheets of his version of Aristotle, and many 
 embryos of some lives he had engaged to compose for the 
 " Biographia Britannica ;" he never brought either to perfec- 
 tion ! What then was this irresolution but the vacillations 
 of a mind broken and confounded ? He had exercised too 
 constantly the highest faculties of fiction, and he had preci- 
 pitated himself into the dreariness of real life. None but a 
 poet can conceive, for none but a poet can experience, the 
 secret wounds inflicted on a mind of romantic fancy and 
 tenderness of emotion, which has staked its happiness on its 
 imagination ; for such neglect is felt as ordinary men would 
 feel the sensation of being let down into a sepulchre, and 
 buried alive. The mind of Tasso, a brother in fancy to 
 Collins, became disordered by the opposition of the critics, 
 but perpetual neglect injures it not less. The Hope of the 
 ancients w^as represented holding some flowers, the promise oi 
 the spring, or some spikes of corn, indicative of approaching 
 harvest — but the Hope of Collins had scattered its seed, and 
 they remained buried in the earth. 
 
 The oblivion which covered our poet's works appeared to- 
 him eternal, as those works now seem to us immortal. He 
 had created Hope with deep and enthusiastic feeling ! — 
 
 With eyes so fair — 
 Whispering promised pleasure, 
 And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ; 
 And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair ! 
 
 The few years Collins passed in the metropolis he was 
 subsisting with or upon his friends ; and, being a pleasing 
 companion, he obtained many literary- acquaintances. It was 
 at this period that Johnson knew him, and thus describes
 
 182 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 Iiim : — " His appearance was decent, and his knowledge con- 
 siderable; his views extensive, and his conversation elegant." 
 He was a constant frequenter at the literary resorts of the 
 Bedford and Slaughter's ; and Armstrong, Hill, Garrick, and 
 -Foote, frequently consulted him on their pieces before they 
 appeared in public. From his intimacy with Garrick he ob- 
 tained a free admission into the green-room ; and probably it 
 was at this period, among his other projects, that he planned 
 several tragedies, which, however, as Johnson observes, " he 
 only planned." There is a feature in CoUins's character 
 which requires attention. He is represented as a man of 
 cheerful dispositions ; and it has been my study to detect 
 only a melancholy, which was preying on the very source of 
 life itself. Collins was, indeed, born to charm his friends ; 
 for fancy and elegance were never absent from his susceptible 
 mind, rich in its stores, and versatile in its emotions. He 
 himself indicates his own character, in his address to 
 ^' Home :"— 
 
 Go ! nor, regardless while these Dumliers boast 
 My short-lived bliss, forget my social name. 
 
 Johnson has told us of his cheerful dispositions ; and one 
 "who knew him well observes, that " in the green-room he 
 made diverting observations on the vanity and false conse- 
 quence of that class of people, and his manner of relating 
 them to his particular friends was extremely entertaining :" 
 but the same friend acknowledges that " some letters which 
 he received from Collins, though chiefly on business, have in 
 them some flights which strongly mark his chai\acter, and for 
 which reason I have preserved them." We cannot decide of 
 the temper of a man viewed oxAy in a circle of friends, who 
 listen to the ebullitions of wit or fancy ; the social warmth 
 for a moment throws into forgetfulness his secret sorrow. 
 The most melancholy man is frequently the most delightful 
 companion, and peculiarly endowed with the talent of sati- 
 rical playfulness and vivacity of humour.* But what was 
 
 * Burton, the author of "The Anatomy of Jlelancholy," offers a striking 
 instance. 13ishop Keuiiett, in his curious "Eegister and Chronicle," has 
 preserved the following particulars of this author. "In an interval of 
 Tapours he wouhl'Le cxtremdy pleasant, and raise laur/hfcr in any com- 
 pany. Yet I have heard that nothing at last could make him laugh but 
 going down to the Bridge-foot at Oxford, and hearing the bargemen scold 
 and storm and swear at one anotlier ; at whicli he would set his hands to 
 liis sides, and laugh most jirofusely ; yet in liis chamber so mute and mopish,
 
 Disappointments Disordering the Intellect. 183 
 
 the true life of Collins, separated from its adventitious cir- 
 cumstances ? It was a life of want, never chequered by 
 hope, that was sti'iving to elude its own observation by hur- 
 rying into some temporary dissipation. But the hours of 
 melancholy and solitude were sure to return ; these were 
 marked on the dial of his life, and, when they struck, the gay 
 and lively Collins, like one of his own enchanted beings, as 
 surely relapsed into his natm'al shape. To the perpetual re- 
 collection of his poetical disappointments are we to attribute 
 tnis unsettled state of his mind, and the perplexity of his 
 studies. To these he was perpetually reverting, which he 
 showed when after a lapse of several years, he could not rest 
 till he had bm*ned his ill-fated odes. And what was the 
 result of his literary life ? He returned to his native city of 
 Chichester in a state almost of nakedness, destitute, diseased, 
 and wild in despair, to hide himself in the arms of a sister. 
 
 The cloud had long been gathering over his convulsed in- 
 tellect ; and the fortune he acquired on the death of his 
 uncle served only for personal indulgences, which rather acce- 
 lerated his disorder. There were, at times, some awful pauses 
 in the alienation of his mind — but he had withdrawn it from 
 study. It was in one of these intervals that Thomas War- 
 ton told Johnson that when he met Collins travelling, he 
 took up a book the poet carried with him, from curiosity, to 
 see what companion a man of letters had chosen — it was an 
 English Testament. "I have but one book," said Collins, 
 "but that is the best." This circumstance is recorded on his 
 tomb. 
 
 He join'd pure faith to strong poetic powers, 
 And in reviving reason's lucid hours, 
 Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest. 
 And rightly deem'd the book of God the best. 
 
 At Chichester, tradition has preserved some striking and 
 affecting occurrences of his last days ; he would haunt the 
 aisles and cloisters of the cathedral, roving days and nights 
 together, loving their 
 
 Dim religious light. 
 
 that he was suspected to he felo de se." With what a fine strain of poetic 
 
 feeling has a modern bard touched this subject ! — 
 
 " As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow. 
 While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below, 
 So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile, 
 Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the wliile." 
 
 Moore's "Irish Melodies. ''
 
 184 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 And, when the choristers chanted their anthem, the listening 
 and bewildered poet, carried out of himself by the solemn 
 strains, and his own too susceptible imagination, moaned and 
 shrielced, and awoke a sadness and a terror most affecting 
 amid religious emotions ; their friend, their kinsman, and 
 their poet, was before them, an awful image of human misery 
 and ruined genius ! 
 
 This interesting circumstance is thus alluded to on his 
 monument : — 
 
 Ye walls that ecioed to his frantic moan, 
 Guard the due record of this grateful stone : 
 Strangers to him, enamour'd of his lays, 
 This fond memorial of his talents raise. 
 
 A voluntary subscription raised the monument to Collins. 
 The genius of Flaxman has thrown out on the eloquent marble 
 all that fancy would consecrate ; the tomb is itself a poem. 
 
 There Collins is represented as sitting in a reclining pos- 
 ture, during a lucid interval of his afflicting malady, with a 
 calm and benign aspect, as if seeking refuge from his misfor- 
 tunes in the consolations of the Gospel, which lie open before 
 him, whilst his lyre, and " The Ode on the Passions," as a 
 scroll, are thrown together neglected on the ground. Upon 
 the pediment on the tablet are placed in relief two female 
 figures of LoYE and Pitt, entwined each in the arms of the 
 other ; the proper emblems of the genius of his poetry. 
 
 Langhorne, who gave an edition of Collins's poems with 
 all the fervour of a votary, made an observation not perfectly 
 correct: — "It is observable," he says, "that none of his 
 poems bear the marks of an amorous disposition ; and that 
 he is one of those few poets who have sailed to Delphi 
 without touching at Cythera. In the ' Ode to the Pas- 
 sions,' Love has been omitted." There, indeed, Love does 
 not form an important personage ; yet, at the close, Love 
 makes his transient appearance with Joy and Mirth — " a gay 
 fantastic round." 
 
 And, amidst his frolic play, 
 
 As if he would the charming air repay, 
 
 Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings. 
 
 It is certain, however, that Collins considered the amatory 
 passion as unfriendly to poetic originality ; for he alludes to 
 the whole I'ace of the Provcngal poets, by accusing them of 
 only employing 
 
 Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean.
 
 Disappointments Disordering the Intellect. 185 
 
 Collins affected to slight the urchin ; for he himself had 
 been once in love, and his wit has preserved the history of 
 his passion ; he was attached to a young lady who was born 
 the day before him, and who seems not to have been very 
 poetically tempered, for she did not return his ardour. On 
 that occasion he said " that he came into the world a day 
 after iliefair^ 
 
 Langhorne composed two sonnets, which seem only pre- 
 served in the " Monthly Review," in which he was a writer, and 
 where he probably inserted them ; they bear a particular re- 
 ference to the misfortunes of our poet. In one he represents 
 Wisdom, in the form of Addison, reclining in " the old and 
 honoured shade of Magdalen," and thus addressing 
 
 The poor shade of Collins, wandering by; 
 
 The tear stood trembling iu his gentle eye, 
 
 "With modest grief reluctant, while he said — 
 
 " Sweet bard, belov'd by every muse in vain ! 
 
 "With pow'rs, whose fineness wrought their own decay ; 
 
 Ah ! wherefore, thoughtless, didst thou yield the rein 
 
 To fancy's will, and chase the meteor ray ? 
 Ah ! why forget thy own Hyblrcan strain. 
 Peace rules the breast, where Reason rules the day." 
 
 The last line is most happily applied ; it is a verse by the- 
 unfortunate bard himself, which heightens the contrast with 
 his forlorn state ! Langhorne has feelingly painted the fatal 
 indulgences of such a character as Collins, 
 
 Of fancy's too prevailing power beware ! 
 
 Oft has she bright on life's fair morning shone ; 
 
 Oft seated Hope on Reason's sovereign throne, 
 Then closed the scene, in darkness and desj)air. 
 Of all her gifts, of all her powers possest. 
 
 Let not her flattery win thy youthful ear, 
 Nor vow long faith to such a various guest. 
 
 False at the last, tho' now perchance full dear ; 
 The casual lover with her charms is blest. 
 
 But woe to them her magic bands that wear ! 
 
 The criticism of Johnson on the poetry of Collins, that 
 " as men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the 
 poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives 
 little pleasure," might almost have been furnished by the lum- 
 bering pen of old Dennis. But Collins from the poetical 
 never extorts praise, for it is given spontaneously ; he is 
 much more loved than esteemed, for he does not give little 
 vleasure. Johnson, too, describes his " lines as of slow
 
 186 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants." 
 Even this verbal criticism, though it appeals to the eye, and 
 not to the ear, is false criticism, since Collins is certainly the 
 most musical of poets. How could that lyrist be harsh in 
 his diction, who almost draws tears from oxu' eyes, while his 
 melodious lines and picturing epithets are remembered by his 
 readers ? He is devoured with as much enthusiasm by one 
 party as he is imperfectly relished by the other. 
 
 Johnson has given two characters of this poet ; the one 
 composed at a period when that great critic was still suscep- 
 tible of the seduction of the imagination ; but even in this 
 portrait, though some features of the poet are impressively 
 drawn, the likeness is incomplete, for there is not even a 
 slight indication of the chief feature in CoUins's genius, his 
 tenderness and delicacy of emotion, and his fresh and pic- 
 turesque creative strokes. Nature had denied to Johnson's 
 robust intellect the perception of these poetic qualities. He 
 was but a stately ox in the fields of Parnassus, not the animal 
 of natm-e. Many years afterwards, during his poetical bio- 
 graphy, that long Lent of criticism, in which he mortified 
 our poetical feeling by accommodating his to the populace 
 of critics — so faint were former recollections, and so imperfect 
 were even those feelings which once he seemed to have pos- 
 sessed — that he could then do nothing but write on Collins 
 with much less warmth than he has written on Blackmore. 
 Johnson is, indeed, the first of critics, when his powerful logic 
 investigates objects submitted to reason ; but gi-eat sense is 
 not always combined with delicacy of taste ; and there is in 
 poetry a province which Ai-istotle himself may never have 
 ■entered. 
 
 THE REWARDS OF ORIENTAL STUDENTS. 
 
 At a time when oriental studies were in their infancy in this 
 country, Simon Ockley, animated by the illustrious example 
 of Pococke and the laborious diligence of Prideaux, devoted 
 his life and his Ibrtunc to these novel researches, which 
 necessarily involved both. With that enthusiasm which 
 the ancient votary experienced, and with that patient suffer- 
 ing the modern martja* has endured, he pursued, till he accom- 
 plished, the useful object of his labours. He, perhaps, was 
 the first who exhibited to us other heroes than those of Rome
 
 The Reivards of Oriental Students. 187 
 
 and Greece ; sages as contemplative, and a people more mag- 
 nificent even than the iron masters of the world. Among 
 other oriental productions, his most considerable is " The 
 History of the Saracens." The first volume appeared in 
 1708, and the second ten years afterwards. In the preface 
 to the last volume, the oriental student pathetically counts 
 over his sorows, and triumphs over his disappointments ; the 
 most remarkable part is the date of the place from whence 
 this preface was written — he triumphantly closes his labours 
 in the confinement of Cambridge Castle for debt ! 
 
 Ockley, lamenting his small proficiency in the Persian 
 studies, resolves to attain to them — 
 
 " How often have I endeavoured to perfect myself in that 
 language, but my malignant and envious stars still frustrated 
 my attempts ; but they shall sooner alter their courses than 
 extinguish my resolution of quenching that thirst which the 
 little I have had of it hath already excited." 
 
 And he states the deficiencies of his history with the most 
 natural modesty — 
 
 " Had I not been forced to snatch everything that I have, 
 as it were, out of the fire, our Saracen history should have 
 been ushered into the world after a different manner." He 
 is fearful that something would be ascribed to his indolence 
 or negligence, that " ought more justly to be attributed to 
 the influence of inexorable necessity, could 1 have been master 
 of my own time and circumstances." 
 
 Shame on those pretended patrons who, appointing " a 
 professor of the oriental languages," counteract the purpose 
 of the professorship by their utter neglect of the professor, 
 whose stipend cannot keep him on the spot where only he 
 ought to dwell. And Ockley complains also of that hypo- 
 critical curiosity which pretends to take an interest in things 
 it cares little about ; perpetually inquiring, as soon as a work 
 is announced, when it is to come out. But these Pharisees of 
 literature, who can only build sepulchres to ancient prophets, 
 never believe in a living one. Some of these Ockley met with 
 on the publication of his first volume : they run it down as 
 the strangest story they had ever heard ; they had never met 
 with such folks as the Arabians ! " A reverend dignitary 
 asked me if, when I wrote that book, I had not lately been 
 reading the history of Oliver Cromwell?" Such was the 
 plaudit the oriental student received, and returned to grow 
 pale over his MSS. But when Petis de la Croix, observes
 
 188 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 Ockley, was pursuing the same track of study, in the patron- 
 age of Louis XIV., he found books, leisure, and encourage- 
 ment ; and when the great Colbert desired him to compose 
 the life of Grenkis Chan, he considered a period of ten years 
 not too much to be allowed the author. And then Ockley 
 proceeds — 
 
 " But ray unhappy condition hath always been widely dif- 
 ferent from anything that could admit of such an exactness. 
 Fortune seems only to have given me a taste of it out of 
 spite, on purpose that I might regret the loss of it." 
 
 He describes his two journeys to Oxford, for his first 
 volume ; but in his second, matters fared worse with him — 
 
 " Either my domestic affairs were grown much worse, or I 
 less able to bear them ; or what is more probable, both." 
 
 Ingenuous confession ! fruits of a life devoted in its struggles 
 to important literature ! and we murmur when genius is irri- 
 table, and erudition is morose ! But let us proceed with 
 Ockley : — 
 
 " I was forced to take the advantage of the slumber of my 
 cai'es, that never slept when I was awake ; and if they did 
 not incessantly interrupt my studies, were sure to succeed 
 them with no less constancy than night doth the day." 
 
 This is the cry of agony. He who reads this without 
 sympathy, ought to reject these volumes as the idlest he ever 
 read, and honour me with his contempt. The close of 
 Ockley's preface shows a love-like tenderness for his studies ; 
 although he must quit life without bringing them to perfec- 
 tion, he opens his soul to posterity and tells them, in the 
 language of prophecy, that if they will bestow encourage- 
 inent on our youth, the misfortunes he has described will be 
 remedied. He, indeed, was aware that these students — ■ 
 
 " Will hardly come in upon the prospect of finding leisure, 
 in a prison, to transcribe those papers for the press which 
 they have collected with indefatigable labour, and oftentimes 
 at the expense of their rest, and all the other conveniences 
 of life, for the service of the public." 
 
 Yet the exulting martyr of literature, at the moment he is 
 fast bound to the stake, does not consider a prison so dreadful 
 a reward for literary labours — 
 
 " I can assure them, from my own experience, that I have 
 enjoyed more true liberty, more happy leisure, and more solid 
 repose in six months here, than in thrice the same number of 
 years before. Evil is the condition of that historian who
 
 The Rewards of Oriental Students. 189 
 
 undertakes to write the lives of others before he knows how 
 to live himself. Yet I have no just reason to be angry with 
 the world ; I never stood in need of its assistance in my life, 
 but I found it always very liberal of its advice ; for which I 
 am so much the more beholden to it, by how much the more 
 I did always in my judgment give the possession of wisdom 
 the preference to that of riclies."* 
 
 Poor Ockley, always a student, and rarely what is called a 
 man of the world, once encountered a literary calamity which 
 frequently occurs when an author finds himself among the 
 vapid tritlers and the polished cynics of the ftishionable circle. 
 Something like a patron he found in Harley, the Earl of 
 Oxford, and once had the unlucky honour of dining at the 
 table of my Lord Treasurer. It is probable that Ockley, 
 from retired habits and severe studies, was not at all accom- 
 plished in i\\^ suaviter in wzoJo, of which greater geniuses than 
 Ockley have so surlily despaired. How he behaved I cannot 
 narrate : probably he delivered himself with as great sim- 
 plicity at the table of the Lord Treasurer as on the wrong 
 
 * £»r. Edmund Castell oflfers a remarkable instance to illustrate our pre- 
 sent investigation. He more than devoted his life to his " Lexicon Hepta- 
 glotton." It is not possible, if there are tears that are to be bestowed on 
 the afflictions of learned men, to read his pathetic address to Charles II., 
 and forbear. He laments the seventeen years of incredible pains, during 
 "which he thought himself idle when he had not devoted sixteen or eighteen 
 hours a day to this labour ; that he had expended all his inheritance (it is 
 said more than twelve thousand pounds) ; that it had broken his constitu- 
 tion, and left him blind as well as poor. When this invaluable Polyglott 
 was published, the copies remained unsold in his hands ; for the learned 
 Castell had anticipated the curiosity and knowledge of the public by a full 
 •century. He had so completely devoted himself to oriental studies, that 
 they had a very remarkable consequence, for he had totally forgotten his 
 own language, and could scarcely spell a single word. This appears in 
 some of his English Letters, preserved by Mr. Nichols in his valuable 
 ' ' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, " vol. iv. Five hundred 
 of these Lexicons, unsold at the time of his death, were placed by Dr. 
 Castell's niece in a room so little regarded, that scarcely one complete copy 
 escaped the rats, and " the whole load of learned rags sold only for seven 
 pounds." The work at this moment would find purchasers, I believe, at 
 forty or fifty pounds. — The learned Sale, who first gave the world a 
 genuine version of the Koran, and who had so zealously laboured in form- 
 ing 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 comi^assionate friend who would supply 
 him with the meal of the day !
 
 190 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 side of Cambridge Castle gate. The embarrassment this sim- 
 plicity drew him into is very fully stated in the following 
 copious apology he addressed to the Earl of Oxford, which I 
 have transcribed from the original ; perhaps it may be a use- 
 ful memorial to some men of letters as little polished as the 
 learned Ockley : — 
 
 " Cambridge, July 15, 1714. 
 
 "My Loed, — I was so struck with horror and amazement two 
 days ago, that I cannot possibly express it. A friend of mine 
 showed me a letter, part of the contents of which were, ' That 
 Professor Ockley had given such extreme offence by some 
 uncourtly answers to some gentlemen at my Lord Treasurer's 
 table that it would be in vain to make any further application 
 to him.' 
 
 " My Lord, it is impossible for me to recollect, at this dis- 
 tance of time. All that I can say is this : that, as on the one 
 side for a man to come to his patron's table with a design to 
 afiront either him or his friends supposes him a perfect 
 natural, a mere idiot ; so on the other side it would be extreme 
 severe, if a person whose education was far distant from the 
 politeness of a court, should, upon the account of an unguarded 
 expression, or some little inadvertency in his behaviour, suffer 
 a capital sentence. 
 
 "Which is my case, if I have forfeited your Lordship's 
 favour ; which God forbid ! That man is involved in double 
 ruin that is not only forsaken by his friend, but, which is the 
 unavoidable consequence, exposed to the malice and contempt 
 not only of enemies, but, what is still more grievous, of all 
 sorts of fools. 
 
 " It is not the talent of every well-meaning man to converse 
 with his superiors with due decorum ; for, either when he 
 reflects upon the vast distance of their station above his own, 
 he is struck dumb and almost insensible ; or else their conde- 
 scension and courtly behaviour encourages him to be too fami- 
 liar. To steer exactl}'' between these two extremes requires 
 not only a good intention, but presence of mind, and long 
 custom. 
 
 " Another article in my friend's letter was, ' That some- 
 body had informed your Lordship that I was a very sot.' 
 "When first 1 had the honour to be known to your Lordship, 
 I could easily foresee that thei'e would be persons enough that 
 would envv me upon that account, and do what in them lay
 
 The Rewards of Oriental Students. 191 
 
 to traduce me. Let Haman enjoy never so much himself, it 
 is all nothing, it does him no good, till poor Mordecai is 
 hanged out of his way. 
 
 " But I never feared the heing censured upon that account. 
 Here in the University I converse with none hut persons of 
 the most distinguished reputations hoth for learning and 
 virtue, and receive from them daily as great marks of respect 
 and esteem, which I should not have if that imputation were 
 true. It is most certain that I do indulge myself the freedom 
 of drinking a cheerful cup, at proper seasons, among my 
 friends ; but no otherwise than is done by thousands of honest 
 men, who never forfeit their character by it. And whoever 
 doth no more than so, deserves no more to be called a sot, 
 than a man that eats a hearty meal would be willing to be 
 called a glutton. 
 
 "As for those detractors, if I have but the least assui-ance 
 of your Lordship's favour, I can very easily despise them. 
 They are Nati consumere fruges. They need not trouble 
 themselves about what other people do ; for whatever they eat 
 and di'ink, it is only robbing the poor. Resigning myself 
 entirely to yom* Lordship's goodness and pardon, I conclude 
 this necessary apology with hke provocation. That I icould 
 he content he sltoutd take my character from any person that 
 had a good one of his own. 
 
 " I am, with all submission, My Lord, 
 
 '■ Your Lordship's most obedient, &c., 
 
 " S1M.0N OCXLET." 
 
 To the honour of the Earl of Oxford, this unlucky piece of 
 awkwardness at table, in giving " uncourtly answers," did not 
 interrupt his regard for the poor oriental student ; for several 
 years afterwards the correspondence of Ockley was still accept- 
 able to the Eai'l. 
 
 If the letters of the widows and children of many of our 
 eminent authors were collected, they would demonstrate the 
 great fact, that the man who is a husband or a father ought 
 not to be an author. They might weary with a monotonous 
 cry, and usually would be dated from the gaol or the garret. 
 I have seen an original letter from the widow of Ockley to the 
 Earl of Oxford, in which she laj's before him the deplorable 
 situation of her affairs; the debts of the Professor being 
 beyond Avhat his effects amounted to, the severity of the credi-
 
 192 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 tors would not even suffer the executor to make the best of 
 his effects ; the widow remained destitute of necessaries, in- 
 capable of assisting her children.* 
 
 Thus students have devoted their days to studies worthy of 
 a student. They are public benefactors, yet find no friend in 
 the public, who cannot yet appreciate their value — Ministers 
 of State know it, though they have rarely protected them. 
 Ockley, by letters I have seen, was frequently employed by 
 Bolingbroke to translate letters from the Sovereign of Mo- 
 rocco to our court ; yet all the debts for which he was impri- 
 soned in Cambridge Castle did not exceed two hundred pounds. 
 The public interest is concerned in stimulating such enthu- 
 siasts ; they are men who cannot be salaried, who cannot be 
 created by letters-patent ; for they are men who infuse their 
 soul into their studies, and breathe their fondness for them in 
 their last agonies. Yet such are doomed to feel their life 
 jiass away like a painful dream ! 
 
 Those who know the value of Lightfoot's Hebraic studies, 
 may be startled at the impediments which seem to have 
 annihilated them. In the following effusion he confides his 
 secret agitation to his friend Buxtorf : " A lew years since I 
 prepared a little commentary on the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, in the same style and manner as I had done that on 
 Matthew. But it laid by me two years or more, nor can I now 
 publish it, but at my own charges, and to my gi'eat damage, 
 which I felt enough and too much in the edition of my book 
 upon Mark. Some progress I have made in the gospel of St. 
 Luke, but I can print nothing but at my own cost : thereupon 
 I wholly give myself to reading, scarce thinking of writing 
 more ; for booksellers and printers have dulled my edge, who 
 will print no book, especially Latin, unless they have an 
 assured and considerable gain." 
 
 These writings and even the fragments have been justly 
 
 * 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, ^¥hich 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 fur in vain in my perplexed circum- 
 stances."
 
 Danger of the Result of Literary hiquiries. 193' 
 
 appreciated by posterity, and a recent edition of all Lightfoot's ■ 
 works in many volumes have received honours which their' 
 despairing author never contemplated. 
 
 DANGER INCURRED BY GIVING THE RESULT OF LITERARY 
 INQUIRIES. 
 
 An author occupies a critical situation, for, while he is pre-- 
 senting 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 oifending the higher powers, and 
 witnessing his own days embittered. Liable, by his modera- 
 tion 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 accusa- 
 tions 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 ob- 
 scurity 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 trea- 
 sure 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.* 
 
 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 de- 
 lightful 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 
 
 * Cowel's book, " The Interpreter," thougli professedly a mere explana- 
 tion of law terms, was believed to contain allusions or interpretations of 
 law entirely adapted to party feeling. Cowel was blamed by botli parties, 
 and bis 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. 
 
 O
 
 194 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 therefore have I pubhshed 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 glean- 
 ing after him, will gather as many omitted by him, as he shall 
 show committed by me. What a man saith well is not, how- 
 ever, 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 
 man}'- years." 
 
 This extract discovers Cowel's amiable character as an 
 author. But he was not fated to receive " sweetness without 
 i-eproach." 
 
 Cowel encountered an unrelenting enemy in Sir Edward 
 Coke, the famous Attorney-General of James I., the commen- 
 tator 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 perse- 
 cutor 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 tiu'ned 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. Coioheel. 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 mj'^steries of his monarchy, in some points deroga- 
 tory to the supreme power of his crown ; asserting that the 
 royal prerogative was in some cases limited." So subtl}"- 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
 
 Danger of the Result of Literary Inquiries, 195 
 
 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 ahcnating 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 despe- 
 rate 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 
 Eoman Intiperial 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 expi'esses himself when he says, 
 " When a suspected book is brought to the tortiu-e, it often 
 confesseth all, and more than it knows." 
 
 The Commons proceeded criminally against Cowel ; and it 
 is said his life was requu-ed, 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 compo- 
 sition of James I. 
 
 I will preserve some passages from this proclamation, not 
 merely for their majestic composition, which maj^ stiU 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. Proclama- 
 tions and burning of books are the strong efforts of a weak 
 government, ejcciting rather than suppressing public atten- 
 tion. 
 
 " This later age and times of the world wherein we ai'e 
 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 uusearched to the bottom both in talking and 
 
 o 2
 
 19G Calamities of Authors. 
 
 writing. For from the ver}'' highest mj'steries in the God- 
 head and the most inscrutable comisels 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 know- 
 ledge 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 cl oysters 
 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, them- 
 selves shall not only go astray and stumble in darkness, but 
 will mislead also divers others with themselves into many mis- 
 takings 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 meddhng 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 witli 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 autlior, whose 
 integrity was so lirm, and whose love of study was so warm, 
 when he reaped for his reward the displeasure of his sove- 
 reign, and the indignation of his countrymen — accused at
 
 Danger of the Result of Literary Inquiries. 197 
 
 once of contradictory crimes, he could not be a betrayer of 
 the rights of the people, and at the same time limit the sove- 
 reign power. Cowel retreated to his college, and, like a wise 
 man, abstained from the press; he pm-sued his private studies, 
 while his inoffensive life was a comment on Coke's inhu- 
 manity 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 Crom- 
 well, 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 men- 
 tioned 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 hackhiting 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 ? Pos- 
 terity has many discoveries to make, or many deceptions to 
 endiu'e ! But we are treadincj on hot embers.
 
 198 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 Such too was tlie fate of Eegi^'ald Scot, who, in an 
 elaborate and curious volume,* 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 
 rehgious credulity and legal cruelty. 
 
 SeldeKj 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 wilhng enough to extol his profound autho- 
 rities and reasonings on topics which did not interfere with 
 their system of arbitrary power ; but they harassed and per- 
 secuted 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 investiga- 
 tions — 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 un- 
 dergone, refused to publish the work. A great author hke 
 Selden degrades himself when any personal feeling, in lite- 
 rary 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 
 
 * "The Discoverie of Witchcraft, necessary to be known for the undeceiv- 
 ing 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.
 
 Danger of the Result of Literary Inquiries. 199 
 
 liberum, gave tlie world his Mare clausum; when Selden had 
 to encounter Grotius, and to prochiim 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 distin- 
 guished himself by his pleasing compositions in the " Adven- 
 turer," 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 ai'ising 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 incm-red 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 in- 
 quiries 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 mj/ MSS, 
 into your Lordship^s hands, because, though it increases my 
 anxiety and my fears, yet it will at least secui-e me from 
 what I should think a far greater misfortune than any other 
 that can attend my performance, tlie danger of addressing to
 
 ^00 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 the King any sentiment, allusion, or opinion,ihai could make 
 such an address improper. I have now the honour to submit 
 the loorJc 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 con- 
 curred 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 dedi- 
 cator ; 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 ! 
 
 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 flatter- 
 ing and elevating the imagination, painting everything beau- 
 tiful, to encourage our love as well as our reverence for the 
 most perfect system of governments. It was a noble as well 
 as ingenious etlbrt in a foreigner — it claimed national atten- 
 tion — 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
 
 A Work which could find no Patronage. 201 
 
 appears to have received a solitary attention,* and became so 
 disgusted with authorship, that he preferred silently to en- 
 dure its poverty rather than its other vexations. He ceased 
 almost to write. Of De Lolme I have heard little re- 
 corded 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 bit- 
 terness 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 in- 
 dignities he endured, all which are narrated with great sim- 
 plicity, 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 him- 
 self, that he — 
 
 * 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.
 
 20.2 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 " V/as 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 pub- 
 lished 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 ingra- 
 titude of his pupil. De Lolme ought not to have congra- 
 tulated 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 ! 
 
 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 Na- 
 ture" 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
 
 The Miseries of Successful Authors. 203 
 
 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 leism-e from your other occupations, you would 
 look over my system of philosophy, and at the same tuiae 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. T 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 om" particular taste ; which not 
 being convincing, we think it better to conceal our sen- 
 timents altogether. But every eiTor 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 per- 
 formance I put into yoiu- hands. I am, indeed, afraid that it 
 would be too great a trouble for j'ou 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 
 
 " Su', your most obedient and most hmnble servant, 
 
 ''Aprile 6, 1739. " DaVID HuilE. 
 
 " Please direct to me at iSTinewells, 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 m}' disappointment ! All classes of men and readers 
 vmited in their rage against him who had presumed to shed a 
 generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of
 
 ■204 Calamities of Autliors. 
 
 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 pre- 
 cious part of au 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 j'^et 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 obnox- 
 ious, 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 Dry den, 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 ovcrsiudij, I cannot
 
 The Miseries of Successful Authors. 205 
 
 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 hostilitj^ 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* on Tlie 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 b}"" 
 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 pro- 
 logue 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, 
 
 * A letter found among the papers of tte late Mr. Windham, which 
 llr. Malone has preserved.
 
 306 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 '• This kind usage will encourage desf)onding minor poets, 
 and vex Imffing 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. Dry- 
 den and Congreve ! the one the finest genius, the other the 
 most exquisite wit of our nation, are to be vexed to madness ! 
 — theu' failures are not to excite sympathy, but contempt or 
 ridicule ! How the feelings and the language of contem- 
 poraries differ from that of posterity ! And yet let us not 
 exult in our purer and more dignified feelings — loe are, in- 
 deed, 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 lie has few tlianTcs to pay his stars 
 that he teas lorn among Englishmen.* We have just seen 
 that Hume went farther, and sighed to fly to a retreat be- 
 yond that country which knew not to reward genius. — 
 What, if Dryden felt the dignity of that character he sup- 
 ported, dare we blame his frankness ? If the age be unge- 
 nerous, shall contemporaries escape the scourge of the great 
 author, who feels he is addressing another age more favour- 
 able to him ? 
 
 Johnson, too, notices his " Self-commendation ; his dili- 
 gence 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 
 
 * There is an .affecting remonstrance of Dryden to Hyde, Earl of 
 Eochester, on tiie state of his poverty and neglect — in which is this re- 
 markable passage: — "It is enough for one age to Lave ne{/lected Mr. 
 Cowley and starved j\Ir. Butler."
 
 The Miseries of Successful Authors. 207 
 
 reason have I spent my life in such an unprojitahle study ? 
 Wlty am I groivn 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 sliine, 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 trembhngs 
 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 laboui* was 
 completed, the author was still more unhappy than under the 
 former influence of his foreboding terrors. The work is dedi- 
 cated 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
 
 208 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 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 dedica- 
 tion to this statue-like patron. Neither was the critical recep- 
 tion 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 
 oftenee 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 for- 
 sake 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 sub- 
 scription, 
 
 '• 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 hid adieu to Europe, 
 to tmliappy suspense, and perhaps also to the chagrin of soul 
 lohich Ifeel to accompany itT 
 
 Such was the language vvhich 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 litera- 
 ture, that of a man of genius, who, dedicating his days to the
 
 The Miseries of Successful Authors. 209 
 
 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 grati- 
 tude, 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 vaiu. 
 
 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 cala- 
 mity which will excite the sympathy of every man of letters ; 
 but the great work of a man of no ordiuaiy genius presents 
 itself on this occasion. 
 
 This great work is "The Polyolbion" of Michael Deat- 
 TON ; a poem unrivalled for its magnitude and its character.* 
 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 " Bri- 
 tannia" 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. 
 
 * 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 geo- 
 grapher, and embellished by the imagination of a poet." — Ed. 
 
 P
 
 210 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 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, 
 GUI" towns, our rivers, and our mountains, all glancing before 
 the picturesque eye of the naturalist and the poet ! It is, 
 indeed, a labom* 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.* 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. Witheks. 
 
 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 1 
 
 W. Bkowne. 
 
 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 ; hut it lieth 
 ly me, for the looJcsellers 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, when- 
 ever the public taste can be appeased even by an unripened 
 dessert. 
 
 * In the dedication of the first part to Prince Henry, the author says of 
 Lis work, "it cannot want euvie : for even in the birth it alreadie finds 
 that,"— Ed.
 
 The Miseries of Successful Authors. 211 
 
 These " knaves," however, seem to have succeeded in forcing 
 poor Drayton to observe an abstinence from the press, whicli 
 must have convulsed all the feelings of authorship. The 
 second part was not published till three 3'ears after this letter 
 was written ; and then without maps. Its preface is remark- 
 able enough ; it is pathetic, till Drayton loses the dignity of 
 genius in its asperity. In is inscribed, in no good humour — ' 
 
 " To ANT THAT "WILL EEAD IT ! 
 
 " When I first undertook this poem, or, as some have 
 pleased to term it, this Herculean labour, I was by some vir- 
 tuous 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, Nor- 
 mans, 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 com- 
 fort 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 icent not so fast away in tlie 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 Avith 
 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 prqfamim vulyus, 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 
 
 p2
 
 212 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 ■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. 
 
 KiRKPATRIOK. 
 
 It is melaiicholy 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 insen- 
 £ible of that glory which soon covered it. 
 
 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 Re- 
 public should not be banished frofn 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 aflect to admire what they do not even under- 
 stand, 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 em- 
 ployment which will be usually discovered to be a source of 
 early anxiety, and of late disappointment !* I say nothing 
 of the; ridicule in which it involves some wretched MjEvius, 
 but of the misery that falls so heavily on him, and is often 
 
 * An elegant poet of our times alludes, with due feeling, to these per- 
 sonal Bacrifices. Addressing Poetry, he exclaims — 
 " In devotion to thy heavenly charms, 
 I clasp'd thy altar with ray infant arms ; 
 For thee neglected the wide field of wealth ; 
 The toils of interest, and the sports of health." 
 IIow often may we lament that poets are too apt "to clasp the altar 
 ■with infant arms." Goldsmith was near forty when he published his 
 })oiiular jKieras — 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 i)oetry.
 
 The Illusions of Writers in Verse. 213 
 
 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 baix'd all arts, for having fail'd in one ? 
 
 The great mind of Blacestone 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. Diiummo]S'd, 
 of Hawthornden, quitted the bar from his love of poetry j- 
 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 aD the 
 excesses of poetical feehngs — for he was in such raptures at 
 times as to lose his senses — expresses himself in very ener- 
 getic 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, hke commending in the right 
 place." 
 
 This, no doubt, is a rare enjoyment, and serves to 
 strengthen his illusions. But the same fervid genius else- 
 where confesses, when reproached for his ungoverned fancy, 
 that it brings with itself its own punishment : —
 
 214 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 "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 rub- 
 bish 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 imagi- 
 nation 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 a?it/ one, early in 7ns life, sliould conteiii' 
 plate the dangerous fate of authoes, he icould scarce le 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 
 sagacit}', but will do no credit to his knowledge. 
 
 If thus great poets pour their lamentations for having de- 
 voted themselves to their art, some sympathy is due to the 
 qucrulousness of a numerous race oi lirovincial 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 be- 
 come 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 persecu- 
 tion. Such, among many, was the fate of the poet Heeeick; 
 his vein was pastoral, and he lived in the elysium of the 
 west, whieli, however, he describes by the sullen epithet, 
 "Dull Devonshire," where " he is still sad," Strange that
 
 The Illusions of Writers in Verse. 215 
 
 sueli 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 " Dean- 
 bourne, 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. 
 
 Eockie thou art, and rockie we discover 
 
 Thy men, — 
 
 men ! manners ! — 
 
 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 metro- 
 polis — 
 
 place ! 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 
 Unglisli 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
 
 216 Calamities of Authors, 
 
 genius, creates a perpetual state of illusion ; and pursues 
 grey-headed folly even to the verge of the grave. 
 
 Pope imagined that Price 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 bio- 
 graphy totally unprepared, except with the maturity of his 
 genius, as a profound observer of men, and an invincible 
 dogmatist in taste. In the history of the times, Johnson is 
 deficient, which has deprived us of that permanent instruction 
 and delight his intellectual powers had poured around it. The 
 character and the secret history of Prior are laid open in the 
 " State Poems ;"* a bitter Whiggish narrative, too particular 
 to be entirely fictitious, while it throws a new light on John- 
 son'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 chaiu'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 tui'n'd ; 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 355.
 
 Tlie Illusions of Writers in Verse. 217" 
 
 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 Hrle Holert to whom he addressed his 
 Mice ; and Prior was now Secretary to the Embassy at 
 Eyswick and Paris ; independent even of the English am- 
 bassador — 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 com- 
 posed 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 West- 
 minster 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.
 
 218 - Calamities of Authors. 
 
 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 Teren- 
 tian and VirgiUan st3de into that of Articles and Conven- 
 tions ; so that poetry, loliicli hy the hent of my mind might 
 have hecome the business of my life, teas, hy the hapjnness 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 for- 
 tune, and the various changes of Ministry, and that every 
 man, as he resents, may punish in his tm'n of greatness and 
 power." 
 
 Such is the wholesome counsel of the Solomon of Bards to 
 an aspii-ant, who, in his ardour for poetical honours, becomes 
 careless of their consequences, if he can but possess them. 
 
 I have now to bring forwai'd one of those unhappy men of 
 rhyme, who, after many painful struggles, and a long que- 
 rulous life, have died amid the I'avings 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 In- 
 sanity," 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 im- 
 portunately talkative — reciting passages from the Greek and 
 Koman poets, or talking of his own literary importance. He 
 became so troublesome to the other madmen, who were suf- 
 ficiently 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 pjeculiar 
 vein of that poet." 
 
 Such is the very accurate case drawn up by a medical 
 w'riter. 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 Stockdalb, 
 who, with the most entertaining simplicity, has, in "The
 
 The Illusions of Writers in Verse. 219 
 
 Memoirs of his Life and Writings," presented us witli a full- 
 length figure of this class of poets ; those whom the per- 
 petual pursuits of poetry, however indifferent, involve in a 
 perpetual illusion ; they are onl}'' 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 con- 
 demned 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 Eoseiad," which at first did not sell, and 
 afterwards became the most popular poem, he was specu- 
 lating 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 
 diflicult ; but the artist has painted himself, and manufac- 
 tured 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 tm'ning 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 leeii made of my literary 
 fameT Again — " Before I die, I tliinh my literary fame may 
 he fixed on an adamantine foundation ^ Our old acquaint- 
 ance. Bias of Santillane, at setting out on his travels, con- 
 ceived himself to be la huitihne 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. 
 
 Wiiat were these mighty and unknown works r* Stock- 
 dale confesses that all his verses have been received with
 
 230 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 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 tliose 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 : — " Not- 
 withstanding," 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 contor- 
 tions 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 drol- 
 lery and merry pathos with all he says or does, and his ubi- 
 quity is so wonderful, that he gives an idea of a character, of 
 Avhose existence we had previously no conception, that of a 
 sentimental harlequin.* 
 
 * My okl favourite cynic, witli all his* rough honesty and acute discri- 
 mination, Anthony Wood, engraved a sketch of Stockdale when lie etched 
 with his aqua- fortis the personage of a brother: — "This Edward Water-
 
 The Illusions of Writers in Verse. 221 
 
 In the early part of his life, Stockdale undertook many 
 poetical pilgrimages ; he visited the house where Thomsoa 
 was born ; the coffee-room where Dryden presided among 
 the wits, &c. Recollecting the influence of these local asso- 
 ciations, he breaks forth, " Neither the unrelenting coldness, 
 nor the repeated insolence of mankind, can prevent me from 
 thinking that sometliing like this enthusiastic devotion may 
 hereafter he 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 woi'ks 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." 
 
 house •wrote a rhapsodical, indigested, ■whimsical v/ork ; 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."
 
 223 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 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 
 'H.?LV}'kQ?,v;orih.,,yQi lie 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 benevo- 
 lence, 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 despaii-, like 
 Medea, he immolated his unfortunate offspring. 
 
 " When I had arrived at within a day's work of its conclu- 
 sion, in consequence of some immediate and mortifying acci- 
 dents, wy 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 ])rosec%ite the prof essio7i of an author ; to retire 
 altogether from the world, and read only for consolation and 
 amusement. I committed to the flames my History of Gib-
 
 The Illusions of Writers in Verse. 223 
 
 raltar and my translation of Marsollier^s Life of Cardinal 
 Ximcnes ; 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 dis- 
 appointment more pathetically told. 
 
 But as it is impossible to have known poor deluded Stock- 
 dale, 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 disposi- 
 tion to compose, nor ever wrote with more pleasm'e. I pre- 
 sumed 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 iy am- 
 bition and hi/ Jiope, 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; hut the demand for the poem relaxed gradually I 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 any- 
 thing 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 com- 
 bined 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
 
 324 Calamities of Authors. 
 
 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 Ids advantage, and some to miner 
 
 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. 
 Peioe congratulates himself that he had not devoted all his 
 days to rhymes. Stockdale imagines his fame is to com- 
 mence 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."* However, in due time, the 
 
 * It was published in quarto ia 1673, and has engravings of the prin- 
 cipal 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," 
 Bays Settle, ' ' that they borrowed no greatness from the characters they 
 acted." The prologues were written by Lords Mulgrave and Rochester, 
 and the utmost iclat given to the five long acts of rhyming bombast, which 
 was declared superior to any work of Dryden's. As City Poet afterwardss 
 Settle composed the pageants, speeches, and songs for the Lord Mayor'- 
 Shows from 1(391 to 1708. Towards the close of his career he became im, 
 povurished, and wrote from necessity on all subjects. One of his plays, com- 
 posed for Mrs. Mynns' booth in Bartjiolomew Fair, has been twice printed, 
 though both editions are now uncommonly rare. It is called the "Siege 
 of Ti-oy ;" 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.
 
 The Illusions of Writers in Verse. 225 
 
 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 hy his hacknied micse. The fol- 
 lowing 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 : — 
 
 " Sib, — 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, in- 
 sisted, 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. 
 
 Q
 
 QUAEKELS OF AUTHORS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 SOME MEMOIES FOR OUR LITERARY HISTORY. 
 
 " The use and end of this Work I do not so much design for curiosity, or satis- 
 faction 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 tcise in the age and admU 
 nittration of learning," — Lobd Bacoit, " Of Learning."
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Quaeeels of Authoes may be considered as a con- 
 tinuation of the Calamities of Authoes ; 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 Joh>"son has given to the literar}'- 
 quarrels between Dryden and Settle, Dennis and Addison, 
 &c. ; and which Sir Waltee 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
 
 230 Preface. 
 
 of the author connected itself ; and with the cliaractev 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 intellec- 
 tual 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 
 feeHng ; 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 com- 
 position. 
 
 The Philosophy of Literary History was indeed the crea- 
 tion of Batle. He was the first who, by attempting a criti- 
 cal 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 pur- 
 suit with a higher spirit, he gave a new turn to our studies. 
 It was felt through Europe; and many celebrated authors 
 studied and repeated Batle. 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. 
 BmCH 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 collec- 
 tions, and eminently skilled in the whole science of biblio- 
 graphy — 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
 
 Preface. 231 
 
 ■u'hicli 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. Cumbeeland, 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 pro- 
 ducing authorities. 
 
 Mr. CuMBEELAXD was then occupied on a review of Fox's 
 History ; and of Claeendois", which lay open before him, — 
 he had been complaining, with all the irritable feelings of a 
 dramatist, of the frequent suspensions, and the tedious minute- 
 ness of his story. 
 
 I observed that notes had not then been discovered. Had 
 Lord CLAEE>'DOisr 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 sub- 
 stantiating evidence, amassed. Had these been cast into 
 notes, and were it now possible to pass them over in the pre- 
 sent text, how would the story of the noble historian clear up \
 
 232 Preface. 
 
 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 
 naore 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 Batle eagerly sought, 
 and they delighted Johnson ; but all this luxury of literature 
 can only be produced to the nublic eye in the variegated forms 
 of notes.
 
 WARBURTON, AND HIS QUARRELS; 
 
 IXCLUDIKQ AN ILLUSTRATION OP 
 
 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 fur the change to Divinity — his first literary mischances — War- 
 burton 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 W^arburton 
 through all his Works — the curious argument of his Alliance between 
 Church and State — the bold paradox of his Divine Legation — the de- 
 monstration 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 ^neas into the Eleusinian Mysteries — Hurd attacks 
 Jortin ; his Attic irony translated into plain English — Warburton's para- 
 dox 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 
 Essa}'— 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 Warbur- 
 ton 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 justifica- 
 tion — 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 specu- 
 lations — the Warburtonian School supported by the most licentious prin- 
 ciples — 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 Waebueton is more familiar to us than his 
 works : thus was it early,* thus it continues, and thus it will 
 
 * One of his lively adversaries, the author of the "Canons of Criticism," 
 observed the difiiculty of writing against an author whose reputation so
 
 234 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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, Aeistotle 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 ;* — a critical 
 precept, which ought to be frequently applied in the compo- 
 sition of this work. 
 
 The history of Warburton is now well known, the facts lie 
 dispersed in the chronological biographer ;t bvit 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 busi- 
 ness to press these together; hence to demonstrate prin- 
 ciples, or to deduce inferences. 
 
 The literary fame of Warburton was a portentous meteor : 
 it seemedunconnected 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. J 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 over- 
 come by the same astonishment. 
 
 To a Warbui'tonian, the object of his worship looks indeed 
 of colossal magnitude, in the glare thrown about that hal- 
 
 mucli exceeded the knowledge of liis works. " It is my misfortune," says 
 Ei)WARi>s, " in this controversy, to be engaged with a person who is better 
 known by his name than his tcorl's ; or, to speak more properly, whose 
 works are more known than ready — Preface to the Canons of Criticism. 
 
 * Aristotle's Rhetoric, B. III. c. IG, 
 
 i" The matei'ials for a " Life of Warburton" have been arranged by Mr. 
 Nichols with his accustomed iidelity. — Hce his Literary Anecdotes. 
 
 X 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 imagina- 
 tion. Warburton has riglitly observed, in his " Divine Legation," p. 203, 
 that "'Systems, Schemes, and llypothesrs, all bred of heat, in the warm 
 regions of Controversy, like meteors in a troubled sky, have each its turn 
 to blase and/y away."
 
 Warburton. 235 
 
 lowed 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 great- 
 ness can be determined :* 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, lilje the asbestos, is still unconsumed and un- 
 altered amidst these glowing fires. 
 
 The genius of Warburton has called forth two remarkable 
 
 * It seems, even by the confession of a Warburtonian, that his master 
 was of " a human size ;" for when Bishop Lowth rallies the Warburtouians 
 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 regai-d 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 liis 
 wi'itings ; or, if they did, could neither taste nor comprehend them ; while 
 every little aspiring or despairing scribbler eyes him as Cassius did Csesar : 
 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.' 
 Ko wonder, then, if the malice of the Lilliputian tribe be bent against this 
 dreaded Gulliver ; if they attack him with poisoned an'ows, whom they 
 cannot subdue by strength." 
 
 On this Lowth observes, that "this Lord Paramount in his pretensions 
 dotli bestride the narroio 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 Ukqu- 
 hart'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 Eabelais 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 con- 
 sidered 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 appre- 
 hended to be of colossal magnitude by certain of his Lilliputian enemies." 
 Thus subtilely would poor Dr. Brown save appearances ! It must be con- 
 fessed 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."
 
 236 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 anonymous criticisms — in one, all that the most splendid 
 eloquence can bring' to bear against this chief and his 
 adherents ;* and in the other, all that taste, warmed by a 
 spark of Warburtonian fire, can discriminate in an impartial 
 decision. t Mine is a colder and less grateful task. 1 am 
 ■but a historian ! I have to creep along in the darkness of 
 human events, to lay my hand cautiously on truths so diffi- 
 cult to touch, and which either the panegyrist or the writer 
 of an invective cover over, and throw aside into corners. 
 
 * "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 dedica- 
 tion by Parr stands unparalleled for comparative criticism. It is the 
 eruption of a volcano ; it sparkles, it blazes, and scatters light and destruc- 
 tion. 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 child- like 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 "IMonthly Review," that the wi-iter of a vei\v elaborate 
 article on the works of Dr. Parr, was no less a personage than the Doctor him- 
 .self. 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 teiTors when 
 resisted ; and the pomp of petty pride in table triumphs and evening cuxles, 
 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 Icarn'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.) 
 '\- The " Quarterly Review," vol. vii. p. 3S3. — So masterly a piece of 
 criticism has rarely surprised the public in the leaves of a periodical publi- 
 cation. It comes, indeed, with the feelings of another age, and the remi- 
 niscences of the (ild 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.
 
 War bur ton. 237 
 
 Much of the moral, and something too of the physical dis- 
 positions of the man enter into the literarj^ 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,* and then an unsuc- 
 
 * 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 Warbirrton'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 justlj' plead, in excuse for 
 it, a natural curiosity to know where and /tow such a phenomenon was pro- 
 duced. 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 won- 
 derful happiness of allusion, justness of application, and elegance of expres- 
 sion, conferred 'the unrivalled title of the Chancellor of Human Nature'), 
 that it peculiarly disposes men to be proud, insolent, and pragmatical." 
 Lov.'th, 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, meek- 
 ness, 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 edu- 
 cation is so far from being a disgrace to you, that it highlj' redounds to 
 your praise." — Lowth^s Letter to the Author of the D. L. p. 6-3. 
 
 Was ever weapon more polished and keen ? This Attic style of contro- 
 versy finely contrasts with the tasteless and fierce invective of the Warbur- 
 tonians, 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 friend- 
 ship. His v:it and his reasoninrj, God knows, and I also, (as a certain
 
 238 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 cessful 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.* In 
 
 critic said once in a matter of the like gi-eat importance), are much below 
 the qualities that deserve those names." — He writes too of "this man's 
 holdness 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 
 Lo-svth as this grotesque personage. He was, however, at that moment 
 sharply stung ! 
 
 This circumstance of Attorneyshij) 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 poli- 
 tical 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 tm-pitude under the gown and the scai-f." But this is mere 
 invective ! 
 
 * I have given a tempered opinion of his motive for this sudden conver- 
 sion 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 tierce 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 ;
 
 Warburton. 239 
 
 3 word, he set off as a literary adventurer, wlio was to win 
 bis way by earning it from patronage. 
 
 His first mischances were not of a nature to call forth that 
 intvepidity which afterwards hardened into the leading 
 feature of his character. Few great authors have begun their 
 
 A title, in which Form arraj'ed 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 retiued principles, 
 ■which evince more of the political than the primitive Christian. It is cer- 
 tain 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 
 fjenerous patron in the country, rasiy 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 honour- 
 able 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 yeai-s 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 exa- 
 mine 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 buflFoon, 
 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 War- 
 burton in his bishopric, to Peachum in the Beggar's Opera — ^who, as Keeper 
 of Newgate, was for hanging all his old accomplices !
 
 240 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 race with less auspicious omens, thougli 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 liis 
 "Translations in Prose and Verse from Roman Poets, Orators, 
 and Historians." 1724. He was then about twenty-five 
 vears of a"-e. 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.* So radically deficient in War- 
 
 * "Warburton was far more extravagant in a later attempt wliich lie made 
 to expound the odd visions of a crack-brained Welshman, a prophesying 
 knave ; a knave by his own confession, and a prophet by Warburtou's. 
 This commentary, inserted in Jortin's "Remarks on Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory," considerably injured the reputation of Jortin. The story of War- 
 burton 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 yrojoAmef? tlte Hanoverian Succession! The Welshman 
 was a knave by his own account in subscribing with his right hand the con- 
 fession 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 fetcli 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 iloating 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 Jineid of Virgil, and the 
 "Divine Legation, itself," and made the same sort of discoveries, he 
 fixed himself in this dilemma : either Wai burton 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. " Oiiiuary men believe one side of a contradiction at a 
 time, whereas his lordship" (says his admirable antagonist) " frequently be- 
 lieves, or at least defends hoth. So that it would have been no great 
 wonder if he sliould maintain that Evans was both a real prophet and au 
 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 au adversary who, like the Momus of Homer,
 
 Warburton. 241 
 
 ■burton was that fine internal feeling which wc call taste, that 
 through his early writings he acquired not one solitary charm 
 of diction,* 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 
 liis 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 Avere both 
 addressed to the same opulent baronet, not omitting " the 
 virtues" of his lady the Countess of Sunderland, whose mar- 
 riage he calls " so divine a union." Warburton had sho'.vu 
 no want of judgment in tlie choice of his patrons ; for tht-y 
 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 Pros- 
 titution." This early management betrays no equivocal 
 symptoms of that traffic in Dedications, of which he has been 
 
 lias raised through the skies "inextinguishable laughter," in the amusing 
 tract of "Confusion worse Confounded, Rout ou Rout, or the Bishop of 
 
 G 's Commentary on Arise Evans ; by ludignatio." 1772. The writer 
 
 ■was the learned Henry Taylor, the author of Ben Aloruecai's Apology. 
 
 * The correct taste of Lowth with some humour describes the last sen- 
 tence of the "Enquiry on Prodigies" as "the Musa Pedestris got oa 
 horseback in a high prancing style." He printed it in measured lines, 
 without, however, changing the place of a single word, and it produced 
 Wank 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 hoi'seback 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 ^^Titers 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. 
 
 B
 
 242 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 so severely accused,* 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. 
 
 * 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 nnnoticed 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 War- 
 burton and Pope. In the " Familiar Epistle" he asserts that Warburton 
 was introduced to Pope by his "nauseous flattery." A remarkable in- 
 stance, besides the dedications we have noticed, occurred in his correspon- 
 dence with Sir Thomas Hanmer. He did not venture to attack " The 
 Oxford Editor," as he sarcastically distinguishes him, without first de- 
 manding 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 gen- 
 tleman 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 Frce-toill and Nature and Grace, and "a con- 
 trivavce 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 con- 
 sidered 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 sub- 
 ject. 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 dis-
 
 Warburton. 243 
 
 Till his thirtieth year,Warburtou evinced a depraved taste, 
 but a craving appetite for knowledge. His mind was consti- 
 tuted 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 :* the delight resulting 
 from harmonious and delicate forms raised emotions of too 
 weak a natm'e to move his obUquity of taste ; roused, how- 
 ever, by the surprise excited by colossal ugliness. The disco- 
 very 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 ta 
 a literary man ; it was the chance-discovery of a letter he had 
 ■written to one of the heroes of the Dunciad, forty years be- 
 
 cover 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 
 Lave 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, wUl 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 sar- 
 casm, gives a history of Warburton's later Dedications. "The first edi- 
 tion 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. 
 
 * 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 anj^ 
 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 flourish- 
 ing upon the same head." The interior of the house was decorated in the 
 same monstrous style, and the description, unique of its kind, occupies seve- 
 ral pages of Mr. Brydone's book. — Ed. 
 
 e2
 
 •244 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 fore. At the time that letter was written, his Hterary con- 
 jiexions were formed with second-rate authors ; he was in 
 strict intimacy with Concanen and Theobald, and other " in- 
 genious gentlemen who made up our last night's conversa- 
 tion," as he expresses himself.* 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;" Warburtcm'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 insen- 
 sible 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 raj^tures 
 with the rant of Lee. There is an unerring principle in the 
 false sublime : it seems to be governed by laws, though they 
 
 * 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 ofiice. [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 biought down with them."] When I looked for the letter in Aken- 
 ^idenWorks, 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. Maloue, 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 
 xilose of Julius Cccaar : 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 
 Las so unmercifully registered ill their Doomsday- book ; one who admired 
 the genius of his brothers, and spoke of Tope with the utmost contempt! 
 {Thus he says, "Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of leisure, and 
 Pope for want of genius !"]
 
 Warburton. 345- 
 
 are not ouvs ; and we know Avhat 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 Waeton, 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."* Yet such was the man whom ill-fortune 
 (for the public at least) had chosen to l)ecome the commen- 
 tator of our greater poets ! Again Churchill throws light oil 
 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 re- 
 treated 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 famej 
 Warburton scorned to be a scribbler ! 
 
 Had this great man journalised his readings, as Gibbon has- 
 
 * 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, notlnng inferior in 
 tne 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.
 
 24:6 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 done, we should perhaps be more astonished at his miscella- 
 neous pursuits. He read everything, and, I suspect, with 
 little distinction, and equal delight.* Curiosity, even to its 
 delirium, was his first passion ; which produced those new 
 systems of hypothetical reasoning by which he startled the 
 w^orld ; 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, paradoses they remain. 
 
 * Such opposite studies sliot tliemselves 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. Chukchill, with a good deal of 
 ill-jiature 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 reading, 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, lihe ill-digested food, 
 
 To liumours turii'd, and not to hlood." 
 The opinion of Bentlet, 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 riilicules 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 enlight- 
 ened 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 Stili.inofleet could have contributed the erudition, Chilling- 
 wouTii and Locke the acuteness, Taylor an imagination even more wild 
 and copious, Swii<t, and perhap.s, Eaciiaiu), the sarcastic vein of wit ; 
 but what ])ower of undcTStanding, 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 Revltw. 
 vol. vii.
 
 Warburton. '^4i7 
 
 But if Warburton read so much, it was not to enforce 
 opinions already furnished to Iiis liands, or with cokl scepti- 
 cism 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 secuet 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 origi- 
 nality he was not free from imitation, and has even been 
 accused of borrowing largely without hinting at his obliga- 
 tions. 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 Batle ! And I am unfolding the cha- 
 racter 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 
 luit ; ivho, pervading human nature icith a glance, steuck 
 INTO the peotince OF Paeadox, 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 get enough of real greatness to overcome 
 that last foible of superior geniuses, the temptation of 
 honour, which the Academic Exeecise oe Wit is con- 
 ceived to bring to its professors."* 
 
 Here, then, we discover the seceet peinciple 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 War- 
 burton. In his early studies he had particularly applied 
 himself to logic ; and was not only a vigorous reasoner, but 
 
 ■i u rpj^g Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated," vol. i. sec. iv. Ob- 
 serve the remarkable expression, "that last foible of superior genius. 
 He had evidently running in his mind MUton's line on Fame — 
 " That last infirmity of noble minds." 
 
 In such an exalted state was Warburton' s mind when he was writing 
 ih'.e, his own chai-acter.
 
 ;248 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 one practised in all the finesse of dialectics. He had wit, 
 fertile indeed, rather than delicate ; and a vast body of eru- 
 dition, collected in the uninterrupted studies of twenty- 
 years. But it was the secret principle, or, as he calls it, 
 '• ilie Academic, exercise of Wit," on an enlarged system, 
 which carried him so far in the new world of Intention he- 
 was creating. 
 
 This was a new characteristic of investigation ; it led him 
 on to pursue his profounder inquiries beyond the clouds of 
 antiquit}' ; 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 ex- 
 ercise its ingenuity as much in combining tilings unconnected 
 with each other, as in its odd assemblage of ideas ; and 
 AVarburton, as a literary antiquary, proved to be as witty in 
 his combinations as Butler and Congreye in their comic 
 images. As this principle took full possession of the mind of 
 this man of genius, the practice became so lamiliar, that it is 
 possible he might at times have been ci-edulous enough to 
 Lave 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 si/stem J' 
 " His Academic Wit" now sported amid whimsical theories, 
 ])ursued bold but inconclusive arguments, marked out subtile 
 distinctions, and discovered incongruous resemblances ; but 
 they were maintained by an imposing air of conviction, fur- 
 nished with the most prodigal erudition, and they struck out 
 many ingenious combinations. The importance or the curio- 
 sity of the topics awed or delighted his readers ; the prin- 
 ciple, however licentious, by the surprise it raised, seduced 
 tlie 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 War- 
 burton — but he was a far inferior genius ; he only discovered 
 that the classical works of antiquity, the finest compositioi:n
 
 Warburton. 249' 
 
 of the human ir.ind, in ages of its utmost refinement, had 
 been composed hx the droning monks of the middle ages ; a 
 discovery which only surprised by its tasteless absurdity — 
 but the absurdities of Warburton had more dignit}', wei'e 
 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 him- 
 self. Conducted by this solitary principle, Warburton un- 
 dertook, 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 pi'ide 
 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 literar}^ usurpations. 
 
 The first step the giant took showed the mightiness of his 
 stride. His first great work was the famous " Alliance be- 
 tween 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.* The terni 
 "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, 
 
 * The author of " The Canons of Criticism" addressed a severe sonnet 
 to Warburton ; and alludes to the "Alliance'' : — 
 
 " Eeign he sole king in paradoxal land, 
 
 And for Utopia plan his idle schemes 
 
 Oi visioiiary 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 bcttveen Church and' 
 State is established, Jlr. Warburton founds upon this supposition — ' That 
 people, considering themselves in a religious capacity, may contract with 
 toemselves, considered in a civil capacity.' The conceit is ingenious, but 
 is not his owu. Scrub, in the Beaxix 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, 
 nucni contract with Scrub, the butler, for such a quantity of ale as the- 
 otiiei assumed character demanded." — Appendix, p. 261.
 
 250 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 like that of the armji/ or the navy.* Warburton had not 
 probably decided, at that time, on the principle of ecclesias- 
 tical 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 secon- 
 dary to the civil power.f 
 
 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 pas- 
 sages, 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.^ 
 
 * " Jlonthly Review," vol. xvi. p. 324, the organ of the dissenters. 
 
 + See article Hobbes, for his system. The great Selden was an Eras- 
 tian ; a distinction extremely obscure. Erastus was a Swiss physician of 
 little note, who was for restraining the ecclesiastical power from all tem- 
 poral 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. 
 
 X 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 govern- 
 ment, which was theocracy — a government where the presence of God him- 
 self was perpetually manifested by miracles and new ordinances ; and hence 
 temijoral rewards and punishments were sufiicient for that people, to whom 
 the unity and power of the Godhead were never doubtful. As he pro- 
 ceeded, he would have opened a new argument, viz., that the Jewish 
 religion was only the imrt 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 7iext 
 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 
 Paf^anism ; tlic 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 ia(t- 
 
 \
 
 Warburton. 251 
 
 The first idea of this new project was hold and delightful, 
 and the plan magnificent. Paganism, Judaism, and Chris- 
 tianity, the three great religions of mankind, were to he 
 marshalled in all their pomp, and their awe, and their mj-s- 
 ter}'. Eut the procession changed to a hattle ! 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 I'eaders ; 
 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.* In perpetual conflict with 
 
 in the Mosaic dispensation, I next show that, if Christianity be true, it 
 could not posdhly 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. 
 
 * Warburton lost himself in the labyrinth he had so ingeniously con- 
 structed. This work harassed his days and exhausted his intellect. Ob- 
 serve 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 fi-om 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 Bu-ch. 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 " encyclopiedia" of all ancient and modern lore — all to proceed from 
 " a simple argument !" But when he describes his sufferings, hard is the 
 heart of thalt literary man who cannot sympathise with such a giant caught 
 in the toils ! I give his words : — "Distractions of various kinds, insepa- 
 rable from human life, joined with a naturally melancholy habit, contribute 
 greatly to increase my indolence. This makes my reading wild and desul- 
 tory ; 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 tho- 
 roughly. I ivill 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
 
 253 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 those numerous adversaries it roused, Warburton often shifted 
 his ground, and broke into so many divisions, that when he 
 cried out, Victor}^ ! his scattered forces seemed rather to be in 
 flight than in pursuit.* 
 
 The same secret prikciple led him to turn the poetical 
 narrative of ^li]neas in the infernal regions, an episode evi- 
 dently imitated by Virgil from his Grecian master, into a 
 minute description of the initiation into the Eleusinian Mys- 
 teries. 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 TEneid was an allegorical voyage of St. Peter to 
 Home ! 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, 
 
 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 iu 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 liis own hand on certain important occasions, when he would 
 not trust to the creeping dulness of EufFhead. 
 
 * 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 ALanasseh Ben Israel has wi'itten 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, liy 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 ler/ation 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 iu five volunes." — 
 Lowth's " Letter to Warburton," p. 12.
 
 Warburton. 253 
 
 of Warburton, made his first sally ; a dapper, subtle, and 
 cold-blooded champion, who could dexterously turn about the 
 polished weapon of irony.* So much our RaiUeur 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 ridi- 
 culer, to be considered as the violation of a moral feeling. f 
 
 * Hurd was the son of a StafiFordshire 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 consider- 
 able attention. In 1749, on the occasion of publishing a commentary on 
 Horace's " Ars Poetica," he complimented W^arburton 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 Glou- 
 cester. He repaid Warburton by constant praises in print, and so far suc- 
 ceeded 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 wall confess to you how much satisfaction the 
 groundless part of it, that which relates to myself, gave me." When Dr. 
 Jortin A'ery properly spoke of Warburton with less of subserviency than the 
 overbearing bishop desired, Hurd at once came forward to fight for War- 
 burton 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. 
 
 + 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, 
 yon must express it in full form, and with all the circumstance of pane- 
 gyrical approbation, without impertinently qualifying your civilities by 
 ass'ignjng 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
 
 254 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Jortin bore the slow torture and the teasing of Kurd's dis- 
 secting, 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 iEneid. One blow from the arm of Gibbon shivered 
 the allegorical fairy palace into glittering fragments.* 
 
 When the scejitical 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 lan- 
 guage," Warburton, as was his custom, instantly acquiesced ; 
 but hardily maintained that " this very harharism ivas one 
 certain mark of a divine original.'''' ^ — The curious may follow 
 his subtile argument in his " Doctrine of Grace;" but, in 
 delivering this paradox, he struck at the fundamental prin- 
 
 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 (tliough ever so new 
 and uncommon) with diffidence in his life. Thus stands the decree pre- 
 scribing our demeanour towards this savereign 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 Kurd's "Seventh Dissertation" was 
 dated. 
 
 * Gibbon's " Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of 
 the ^neid." Dr. Parr considers this clear, elegant, and decisive work of 
 criticism, as a complete refutation of Warburton's discovery. 
 
 "t" It is curious enough to observe that Warburton himself, acknowledg- 
 ing 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 
 wc must infer that some of the most important subjects could not be under- 
 stood and defended, but by Warburton's " orftZ fortune!'''' It was this 
 levity of ideas that raised a suspicion that he was not always sincere. He 
 "ftTites, 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 sub- 
 jects. In one of his most unlucky paradoxes with Lowth, on the age and 
 style of tlie writings of Job, he accuses that elegant scholar of deficient dis- 
 cernment ; 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 emjiloys a striking image — " I shall hang him and his 
 fellows, as they do vermin in a warion, and leave them to posterity. t<> 
 Btiuk and blacken in the wind,"
 
 Warhurton. 255 
 
 ciples of eloquence : he dilated on all the abuses of that human 
 art. It was precisely his utter want of taste which afibrded 
 him so copious an argument ; for he asserted that the prin- 
 ciples of eloquence were arbitrary and chimerical, and its 
 various modes " mostly fantastical ;" and that, consequently,, 
 there was no such thing as a good taste,* except what the 
 consent of the learned had made ; an expression borrowed 
 from Quintilian. A plausible and a consolatory argument ibr 
 the greater part of mankind ! It, however, roused the indig- 
 nation 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 pro- 
 founder principles. His classic anger produced his " Disser- 
 tation on the Principles of Human Eloquence ;" a volume so 
 much esteemed that it is still reprinted. Leland refuted the 
 whimsical paradox, yet complimented Warhurton, who, "with 
 the spirit and energy of an ancient orator, was writing against 
 eloquence," while he showed that the style of the New Testa- 
 ment was defensible on surer grounds. Hurd, who had fleshed 
 liis 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. f 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 
 
 * Warbiirton, in this work (the "Doctrine of Grace,") has a curious 
 passage, too long to quote, where he observes, that " The Indian and Asiatic 
 eloquence v/as esteemed hyperbolic and puerile by the more phlegmatic 
 inhabitants of Rome and Athens : and the \Vestern 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 War- 
 burton's, was bold enough to add, in his Letter to Leland, " That which 
 is thought supremely elegant in one country, passes in another for Jinical ; 
 while what in this country is accepted under the idea of sublimity, is de- 
 rided in that other as no better than bombast." So unsettled were the 
 no-taste of Warhurton, and the prim-taste of Hurd ! 
 
 + 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 timo offers him the use of a cork-jacket to 
 keep him above water."
 
 256 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 reply, to accompany a new edition of his " Dissertation on 
 Eloquence."* 
 
 We now pursue the secret peixciple, operating on lighter 
 topics ; when, turning commentator, with the same origi- 
 nality as when an author, his character as a literary adven- 
 turer is still more prominent, extorting douhle senses, disco- 
 ■vering the most t'antastical allusions, and making men of 
 genius but of confined reading, learned, with all the lumber of 
 his own unwieldy erudition. 
 
 When the German professor Cbousaz published a rigid 
 ■examen of the doctrines in Pope's " Essay on Man," War- 
 burton 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 ! BoLiNG- 
 BROKE really wrote the " Essay on Man," which Pope vej-- 
 si/led.lt His principles may be often objectionable ; but those 
 
 * Dr. Thomas Leland was born in Dublin in 1722, and was educated in 
 Trinity College, in that city. Having obtained a Fellowship there, he de- 
 pended 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. 
 
 t In a rough attack on Warburton, respecting Pope's privately printing 
 loUO copies of the "Patriot King" of iJolingbroke, which I conceive to 
 Lave 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 Uuiver- 
 sitics, 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 
 pnri)i)se he gave him a lur;/e 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 
 stroti'jcst 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 
 jsuch merit to Mr. Pope as you would insinuate, for acknowledging the 
 wisdom and tlie friendship of the man who was his instructor in philosophy; 
 nor consequently that this acknowledgment, and the dedication of Ids own
 
 Warburton. 257 
 
 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 com- 
 prehend. 
 
 But this serves not as an apology for Warburton, who now 
 undertook an elaborate defence of what he had himself con- 
 demned, 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 I 
 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.* The poet 
 died in this delusion : he consigned his immortal works to the 
 mercy of a ridiculous commentary and a tasteless commen- 
 tator, 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 \Vhom he secured 
 
 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 wath Dr.- 
 Blair and others, where he said, "he had read the MS. in Lord Boling- 
 broke'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." 
 
 * Of many instances, the following one is the most curious. When 
 Jarvis published his "Don Quixote," Warburton, who was prompt ok 
 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 I 
 Warburton's strong genius stamped itself on all his works. But neither 
 the translating painter, nor the simple poet, could imagine the heap of ab- 
 surdities they were admiring I 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 confuta- 
 tion : no uncommon result of Warburton's literary labours ! 
 
 It forms the concluding note in Shakspeare's Love's Labour Lost. 
 
 S
 
 258 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 a fine mansion ; till at length, the mitre crowned his last am- 
 bition. Such was the large chapter of accidents in Warbur- 
 ton's life ! 
 
 There appears in Warburton's conduct respecting the edi- 
 tions of the great poets which he afterwards published, some- 
 thing systematic ; he treated the several editors of those very 
 poets, Theobald, Hakmeb, and Geet, 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 hveliest severity,* It 
 
 * Of Theobald lie was once the companion, and to Sir Thomas Hanmeb 
 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 di-opped 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, Warbur- 
 ton, we are told by Hanmer, "flew into a great rage, and there is an end 
 oi 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 recom- 
 mended 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 natui-ally 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 oliserver 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 Theo- 
 bald's want of money) but what he might very well be without, the reputa- 
 tion of a critic," &c. &c. — Warburton's Preface to Sltahspearc. 
 
 His condust to Dr. Grey, the editor of Hudibras, cannot be accounted 
 for by any known fact. I have ah-eady noticed their quarrels in the 
 "Calamities of Authors." Warburton cheerfully supplied Grey with 
 various notes on Hudil^ras, though he said he had thought of an edition 
 himself, and they were gratefully acknowledged in Grey's Preface ; but be- 
 hold ! shortly afterwards they are saluted by Warburton as "an execrable 
 >heap of nonsense ;" further, he insulted Dr. Grey for the nunhcr of his
 
 Warburton. 259 
 
 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. 
 
 Warbui'ton employed no little art* to excite the public 
 
 publications ! Poor Dr. Grey and his "Coadjutors," as Warburton sneer- 
 ingly called others of his friends, resented this by "A Free and Familiar 
 Letter to that Great Preserver of Pope and Shakspeare, the Kev. 
 ilr. William Warburton." The doctor insisted that Warburton had had 
 sufficient share in those very notes to be considered as one of the "Coad- 
 jutors." "I may venture to say, that whoever was the fool of the com' 
 pany before he entered (or the fool of the 2:>icce, 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.'' " 
 
 * 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 
 yeai's after they had appeared in the " General Dictionary," with a high 
 character of these wonderful discoveries. — " The Alliance," when first pub- 
 lished, 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 Chui-ch 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 
 FalstafiTs 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 
 "livehness" of Warburton, for Hmxl lauds his " lively preface to his 
 Shakspeare." But the "Biograjihia Britanuica" bears marks of Warbur- 
 ton'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 cui-ious 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." Warbur- 
 
 s2
 
 260 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 curiosity respecting his future Shakspeare : he liberally pre- 
 sented 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 spe- 
 cimens 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 cri- 
 ticism 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 re- 
 jected, 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.* One of its most remarkable results was 
 
 ton 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 ! 
 
 * These critical extrarafjanzas are scarcely to be paralleled by "Bentley's 
 Notes on Milton." How Wai'burton turned "an allegorical mermaid"" 
 into "the Queen of Scots ;" — showed how Shakspeare, in one word, and 
 •with one epithet "the majestic world," described the O^'bis Romauus, 
 alluded to the Olympic Games, &c. ; yet, after all this discovery, seems 
 rather to allude to a story about Alexander, which Warburton happened ti> 
 recollect at that moment ; — and how he illustrated Octavia's idea of the 
 fatal consequences of a civil war between Coesar and Antony, who said it 
 would "cleave tlie world," by the story of Curtius leaping into the chasm ; 
 — how he rejected ^'■allowed, with absolute power," as not English, and 
 read ^^halloivcd," on the authority of the Roman Tribuneship being called' 
 Sacro-sancta Potcstas ; how his emendations often rose from puns ; as for 
 instance, wlien, in Jtomco and Juliet, it is said of the Friar, that "the city 
 is much obli^'ed 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
 
 Warburton. 261 
 
 tlie production of that work, which annihilated the whimsical 
 labours of Wai*burton, Edwards's " Canons of Criticism," 
 one of those successful facetious criticisms which enliven our 
 Kterary history. Johnson, awed by the learning of War- 
 burton, 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."* Among the prejudices of criti- 
 cism, is one which hinders us from relishing a masterly per- 
 formance, when it ridicules a favourite author ; but to us, 
 mere historians, truth will always prevail over literary fa- 
 vouritism. The work of Edwards effected its purpose, that 
 of " laughing down Warbui'ton to his proper rank and cha- 
 racter, "t 
 
 produced. The most amusing work possible would be a real Warburton's 
 Sliakspeare, which would contain not a single thought, and scarcely an ex- 
 pression, of Shakspeare's ! 
 
 * 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 criti- 
 cal attempt on Machdh, he commended the critical talents of Warbur- 
 ton ; and Warburton returned the compliment in the preface to his Shak- 
 speare, 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 viy 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 ! 
 
 + 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 53. He descended from :% 
 family of lawyers ; possessed a sufiicient private property to ensure inde*
 
 263 Quarrels of Authors 
 
 Warburton designates himself as " a critic by profession ;'* 
 and tells us, he gave this edition "to deter the unlearned 
 tvriter 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, notwith- 
 standing all his other knowledge, does not understand the sub- 
 ject which he writes upon." But the most dogmatical absur- 
 dity 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.* 
 
 peudence, and died on his own estate of Turrick, in BuckinghamsLire. 
 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. 
 
 * Some grave dull men, who did not relish the jests, doubtless the book- 
 sellers, who, to buy the name of Warhurton, had paid down 500/. for the 
 edition, loudly complained that Edwards had injured both him and them, 
 by stopping the sale ! On this Edwards exjjresses 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 oiF 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 Moudongo, my Spanish master.' — 'Spanish master !' re- 
 plies my friend ; ' why, he's an errant Teagi;e ; 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 llory has just the same reason of complaint against this 
 gentleman as Mr. Warburton has agn.inst me, and I suppose abused hiui 
 Bs lieartily for it; but nevertheless the gentleman did both parties justice." 
 
 Some secret history is attached to this publication, so fatal to Warbur- 
 ton's critical character in English literature. This satire, like too many 
 ■which have sprung out of literary quarrels, a.rosQivom.2''Crsonal motives f 
 When Edwards, in early life, after quitting college, entered the army, he 
 was on a visit at Mr. Allen's, at I3atli, whose niece Warburton afterwards 
 married. Literary subjects formed the usual conversation. Warburton, 
 not suspecting the red coat of covering any Greek, showed his accustomed
 
 Warburton. 265 
 
 At length, when the public had decided on the fact of 
 Wai'burton'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 Lauder 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 col- 
 lection 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.* Warton had to remove the incum- 
 
 dogmatical superiority. Once, when the controversy -vras running bigb^ 
 Edwards taking down a Greek author, explained a passage in a manner 
 quite contrary to Warburton. He did unluckily something more — be 
 showed that Warburton's mistake had arisen from having used a Frencli 
 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. War- 
 burton asserts that Edwards is a very dull writer (witness the pleasantry 
 that carries one through a volume of no small size), that be is a libeller 
 (because he ruined the critical character of Warburton) — and "a libeller 
 (says Warburton, ■nith 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 goodnature and politeness, to Caliban's in the 
 Tempest (because he had so keenly wa-itten 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 ! 
 
 * 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 he 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
 
 264 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 brance of his Commentaries on Pope, while a most laborious 
 confederacy zealously performed the same task to relieve 
 Shakspeare. Thus Warburton pursued one seceet pein- 
 €IPLE in all his labours ; thus he raised edifices which could 
 not be securely inhabited, and were only impediments in the 
 roadway ; ancl 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 peinciple 
 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 zeal- 
 ously 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 
 iirtillery on the luckless bard.* 
 
 Warburton designates Akenside under the sneering appel- 
 lative of "The Poet," and alluding to his "subhme account" 
 of the use of ridicule, insultingly reminds himof "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 
 
 an Essay on Man, and the reverse. Pope, before lie knew Warburton, 
 always spoke of liis " Essay on Criticism " as " an irregular collection of 
 thoughts tlirown together as Horace's 'Art of Poetry' was." "As for the 
 ' Essay on Man,' " says Richardson, " I hnoiv 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 Twick- 
 enham, 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. 
 
 * The postscrijtt 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."
 
 Warburton. 265 
 
 '^a Deist;" or, as Akenside had alluded to Spinoza, he might 
 be something worse. The great critic loudl}'' 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 Aken- 
 side is an argumentative piece of criticism on the nature of 
 ridicule, curious, but wanting the graces of the genius who 
 inspired it.* 
 
 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 defor- 
 mity, as the sense of ridicule the absm-dity 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 sa3's, "call them but Temerity, Pi'odigality, 
 Simplicity, &c., and your business is done. Make them ridi- 
 culous, and you may go on, in the freedom of wit and hu- 
 mour (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 Hable 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 
 
 * "An Epistle to the Rev. Mi-. Warburton, occasioned by bis 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.
 
 266 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 certainh^ 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 " b}' 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 cha- 
 racter as ever was drawn ; but it is not the character of 
 Socrates himself. The object was perverted, and the mis- 
 chief 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 teaks after the 
 ftihUcation of the flay 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."
 
 Warburton. 267 
 
 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 congi'uity 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 in- 
 dulged 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 wliich he adopted, and 
 which may be distinguished among our Liteeaey Quakeels. 
 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 Warburtoniais's ? 
 
 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 War- 
 burton was a literary Eevolutionist, who, to maintain a new 
 order of things, exercised all the despotism of a perpetual dic- 
 tator. The bold unblushing energ}' which could lay down 
 the most extravagant positions, was maintained by a fierce 
 dogmatic spirit, and by a peculiar stjde of mordacious con- 
 tempt 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.* 
 
 * The paradoxical title of his gi'eat work was evidently designed to 
 attract the unwary. " The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated — from 
 the omission of a future state f^ It was long uncertain whether it was 
 " a covert attack on Christianity, instead of a defence of it. " I have here 
 no concern with Warburtou'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 Commenta? 
 torship, and a Mountebank in Criticism. " He has fully entered into all
 
 268 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 The Warburtonian Scliool was to be supported by the most 
 licentious principles ; by dictatorial arrogance,* by gross in- 
 vective, and by airy sarcasm ;t the bitter contempt which, 
 
 tlie 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 lan- 
 guage, he absolutely prefers the Koran for correctness ! On this Lowth 
 observes : " You have been urging the same argument that Bpinoza em- 
 ployed, 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 a23pear to be very much unacquainted." 
 — Lowth's Letter, p. 91. 
 
 * 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 Repidilic of Letters, and hardly to he paralleled 
 among the disciples of Dominic ; exacting their opinions to the standard 
 of your infallibilty, and prosecuting with implacable hatred every one that 
 presumed to diflfer from you." — Lowth's Letter to W., p. 9. 
 
 + Warburton had the most cutting way of designating his adversaries, 
 
 • either by the most vehement abuse or the light petulance that expressed his 
 inefiable 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 whicli were some objections to 
 Warburton's theory : — "I shall, theretore, but do what indeed would be 
 justly reckoned the cruellest of all things, tell my reader the name of this 
 miseruhle ; which we find to be J. Tillard." "Mr. Tillard was first con- 
 demned (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 foi-tune 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 
 iiis trade as a writer ; and as he was very abusive, free-thinking, and anony- 
 mous, I have not spared to expose his ignorance and ill faith." But after- 
 wards, 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 ! lie was often so vehement in his abuse that I find he con- 
 fessed it himself, for, in preparing a new edition of the "Divine Lega-
 
 Warburton. 26{) 
 
 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 dis- 
 ciples,* prodigal of praise to themselves, and retentive of it 
 
 tion," he tells Dr. Bircli that he has made "seTeral omissions of passages 
 which were thought vahi, insolent, and ill-natured.^^ 
 
 It is amusing enough to observe how he designates men as great as him- 
 self. 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 Han- 
 mer 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 specimea 
 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 pro- 
 fessor by mentioning the " elegant translation which, they say, you have 
 made of Demosthenes !" And he understands that he is "a scholai*, 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 
 sufBcient." 
 
 * Sometimes Warburton left his battles to be fought by subaltern genius j 
 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 ivithout 
 mercy, yourself looking on and approving, and having probably put the 
 ■weapon with proper orders into his hands. You think, it seems, that I
 
 270 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 to all others ; the world was to be divided into two parts, the 
 JVarhurtonians and the Anti. 
 
 To establish this new government in the literary worldj this 
 great Eevolutionist was favoured by Fortune with two impor- 
 tant aids ; the one was a Machine, by which he could wield 
 public opmion ; and the other a Man, who seemed born to be 
 his minister or his viceroy. 
 
 The onacJdne 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 lite- 
 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 moi-e creditable dunce than Webster. What do you 
 think to do with the Appendix against Tillard and Sykes ? Why might 
 not Taylor rank ^^ith 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 hap- 
 less chancellor. The doctor had said in his work, that "the Roman em- 
 perors 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 perse- 
 cution 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 Ijo provoked to x)rove in 'pi'int what he only dropped in 
 conversation.^'' How innocent was this gentleman of the arts and strata- 
 gems of logoinacliy, or book-wars ! Tiie piroof 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 ilourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the 
 Chancellor of Lincoln the butt of his sai-castic pleasantry ; and this object 
 was secured by W.!iI)urtou's forty pages of preface, in which the chancellor 
 stands to be buileted like an ancient quintain, "a mere lifeless block." 
 All this came upon him for only thinking that Warburton was no scholar/
 
 Warburton. 271 
 
 Tary 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.* 
 
 • See what I have said at the close of the note, pp. 262-3. In a col- 
 lection 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 Warhurton,'" 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 logo- 
 machies of Schioppius, Gronovius, and Scaliger, and the rest of that snarling 
 crew. But his wit exceeded even his grossness. He was accused of n' t 
 sparing — 
 
 " Eound-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 vu-ulence could ncjt well exceed its predeces- 
 sor. 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 pitj', 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.
 
 272 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Fanciful as was the genius of Warburton, it delighted too 
 much in its eccentric motions, and in its own solitary great- 
 ness, amid abstract and recondite topics, to have strongly at- 
 tracted the public attention, had not a party been formed 
 
 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 Gibber tried also at "A Familiar Epistle to Mr. 
 William Warburton, from Mr. Theophilus Gibber," prefixed to the " Life 
 of Barton Booth." Dr. Z. Grey's " freedom and /am<7iari<2/" are designed 
 to show Warburton that he has no wit ; but unJuckily, the doctor having 
 none himself, his arguments against Warburton's are not decisive. " The 
 familiaritif of Jlallet is that of a scoundrel, and the younrjer Gibber'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, anni- 
 hilated 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 phi- 
 losopher."] 
 
 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 oflice of a camera, 
 obscura, and represent things in an inverted order, himself above, and 
 Eollin, Voltaire, and every other author of reputation, belo%v." 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 j^rint 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 cor- 
 rect 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 braiu 
 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, ))ut 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 un- 
 fortunately used the word impudent (which ejjithet 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." War- 
 burton had always the Danciad in his head when a new quarrel was
 
 Warburton. 273 
 
 aroxinci him, at the head of which stood the active and subtle 
 Hard ; and amid the gradations of the votive brotherhood, 
 the profound Balgtjy,* the spirited BR0WN,t till we descend — 
 
 rising, which produced an odd blunder on the side of Edwards, and pro- 
 voked 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 (jentleman of the 
 last edition.^'' Edwards misunderstood the allusion, and sore at the per- 
 sonal attack which followed, of his having "eluded the solicitude of his 
 careful fiither," considered himself "degraded of his gentility," that it 
 ■was " a reflection on his birth," and threatened to apply to "Mr. War- 
 burton's Masters of the Bench, for degrading a ' barrister of their house.'" 
 This aiforded a new triumph to Warburton, in a new note, where he ex- 
 plains his meaning of these "mushrooms," whom he meant merely as 
 litei-ary ones ; and assures " Fungoso and his friends, who are all gentle- 
 men, that he meant no more than that Edwards had become a gentleman 
 of the last edition of the Dunciad I " Edwards and his fungous friends 
 had understood the phrase as applied to new-fangled gentry. One of these 
 wits, in the collection of verses cited above, says to Warburton : — 
 " This mushroom has made sauce for you. 
 
 He's meat ; thou'rt poison — plain enough — 
 
 If he's a mushroom, thou'rt a, puff 1''^ 
 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 ofl'ered to himself, produced the 
 celebrated lines of " Apollo's Mayor and Aldermen," in the fourth Z'jmi- 
 ciad. 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 Literarv Quakrels, seldom founded on truth, and 
 very often complete falsehoods ! 
 
 * 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 pre- 
 bendal 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. 
 
 + Dr. Brown was patronised and "pitied" by Warburton for years. 
 He used him, but spoke of him disparagingly, as "a helpless creature in 
 the waj's of the world." Nichols speaks of him as an "elegant, inge- 
 nious, 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 obscu- 
 rity 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 
 
 T
 
 274 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 To his tame jackal, parson Towne.* 
 
 Verses on Warhurton^ 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.f 
 
 Churchill's " Fragment of a Dedication."'^ 
 
 The character of a literary sycophant was never more per- 
 fectly 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 witii 
 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 
 
 acquaintance with Warburton, whohelpedhimtothe rectory of Horksley, near 
 Colchester ; but he quarrelled with his patron, as he aftem-ards quarrelled 
 with others. He then settled down to the vicarage of St. Nicholas, New- 
 castle, but not for long, as an educational scheme of the Empress of Russia 
 oti'ered him inducements to leave England ; but his health failed him before 
 he could carry out his intentions, u-ritability succeeded, and his disappoint- 
 ments, 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. 
 
 * 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. — En. 
 
 ■f* Warburton, indeed, was always looking about for fresh recruits : a cir- 
 cumstance which appears in the curious Memoirs of the late Dr. Heathcote, 
 written by himself. Heathcote, when young, published anonymously a 
 pamphlet in the Middletouian controversy. By the desire of Warbm-ton, 
 the bookseller transmitted liis 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 vias his custom to 
 Jjc j)articularly attentive to all young authors, in hojxs of enlisting them 
 into his service. Warliurton Avas more than civil, when necessary, on 
 these occasions, and would procure such adventurers some slight patron- 
 age." — Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," vol. v. p, 636.
 
 Warburton. 27a 
 
 Aristotle and Longmus.* Hurd is justl}^ characterised by 
 Warton, in his Spenser, vol. ii. p. 36, as " the most soisihle ■ 
 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 
 
 * 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 Warburtoaians appear to have ad'jpted 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, hatl 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 ou 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 metaphoi-ically 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 de- 
 scribed 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 Magnauo faced about 
 "with great composure ; and raising his staflf, 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. 
 
 t2.
 
 376 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 honour- 
 able dignity of a Eoyal 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. 
 Host 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 he 
 animated by the heroic energy of Warburton ; and the care- 
 less courage of the chief wanted one who could maintain the 
 unguarded passages he left behind him in his progress. 
 
 Such, then, was Waeburtois", and such the quarrels of this 
 great author. He was, through his literary life, an adven- 
 turer, guided by that secret principle which opened an imme- 
 diate 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 dis- 
 coveries. All this, so pleasing to his egotism, was not, how- 
 ever, fortunate for his ambition. To sustain an authority 
 Mdiich he had usurped ; to substitute for the taste he wanted 
 a curious and dazzling erudition ; and to maintain those reck- 
 less decisions which so often plunged him into perils. War- 
 burton 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 phylac- 
 teries, as " a frontlet between their eyes." No man is the 
 loiser for Jiis learning : it may administer matter to worh in, 
 or objects to worh upon ; hut wit and toisdom are horn with a 
 man. Sir Thomas Hanmee, who was well acquainted with 
 Warburton, during their correspondence about Shakspeare, 
 often said of him : — " The only use he could find in Mr. War- 
 burton was starting the game; he was not to be trusted in
 
 Warburton. 277 
 
 running it doivn." A just discrimination ! His fervid curio- 
 sity was absolutely creative ; but his taste and his judgment, 
 perpetually stretched oit 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 pas- 
 sions. But in public life the artificial or the acquired cha- 
 racter prevails over the one which nature designed for us ; and 
 by that all public men, as well as authors, are usually judged 
 by posterity.
 
 POPE, 
 
 AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUAUEELS. 
 
 Pope adopted a system of literary politics — collected with extraordinary 
 care eveiything 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 im- 
 punity — his claim to his own works contested — Gibber's facetious 
 description of Pope's feelings, andWELSTED's elegant satire on his genius 
 — Dennis's account of Pope's Introduction to him — his political pru- 
 dence 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 de- 
 fended, 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 Litei'ary Quarrel between Aaron Hill and 
 Pope distinguished for its romantic cast — a Narrative of the extraordi- 
 nary transactions respecting the publication of Pope's Letters ; an ex- 
 ample of Stratagem and Conspiracy, illustrative of his character. 
 
 Pope lias 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.* His ambition seemed gra- 
 
 * Pope collected these numerous literary libels with extraordinary care. 
 He had them bound in volumes of all sizes ; and a range of twelves, octavos, 
 (juartos, 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. Euff head, 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 tlieir common treasure with it : it will be freely at 
 the service of that which asks first." Did no one accept the invitation ? 
 ^3 this was written in 1769, it is evidently pointed towards the British 
 
 I
 
 Pope. 
 
 279 
 
 tified 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 dis- 
 covering so fine a genius in the text humbling itself through 
 all the depravity of a commentary full of spleen, and not with- 
 out the fictions of satii-e. The unhappy influence his Literary 
 Quarrels had on this great poet's life remains to be traced. 
 
 Museum ; but there I have not heard of it. This coUeotion must have 
 contained much of the Secret Memoirs of Grub-street : it was always a 
 fountain whence those "waters of bitterness," tlie 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, -vNTote 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 pre- 
 served, 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 " fune- 
 real fi-own." 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 wTitten 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 sove- 
 reigns 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.
 
 280 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 He adopted a system of litei-arj politics abounding with 
 stratagems, conspiracies, manceuvres, and factions. 
 
 Pope's literary quarrels were the wars of his poetical ambi- 
 tion, more perhaps than of the petulance and strong irri- 
 tabihty 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,* concentrating his passions into 
 a solitary one, his retired life was passed in the contemplation 
 of his own literary greatness. Reviewing the past, and anti- 
 cipating 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 de- 
 spair.f Twice, perhaps oftener, Pope attacked Pope \X and 
 
 * Pope, in his energetic Letter to Lord Hervey, that "masterpiece cf 
 invective," says Warton, which Tyers tells us he kept long back from pub- 
 lishing, 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 thess 
 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." 
 
 t The first publisher of the "Essay on Criticism" must have been a 
 Mr. Lewis, a Catholic bookseller in Covent-garden ; for, from a descendant 
 pf this Lewis, I heard that Pope, after publication, came every day, perse- 
 cuting 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. 
 
 + Ue was the author of "The Key to the Lock," written to show that
 
 Pope. 281 
 
 he frequently concealed himself under the names of others, 
 for some particular design. Not to point out his dark fami- 
 liar " 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 DunciaJ,''' he subscribed his 
 name to an admirable dedication to Lord IMiddlesex, where he 
 minutely relates the whole history of tlie 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 beUeve that Cleland was the writer !* 
 
 "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 apolitical 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. [la 
 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 beea 
 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 " Guar- 
 dian," 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. 
 
 * 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'
 
 282 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Wanting a pretext for the publication of his letters, he de- 
 lighted CuELL 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.* Some lady observed that 
 Pope " hardly drank tea without a stratagem !" The female 
 genius easily detects its own peculiar faculty, when it is exer- 
 cised 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 quali- 
 ties, 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.f 
 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 
 
 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 lOOL 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. 
 
 * 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. 
 
 t A list of all the pamphlets which resulted from the Dunciml would 
 occupy a large space. Many of them were as grossly personal as the cele- 
 brated 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 Dmiciad" 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.
 
 Pope. 283 
 
 published lists of all whom Pope had attacked ; placing at the 
 head, " God Almighty ; the King ;" descending to the " lords 
 and gentlemen."* A few suspected his skill in Greek ; but 
 every hound yelped in the halloo against his Homer.f 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 pubhc opinion by even indicating the 
 
 * Pope is, perhaps, tte finest character-painter of all satirists, 
 Atterburj', after reading the portrait of Atticns, 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 th« 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 eveijbody ; but when he once declared, respecting the cha- 
 racters 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. Per- 
 sonality 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 ofiice 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." 
 t Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, published a letter in Mist's Journal, 
 insisting that Pope had mistalcen 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 ti'anslation of the 
 Odyssey as soon as Pope's Iliad appeared. ,
 
 284 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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.* He must have found himself in a more perilous 
 situation when he hii'ed a brawny champion, or boi'rdwed the 
 generous courage of some military friend.f To all these 
 
 * In one of these situations, Pope issued a very grave, but very ludi- 
 crous, 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 under- 
 gone from the narrative of his madness. In " The Memoirs of Grrub-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 pub- 
 lish 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."] 
 
 + According to the scandalous chronicle of the day, Pope, shortly after the 
 publication of the Dunciad, had a tall Irishmant o attend him. Colonel 
 Duckett threatened to cane him, for a licentious stroke aimed at him, 
 whicli 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 mo- 
 ments. Pope consulted some military friends, who declared that hia 
 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 tha 
 quickest done.
 
 Pope, 285 
 
 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 remai-ks of Dennis ; the good 
 humoured yet keen remonstrance of Gibber ; the silver shaft, 
 tipped with venom, sent from the injured but revengeful Lady 
 Mary ; and many a random shot, that often struck him, in- 
 flicted on him many a sleepless night.* The younger 
 Richardson has recorded the personal sufferings of Pope when, 
 one day, in taking up Gibber's letter, while his face was writh- 
 ing with agony, he feebly declared that " these things were 
 &% good as hartshorn to him ;" but he appeared at that 
 
 * 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 ordi- 
 nary at the Ordnance Office, was a man of family and independence, of ele- 
 gant 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 com- 
 parison 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 inge- 
 nious 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 Phserus, this fixcetious 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 remam\l, 
 
 And still its sides the violet colour staiu'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 ! 
 
 fragrant flask, she said, too lately mine ! 
 
 If such delights, though empty, thou, canst yield, 
 
 What wondrous raptures hadst thou given if filled !" 
 
 Falcemon to Calia at Bath, or the Triumvirate. 
 
 "The empty flask" only retaining "the costly flavour," was the verse of 
 Tope.
 
 286 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 moment rather to want a little. And it is probably true, 
 what Gibber 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." * 
 
 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 i-idiculing 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 instan- 
 taneously 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 cer- 
 tain tempers, verging on madness If 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 procm'ed 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 hira very 
 cai'efully 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 
 
 * Pope was made to appear as ridiculous as possible, and often nick- 
 named "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. 
 
 t Dennis tells the whole story. "At his first coming to town he was 
 importunate with Mr. Cromwell to introduce him to me. The recommeu- 
 dation engaged me to be about thrice in company with him ; after which I 
 went to the countiy, 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 Cliaucer'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, be lias 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 Cantcrhury." — " Remarks upon several Passages in the Prelimi- 
 naries to the Dunciad," 1729.
 
 Pope. 287 
 
 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 tlie 
 golden shaft of Apollo could not pierce. 
 
 The political prudence of Pope was further discovered ia 
 the " Collection of all the Pieces relative to i\\Q Dimciad'^ 
 on which he employed Savage : these exemplified the just- 
 ness of the satire, or defended it from all attacks. The pro- 
 cursor of the Dunciad was a single chapter in " The 
 Bathos ; or, the Ai-t of Sinking in Poetry ;" where the 
 humorous satirist discovei's 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 desci'ibed 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 inimi- 
 table satirist,* 
 
 * Two parties arose in the literary republic, the Theohaldians 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 
 Theohaldians proved themselves, at times, worthy of being engaged, had 
 fate so ordered it, in the army of their reno^vned enemy. "When Young 
 published his " Two Epistles to Pope, on the Authors of the Age," there 
 appeared " One Epistle to Jlr. 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 hear gentle- 
 men should be treated as vermin and reptiles ; now, to be impartial, you 
 ■were compared to Jlyi)ig-Jishes, didajypers, tortoises, andpar7'ofs, &;c., not 
 vermin, but curious and beautiful creatures " — alluding to the abuse, ia
 
 288 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 It is in this collectir/ij by Savage I find the writer's admi- 
 rable 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 hi? 
 *' Collection of Fugitive Pieces ;" but such is the careless cu- 
 riosity 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 ex- 
 •quisite 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 apolo- 
 gised for: — 
 
 " They are suitable to the subject ; a subject composed, for 
 the most part, of authors whose writings are the refuse of 
 
 this "Epistle," on such authors asAtterbury, Arbuthnot, Swift, the Duke 
 of Buckingham, &c. The Popeian concludes : — 
 
 " After all, your poem, to comfort you, is more innocent than the Dun- 
 clad ; 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 Theohaldlans 
 out of the field. Guerillas, such as the "One Epistle," sometimes 
 appeared, but their heroes struck and skulked away. A Thcohaldian, in 
 an epigram, compared the Dunciad of Pope to the offspring of the 
 celebrated Pope Joan. The neatness of his wit is hai'dly blunted by a pun. 
 lie 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, 
 Tlie cliild of guilt, and destined to disgrace. 
 Thus when famed Joan usurp'd the Pontiff's chair, 
 With terror she beheld her new-born lieir : 
 lU-starr'd, ill-favour'd into birth it caiue ; 
 In vice begotten, and brought forth with shame ! 
 In vain it breathes, a lewd abandoii'd hope ! 
 And calls in vain, the unhallow'd father — Pope !" 
 
 The answers to this epigram by the Popeiaus are too gross. The " One 
 Epistle" is attributed to James Moore Smyth, in alliance with Welsted 
 and other unfortunate heroes.
 
 Pope. 289 
 
 •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 Hke 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 inge- 
 niously 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 satu'e ?" The preface then pro- 
 ceeds to show how " all these said ivriters might have been 
 good mechanics y He illustrates his principles with a most 
 ungracious account of several of his contemporai'ies. I shall 
 give a specimen of what I consider as the polished sarcasm 
 and caustic humom- of Pope, on some favourite subjects. 
 
 " Mr. Thomas Coohe. — His enemies confess him not with- 
 out 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 
 Ms coat according to his cloth. 
 
 " Why would not Mr. Theobald continue an attorney? Is 
 nor 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 qiieen) have 
 subsisted by turning toasheriooman ? 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 aii-, 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 
 
 ¥
 
 290 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 ■wsndecl oysters) to have dealt in a Jisli-marTcet, 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-staflf, 
 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 f^ 
 
 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 Warbm-ton. The strength and coarseness of the 
 imagery could never have been produced by the dull and 
 feeble intellect of Huff head : it is the opinion, therefore, of 
 Warburton himself, on the Dunciad. " The good purpose 
 ■intended by this satire was, to the lierd in general, of less 
 ^efficacy than our author hoped ; for scribblers have not the 
 ■common sense of otlier vermin, who usually abstain from 
 mischief, when they see any of their kind gibbeted or nailed 
 up, as terrible examples." — Warbm'ton 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 
 %ad wi'iters 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 pei-sonal 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 at- 
 tacked 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 ji-outh, bordering upon the bombast." 
 This was as light a stroke as could be inliicted ; and which 
 Pope, with great good-humour, tells Hill, might be equally
 
 Pope. 291 
 
 applied to himself; for he always aelmowleclged, 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 actuall}^ 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 correspon- 
 dence, 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 Pro- 
 priety and Impropriety, &c., illustrated by Examples of the 
 first, from the writnigs of Mr. Pope, and of the rest, from 
 those of the author." — To the romantic generosity of this ex- 
 traordinary proposal. Pope rej)lied, " I acknowledge your 
 generous offer, to give examples of imperfections rather out 
 o^ your own icorlcs 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 coiTCct the 
 faults you find, if they are such as I expect from Mr. HUl's 
 cool judgment."* 
 
 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 hm"t 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 compli- 
 Bient, with so much complaint ; have perhaps never met toge- 
 ther, as in the romantic hostility of this literary chivalry. 
 
 * The six Letters are preserved in Ruff head's Appendix, No. 1. 
 
 ir2
 
 292 
 
 A NAEEATIVE 
 
 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 pubhcation of 
 his letters by Cuell, the rapacious bookseller."* Our great 
 literary biographer has expended more research on this occa- 
 sion 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, a& 
 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 suflBcient 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) ,t who had 
 
 * Curll was a bookseller, from whose sliop 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 lined by the 
 Court of King's Bench, and on one occasion stood in the pillory as a punish- 
 ment. 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. 
 
 + 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 in- 
 termingled pretty freely in the gallantries of fashionable life." He seems to 
 have been somewhat eccentric, aud the correspondence of Pope only lasted 
 from 1708 to 1711.— Ed.
 
 Pope and Curll. 293 
 
 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 authen- 
 ticity. This very collection is now deposited among Ilawlin- 
 son's MSS. at the Bodleian.* 
 
 This single volume was successful : and when Pope, to do 
 justice to the memory of Wycherle}^, 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 
 'VV3'cherley. 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 sanc- 
 tion even spurious one. A man who, for a particular purpose, 
 sought to be imposed on, easil}'" obtained his wish : they 
 translated letters of Yoiture to Mademoiselle Eambouillet, 
 and despatched them to the eager Bibliopolist to print, as 
 Pope's to Miss Blount. He went on inci'easing his collec- 
 tion ; 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 Cm-U was proceeding, wind and tide in his favour, 
 a new and magnificent prospect burst upon him. A certain 
 joerson, 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. de- 
 sires an answer from E. C. by the Daily Advertiser, which 
 was complied with. There are passages in this letter which, 
 
 * Pope, in his conversations with Spence, says, " My letters to Cromwell 
 were written with a design that does not generally appear : they were not 
 •WTitten in sober sadness." — Ed.
 
 294 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 tiirns 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 objec- 
 tion 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 " Criti- 
 cal, 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. 
 
 " SiE, — 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 beautifull}', 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 dif- 
 ferences between you and yours, 
 
 " E. Curll." 
 
 Pope, surprised, as he pretends, at this address, consulted 
 with his fi-icnds ; everything evil was suggested against Curll. 
 They conceived that his real design was " to get Pope to look
 
 Fope and Curll. 295 
 
 over the former edition of his " Letters to Cromwell," and thea 
 to print it, as revised by Mr. Pope ; as he sent an obscene hooh 
 to a Bisliojy, and then advertised it as corrected and 7-eviseif 
 by him ;" or perhaps to extort money from Pope for suppress- 
 ing 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, book- 
 seller, pretending that a person, the initials of whose nanvs- 
 are P. T., hath offered the said E. C. to print a large Collec- 
 tion of Mr. P.'s letters, to which E. C. required an answer r 
 A. P. having never had, nor intending to have, any private- 
 correspondence with the said E. C, gives it him in this ufian- 
 ner. That he knows no such person as P. T. ; that he be- 
 lieves he hath no such collection ; and that he thinks the 
 whole a forgery, and shall not trouble himself at all about it.** 
 
 Cui'll replied, denying he had endeavom'ed to correspo^^ 
 with Mr. Pope, and affirms that he had written to him by 
 dii^ection. 
 
 It is now the plot thickens. P. T. suddenly takes umbrs^j, 
 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 negotia- 
 tions." P. T. now found it necessary to produce somethis-g^ 
 more than a shadow — an agent appears, whom Curll cona- 
 dered to be a clergyman, who assumed the name of R. Smitb,. 
 The first proposal was, that P. T.'s letters should be returned^ 
 that he might feel secure from all possibility of detection ; s» 
 that P. T. terminates his part in this literary freemasonry as 
 a nonentity. 
 
 Here Johnson's account begins. — " Curll said, that oae 
 evening a man in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyear^'s 
 band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed volumes, 
 which he found to be Pope's Epistolai-y Correspondence ; that 
 he asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price de- 
 manded, and thought himself authorised to use his purchase 
 to his own advantage." Smith, the clergyman, left him soai» 
 copies, and promised more.
 
 296 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 
 fii'mly ; 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. 
 
 " Cm-11 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 hy lords, when the volumes were 
 examined not one Avritten by a lord appeared. 
 
 The letter Curll wrote on the occasion to one of these dark 
 familiars, the pretended clergyman, marks his spirit and saga- 
 city. It contains a remarkable passage. Some readers wUl 
 be curious to have the productions of so celebrated a personage, 
 who appears to have exercised considerable talents. 
 
 \5tli 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 
 
 I
 
 Pope and Curll. 297 
 
 iifty books, and likewise the o'emainintj three hundred hoolcs ; 
 and pray be at the Standard Tavern this evening, and I will 
 jjay 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 hooks and the imperfections will be sent ; and believe 
 of P. T. what I hope he believes of me. 
 " For the Eev. Mr. Siiiin." 
 
 The reader observes that Curll talks of a great number of 
 hooks 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 fol- 
 lowing 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 cm-ious reader. 
 
 Friday, 16 May, 1735. 
 " SiE, — 1st, I am falsely accused. 2. I value not any man's 
 change of temper ; I wdll 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 loater, nor ever named 
 you ; all I said was, that the books came hi/ water. 4. When 
 the books were seized, I sent my son to convey a letter to 
 you ; and as jom told me everybody knew you in Southwark, 
 I bid him make a strict inquir}^ as I am sure you would have 
 done in such an exigenc3\ 5. Sir, I have acted justl;/ 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
 
 298 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 and forty books. 7. As to the loss of a future copy, I de- 
 spise it, nor will I be concerned with any more such dark sus- 
 picious dealers. But now, sir, I'll tell you what I will do : 
 when I have the looks '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, toge- 
 ther 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 imper- 
 fect books. Let me see, sir, either P. T. or yourself, or you'll 
 find the Scots proverb verified, Nemo one impune lacessit. 
 " Your abused humble servant, 
 
 "E. CrELL. 
 
 " P. S. Lord ■ I attend this day. Loed Delawae 
 
 I SUP WITH T0-2^iGHT. Where Pope has one lord, I have 
 twenty." 
 
 After this, Curll announced " Mr. Pope's Literacy Corre- 
 spondence, with the initial correspondence oi P. T., E. 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 Cuell, 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.* 
 
 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 
 
 * Pope's victory over Cui'll is represented by Ilogartli in a pi-int ostenta- 
 tiously huug in the garret of his "Distressed Poet." — Ed.
 
 Pope and Curll. 299 
 
 new fact. Since the first publication of liis letters to his 
 fi'iencl 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 pur]3ose 
 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 imper- 
 fectly transcribed, and sometimes interpolated. Pope, indeed, 
 offered a reward of twenty pounds to " P. T." and " E. 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 
 Cui-il, 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 publica- 
 tion, 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, w-as 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
 
 300 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 examina- 
 tion 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, per- 
 plexity, and secrecy have scarcely been thrown into the con- 
 ■duct of the writer, or writers, of the Letters of Junius.
 
 POPE AND GIBBER; 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A VINDICATION OF THE COMIC WRITER. 
 
 Pope attacked Gibber from personal motives — by dethroning Theobald, iu 
 the Dunciad, to substitute Gibber, he made the satire not apply — 
 Gibber's facetious and serious remonstrance — Gibber's inimitable good- 
 humour — an apology for what has been called his "efirontery" — per- 
 haps 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 — aa 
 account of "The Egotist, or Colley upon Gibber," a kind of supple- 
 ment to the "Apology for his Life," in which he has drawn his own 
 character with great freedom and spirit. 
 
 Pope's quarrel with Gibber may serve to check tlie 
 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 interest- 
 ing, should it throw a new light on the character of one 
 whose originality of genius seems little suspected. Gibber 
 showed a happy address in a very critical situation, and 
 obtained an honom-able trimiiph over the malice of a great 
 genius, whom, while he complained of he admu-ed, and almost 
 loved the cynic. 
 
 Pope, after several " flirts," as Gibber calls them, from 
 slight personal motives, which Gibber has fully opened,* at 
 
 * Johnson says, that though "Pope attacked Gibber with acrimony, the 
 provocation is not easily discoverable." But the statements of Gibber, 
 which have never been contradicted, show sufficient motives to excite the 
 poetic irascibility. It was Gibber's "fling" at the unowned and con- 
 demned comedy of the triumvirate of wits. Pope, Gray, and Arbuthnot, 
 Three Hours after Marriage, when he performed Bayes in the i?e- 
 hearsal, that incurred the immortal odium. There was no malice on. 
 Gibber's side ; for it was then the custom to restore the zest of that obso- 
 lete dramatic satire, by introducing allusions to any recent theatrical event. 
 The plot of this ridiculous comedy hinging on the deep contrivance of two
 
 302 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 length from " peevish weakness," as Lord Orford has happily- 
 expressed it, closed his insults by dethroning Theobald, and 
 substituting Gibber ; 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 Gibber ; Pope forced 
 a dunce to appear as Gibber ; but this was not making Gibber 
 a dunce. This error in Pope emboldened Gibber in the con- 
 test, for he still insisted that the sathe did not apply to 
 him ;* and humorously compared the libel " to a purge with 
 
 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 
 Gibber, \n the gaiety oi 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." Gibber replied with 
 dignity, insisted on the privilege of the character, and that he would re- 
 peat the same jest as long as the public approved of it. Pope would have 
 certainly approved of Gibber'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 Gibber'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." Gibber 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 surt of ingenuity, and he repeated the same 
 charge of political mystery against his own finest poem ; for he proved by 
 many " mei-ry inueudoes," that " The Rape of the Lock" was as auda- 
 cious a libel as the pretended Earnevelt had made out the Nonjuror to be. 
 See note, p. 280, 
 
 * Gibber 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 sati- 
 rical 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 ex- 
 amjilo, 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
 
 Pope and Gibber. 303 
 
 a wrong label," and Pope "to an apothecary who did not 
 mind his business."* 
 
 Cibber triumphed in the arduous conflict — though some- 
 times 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 thigli was out of joint." Still, however, he triumphed, 
 by that singular felicity of character, that inimitable gaiete 
 de cceur, 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. t 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 liim with " efironter}^," J Critics are apt to admit 
 
 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 further 
 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 en- 
 courage 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 pai-- 
 ticular amusement." 
 
 * ' ' 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 unsuccess- 
 ful. 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." — Biograpliia 
 Britannica, 1760. 
 
 + Armstrong, who was a keen observer of man, has expressed his un- 
 common 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 con- 
 verse 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^. a year." 
 
 J Dr. Aikin, in his Biographical Dictionaiy, 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 
 Gibber's sarcasms are no longer read. Cibber may therefore be represented
 
 304 Quarrels of Autliors. 
 
 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 Gibber was a modest mmi ! * 
 
 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 he 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 con- 
 duct him in the Literary Republic ? With the just sentiments he has given 
 on Gibber, 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 Gibber himself, he declares he was not impudent, and I am dis- 
 posed 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 de.scription 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 Lic,m verse or prose, the same — ' " 
 
 Gibber laments it is not so, for " any accusation in smooth verse will al- 
 ways 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 harmo- 
 nious 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 say- 
 ing 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 Gibber'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 op- 
 posed by truisms. Satire must be repelled by satire ; and Gibber's sar- 
 casms obtained what Gibber's reasonings failed in. 
 
 * Vain as Gibber has been called, and vain as he affects to be, he has 
 spoken of his own merits as a comic writei', — and he was a very great 
 one, — with a manly moderation, vejy 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 Gorneille, 
 Can make a Gibber, Jounson, and Ozell."
 
 Po2)e and Cibber. 305 
 
 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 v/it of 
 Pope failed to pierce. During twenty 3'ears' 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 
 
 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 dra- 
 matic 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 inno- 
 cence, 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 cntirchj my oion? — 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 him- 
 self 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 Care- 
 less 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, Jlr. 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 injurie?, at the 
 tazard 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. 
 
 Z
 
 306 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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.* If 
 this be vanity, it is at least " Gibber ian.'' 
 
 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,t 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 pre- 
 ferred amusement to prudence. J Another foible was to act 
 tragedies with a squeaking voice§, and to write them with a 
 
 • Ayre's "Memoirs of Pope," vol. ii. p. 82. 
 
 f 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 Gibber !" — Ed. 
 
 J 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 " Cicpro's Life and Times," as nar- 
 rated 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 Eoscius 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 iiow 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. 
 
 § With what good-humour he retorts a piece of sly malice of Pope's ;
 
 Pope and Cihber. 307 
 
 genius about the same size for the sublime ; but the malice of 
 his contemporaries seemed to forget that he Avas creating new 
 dramatic existences in the exquisite personifications of his. 
 comic chai'acters ; and was producing some of our standard 
 comedies, composed with such real genius, that they still sup- 
 port the reputation of the English stage. 
 
 In the "Apology for his Life," Gibber had shown himselT 
 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; 
 theii' oil the sharp sting of the wasp, as his weakest talent 
 was not the ludicrous, he resolved to gain the laughers over, 
 
 ■who, in the notes to the Dunciad, after quoting Jacob's account of Cibber'a. 
 talents, adds — "Mr. Jacob omitted to remark that he is particularly 
 admirable in tragedy." To which Gibber rejoins — "Ay, sir, and yc«ir- 
 remark has omitted, too, that (with all his commendations) I can't dance- 
 npon the rope, or make a saddle, nor play upon the organ. Jly 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 j^ 
 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 ? JIake 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 witt 
 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 Gibber in his most distressful moments^ 
 When he brought out, in 1724, his Ccesar 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 stilJ 
 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 0/ Gibber's " Ccesar in Egypt." 
 When the pack'd audience from their posts retired, 
 And Julius in a general hiss expired ; 
 Sage Booth to Gibber cried, " Gompute our gains ! 
 These dogs of Egypt, and their dowdy queans, 
 But ill requite these habits and these scenes, 
 To rob Gorneille 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 Cwsar's destiny to run !" 
 Wilks bow'd, and bless'd the gay pacific pun. 
 ^ X2
 
 303 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 and threw Pope into a very ridiculous attitude.* 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 
 stor}', 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.t It is a curious exemplification of 
 what Shaftesbury has so fancifully described as " self-inspec- 
 tion." 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 
 
 * 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 noiv 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 jDunciad. In his 
 second letter, Cibber, alluding to the vexation of Pope on this ridiculous 
 Btory, observer — "To have been exposed as a bad man, ought to have 
 given thee thrice the concern of being shown a ridiculous lover." And 
 now tliat 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 tliy 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." 
 
 + "The Egotist, or Colley upon Cibber ; being his own picture re- 
 touched to so plain a likeness that no one noiu would have the face to 
 
 own it BUT HIMSELF. 
 
 ' But cue stroke more, and that shall be my last.' 
 London, 1743. Dryden."
 
 Pope and Gibber. 309 
 
 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 Gibber 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 sim- 
 plicity, that unalterable good-humour which flowed from 
 nature, and that fine spirit that touches everything with lil'e ; 
 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 extraordi- 
 nary pi'oduction, because they harmonise with the design of 
 the present work, and afford principles, in regard to preserv- 
 ing an equability of temper, which may guide us in Literary 
 Quarrels. 
 
 FranMy observes, on Gibber's declaration that he is not 
 uneasy at Pope's satire, that " no blockhead is so dvdl 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 pi-etty 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 block- 
 head) that I may, notwithstanding, be contented with my 
 condition, 
 
 FranJchj. 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 im- 
 movable ! Whatever it icas, or is, it ever ivill he ! As no 
 attack can alter, so no defence can add to its proportion.
 
 310 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 FranJcly. 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 
 ijo 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. 
 
 JE'ranldy. May not a reply be a good one ? 
 
 Autlior. 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.* 
 
 Frmikly. But slander is not always so impotent as you 
 «eem 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 uncha- 
 ritable 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 inno- 
 ••cence or temper ? — Self-defence is a very natural and just 
 -excuse for a reply. 
 
 Autlior. 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 
 
 * 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 
 ionour 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. 
 Ur. Brown, in his " Letter to Bishop Lowth," has laid down an axiom ia 
 literary criticism : — "yl mere literary attack, however well or ill-founded, 
 ■would not easily have drawn me into a xmblic 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 cen- 
 sures lies equally open to all the world. Thus the world becomes a com- 
 petent judge of the merits of the work animadverted on. Hence, the 
 tnavQ author hath a fair chance for a fair decision, at least among the 
 judicious ; and it is of no mighty consequence what opinions the inju- 
 <Liclous form concerning mental abilities. For this reason, I have never 
 replied to any of those numerous critics who have on difierent occasions 
 honoured me with their regard."
 
 Pope and Gibber. 311 
 
 can never be of long duration. A satirical slander, that has 
 no truth to support it, is only a great fish tipon dry land : it 
 may Jlounce and fling, and maJce a fretful pother, hut it tcont 
 lite you ; you need not knock it on the head ; it icill 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 yom* creep- 
 ing 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 afibrd 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 
 Headers 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 
 steiiHty ! Let us double and treble the ranks of our thick- 
 ness, 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 Preju- 
 dice 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
 
 312 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 proudest Jelm of them all to drive over U3. 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 Gibber was real, still the immortal satire of Pope had 
 injured his higher feelings. He betrays his secret grief at his 
 close, Avhile 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 al\va3's to have considered an actor as an inferior being 
 among men of genius, have degraded Gibber. 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.
 
 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 Atticds, 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 ej'es 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 per- 
 ceived that two authors of the finest genius had separated 
 from motives on which botli were silent, but which had evi- 
 dently 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
 
 314 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 living in a state of hostility. Even long after these literary 
 heroes were departed, tlie 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 b}^ 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 
 Blacksxone 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 incHnes 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 arrange- 
 ment of investigation, to which, since the time of Bayle, it 
 has been too great a stranger.* 
 
 At this day, removed from all personal influence and affec- 
 tions, 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 his- 
 torians ! 
 
 Pope was a j'oung writer when introduced to Addison by 
 the intervention of that generously-minded friend of both, 
 Steele. Addison eulogised Pope's " Essa}'' 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 zealousl}'' 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 at- 
 
 * Sir William Blackstone's Discussion on the Quarrel between Addison 
 and Pope was communicated by Dr. Kippis in his " Biographia Britan- 
 iiica," vol. i. p. 5G. Blackstone is there designated as "a gentleman of 
 considerable rank, to whom the public is obliged for works of much higher 
 importance."
 
 Pope and Addison. 315 
 
 tacked, and Pope defended Cato* Addison might have dis- 
 approved 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 condemna- 
 tion. 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,t seems to me to have stated un- 
 couthly, but expressively, the progressive state of Pope's 
 feelings. According to that narrative. Pope " reflected," 
 that after he had first published " The Eape of the Lock," 
 then nothing more than a hasty j'e?* d' esprit, when he com- 
 municated 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, mcrum sal." It was then, says 
 Warburton, "Mr. Pope began to ojjeji his eyes to Addison's 
 character." But when afterwards he discovered that Tickell's 
 
 * 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 satke on Dennis, and Pope was 
 not a little chagi-ined at this disapprobation ; for the nan-ative was intended 
 to court the favour of Addison, by defending his Cato : in which seeming 
 defence Addison was far from thinking our author sincere."] 
 + In the notes to the Prologue to the Satires.
 
 316 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Homer was opposed to his, and judged, as Warburton says, 
 " by laying maivj odd circumstances together," that Addison,* 
 and not Tiekell, was the author — the ahenation 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 m private preferred his own.f He did this with the same 
 ease he had continued its encouragement while Pope was era- 
 ployed 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 know- 
 ledge of a contemporary, in his " Life of Swift," would natu- 
 rally 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 cha- 
 racter, j^ We cannot, now, quite demonstrate these alleged facts; 
 but we can show that Pope believed them, and that Addison 
 docs not appear to have refuted them.§ Such tales, whether 
 
 * Pope's conjecture was perfectly correct. Dr. Warton confirms it from 
 a variety of indisputable auttorities. — Warton's "Pope," vol. iv. p. 34. 
 
 t In the "Freeholder," May, 1716. 
 
 J Pope himself thus related the matter to Spence : " Phillips seemed to 
 liave been encouraged to abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations ; and 
 Gildou 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 tliey were published." — Ed. 
 
 § The strongest parts of Sir William Blackstone's discussion turn on 
 certain inaccurate dates of Ilufl'head, 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 
 Eevicw on that work, April, 1769. PiuShcad 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
 
 Pope and Addison. 317 
 
 entire!}^ false or partial!}'- true, may be considered in this in- 
 quiry of little amount. The greater events must regulato 
 the lesser ones.* 
 
 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 Gato, such was his agitation, that had 
 Cato been condemned, the life of Addison might, too, have 
 been shortened. When a w'it had burlesqued some lines of 
 this dramatic poem, his uneasiness at the innocent banter vras 
 
 moral character." It is possible that the Earl of Warwiclc, who conveyed 
 the iuforiiiation, 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 con- 
 tradicted 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 Black- 
 stone 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 War- 
 \vick'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."] 
 
 * That Addison did occasionally divert Pope's friends from him, appears 
 from the advice which Lady JIary 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 un- 
 flinching use of it, was as conspicuous as Addison's nervous dislike to 
 it.— Ed.
 
 318 Quan-els of Authors. 
 
 equally oppressive ; nor could he rest, till, by the interpo- 
 sition of a friend, he prevailed upon the author to burn 
 them.* 
 
 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 aflFections 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 him- 
 self ; 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.f 
 
 * From Lord Egmont's MS. Collections. — See the " Addenda 
 Kippis's Biographia Britannica." 
 
 t The earliest and most particular narrative of this remarkable inter- 
 view 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 Kuspicious 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 
 hel])s which were never public." He sometimes appeals to several noble 
 frienda of Pope as his authorities. But the mode of its publication, and
 
 Pope and Addison. 319 
 
 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 auspi- 
 cious, 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 pre- 
 ferred 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 occa- 
 sion, reminded Pope of a particular line which Steele had 
 improved in the "Messiah."* Addison seems at that moment 
 
 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." Cui-ll, indeed, was then sending forth 
 many pseudo squires, with lives of "Congreve," "Airs. Oldfield," &c. ; all 
 which contained some curious particulars, picked up in coffee-houses, con- 
 versations, 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 conver- 
 sations 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. 
 
 * 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."
 
 320 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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.* He pro- 
 ceeded with detailin^g all the ahuse 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, 
 Ga3% 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, dix-ecting 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 be- 
 came a contest, and was broken up without ceremony. Sych 
 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 
 cJuar^ oscuro of Horace, and with as awful and vinchctive 
 features as the sombre hand of Juvenal could have designed. 
 
 Dr. Warton prefers the rejected verse. The latter, he thinks, has too 
 much of modern quaiiitness. The difficulty of choice lies between that 
 naked simplicity which scaixely afifects, and those strokes of art which are 
 too apparent. 
 
 * 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" — Warbukton's 
 apology for Pope's disinterested intentions — Bolingbroke instigates 
 i\lALLET to libel Pope, after the poet's death — The real motive for 
 libelling Pope was Bolingbroke's personal hatred of Warbtjrton, 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 xmistook a sai-casm for a compli- 
 ment — Mallet's character — AYhy Leonidas Glover declined writing 
 the Life of Marlborough — Bolingbroke's character hit oif — Warburton, 
 the concealed object of this posthumous quarrel with Pope. 
 
 Ok the death of Pope, 1500 copies of one of Lord Bolikg- 
 beoke's works, " The Patriot King," were discovered to have 
 been secretly printed by Pope, but never pubHshed. The 
 honest printer presented tlie 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. 
 
 BoHngbroke affected to feel the most lively resentment for 
 what he chose to stigmatise as "a bi-each of confidence." 
 " His thirst of vengeance," said Johnson, " incited him to 
 blast the memor}^ of the man over whom he had wept in his 
 last struggles ; and he employed Mallet, another fi-iend of 
 Pope, to tell the tale to the pubHc 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 
 vaaity by publishing the work as his own, nor his avarice by 
 
 X
 
 323 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 its sale, which could never have taken place till the death of 
 its author ; a circumstance not likely to occur during Pope's 
 lifetime.* 
 
 The vindictive rage of Bolinghroke ; 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 Waeburton ; are effects much too 
 disproportionate to the cause which is usually assigned. 
 JoHNSO^sr does not develope the secret naotives 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 
 anonvmous 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 detec- 
 tion of their contemporaries, their reputation, if they have 
 any to lose, will not probably elude the researches of the his- 
 torian ; — a fatal witness against them at the tribunal of 
 posterity. 
 
 The preface of Mallet to the " Patriot King" of Boling- 
 hroke, 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 Bolinghroke received information that an entire edition 
 of 1500 copies of these papers had been printed ; that this very 
 Jlan had corrected the press, &c." Could one imagine that 
 this was the Tully of England, describing our Virgil r" For 
 Mallet was but the mouthpiece of Bolinghroke. 
 
 After a careful detection of many facts concerning the 
 parties now before us, I must attribute the concealed motive 
 
 * 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 eigliteenpeniiy pamphlet at a guinea a copy ; which would have pro- 
 duced an addition of as many hundreds to the thousands which the poet 
 had honourably reaped from his Homer. 'Hiis was the ridiculous lie of 
 the day, which lasted long enough to obtain its purpose, and to cast aa 
 odium on the shade of Pope. Pope must have been a miserable calculator 
 (ji sua^vivot ships, if ever he had reckoned on this. 
 
 I
 
 Bolingbroke, Mallet, and Pope. 323 
 
 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 moi*tal. Boling- 
 broke 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 AVarburton with Pope is 
 little known : the note will supply it.* 
 
 * Splendid as was the genius of Bolingbroke, the gigantic force of War- 
 burton 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 War- 
 burton, in opposition to the objectionable principles which Bolingbroke had 
 infused into his system of philosophy : this, no doubt, had vexed Boling- 
 broke. 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 dis- 
 covered his officiousness was received with indignation. Yet when Boling- 
 broke afterwards met Warburton he dissimulated : he used the language of 
 compliment, but irv 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 em- 
 ployed in collecting matter to refute the objections ; treasuring up his 
 secret vengeance against Pope and Warburton, which he threw out imme- 
 diately on the death of Pope. I collect these particulars from Paiffhead, 
 p. 527, and wheuevei', 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, 
 Wai-burton's tampei'ing with him to abjure the Catholic religion. On the 
 
 1 M
 
 324 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 inter- 
 course with them than is known. In one of them he is 
 characterised " as a fellow who, while Mr. Pope lived, was as 
 diUgent in licking his feet, as he is now in licking your lord- 
 ship's ; and who, for the sake of giving himself an air of im- 
 portance, 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."* An anecdote in this pamphlet assigns a suffi- 
 cient motive to excite some wrath in a much less irri- 
 table animal than the self-impoi'tant editor of Bolingbroke's 
 "Works. The anecdote may be distinguished as 
 
 THE APOLLO VISIOIS". 
 
 " The editor (Mallet) being in company with the person to 
 whom Mr. Pope has consigned the care of his works (War- 
 bm'ton), and who, he thought, had some intention of writing 
 Mr. Pope's life, told him he had an an(;edote, which he be- 
 lieved 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 liad an odd kind of vision. Methought I 
 saw my own head open, and Apollo came out of it ; I then 
 saw yom* 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 
 
 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 de.sist, 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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. 
 
 * "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.
 
 Bolingbroke, Mallet, and Pope. 325 
 
 might perhaps be a proper anecdole ; 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.* What opinion could the 
 
 * 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 Scotch- 
 men did not commend." From having been accidentally chosen as private 
 tutor to the Duke of Jlontrose, 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 animadvei'ted. 
 
 According to Johnson's account, the Ducliess of Marlborough assigned the 
 task of writing the Life of the Duke to Glover and to Mallet, with a remu- 
 neration 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 ft-om the original will of her 
 Gi-ace, 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, dis- 
 tinctly marked from her " recommended" acquaintance Mallet. 
 
 Glover refused the oflice 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 re- 
 strictions of "not wi-iting 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 circuni
 
 326 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 poet have entertained of tb-? taste of that weak and vain critic, 
 who, when Pope pubhshed anonymously "The Essay on Man," 
 being asked if anything new had appeared, rephed 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 Yv^'arburton either directly or indirectly. This was fol- 
 
 stance 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 nar- 
 rative." 
 
 "Composing such a narrative (alluding to his own Memoirs) and endea- 
 vouring to establish such a temper of mind, I cannot at intervals refi'ain 
 from regret that the capricious restrictions in the Duchess of Marl- 
 borough's will, appointing me to write the life of her illustrious husband, 
 compelled me to reject the undertaking. There, conduct, valour, and suc- 
 cess 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 o^vn 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 clenaonts, tluit they were certain to undo their own purpose. 
 Such was the l)arren liarvest she gathered through a life of passion, 
 regulated by no princijde of conduct. One of the most finished portraits of 
 Pope is the Atossa, in liis " Epistle on Woman." How admirably he shows 
 ■what the present instant proves, that she was one who, always possessing 
 the meann, was sure to lose the ends.
 
 Bolinghroke, Mallet, and Pope. 327 
 
 lowed up by " A Letter to the Editor of the Letters on the 
 Spirit of Patriotism, the Idea of a Patriot King," &c., a dig- 
 nified remonstrance of Warbm-ton himself; but "The Impos- 
 tor Detected and Convicted, or the Principles and Practices of 
 the Author of the Spirit of Patriotism (Lord Bolinghroke) 
 set forth in a clear light, in a Letter to a Member of Parlia- 
 ment in Town, from his Friend in the Countrj'', 1749," is a 
 remarkable production. Lord Bolinghroke 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 historj'. 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 damagogue as Bolinghroke never 
 forgave. They are thus aUuded to : " Lord B. may remem- 
 ber " (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) iu 
 opposition to some particular tenets which related to the 
 limitation of the English monarch)^, and to the ideal doctrine 
 of a patriot king. These were Mr. P.'s reasons for the emen- 
 dations 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 Bolinghroke 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 Bolinghroke, who 
 suffered himself to be the dupe of a man held in contempt by 
 Pope, by Warbm-ton, and by others. But the pamphlet I 
 have just noticed might have enraged Bolinghroke, 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 w^as at Paris to transact a certain affair, said, Cest 
 
 certainement iinliomme d' esprit, mais uii coqum sans 2Jrohite" 
 This was a very disagreeable truth ! 
 
 In one of these pamphlets, too, Bolinghroke was mortified 
 at his dignity being lessened by the writer, in comparing his 
 lordship with their late friend Pope. — " I venture to foretell,
 
 328 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 that the name of Mr. Pope, in spite of your unmanly endea- 
 vours, shall revive and blos.som in the dust, from his own 
 merits ; and presume to remind you, that yours, had it not 
 been for his genius, Ms 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 Warbiu'ton. The awful and 
 vindictive .Bolingbroke, and the malignant and petulant 
 Mallet, did not long brood over their anger : he or the}' gave 
 it vent on the head of Warburton, in those two furious 
 pamphlets, which 1 have noticed in the Quarrels of Warbur- 
 ton." All these pamphlets were published in the same 
 3'ear, 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. 
 
 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 Duneiad; 
 but such minutice literarice are only for my bibliographical 
 readers. 
 
 It is a book of accounts, which belonged to the renowned 
 Ber>'ard 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 book- 
 seller as much as in any other book ; and while I here dis- 
 cover, that the moneys i-eceived even by such men of genius 
 as Gay, Farquhar, (Jibber, and Dr. King, amount to small 
 sums, and such authors as Dennis, Theobald, Ozell, and 
 Toland, scarcely amount to anything, that of Pope much ex- 
 ceeds 4000/. 
 
 I am not in all cases confident of the nature of these
 
 Lintot's Account-Book. 
 
 329 
 
 "Copies purchased;" those works which were originally pub- 
 lished 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.* 
 
 
 MK. POPE. 
 
 
 
 
 19 Feb. 1711-12. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Statins, First Book 
 
 , 
 
 ;|.« 
 
 .7 
 
 6 
 
 VertuniDus aud Pomona 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 21 March, 1711-12. 
 
 
 
 
 
 First Edition Rape 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 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 
 
 
 
 23 July, 1713. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ode on St. Cecilia's day 
 
 
 . 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 20th Feb. 1713-14. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Additions to the Rape . 
 
 
 . 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 Feb. 1714-15. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Temple of Fame . 
 
 
 . 32 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 30 Ajjril, 1715. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Key to the Lock . 
 
 
 . 10 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 17 Juli/, 1716. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Essay on Criticism+ . 
 
 
 . 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 13 Dec. 1721. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Parnell's Poems . 
 
 
 . 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 23 March, 1713. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Homer, vol. i. 
 
 
 . 215 
 
 
 
 
 
 650 books on royal 
 
 paper 
 
 . 176 
 
 
 
 
 
 * "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. 
 
 f 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.
 
 330 
 
 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 9 Fel. 1715-16. £ s. d. 
 
 Homer, vol. ii 215 
 
 7 May, 1716. 
 
 650 royal paper 150 
 
 This article is repeated to the sixth volume of 
 Homer. To which is to be added another sum 
 of 840^., paid for an assignment of all the copies. 
 The whole of this part of the account amount- 
 ing to _._ . 3203 4 
 
 Copy-moneys for the Odyssey, vols. i. ii. iii., and 750 
 
 of each vol. royal paper, 4to. 
 
 . 615 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Ditto for the vols. iv. v. and 750 do. 
 
 . 425 
 
 18 
 
 n 
 
 
 £4244 
 
 8 
 
 n 
 
 MR. GAT. 
 
 
 
 
 12 May, 1713. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Wife of Bath ..... 
 
 . 25 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 Nov. 1714. 
 
 
 
 
 Letter to a Lady ..... 
 
 . 5 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 14 Feb. 1714. 
 
 
 
 
 The What d'ye call it ? . 
 
 . 16 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 22 Bee. 1715. 
 
 
 
 
 Trivia 
 
 . 43 
 
 
 
 
 
 Epistle to the Earl of Burlington . 
 
 . 10 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 4 May, 1717. 
 
 
 
 
 Battle of the Frogs .... 
 
 . 16 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 8 Jan. 1717. 
 
 
 
 
 Three Hours after Marriage . 
 
 . 43 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 The Mohocks, a Farce, 11. 10s. 
 
 
 
 
 (Sold the Mohocks to him again.*) 
 
 
 
 
 Revival of the Wife of Bath . 
 
 . 75 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £234 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 * 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.^ Why Gay repurchased "The 
 
 ^ 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, prick- 
 ing 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 1" 
 Swift, in his notes to Stella, lias expressed his dread, while in London, 
 of being maimed, or perhaps killed, by them, — Ed.
 
 Lintofs Account-Book. 331 
 
 
 MR. 
 
 DENNIS. 
 
 
 
 Feb. 24, 1703-4. 
 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d 
 
 Liberty Asserted, one half share* . 
 
 . 7 3 
 
 
 
 10 Nov. 1708. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Appius and Virginia 
 
 
 . 
 
 . 21 10 
 
 
 
 25 Aiml, 1711. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Essay on Public Spirit 
 
 
 • . . 
 
 . 2 12 
 
 6 
 
 6Ja7i. 1711. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Kemarks on Pope's Essay 
 
 
 . 
 
 2 12 
 
 6 
 
 fpnnis mnisf Tijivp ^ri\i\ 
 
 Viin 
 
 ncplf fr> r>rifip 
 
 sm fiTii-n ill-n 
 
 fif 
 
 and not foi' pay. One is surprised that liis 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 Jmie SJiore,^' 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. 
 
 MK. THEOBALD. 
 
 23 May, 1713. £ s. d. 
 
 Plato's Phc-edon 5 7 6 
 
 For ^Ssculus's Trag. . . . . . .116 
 
 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 Tyrannns, Qildipus Colo- 
 neus, Trachinise, and Philoctetes, into English blank verse, with Expla- 
 
 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 Kegister," "exposes several of our eminent poets." Jacob pub- 
 lished while Gay was living, and seems to allude to this literary co-part- 
 nership ; 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 treviendous 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 ?" 
 
 * Bought of Mr. George Strahan, bookseller.
 
 332 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 natory Notes to the twenty-four Books of the Odyssey, and to the fou? 
 Tragedies. To receive, for translating every 450 Greek verses, with Ejf- 
 planatory Notes thereon, the sum of 21. ICs. 
 
 To translate likewise the Satires and Epistles of Horace into English 
 rhyme. For every 120 Latin lines so translated, the sum of \l. Is. Qd. 
 
 These Articles to be performed, according to the time specified, under 
 the penalty of fifty pounds, payable by either party's default in perform- 
 ance. 
 
 Paid in hand, 21. 10s. 
 
 It appears that Toland never got above 5Z., lOZ., or 20Z., 
 for his pubhcations. 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?. 
 
 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. 
 
 18 Feb. 1707-8. 
 Paid for Art of Cookery .... 
 
 16 Feb. 1708-9. 
 Paid for the First Part of Transactions 
 Paid for his Art of Love .... 
 
 23 June, 1709. 
 Paid for the Second Part of the Transactions* . 
 
 4 March, 1709-10. 
 Paid for the History of Cajamai . . . 
 
 10 Nov. 1710. 
 Paid for King's Gods ..... 
 
 1 July, 1712. 
 Useful Miscellany, Part I. . . . . 
 
 Paid for the Useful Miscellany 
 
 Lintot utters a groan over " The Duke of Buckingham's 
 Works" (Shefiield), for " having been jocJceyed of them by 
 Alderman Barber and Tonson." Who can ensure literary 
 celebrity ? No bookseller would now regret being jockeyed 
 out of liis Grace's works ! 
 
 The history of plays appears here somewhat cm'ious : — 
 tragedies, then the fashionable dramas, obtained a considerable 
 
 * For an account of these humorous pieces, see the following article ou 
 "The Royal Society." 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 Q 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 50 
 
 1 1 6 
 
 3
 
 Pope's Earliest Satire. 333 
 
 price; for though Dennis's luckier one reached only to 21^. ■. 
 Dr. Young's Busiris acquired 84Z. Smith's Phcedra and 
 Hippolytits, 501. ; Howe's Jane Shore, 50Z. 15s. ; and Jmie 
 Gray, 751. 5s. Gibber's Nonjuror obtained 1051. 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! 
 
 POPE'S EAELIEST 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 juve- 
 nile composition bears the marks of his future excellences : it 
 has the tune of his verse, and the images of his wit. Thirt}"- 
 years afterwards, when occupied by the Dunciad, he ti'ans- 
 planted 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 desig- 
 nates 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.* 
 
 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, exce^^t 
 that the arms of his patrons, or rather his purchasers, richly 
 
 * The fullest account we have of Settle, a busy scribe in his day, is in 
 Mr. Nichols's " Literary Anecdotes, " vol. i. p. 41.
 
 334) Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 necessar}'- to read their history backwards. In 1702, 
 when Settle published " Successio," he must have been a 
 Whig. In 1685 he was a Tory, commemorating, by a heroic 
 poem, the coronation of James II., and writing periodically 
 against the Whigs. In 1680 he had left the Tories for the 
 Whigs, and conducted the whole management of burning the 
 Pope, then a very solemn national ceremony.* A Whig, a 
 pope-burner, and a Codrus, afforded a full draught of inspira- 
 tion to the nascent genius of our youtliful satirist. 
 
 Settle, in his latter state of wretchedness, had one standard 
 elegy and epitlialamium printed off with blanks. By the in- 
 genious contrivance of inserting the name of anjr considerable 
 person wh6 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-t ailed 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 Hames and terrifying-morocco folds, disco- 
 vered "the fate of talents misapphed!" 
 
 TO THE AUTHOK OF A POEM ENTITLED " SUCCESSIO." 
 
 Begone, ye critics, and i-estrain 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.f 
 
 * 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 Edmuudbury 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 
 puljlished dei)icting the whole proceedings, and descriptive pamphlets from 
 the pen of Settle, who arranged these shows. — Ed. 
 
 + 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." •
 
 Pope's Earliest Satire. 335 
 
 "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 heav-l. 
 
 "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;* 
 
 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 t 
 
 So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly. 
 
 And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky.+ 
 
 Sure Bavins copied Masvius to the full. 
 
 And Chjerilus J 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. 
 
 * This original image a late caustic wit (Home 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 paradoses, 
 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. 
 
 "t" 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." 
 
 J Perhaps, by Charilus, the juvenile satirist designated FlecJcnoe, or 
 Shadwell, who had received their immortality of dulness from his master, 
 catholic in poetry and opinions, Dryden.
 
 THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 
 
 The Eoyal Society at first opposed from various quarters — their Experi- 
 mental 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 aud others — Narrative of a 
 quarrel between a Member of the Koyal Society and an Aristotelian — 
 Glanvill writes his " Plus Ultra," to show the Improvements of Modern 
 Knowledge — Character of Stubbe of Warwick — his Apolog}', from him- 
 self — opposes the "Plus Ultra" by the "Plus Ultra reduced to a 
 Nonplus" — his "Campanella revived" — the Political Projects of Cam- 
 panella — Stubbe persecuted, and menaced to be publicly whipped ; his 
 Koman spii'it — his "Legends no Histories" — his "Censure on some 
 Passages of the History of the Eoyal 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 establisliment, at the era of 
 the Restoration, encountered fierce hostilities ; nor, even at 
 hater periods, has it escaped many wanton attacks. A great 
 revohition in the human mind was opening with that esta- 
 blishment ; 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 tlic first place, the new experimental philosophy, full of 
 inventions and operations, proposed to supplant the old scho- 
 lastic i^liilosophy, wliich still retained an obscure jargon of 
 terms, the most frivolous subtilties, and all those empty and 
 artificial methods l)y which it pretended to decide on all topics. 
 Too long it had filled the car with airy speculation, while it 
 starved the mind that hmguislied for sense and knowledge. 
 But this emancipation menaced the power of the followers of 
 Aristotle, who were still slumbering in their undisputed autho-
 
 The Royal Society. 337 
 
 rlty, enthroned in ovcc Universitie!!. For centuries the world 
 had been taught that the philosopher of Stagira liad 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. Bacox liad fixed a 
 new light in Europe, and others were kindling their torches 
 at his flame. When the great usurper of the human under- 
 standing was once fau-lj^ 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 bv 
 a party who called themselves Trojans, from their antipathy 
 to the Greeks, or the Aristotelians ; and once the learned 
 Eichard Harvey, the brother of Gabriel, the friend of Spenser, 
 stung to madness by the predominant powers, to then- 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 I'eaction of public opinion, 
 that thej' 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 sub- 
 tilties. The days had closed of the '" illuminated," the " pro- 
 found," and the " irrefragable," titles, which the scholastic 
 heroes had obtained ; and the Aristotelian four modes, by 
 which all things in nature must exist, of mater ialiter, forma- 
 liter , j undamentaliter , and emineater, were now considered as 
 nothing more than the noisy rattles, or chains of cheiTv- 
 stones, which had too long detained las in the nurserj^ of the • 
 human mind.* The world had been cheated with words 
 
 * 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, jicr 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 Bruoker and Formey in their Histories of 
 Philosophy. Of the Scholastic Metaphysics, Sprat, the historian of the 
 Hoyal 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 
 
 Z
 
 338 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 instead of things ; and the new experimental philosophy in 
 sisted 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, dis- 
 guised as natural philosophers. This new terror had a very 
 ludicrous origin : — it arose from some casual expressions, in 
 which the Eoyal 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 expres- 
 sion, 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 
 
 than in their thichiess ; as we see those thi-eads, 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, jd. 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 impene- 
 trable obscurity ! One of them, and our countryman, is singularly com- 
 mended 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 boots." 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 Rcyal 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, not- 
 withstanding the im])erfect state in which these have reached us. Dr. 
 Copleston and Dr. Gillies have given an energetic testimony to their per- 
 petual value. Pope, in satirising the University as a nest of dunces, con- 
 sidered the followers of Aristotle as so many stalled oxen, "fat bulls of 
 Sasan." 
 
 "A hundred head of Aristotle's friends." 
 
 DUNCIAD. 
 
 Swift has drawn an allegorical personage of Aristotle, by which he 
 describes the natiu-e of his works. " He stooped much, and made use of 
 a statr ; his visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice 
 hollow ;" descriptive of his abrupt conciseness, his harsh style, the obscu- 
 rities of his dilapidated text, and the deficiency of feeling, which his studied 
 compression, his deep sagacity, and his analytical genius, so frequently 
 exhibit.
 
 The Royal Society. 339 
 
 Koyal 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 Koyal Society, " almost 
 every family was widely disagreed among themselves oa 
 matters of religion," they believed that this " new experi- 
 mental philosophy was subversive of the Christian faith!"* 
 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 Eoyal 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. f But amid these da'eams of 
 
 * Sprat mates an ingenious observation on the notion of those who de- 
 clared 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 mak^e 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. 
 
 f 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 difierent periods in the 
 history of science, to indicate results, of which the mind feels a conscious- 
 ness, 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 
 
 z2
 
 340 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 hope and fancy, the creeping experimentalist was still left 
 boasting of improvements, so slow that they were not per- 
 ceived, 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 at- 
 tempts to reply to the repeated question of that day, " What 
 have they done ?"* 
 
 But a source of the ridicule which was perpetually flowing 
 
 after us, it may be as ordinary to huy a pair of icings 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 symfathetic conveyances, may be as usual to 
 future times, as to us in a literary coiTCspondence. The restoration of 
 (jrey hairs to jttvenility, and renewing the exhausted viarroiv, may at 
 length be eiFected without a mii-acle ; and the turning the now comparative 
 desert viorld into a paradise, may not improbably be expected fi-om 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 stury more absurd than the flight of Dajdalus. That men should speak 
 after their tongues wei'e 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 Scientijica, p. 133. 
 
 * 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 per- 
 sonage not usual to be introduced into a philosophical controversy — " The 
 Enemy of Mankind." But it was well to denounce the devil himself, as 
 the ISociety had nearly lost the credit of fearing him. Evelyn insists that 
 " ne.xt to the propagation of our must holy faith," that of the new philo- 
 sophy was desirable both for the king and the nation; "for," he adds, 
 "it will survive the triumjjhs of tlie proudest conquerors ; since, when all 
 their pomp and noise is ended, they are those little things in black, wliom 
 now in scorn they term pliilosophers and fops, to whom they must be obliged 
 for making their names outlast tlie pyramids, whose founders are as un- 
 known as the heads of the Nile." Wliy Evelyn designates the philosophers 
 us little things in black, requires explanation. Did tlicy affect a dress of 
 this colour in the reign of Charles II., or does he allude to the dingy 
 appearance of the chemists ?
 
 The Royal Society. 341 
 
 against the Roj'al Society, was the almost infantine simplicity 
 of its earliest members, led on by their honest zeal ; and the 
 absence of all discernment iu many trifling and ludicrous re- 
 searches, which called down the malice of the wits ;* 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 w^re sneered at by the Royal, and the antiquaries 
 
 * It is not easy to credit the simplicity of these early inquirers. In a 
 Memorial in Sprat's History, entitled, "Answers returned by Sir Philli- 
 herto Yernatti to certain Inquiries sent by order of the Royal Society ;" 
 among some of the most extraordinary questions and descriptions of non- 
 entities, which must have fatigued Sir Philliberto, who then resided ia 
 Batavia, I find the present :—" Qy. 8. What ground there may be for 
 that relation concerning horns tahinrj root, and f)rowing 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 papeV he received from them 
 had been lost, otherwise he would have published it. "The great Mr. 
 Bo^-le, when he brought it, tendered it with blushing and disorder," at the 
 simplicity of the Eoyal 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 whet- 
 stone of the wit of their patron. When Charles II. dined with the mem- 
 bers 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 curio.sity ; 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.
 
 343 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 avenged themselves b}'' their obstinate increduHty at the pro- 
 digies 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 pur- 
 suits, 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 
 natm'alists.* Wotton, who wrote so zealously at the com- 
 mencement of the last century in favour of modern know- 
 ledge, 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 natui-e. " The 
 
 * Pope was severe in Lis last book of the Dunc'md on tlie students 
 of insects, flowers, &c. ; and 11. 0. 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 Ijcatified 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.
 
 The Royal Society. 343 
 
 philosophers of the next age" have showu themselves as per- 
 severing as their predecessors, and the wits as malicious. 
 The contest between men of meditation and men of experi- 
 ment, is a very ancient quarrel ; and the " divine" Socrates 
 was no friend to, and even a ridiculer of, those very pui'suits 
 for which the Royal Society was established.* 
 
 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 con- 
 troversies 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 contro- 
 versy. 
 
 The obscure individual who commenced the fray, is for- 
 gotten in the boasted achievements of his more potent ally; 
 he was a clergyman named Cross, the Vicar of Great Chew, 
 in Somersetshire, a stanch Ai'istotelian. 
 
 Glanvill, a member of the Royal Society, and an enthusiast 
 for the new philosophy, had kindled the anger of the peri- 
 
 * 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 ibem. 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 them- 
 selves as answerable for their own memoirs, which gave Stubbe occasion 
 to boast that he had forced them to deny what they had ■svritten. A pas- 
 sage in Hobbes's "Considerations upon his Reputation, &c.," is as re- 
 markable for the force of its style as for that of sense, and may be appli- 
 cable 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 philoso- 
 pher," p. 63.
 
 344? Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 patetic, who was his neighbour, and who had the reputation 
 of being the invincible disputant of his county.* Some, who 
 had in vain contended with Ghmvill, now contrived to in- 
 veigle 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 pi^eserve it. The Vicar of Great Chew sat 
 amid his congregated admirers. The peripatetic had pro- 
 mised 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 Qiiodam 7)iodo, and his Modo quodatn, with 
 his Ubi and his Quando, scattered the ideas of the simple 
 experimentalist, who, confining himself to a simple recital of 
 Jacfs and a description of things, was referring, not to the 
 logic of Aristotle, but to the works of nature. The impe- 
 rative Aristotelian was wielding weapons, which, says Glanvill, 
 " were nothing more than like those of a cudgel-player, or 
 fencing-master."t 
 
 * Glanvill was a learned man, but evidently superstitious, particularly 
 in all that related to -witclicraft 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 argu- 
 ments 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. — E]). 
 
 + 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 Aris- 
 totelbn, "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 thaa 
 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 fort'wr" "United
 
 The Royal Society. 345 
 
 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 pera- 
 grare Asiam." Besides, in the Chew philosophy, where 
 novelty was treason, improvements or discoveries could never 
 exist. Here the Ai'istotelian made his stand ; and at length, 
 gently hooking Glanvill between the horns of a dilemma, the 
 entrapped virtuoso threw himself into an unguarded affirma- 
 tion ; at which the Vicar of Great Chew, shouting in triumph, 
 with a sardonic grin, declared that Glanvill and his lioyal 
 Society had now avowed themselves to be atheistical ! This 
 made an end of the interview, and a beginning of the quarrel.* 
 
 Glanvill addressed an cxpostulatory 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," f on the 
 
 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 
 tivo 2)ens than with a single one, since Vis unita fortior ? When he hath 
 answered this Quccre, 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. 
 
 * This appears in chap, xviii. of the "Plus Ultra." With great sim- 
 plicity Glanvill relates : — " At this period of the conference, the disputer 
 lost all patience, and with sufiScient spit€ 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. 
 
 + This book was so scarce in 1757, that the writer in the " Biographia 
 Brltannica" 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 1733, 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
 
 346 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 modern improvements of knowledge. The quaint title referred 
 to that Asian argument which placed the boundaries of know- 
 ledge at the ancient limits fixed by Aristotle, like the pillars of 
 Hercules, on which was inscribed Ne phis ultra, to mark the 
 extremity of the world. But Glanvill asserted we might 
 advance still further — plus ultra ! To this book the Aristo- 
 telian 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 peri- 
 patetic ribaldries printed, wrote ballads, which he got sung as 
 it chanced. But suppressed invectives and eking rhymes could 
 but ill appease so fierce a mastiflF: 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 ai'dent 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 extraor- 
 dinary men, with the simplicity of children, are mere beings of 
 sensation ; perpetually pi'ecipitated by their feelings, with 
 slight powers of reflection, and just as sincere when they act 
 in contradiction to themselves, as when they act in contradic- 
 tion 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 prin- 
 ciples as arising from dishonest motives ; yet their temper 
 has often proved moi'e 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 
 
 fashions. Glanvill's "Plus Ultra" is probably now of easy occurrence ; 
 like a prophecy fully completeil, the uucertain event being verified, the 
 prophet has ceased to be remembered.
 
 The Royal Society. 347 
 
 ardour of tliese 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 Ro^'al 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 uncom- 
 mon »history. Stubbe had originally been a child of fortune, 
 picked up at Westminster school by Sir Hemy Vane the 
 younger, who sent him to Oxford ; where this effervescent 
 genius was, says Wood, "kicked, and beaten, and whipped."* 
 But if these little cu'cximstances 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 INIilton has immortalised in 
 one of the noblest of sonnets), the head of the Independents, 
 who combmed with the darkest spii'it 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 univer- 
 sity, &c. ; for which, after the Restoration, he was accused by 
 
 * 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 be- 
 cause " 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 heated 
 it on the hoof thence to London, where she, gaining a comfortable sub- 
 sistence 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 kind- 
 ness 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 hxmible beginning of a learned man, 
 who lived to be a formidable opponent to the w-hole body of the Royal 
 Society. — Ed.
 
 348 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 his antagonists. He exults in the reproach ; he replies with 
 all that frankness of simplicity, so heautiful 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, hut never himself. I preserve the 
 whole of this nohle passage in the note.* Wood bears witness 
 
 * When Sprat and Glanvill, and others, had threatened to wTite 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 thei-eupon, 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 diffei'ent places with much privacy and ob- 
 scurity, was unknown to them ; that even those actions they would fix their 
 greatest calumnies upon, were such as that they understood not the groundSj 
 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 engage- 
 ment. In sum, / served my "patron. I endeavoured to express my grati- 
 tude 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 capltol 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^ia^roKS, 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 jireserved himself free from the vices of these. My reply shall 
 be a scornful silence." — Preface to Stubbe's " Legends no Histories," 1670.
 
 The Royal Society. 349 
 
 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 appeal's to have car- 
 ried 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* and to the 
 Government. The king bestowed on him the title of his 
 physician ; yet, for the sake of making philosophical experi- 
 ments, Stubbe went to Jamaica, and intended to have pro- 
 ceeded to Mexico and Peru, pui'suing his profession, but still 
 an adventm-er. At length Stubbe returned home ; established 
 himself as a physician at Warwick, where, though he died 
 early, he left a name celebrated. t 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 mys- 
 terious arts of life, availed nothing ; for while he was making 
 himself popular among his auditors, he was eagerly depre- 
 ciated 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 ;;J; and 
 there presided the voluble Stubbe, with " a big and magiste- 
 rial voice, while his mind was equal to it," says the charac- 
 terising Wood ; but his attenuated frame seemed too delicate 
 
 * 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 puhlicly 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 comprehen- 
 sive and fitting to he national.^' 
 
 f 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 be- 
 came the preacher of his funeral sermon. Wood says he " said no great 
 matter of him." — Ed. 
 
 X Pope said to Spence, "It was Drydeu who made Will's cofl'ee-house 
 the great resort for the wits of his time. After his death Addison trans- 
 ferred it to Button's, who had been a servant of his." Will's coti'ee-house 
 ■was at the corner of Bow-street, Covent-garden, and Button's close by in 
 Eussell -street. — Ed.
 
 350 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 to hold long so unbroken a spirit. It was an accident, how- 
 ever, which closed this life of toil and hurry and petulent 
 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 bib- 
 bing, 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 adver- 
 saries, however, has reason to say, that judging him by his 
 " printed papers, he was a man of excellent contradictory 
 parts." After the Restoration, he fm-nished 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 arbi- 
 trary power ; and it was on this principle that he took part 
 against the Society. Influenced by Dr. Fell and others, he 
 sufiered them to infuse these extravagant opinions into his 
 mind. No private ends appear to have influenced his change- 
 able conduct ; and in the present instance he was sacriflcing 
 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.* 
 
 * "Some years after the king's restoration he took pet against the 
 Bojal Society, (for which before he had a great veneration,) and being en- 
 couraged 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. Se- 
 condly, 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 ji)»'o or con, that few or none could equal, answer, or come 
 near him. He was a person of most admirable parts, had a most pro- 
 digious memory, though his enemies would not acknowledge it, but said he 
 read indexes ; was the most noted Latiiiist and Grecian of his age ; and 
 after he had been put upon it, was so great an enemy to the virtuosi of his
 
 The Royal Society. 351 
 
 Stubbe opened his formidable attacks, for they foi'm a 
 series, by replying to the "Plus Ultra" of Glanvill, with a 
 title as quaint, " The Plus Ultra reduced to a Non-j^lus, iu 
 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 phj^sicians could not 
 cure a cut finger." — This Glanvill denied he had ever aflBrmcd 
 or thought ; * 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 in- 
 geuuitj'', 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 through- 
 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. 
 
 * 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 
 Jcnowledge 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 contempo- 
 rary ; 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. 
 
 MoRHOFP, 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.
 
 352 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 out Evirope, 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 extrava- 
 gancies, 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., &e. 1670."* 
 
 * The political reverie of Campanella was even suspected to cover very 
 opposite designs to those he seemed to be proposing to the world. He at- 
 tempted 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 an- 
 cients 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 in- 
 tentions of a visionary are difficult to define. If he were really an advo- 
 cate 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, kc. " 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 Greet and the Hebrew languages were not to be taught ! for the 
 republican freedom of the ancient Jews and Grecians had often proved de- 
 structive 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 trou- 
 blesome Transalpine wits might then employ themselves in confuting the
 
 The Royal Society. 35'& 
 
 Such was the dread which his reiterated attacks caused the' 
 Eoyal 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- 
 
 Turks, rather than in vexing the Catholics ; so closely did sagacity ani 
 extravagance associate in the mind of this wild genius. But Mathema- 
 tical and Astronomical schools, and other institutions for the encourage- 
 ment of the mechanical arts, and particularly those to which the northerir 
 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 iveakening 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 op- 
 portunities. 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 novel- 
 ties 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 convei'ted 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 iu' 
 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 in- 
 termeddling with politics and relif/ion, by engaging them merely in philo- 
 sophical pursuits. — The reaction of the public mind is an object not always 
 sufficiently indicated by historians. The vile hypocrisy and mutual perse- 
 cutions of the numerous fanatics occasioned very relaxed and tolerant^ 
 principles of religion at the Restoration ; as, the democratic fuiy 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 pur- 
 poses ; "an evil," says he, "which has been guarded against by our an- 
 cestors in founding free-schools, by uniformity of instruction cementing 
 men's minds." We now smile at these terrors ; perhaps they were some- 
 times 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 inde- 
 pendence of nations, under the dominion of Napoleon. 
 
 A A
 
 354 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 would not dispute with a crowned head, " were to be called to 
 aid you against a young country phj^sician, 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,* 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. f 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. 
 
 * To this threat of writing his life, we have already noticed the noble 
 apology he has drawn up for the versatility of his opjnions. See p. 347. 
 At the moment of the Restoration it was \inwise for any of the parties to 
 reproach another for their opinions or their actions. In a national revolu- 
 tion, 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 "Ac 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 m-n" 
 of that blessed spii-it to the veneration of posterity ; as if 
 " His/«?ftc, like men, the elder it doth grow, 
 Will of itself turn ivhiter 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.''' 
 
 "Y He has described this intercourse of his enemies at court with the 
 king, where, when this punishment was suggested, ' ' a generous person- 
 age, altogether unknown to me, being present, bravely and frankly inter- 
 posed, 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 Eng- 
 lishman, the great ornament of this age, nation, and House of Commons ; 
 he whose single worth Ijalancetli much of the debaucheries, follies, and 
 impertinences of the kingdom." — A Reply unto the Letter written to Mr. 
 Ihnry Stubbe, Oxford, 1671, p. 20.
 
 The Royal Society. 355 
 
 He treated with infinite ridicule tlieir trivial or their mar- 
 vellous discoveries in his " Legends no Histories," and his 
 " Censure on some Passages of the History of the Hoyal 
 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 Axdueas 
 C^SALPiKus, who not only discovered it, but had given it the 
 name of Circidatio Sanguinis.* 
 
 Stubbe was not only himself a man of science, but a caustic 
 satirist, who blends much pleasantry with his bitterness. In 
 
 * Stubbe gives some curious information on this subject. Harvey pub- 
 lisbed his Treatise at Frankfort, 162S, but Cresalpiuus's work had ap- 
 peared in 1593. Harvey adopted the notion, and more fully and perspi- 
 cuously 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 fesalpinus ; and his silence I 
 take for a tacit confession. His ambition of glory made him v:illinrj to Ic 
 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 obli- 
 vion ; yet such was his modesty, as not to vindicate it to himself by tell- 
 ing a lie." — Stubbe's Censure, &c., p. 112. 
 
 I give this literary anecdote, as it enters into the history of most dis- 
 coveries, 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. Cccsalpinus. 
 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 cor- 
 rected, 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 fiite 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 esta- 
 blished 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 discover}', 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." 
 
 A a2
 
 356 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 the first ardour of philosophical discovery, the Society, de- 
 lighted 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 reason- 
 ing ; they did not even practise common discernment, or 
 what we might term philosophy in its more enlarged sense.* 
 Stubbe, with no respect for " a Society," though dignified by 
 the addition of " Eoyal," 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 wil- 
 derness, so humbly addressed his only friends,) ' Salvete, 
 fr aires asini ! Salvete, fr aires Uipi ./' " As for their Trans- 
 actions and their Ilistoiy, he thinks " they purpose to grow 
 famous, as the Turks do to gain Paradise, hy treasuring up 
 all the waste paper they meet tvith.^' 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 
 
 * Stubbe has an eloquent passage, which describes the philosophy of 
 fjcience. 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 erroi? 
 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 mani- 
 fests the fallacies of impostors ; that art which gives life to solid eloquence, 
 and which renders Statesmen, Divines, Physicians, and Lawyers accom- 
 plished ; how is this cried down and vilified by the ignoramuses of these 
 days ! What contempt is there raised upon the disputative Ethics of Aris- 
 totle 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-lahuuring I Did we live at Sparta, where 
 the daily employments were the exercises of substantial virtue and gal- 
 lantry, and men, like settinrj dorjs, were rather bred up unto, than taur/ht 
 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 recom- 
 mended, 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 loay of studying 7ncn." — Preface to "Legends 
 no Jlistories."
 
 The Royal Society. 357 
 
 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 j^lacing 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, cou- 
 rage, justice," &c. 
 
 Stubbe shows how Dionysius and Nero had been depraved 
 by these mechanic philosopheis — that 
 
 " An Aristotelian would never pardon himself if he com- 
 pared this heroical enterprise with the actions of our Black 
 Prince or Henry V.; or with Heniy VIII. in demolishing 
 abbej's and rejecting the papal authority ; or Queen Eliza- 
 beth'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 experimen- 
 tators equals the most i*enowned 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, b}'- new arts, of conquered nations !' These con- 
 sequences 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 everi/ little invention to in- 
 crease the powers of manMiid, 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 leger- 
 demain, or upon the high or low rope ; not to every mounte- 
 bank 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 Asdrtasdust 
 TossoFFACAK found avcry great resemblance. 'Tis not the in- 
 creasing of the ^Oifers 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 in- 
 strument, must be put in comparison, much less preferred, 
 before ih.Q protection and enlargement of empires y* 
 
 * "Legends no Histories," p, 5.
 
 858 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Had Stubbe's death not occui-red, this warfare had probably- 
 continued. He insisted on a complete victory. He had forced 
 the Royal Society to disclaim their own works, by an an- 
 nouncement that the}' were not answerable, as a body, for the 
 various contributions which they gave the world : an adver- 
 tisement 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 Csesai'ean 
 Popery of Campanella. Glanvill, who had " insulted all 
 university leai-ning," had been immolated at the pedestal of 
 Aristotle. "I have done enough," he adds, " since my anim- 
 adversions 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 ovu' good works before us !" " The Dis- 
 coveries of the Ancients and Moderns" by Dutens, had this 
 book been then pubHshed, might have assisted our keen inves- 
 tigator ; 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 com- 
 mon sense. It was long before the collectors of facts prac- 
 tised 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 
 Haxs Sloake 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 face- 
 tious Dr. King,* took advantage of their perplexed and often 
 
 * Dr. King -was allied to the families of Clarendon and Eochester ; 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 hehecame 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 retui'ned to 
 England with no other treasure than a few merry poems and humorous
 
 The Roijal Society. 359 
 
 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. Sloa>''E, 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 
 absm-d passages from the original he ridiculed, and framing 
 out of them a droll dialogue or a grotesque narrative, he 
 adi'oitly inserted his own remarks, replete with the keenest 
 irony, or the di'iest sarcasm.* Our arch wag says, " The 
 bulls and blunders which Sloane and his friends so naturally 
 
 essays, and returned to Ins student's place in Christ Church."— ^«c. 
 Brit. He was assisted ))y 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, "Ire- 
 member Dr. King could write verses in a tavern three h»urs after he could 
 not speak." His last patron was Lord Clarendon, and Le died in apart- 
 ments he had provided for hiru in London, Dec. 25, 1712, and v»-as buried 
 in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey at the expense of his lordship. — Ed. 
 
 * Sloane describes Clark, the famous posture-master, "Phil. Trans." No. 
 242, certainly with the wildest grammar, but with many curious parti- 
 culars ; the gentleman in one of Dr. King's Dialogues inquires the secre- 
 tary'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 Roj'al Society with "a figure of a Chinese, repre- 
 senting one of that nation using an ear-picker, and expressing great satis- 
 faction 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 heaiing 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 i?Zac^-Hioo?''s-^fcfy^, I suppose from their wA (7 «;?ic&s.'" and 
 the learned Ray's, that gi-ave natm-alist, incredible description of "a very 
 curious little instrument !" I leave to the reader and Dr. King.
 
 3G0 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 j)oiir forth cannot be misrepresented, so careful I am in pro- 
 ducing them." King still moves the risible muscles of his 
 readers. "The Yoj^age 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."* 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, witli 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 
 <;apable 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 blun- 
 ders — to amuse the public ! King was a wit, who lived on 
 the higliway 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 otfer to real genius ! Their temporary hu- 
 mour 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 proportion ably as it had done 
 in his own. " The humour of the age is visibly altered," he 
 says, " fx'om what it had been thirty years ago. Though the 
 
 * 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 i-esearches, 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 i)ublication of any such work, the efforts to be expected from them, 
 making possibly some impression upon persons of equal dispositions ; but 
 <!onsidering that I have the approbation of others, whose judgment, know- 
 ledge, &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." 
 
 1
 
 The Royal Society. 361 
 
 Koyal Society has weathered the rude attacks of Stubbe," yet 
 "the sly insinuations of the Men of Wit''' with ^' tha public 
 ridiculing of all who sj^end their time and fortunes in scicntilic 
 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." * 
 
 * 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 Ro3'al and Antiquarian 
 Societies with some degree of spu'it 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 "au 
 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 iu 
 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 gather- 
 ings 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 per- 
 formance, 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 mea- 
 sure 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 hiLinorous 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, 
 
 THE ROYAL SOCIETY, FIELDING, SMART, &c. 
 
 A Parallel between Orator Henlkt 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 Experi- 
 mentalists, 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 OiSce 
 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 hniglit would admit of a close parallel ;* 
 both as modest in their youth as afterwards remarkable for 
 their elfrontery. Their youth witnessed the same devoted- 
 ness to study, with the same inventive and enterj)rising genius. 
 Hill projected and pursued a plan of botanical travels, to form 
 a collection of rare plants : the patronage he received was too 
 
 * The moral and literary character of Henley has been developed ia 
 "Calamities of Authors."
 
 Sir John Hill. 
 
 limited, and he suffered the misfortune of having anticipated 
 
 the national taste for the science of botan}^ hy 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 Eoj'al 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 revo- 
 lution 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 Eoyal Society. Eejected 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 epigram.s, 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 literaiy 
 life, performed more for the improvement of the " Philosophi- 
 cal Transactions," and was the cause of diffusing a more 
 general taste for the science of botany, than any other con- 
 temporary. 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.* 
 
 * The twenty-six folios of his "Vegetable System," with many others, 
 testify his love and his labour. It contains IGOO plates, representing 
 26,000 different figxires 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 con- 
 sequences 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
 
 864 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 At the time that Hill was engaged in several large compila- 
 tions 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 sud- 
 denly emerged from his learned garret, and, in the shape of a 
 fashionable lounger, rolled in his chariot from the Bedford to 
 Eanelagh ; was visible at routs ; and sate at the theatre a 
 tremendous arbiter of taste, raising about him tumults and 
 divisions ;* and in his " Inspectors," a periodical paper which 
 he publislied 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-backs and cock- 
 chafers. Cautioned by Martin Folkes, President of the Royal 
 Society,t not to attempt his election, ouv enraged comic philo- 
 
 engraving of eacli 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 
 liiniself 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. 
 
 * His apologist forms this excuse for one then aflfecting 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 sei'vice 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. 
 
 ■f- 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,
 
 Sir John Hill. 365 
 
 sopher, who had preferred his jests to his friends, now disco- 
 vered 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 for- 
 midable 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 in- 
 considerable 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.* 
 
 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.f 
 
 * 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 iise, 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, kc. The Review itself may still 
 be considered both as curious and entertaining. 
 
 f 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 he so! This was telling tbe 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. \Yhen caned by an Irisli
 
 366 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 for- 
 giveness 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 re- 
 mained in the hands of his enemies. While Hill was gaining 
 over the laughers on his side, that volatile populace soon dis- 
 covered that the fittest object to be laughed at was our 
 literary Proteus himself. 
 
 The most egregious egotism alone cotdd have induced this 
 
 gentleman at Eanelagh, aud 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 gi'eat Hill was fated. 
 
 What man 1 — 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 Koyal 
 Society, Hill said — " You are to know that / 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 
 nice lachrymcv ! 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 sho^m: 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 afl'ected, he mysteriously contracted 
 into barbaric dissonance. Hill entitled himself — 
 
 Acad. Beg. Sclent. Burd. dx. 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 JIartin Folkes, the president, are caustic, but 
 they may not be true ; and on Baker, celebi\ated for his microscopical 
 discoveries, are keen. He reproaclies 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
 
 Sir John Hill 367 
 
 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 In- 
 spector became, indeed, the instrument of his own martyrdom ; 
 but his impudence looked like magnanimity ; for he endured, 
 with iindiminished spirit, the most biting satires, the most 
 wounding epigrams, and more palpable castigations.* His 
 
 Hill makes use of to illustrate /i«s " 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. 
 
 * 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 con- 
 sidered 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 oflf 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 em- 
 broidery 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 sutnciently 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 ' ' In- 
 spectors." 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."]
 
 368 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 diil- 
 ness, 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 block- 
 headism. 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 Keconnoiterers 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 assui-ed me he had always excepted 
 me ; and after honouring me with some encomiums, he pro- 
 ceeded 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."* 
 
 * 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 symp- 
 toms 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 Loudon and Westminster,
 
 Sir John Hill. 369 
 
 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 trutli was, more 
 probably, as Fielding i-elates it, and the stoiy, as we shall see, 
 then becomes quite a different affair. At all events. Hill in- 
 cui'red 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 owr 
 new General onl}'- wanted : a battle was sure to be a victory. 
 Our critical Drawcansir has performed his part, with his in- 
 different puns, but his natural facetiousness. 
 
 " It being reported to the General that a Jiill 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 spi'ead 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 cany 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 
 «ame 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 chal- 
 lenge, 
 
 or the Town-spy," 1725, I find this account: — "The seeming quarrel, 
 formerly, between 3Iist's Journal and the Fbjlng Post was secretly con- 
 certed 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. 
 
 B B
 
 370 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 Kanelagh 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 
 nvimber of a new paper, entitled The Impertment. Having 
 thus relieved his private feehngs, he announced the cessation 
 of this new enterprise in his Inspectors, and congratulated 
 the public on the ill reception it had given to the Imperti- 
 nent, applauding them for their having shown by this that 
 " then* 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 I^npertinent and The Inspector were the same indivi- 
 dual ? 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.* 
 
 * Isaac Reed, in his "Repository of Fugitive Pieces of Wit and Hu- 
 mour," vol. iv., in republisliing " The Ililliad," 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 tlie cause, they show neither the one nor the other character in the 
 effect ; but begin, continue, and end, as if they had neither begun, con- 
 tinued, 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
 
 Sir John Hill. 371 
 
 Smart, in return for our .ranus-faced critic's treatment, 
 balanced the amount of debtor and creditor with a pungent 
 Dunciad The JHUiad. Hill, who had heard of the rod in 
 pickle, anticipated the blow, to break its strength ; and, ac- 
 cording to his adopted system, introduced himself and Smart, 
 with a story of his having recommended the bard to his book- 
 seller, " 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." Tliis story was formally denied 
 by an advertisement from Newbery, the bookseller. 
 
 " The Hilliad " is a polished and pointed satne. The hero 
 is thus exhibited on earth, and in heaven. 
 
 On earth, "a tawnj' 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 unfor- 
 tunate hero of the vindicative Muses so reduced into nothing- 
 ness ! 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 tiue — 
 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. 
 
 the poor poet), that makes people smile when they see him at a distance. 
 His mouth opens, because he must be fed, while we laugli at the insensi* 
 bility and obstinacy that make him prick his lips with thistles." 
 
 B B 2
 
 Z72 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 But Phoebus shows there may still be something produced 
 from inanity. 
 
 E'en blank privation has its use and end — 
 From emptiness, bow 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 Wood- 
 '\vard, the celebrated harlequin, " the meanest of all charac- 
 ters." This Woodward resented in a pamphlet-battle, in 
 ■which Hill was beaten at all points.* 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 1 "t 
 
 * 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 thea- 
 trical 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 anec- 
 dote, 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 
 X/othario, 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. 
 
 + 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 
 £is their favourite reflex. 
 
 " Pertness saw her form distinctly shine 
 lu none, iramoi-tal Hill ! so full as thine." 
 Dulness speaks of him thus rapturously : — 
 
 " See where my son, who gratefully repays 
 "Wliate'er I lavish'd on his younger days ; 
 Whom still my arm i)rotects to brave the town 
 Secure from Fielding, Macliiavel, or Brown ;
 
 Sir John Hill. 375 
 
 I will here notice a characteristic incident in Hill's literary 
 life, of which the boldness and the egotism is scarcely paral- 
 leled, even by Orator Henley. At the time the Sloane Col-' 
 lection of Natural History was purchased, to form a part of 
 our grand national establishment, the British Museum, Hilb 
 offered himself, by public advertisement, in one of his In-- 
 sjyectors, as the properest person to be placed at its head. The- 
 world will condemn him for his impudence. The most reason- 
 able objection against his mode of proceeding would be, that- 
 the thing undid itself; and that the very appearance, b}-^ 
 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.* 
 
 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. 
 
 * 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 con- 
 scious 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 ad- 
 dress his sovereign and the public. "That foreigners will resort to this- 
 coUection is certain, for it is the most considerable in the world ; and that- 
 our own people wiU 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, al-- 
 though 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
 
 374 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 At length, after all these literary quarrels, Hill survived his 
 literarj' character. He had v^'ritten himself down to so low a 
 degree, that whenever he had a work for iDublication, his em- 
 ployers stipulated, in their contracts, that the author should 
 conceal his name ; a circumstance not new among a certain 
 race of writers.* But the genius of Hill was not annihilated 
 
 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 know- 
 ledge ; and he has most, in this way, who shall show himself most ac- 
 quainted with it. 
 
 " What are my own abilities it very 111 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 pre- 
 ference ; 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 be- 
 stowed 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, mth. 
 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 m-ade 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. 
 
 * It would be difficult to form a list of his anonymous works or com- 
 pilations, 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 book- 
 seller, had placed this work in his MS. catalogue of Hill's books. 
 
 There is still another production of considerable merit, entitled "Ob- 
 servations on the Greek and Roman Classics," 1753. A learned friend re- 
 collects, when young, that this critical work was said to be written by 
 Hill. It excels Blackwell and Fenton ; and aspires to the numerous com- 
 position of prose. The sentimental critic enters into the feelings of the 
 great authors whom he describes with spirit, delicacy of taste, and some- 
 times Avith beautiful illustration. It only wants a chastening hand to be- 
 come a manual fur the young classical student, by which he might acquire 
 those vivid emotions, whicli many college tutors may not be capable of 
 communicating. 
 
 I suspect, too, he is the author of this work, from a passage wliich
 
 Sir John Hill 375 
 
 "by being thrown down so violently on his mother earth ; like 
 Anthseus, it rose still fresh ; and like Proteus, it assumed new 
 forms.* 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. f 
 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. 
 
 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 — iu his busy hours he never 
 copied them ; but when had he leisure ? 
 
 Two other works, of the most contrasted character, display the versa- 
 tility 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, con- 
 taining the amorous correspondence of Hill with a reigning beauty, whom 
 he first saw at Ranelagh. On his first ardent professions he is contemp- 
 tuously 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 stu- 
 diously 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 at- 
 tempt at notoriety — or the lady admired her own correspondence, which is 
 often exquisitely -wTOught, 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 men- 
 tioned 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. 
 
 * 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. 
 
 + It would occupy pages to transcribe epigrams on Hill. One of them 
 alludes to his philosophical as well as his literary character : —
 
 376 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 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 accom])anied by plates of the plants, 
 with the Linnajan names.* 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 pre- 
 tending to a resemblance — are melted down, and even touched 
 into a grace. The Apology is not unskilful, but the real pur- 
 pose appears in the last page ; where we are informed that 
 Lady Hill, fortunately for the world, possesses all his valuable 
 recipes and herbal remedies ! 
 
 " 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 i-hymes." 
 The rejoinder would reverse the wish — 
 
 " For, if he takes his physic first, 
 He'll never read his rhymes." 
 * 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 health- 
 ful. 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 lit 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" — -Bextlet, 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 re- 
 joins 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 Botle and Be>"tlet was 
 at times a strife of gladiators, and has been regretted as the 
 opprobrium of onr 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 inconsider- 
 able ; the concealed motive lies deeper ; and the party feelings 
 of the haughty Ai-istarchus 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, lilve the 
 Farnesian Hercules, personified the force and resistance of in- 
 comparable 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 Christchm'ch. 
 men, as if doubtful whether wit could prevail against learning, 
 had recourse to the maliciousness of personal satire. They 
 amused an idle public, Avho could even relish sense and Greek, 
 seasoned as they were with wit and satire, while Boyle was
 
 378 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 con- 
 troversy 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 know- 
 ledge 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 inven- 
 tions 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 ' iEsop'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 pub- 
 lishing editions of classical authors. Such juvenile editor- 
 ships served as an easy admission into the fashionable litera- 
 ture of Oxford. Alsop had published the "^sop;" 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 ro^'al librarian. Boyle did not apply directly t(* 
 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
 
 Boyle and Beniley. 379 
 
 expected. The MS. was granted, but the collator was negli- 
 gent ; 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 prefoce, that having ordered the Epistles to be collated 
 with the MS. in the king's librai-y, the collator was prevented 
 perfecting the collation by the singular Immanity of the 
 library-keeper, who refused any further use of the MS. ; pro 
 singulari sua hicmanitate negavit : an expression that sharply 
 hit a man marked b}'' the haughtiness of his manners.* 
 
 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 w^as also too haughty to ask a favour, and too con- 
 scious 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 Bentle3% in a new 
 edition of his friend Wotton's book, published " A Disserta- 
 tion on the Epistles of the Ancients;" where, reprehending the 
 false criticism of Sir William Temple, he asserted that the 
 " Fables of ^Esop " 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 pre- 
 served no part of the correspondence with Boj'le, whom no 
 doubt he slighted as the young editor of a spurious author. 
 But Boyle's edition came forth, as Bentley expresses it, "with 
 
 * 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 OUK AIS. was not perused." — "Our MS. (they proceed) that is, 
 his Majesty's and mine ! He speaks out uow ; 'tis no longer the King's, 
 but ouK MS., i. e. Dr. Bentley's and the King's in common, £go et Rex 
 mens — 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 .'"'
 
 380 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 docu- 
 ments, which had never before entered into a literary contro- 
 versy — 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 par- 
 ticulars. 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.* 
 
 * 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 ciise ? Here are two contrary affirmations ; 
 and the matter being done in private, neither of us have any witness, I 
 might plead, as ^railius Scaurus did against one Varius, of Sucro. Varius 
 Sucronentsis ait, ^Emilius Scaurus ncyat. Utrl creditis Quirites ?" p. 21.
 
 Boyle and Bentley. 381 
 
 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 lite- 
 rary quarrel, the mere English reader had lost this single 
 opportunity of surveying that commanding intellect. 
 
 Boyle's edition of " Phalaris" Avas a work of parade, de- 
 signed 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 per- 
 sists in making a plurality of a pretended unity, by multi- 
 pl3ang Boyle into a variety of little personages, of " new 
 editors," our " annotators," our " great geniuses."* Boyle, 
 
 — The story is told by Valerius Maxinms, lib, iii. c. 7. Seaurus was 
 insolently accused by one Varins, a Sucronian, that he had taken bribes 
 from Mithridaies : Seaurus 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 Seaurus, corrupted by gold, would have betrayed the republic ; Seaurus 
 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 ^milius Seaurus used against Varius Sucronensis. Mr. Spanheim and 
 Mr. Gi'ffivius give a high character of Dr. B.'s learning : Mr. Boyle gives 
 the meanest that malice can furnish himself with. Utrl 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. 
 
 * 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 tcho iileiys hut 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
 
 383 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 touched at these reflections, declared " they were levelled at 
 a learned society, in which I had the happiness to be edu- 
 cated ; as if ' Phalaris' had been made up by contributions 
 from several hands." Pressed by Bentley to acknowledge 
 the assistance of Dr. John Fi-eind, 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 ' Metamor- 
 phoses,' with a paraphrase and notes, is of the same size for 
 learning with the late editor of the ^sopian Fables. They 
 bring the nation into contempt abroad, and themselves into 
 it at home;" and adds to this magisterial style, the morti- 
 fication of his criticism on Freind's Ovid, as on Alsop's 
 .^sop. 
 
 But Boyle assuming the honours of an edition of " Pha- 
 laris," was but a venial offence, compared with that com- 
 mitted by the celebrated volume published in its defence. 
 
 If Bentley's suspicions were not far from the truth, that 
 "the 'Phalaris' had been made tip hy contributions," they 
 approached still closer when they attacked " T^e Examina- 
 tion 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 inexhaus- 
 tible wit, are claimed by others ; so that Boyle was not 
 materially concerned either in his "Phalaris," or in the more 
 memorable work.* 
 
 puts one in mind of a general rumour, that there's another set of gamesters 
 who p?a!/ Mm in his dispute while themselves are safe behind the curtain." 
 — Bentley's Dissertation on Phalaris, p. 2, 
 
 * Enmours 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 ^yrote 
 the entire Dissertation on ^sop in that volume, wrote also, with Atter- 
 hury, the body of the Criticisms ; King, the droll ai'gument, proving that 
 Bentley was not the author of his own Dissertation, and the extraordinary 
 index which I shall shortly notice. In Atterbury's " Epistolary Coi-respon- 
 dence" 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,
 
 Boyle and Bentley. 883 
 
 The Christcburcli 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 asso- 
 ciates: Whenever any of the partj' published anything them- 
 
 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 Sher- 
 hurn, 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 lo\idly of it from one that has so far outdone them ; 
 for / tlrinlc 'tis much vjorse 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 our- 
 selves. 
 
 Partial tiniths flew about in rumours at the time ; but the friends of a 
 yoi;ng 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 compo- 
 sitions 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 arro- 
 gance of Aldrich exceeded even that of Bentley. Rymer tells further, that 
 Aldrich was notorious for thus employing his ' ' young inexperienced stu- 
 dents;" 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. Ko 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." 
 
 Tkapp. 
 
 Swift, in " The Battle of the Books," who, under his patron, Sir William 
 Temple, was naturally in alliance with " the Bees," with ingenious ambi- 
 guity alludes to the glorious manufacture. "Boyle, clad in a suit of 
 armour, ivhich 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 On-ery, his son, had a difficulty to overcome to 
 pass lightly over this allusion. The literary honour of the family was at
 
 -384 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 selves, 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 gene- 
 rously 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 con- 
 descended 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 aff'ected 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 per- 
 formed 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 ine 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 dis- 
 position ; 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 
 
 stake, and his filial piety was exemplary to a father, who had unfortu- 
 nately, in passion, deprived his lordship of the family library — a stroke 
 from which his sensibility never recovered, and which his enemies ungene- 
 rously 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 diqnUe 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 de- 
 signed 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 varieti/ of styles in it. — p. 107.
 
 Boyle and Bentkij. 385 
 
 of truth. Bentley applied a line from Horace ; which showed 
 that both Horace and Bentley could pun in anger : — 
 
 Proscripti Regis Jiupill pus atque venerium.* — Sat. i. 7. 
 The filth aud 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 publica- 
 tions to the Royal Librar}', 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. tcould he like a squeezed orange, and little 
 ivortli for the future.'^ This familiar comparison of a MS. 
 with a squeezed orange provoked the epigrammatists. Bent- 
 lej', 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 glo- 
 rious 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 nick- 
 names King through the progress of his Controversy, for his 
 tavern-pleasures, Humty-Dumt}*, and accuses him of writing 
 more in a tavern than in a study. He little knew the injus- 
 tice 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 
 
 * 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 com- 
 mand 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. 
 
 C C
 
 386 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 and me; for I have read his book all over."* Nor was this 
 all ; " Humty-Dumty" published eleven " Dialogues of the 
 Dead," supposed to be written by a student at Padua, con- 
 cerning " one Bentivoglio, a very troublesome critic in the 
 world ;" where, under the character of " Signior Moderno," 
 "Wotton falls into his place. Whether these dialogues morti- 
 fied 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 .f 
 
 Bentley, with his pecidiar idiom, had censured " all the 
 
 * A keen repartee ! Yet King|j 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 fi'om 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 "unna- 
 tural civil war" than even the blockheads whom Pope sarcastically re- 
 proaches with it. The great critic's own notion of his volume seems 
 equally modest and just. * ' To undervalue this dispiite about ' Phalaris,' 
 becaiise it does not suit one's own studies, is to quarrel with a circle be- 
 cause 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 ivorld.''' 
 —p. 107. 
 
 + 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 pre- 
 serve 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 tlic volume.
 
 Boyle and Bentley. 387 
 
 stiffness and stateliness, and operosenessJ of style, quite alien 
 from the character of ' Phalaris,' a man of business and de- 
 spatch." 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 lihrary-Tceeper, 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 Hfe 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 
 lihrary-Jceeper at St. James's.^' — This may serve as a specimen 
 of the Attic style of the controversy. Hard words some- 
 times 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 
 scom-ing ;" 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 " Col- 
 lection of Asinine Proverbs," and " throws him in one out 
 of Aristophanes," of "an ass carr^dng mysteries:" "a pro- 
 verb," says Erasmus, (as 'the Bees' construe him,) "applied 
 to. those who were preferred to some place they did not de- 
 serve, 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 de- 
 fence, 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 opportmiity 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 then* own;" and, in the impe- 
 rious style of Festus, add : — " Since Dr. Bentley has ap- 
 pealed 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. 
 
 " Sinc/le adversaries die and drop off; but societies are im- 
 
 oc2
 
 388 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 mortal : 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 hterary 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 Csesar's cruelty by this term, which 
 he invented from the very name of the tyrant.* 
 
 " There is a certain temper of mind that Cicero calls 
 Phalarism ; a spirit hke 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 Pha- 
 laris, 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 Eoseommon, 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 hull. 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. "f 
 
 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 
 
 * Cicero ad Atticum, Lib. vii., Epist. xii. 
 
 + No doubt tbis 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 Phahiris's attendants, wlio are putting him 
 into the tyrant's bull, while Bentley exclaims, "I had rather be roasted 
 than Boyled.''
 
 Boyle and Bentley. 389 
 
 book shall happen to be preserved anywhere as an useful 
 commonplace book for ridicule, bantex*, and all the topics of 
 calumny." With equal dignity and sense he observes on the 
 I'idieule so freely used by both parties — " I am content tliat 
 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 sup- 
 posed 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 Pha- 
 laris 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 Olj-mpiads, was at last con- 
 quered 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 zvooden 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 hegin to 
 helloio. 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 FhaJaris 
 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.* 
 
 * Sir Richard Blackmore, in his bold attempt at -writing "A Satire 
 against Wit," in utter defiance of it, without any, liowever, conveys some
 
 390 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 " The Episode of Bentley and Wottoii," in " The Battle of 
 the Books," is conceived with all the caustic imagination of 
 the first of our prose satirists. There Bentley's great quali- 
 ties are represented as " tall, without shape or comeliness ; 
 large, without strength or proportion." His various erudi- 
 tion, as "armour patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces ;'* 
 his hook, as "the sound" of that armour, " loud and dry, like 
 that made by the fall of a sheet of lead fi'om 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 ad- 
 versary, as in Bentley, are distorted into disgraceful attitudes ; 
 while the suspicious virtvies 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 Beutley 'tis we owe a Boyle. 
 
 Posterity justly appreciates the volume of Bentley for its 
 stores of ancient literature ; and the author, for that peculiar 
 ?agacity in emending a corrupt text, which formed his dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic as a classical critic ; and since his 
 book but for this literary quarrel had never appeared, reverses 
 ihe names in the verse of the " Satirist." 
 
 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 fi'iciids and foes 
 Conclude they know who did not write Ins prose." 
 
 A Satire ar/ainst Wit.
 
 PARKER AND MARVELL. 
 
 Marvell the founder of "a newly-refined art of jeering buffoonery" — Ms 
 knack of nicknaming his adversaries — Parker's Portrait — Parker sud- 
 denly 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 aUusioa 
 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 ven- 
 geance 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 sphit 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.* 
 
 The quarrel between Paekee and Maeyell is a striking 
 example of the efficient powers of genius, in first hunabling, 
 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.f But Marvell placed 
 
 * Randolph's Muses' Looking-glass. Act 1, Scene 4. 
 
 t 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."
 
 S92 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 incorrup- 
 tible in wit, and wherever its salt has fallen, that part is still 
 preserved. 
 
 Such are the vigour and fertilit}' of Marvell's writings, that 
 our old Chronicler of Literary History, Anthony Wood, con- 
 siders him as the founder of " the then newly-refined art 
 (though much in mode and fashion almost ever since) of 
 sportive and jeering buffoonery;"* 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 
 
 * 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 ? Tlie remark is, however, more 
 founded on truth than it appears, and arose from Wood's own feelings. 
 Wit and Eaillery 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 booh 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 who- 
 ever read them, the exercise of the virtue it inculcated, the publisher, in his 
 advertisement in Glavel'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 lon<j a doivfj, 
 to the great vexation and loss of the proposer." He adds, " indeed, so7Re 
 jcvi lines, no more than what may be contained i/i a quarto 'page, are 
 expunged, tkcy not relatimj 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 fcvi lines from 2400 
 folio pages ! and he consideretl 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.
 
 Parker and Marvell. 393 
 
 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 elo- 
 quence of invective, that awes one with the spirit of the 
 modern Junius,* 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, "t 
 
 The celebrated work here to be noticed is JMarvell's " Ee- 
 hearsal Transprosed ; " a title facetiousl}' adopted from Bayes 
 in "The Rehearsal Transposed" of the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham. 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 inco- 
 herence and ridiculousness of his character. Marvell had a 
 peculiar knack of calling names, — it consisted in appropria- 
 
 * The severity of his satire on Charles's court maybe well understood by 
 the following lines : — 
 
 "A colony of French possess the court, 
 Pimps, priests, buifoons, 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 per- 
 sonal 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 Hoi-ses" (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. 
 + So Burnet tells us.
 
 394; Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 ting a ludicrous character in some popular comedy, and 
 dubbing his adversaries with it. In the same spirit he ridi- 
 culed 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 christenmg 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,* 
 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 
 2Jreciousestf young men in the University." It seems that 
 these mortified saints, both the brotherhood and the sister- 
 hood, held their chief meetings at the house of " Bess Hamp- 
 ton, an old and crooked maid that drove the trade of laundry, 
 who, being from her youth very much given to tlie godly 
 party, as they call themselves, had frequent meetings, es- 
 pecially 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 " pre- 
 ciousest young man," from praying and caballing against 
 
 * See " The Ilelieai-sal Transprosed, the second part," p. 76. 
 
 + Oue 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 iu 
 the present.
 
 Parker and Marvell. 395 
 
 episcopacy, suddenly acqimiuted the world, in one of his dedi- 
 cations, that Dr. Ealph 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.* 
 It is the after-conduct of Parker that throws light on this 
 rapid change. On speculative points any man may be sud- 
 denly converted ; for these may depend on facts or arguments 
 which might never have occm-red 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 " pre- 
 ciousest 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 com- 
 mitted as manj^ extravagances as any of them ;t can we 
 
 * Marvell admirably describes Parker's journey to London at tbe Re- 
 storation, 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 govern- 
 ment would endure as long as this king lived, and from thenceforwards 
 cast about to find the highway to preferment. To do this, he daily en- 
 larged not only his convereation but his conscience, and was made free of 
 some of the town vices ; imagining, like JIuleasses, 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 abso- 
 lutely 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 be more safely indulged than their 
 consciences." Is it not difiicult to imagine that this man had once been an 
 Independent, the advocate for every congregation being independent of a 
 bishop or a synod ? 
 
 + 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 (wliich diminishes always the offence), 
 but in the cooler blood and sedentary execution of an high court of jus- 
 tice." He wrote a very remarkable book (after he had been petitioned
 
 396 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 hesitate to decide that this bold, haughty, and ambitious man 
 was one of those who, having neither rehgion nor morahty 
 for a casting weight, can easily fly off to opposite extremes ? 
 and whether a puiitan 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,* written by Parker, in which he had poured down 
 his contempt and abuse on his old companions, the Non- 
 conformists. It was then Marvell clipped his wings witli his 
 " Rehearsal Transprosed ;" his wit and humour were finely 
 contrasted with Parker's extravagances, set off in his de- 
 clamatory 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.f 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 impos- 
 sible to discern which was the true author of tlie ' Ecclesiasti- 
 
 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 jiresence, before witnesses, for a couple of whining fanatics." 
 — Rehearsal Transprosed, second part, p. 75. 
 
 * This preface was prefixed to Bishop Bramhall's "Vindication of the 
 Bishops from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery." 
 
 + 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 en- 
 titled his reply, " Iloseraary and Bayes;" another, "The Transproser 
 Eehearsed, or the Fifth Act of Mr. Bayes's Play ;" another, " Gregory 
 Father Greybeard, with his Vizai'd 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." — 
 Bio;i. Brit. p. 3055. 
 
 This was the very Bartlemy-fair of wit ! 
 
 I
 
 Parker and Marvell. 397 
 
 cal Polity.' I believe lie 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 humom*, 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 ;" * and it appears he got the 
 licence for printing Marvell's first Meliearsal 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 inter- 
 meddle 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 Py ramus, he 
 
 * The title will convey some notion of its intolerant principles : "A 
 Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity, wherein the authority of the Civil Ma- 
 gistrate over the Consciences of Subjects, in matters of external Religion, 
 is asserted."
 
 398 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 hi? 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 bufioons ;" 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 weatlier- 
 cocTc of a steeple, he trembles and cracks at every puff of wind 
 that blows about him, as if the Church of England were fall- 
 ing." 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 mercena- 
 ries, who, after parading all day, rarely unhorsed a single 
 cavalier. 
 
 MarveU 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 surx'ogate ; 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 exti'aordinary 
 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,
 
 Parker and MarvelL 399 
 
 as there was occasion. But the information came in so slen- 
 derly, that he was glad to make use of anything rather than 
 sit ut ; 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 com- 
 rades seemed to have set up a glass-house, the model of wliich 
 he had observed from the height of his window in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and the ai*t he had been initiated into ever since 
 from the manufacture (he will criticise because not orifacture) 
 of soap-hulhles, he improved by degrees to the mystery of 
 making gJass-drops, and thence, in running leaps, mounted by 
 these vhtues 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.* Marvell, who now perceived that 
 Milton, whom he never looked on but with the eyes of reve- 
 rential awe, was likely to be drawn into his quarrel, touches 
 on this subject w^th infinite dehcacy 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 
 cautiouslj'' 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 
 
 * Jlilton had Lecome acquainted -witli Marvell wlien travelling in Italy, 
 ■where he had gone to perfect his stiidies. He returned to England in 
 1653, and was connected with the Cromwellian party, through the intro- 
 duction of Milton, in 1657. The great poet was at that time secretary to 
 Cromwell, and he became his assistant-secretary. He afterwards repre- 
 sented his native town of Hull in Parliament. — Eu.
 
 400 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 tumultuous time, to be tossed on the wrong side ; and he writ, 
 flagrante hello, certain dangerous treatises. But some of his 
 books, upon whicli 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 iiave 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 your- 
 self 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 3'ou ; 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 cha- 
 racter, Mai'vell 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 encourage- 
 ment ; and if their vices be not notoriously palpable, let the 
 eye, as it defends its organ, so conceal the object by conni- 
 vance." But there are cases when even to write satirically 
 against a clergyman may be not only excusable, but neces- 
 sary : — " The man who gets into the ehm'ch 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 laseiviousness of his life with 
 an equal petulancy of style and language." — In such a con- 
 currence 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 shep- 
 herds, 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 bo
 
 Parker and Marvdl. 401 
 
 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 cither wit, learning, or so- 
 briety, 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 sanctuarj^ ; rather wheresoever men shall find the 
 footing of so wanton a satyr out of his own bounds, the neigh- 
 bourhood 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 ad- 
 versary: — 
 
 " 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 : there- 
 fore, I will here break off abruptly, leaving many a vein not 
 laid open, and man}- 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 ken- 
 nel ; 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 ivJiore!'^ 
 
 J) B
 
 402 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Although Parker retreated from any further attack, after 
 the second part of " The Rehearsal Trausprosed," he in truth 
 only suppressed passions to which he was giving vent in 
 secrecy and silence. That, indeed, was not discovered till a post- 
 humous work of his appeared, in which one of the most 
 striking parts is a most disgusting caricature of his old anta- 
 gonist, Marvell was, indeed, a republican, the pupil of 
 Milton, and adored his master : but his morals and his man- 
 ners 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 vii*tues 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 re- 
 semblance it affects to give after nature. Who (iould 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 petulaney 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.* 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 for- 
 merly made his reputation ;" but the familiar anecdote of 
 Marvell's political honesty, when, wanting a dinner, he de- 
 clined 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. 
 
 * Vanus, pannosus, et famelicus poetaster oenopolis quovis vapulans, 
 fuste et calce indies petulantix pcenas tulit — are the words iu Parker's 
 "2>e Rebus sui Tcmporis Oommcntariorum," p. 275.
 
 D'AVENA.NT 
 
 AND A CLUB OF WITS. 
 
 Calamities of Epic Poets — Character and Anecdotes of D'Avenant — at- 
 tempts 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 speci- 
 mens of the Satires on Gondibert, the Poet, and his Panegyrist Hobbes— 
 the Poet's silence ; and his neglect of the unfinished Epic, while the 
 Philosoper keenly retorts on the Club, and will not allow of any autho- 
 rity 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 Hfe, 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 assail- 
 ants of him who " builds the lofty rhyme," have been liis 
 imgenerous contemporaries. Men, whose names are now en- 
 deared to us, and who have left their KTHMA E2 AEI, which 
 Hobbes so energetically translates '• a possession for ever- 
 lasting," 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 beUeve that Milton did not 
 endure mortification from the neglect of " evil days," as cer- 
 tainly 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 efiectually 
 ridiculed, that he has only sent us down the fragment of a, 
 great work. 
 
 One of the curiosities in the history of om' poetrj', is the 
 GoNDiBEET of D'AvENAKT ; and the fortunes and the fate of 
 this epic are as extraordinary as the poem itself. Never has 
 
 D d2
 
 404 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 an author deserved more copious memoirs than the fertility 
 of tliis 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'Ave- 
 nant 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 ;* 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 
 
 * D'Avenant commenced his poem during his exile at Paris. The pre- 
 face is dated from the Louvre ; the postscript from Cowes Castle, in the 
 Isle of Wight, where he was then confined, expecting his immediate exe- 
 cution. The poem, in the first edition, 1651, is therefore abruptly con- 
 cluded. 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 au 
 experiment as dying ; — and 'tis an experiment to the most experienced ; 
 for no man (though his mortifications may be much greater than mine) can 
 Bay lie 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 profound est reflections on humau 
 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 gi-atitude 
 of two aldermen of York, whom he had obliged. It is delightful to be- 
 lieve 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 Re- 
 storation 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 sar- 
 casm 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."
 
 D'Avenant and a Club of Wits. 405 
 
 nairative poetry ; which not to call epic, he termed heroic ; 
 and which we who have more completely emancipated our- 
 selves from the arbitrary mandates of Aristotle and Bossu, 
 have since styled romantic. Scott, Southe}'', 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 per- 
 ceived, 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 mon- 
 strous drama, from the servile habits he had contracted from 
 his intercourse with the theatre ! This error of the poet has, 
 hov^ever, no material influence on the " Gondibert," as it has 
 come down to us ; for, discoui'aged 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 excel- 
 lence not willingly forgotten. The critics are marshalled on 
 each side, one against the other, while between these formidable
 
 406 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 lines stands the poet, with a few scattered readers ;* 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 
 
 * 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 opi- 
 nions 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 if 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 liis 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 hut man, in nia^is best loork 7iad 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 ai'e required to 
 abrogate obsolete ones. And what laws invented by man can be immu- 
 table ? 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.
 
 D'Avenant and a Club of IVits. 407 
 
 solemnity was felt by Dryden.* 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 
 bis 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 bands ! 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 affaii's could only have been composed 
 by one who had lived in a constant intercourse with man- 
 kind.t 
 
 * 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. 
 
 + 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 jfreoept : 
 
 " 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.
 
 408 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 antici- 
 pated this institution. On an estate consecrated to philosophy 
 stands a retired building on which is inscribed," Great Na- 
 ture's Office," inhabited by sages, who are styled "Nature's Re- 
 gisters," 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 tlie school of lAnncBUS ? 
 
 Thi-s 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.* Such a conscious dignity of 
 
 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 gatlier all !" 
 * Can one read such passages as these without catching some of the sym- 
 pathies of a great genius that knows itself ? 
 
 ' ' Ue who writes an heroic poem leaves an estate entailed, and he gives
 
 D*Avenant and a Club of Wits. 409 
 
 character struck the petulant wits with a provoking sense of 
 their own httleness. 
 
 A cluh of wits caballed and produced a collection of short 
 poems sarcasticall}"^ 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 vin- 
 dicated from the Wit-Combats of Four Esquires ; Clinias, 
 Dametas, Sancho and Jack Pudding ;"* with these mottoes : 
 
 Kor££t Kai aoidog doicqi. 
 
 Vatum quoque gratia, rara est. 
 
 Anglice, 
 
 One wit-brother 
 
 Envies another. 
 
 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 maj-est 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 reve- 
 rence 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 assur- 
 ance as thou hast made to thyself in like undertakings ? For when I ob- 
 serve that writers have many enemies, such inward assuiance, methinks, 
 resembles that forward confidence in men of arms, which makes them pro- 
 ceed 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." Shak- 
 speare could not have expressed his feelings, in his own style, more elo- 
 quently touching than D'Avenant. 
 
 * 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 PuddLug. 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/., but that of his wife repeatedly 
 figures for large sums, " as of free guift." In this way she receives 700/. 
 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. "
 
 410 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 him- 
 self. 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 some- 
 times 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-flagella- 
 tion 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 " in- 
 comparable ?" 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 i\\Qj 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 digni- 
 fied than their own. 
 
 Unfortunately for our " jeered Will," as in their usual court- 
 style they call him, he had met with "a foohsh mischance," 
 well known among the collectors of our British portraits. 
 There was a feature in his face, or rather no featm'e 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, ia verse or in prose, 
 There was none of a Laureat who wanted a nose. 
 
 Besides, he was now doomed — 
 
 Nor could old Ilobhes 
 Defend him from dry bobbs. 
 
 The preface of "Gondibert," the critical epistle of Hobbes,
 
 lyAvenant and a Club of Wits. 411 
 
 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. 
 
 Eoom for the best of poets heroic, 
 If you'll believe two wits and a Stoic. 
 Down go the Iliads, down go the JEneidos: 
 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 A^aso. 
 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 wTite his name as his father had 
 done. It is said he affected, at the cost of his mother's 
 honom*, to insinuate that he was the son of Shakspeare, who 
 used to bait at his father's inn.* These humorists first reduce 
 D'Avenant to " Old Daph." 
 
 * 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 hus- 
 band, ' ' 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 " Hndibi'as," &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
 
 412 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Denliam, 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 ti-ee. 
 
 One of the club inquires about the situation of Avencmt — 
 
 where now it lies, 
 
 Whether in Lombard,* 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 vjhere. 
 Thus Will, intending jy 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 fol- 
 lowing 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 kno^vn i' th' field ; 
 
 A face well charged, though nothing in his shield. 
 
 Sure fighting Will like basilisk did ride 
 
 Among the ti'oops, and all that savj 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 
 
 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. 
 
 * The scene where the story of "Gondibert" is placed, which the wits 
 sometimes pronounced Lumber and Lumhery.
 
 TyAvenant and a Club of JVits. 413 
 
 despatches from the Club : for there appears another poem on 
 D'Avenant's anger on such an occasion : — 
 
 A LETTER SEXT 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 GoxDiBERT : 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 bv 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 op- 
 portunity 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." 
 
 " jMy 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,
 
 41 4 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 re- 
 garded 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 magni- 
 tude 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 occm'red 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.
 
 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 — Sii- John Birkenhead excels in sarcasm, with specimens 
 of his " Merciuius Aulicus"— how he corrects his own lies — Specimens 
 of the Newspapers on the side of the Commonwealth. 
 
 Among these battles of Jogomaeliy, iu 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 dis- 
 tress and sorrow, stood forwards the facetious ancestors of that 
 numerous progeny who still flourish among us, and who, with- 
 out a suspicion of their descent, still bear the features of their 
 progenitors, and inherit so many of the family humours. 
 These were the Meecueies and Diuenals — the newspapers 
 of our Civil Wars. 
 
 The distinguished heroes of these Paper- Wars, Sir John 
 Birkenhead, Marchmont Needham, and Sir Eoger L'Estrange, 
 I have elsewhere portrayed.* 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 spec- 
 tator into a reader, every paper bore on its front the inviting 
 heads of its intelligence. Men placed in the same circum- 
 stances will act in the same manner, without any notion of 
 imitation ; and the passions of mankind ai'e 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 
 
 * " Ciu-iosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 158 (last edition}.
 
 416 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Butler and Cleveland. Hudibras is made happy at tlie idea 
 that he may be 
 
 Eegister'd by fame eternal, 
 
 In deathless pages cf Diuknal. 
 
 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 stjde 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 Apocrj^phal Parliament's 
 Book of Maccabees in single sheets." 
 
 But Cleveland tells us that these Diurnals differ frotti a 
 3Iercurius 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 Joiirr 
 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.* The royal 
 
 * There is a small poem, jiublishcd in 1643, entitled "The Great 
 Assizes holden in Parnassus," in the manner of a later work, "The Ses- 
 sions of the Poets, " in which all the Diurnals and Mercuries are arraigned
 
 The Paper- fVai^s of the Civil Wars. 417 
 
 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 
 ])liilosophy to the feelings of a party ? The originality of 
 Jjirkenhead's happy manner consists in his adroit use of sar-^ 
 casm : he strikes it ofi' by means of a parenthesis. I shall 
 give, as a specimen, one of his summaries of what the Parlia-- 
 mentary 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 JSfew-' 
 castle's liorse have submitted to the Lord Faijfax. (Thej 
 were part of the German horse which came over in the 
 J)anish fleet.)* That the Lord Wilmot hath been dead Jive 
 u-eeks, but the Cavaliers concealed his death. (Remember 
 this !) That Sir John JJrrey\ is dead and buried at Oxford, 
 (He died the same day with the Lord Wilmot.) That the 
 
 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 
 liighly, 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." 
 * Alluding to a ridiculous rumour, that the King was to receive foreign 
 troops by a Danish fleet. 
 
 t Col. Urrey, alias Hurrey, deserted the Parliament, and went over to 
 the King ; afterwards deserted the King, and discovered to the Parliameut 
 all he knew of the King s forces. — See Clarendon. 
 
 £ E
 
 418 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Cavaliers, before tliey have done, loill Hueeet 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 tlie Cavaliers which, Sir William Waller 
 tooh 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 1^0 good able men inHaioarden 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 suhttrbs 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.)* The Scottish 
 Dove saj'^s (there are Doves in Scotland !) that Haivarden 
 Castle had but forty men hi it when the Cavaliers took it. 
 (Another told you there were 140 lusty stout fellows in it : 
 for shame, gentlemen ! conferre Notes !) That Colonel Nor- 
 ton at Eumsey took 200 prisoners. (I saw them counted : 
 they were just two millions.) ThentheDoye hath this sweetpas- 
 sage : Aulicus, thou profane tvretch, that darest scandalize 
 God's saints, darest thou call that loyal subject Master Fym a 
 
 * This Sir William Brereton, or, as Clarendon writes the name, Bruer- 
 ton, 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 valiaat appetite is noticed : 
 
 " But, oh ! take heed lest he do eat 
 The Rump all at one dinner !" 
 And Aiilicus, 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 educa- 
 tions and course of life had been very dift'erent from their present engage- 
 ments, 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 prac- 
 tised in the King's quarters), insomuch as the best soldiers who encoun- 
 tered with them Lad no cause to despise them." — Clarendon, vol. ii. 
 p. 147.
 
 The Paper-Wars of the Civil Wars. 419 
 
 traitor? (Yes, pretty Pigeon* 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 Pyin 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. ")f 
 
 As Sir John was frequently the propagator of false intelli- 
 gence, it was necessary at times to seem scrupulous, and to 
 correct some shght errors. He does this very adroitly, with- 
 out 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 
 Ohadiah, Presbyter of Bread-sti-eet, 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.;}; I confess this was no small errour to reckon 
 
 * " The Scotch Dove" seems never to have recovered from this meta- 
 morphosis, 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 mulct," 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 !" 
 
 t This stroke alludes to a rumour of the times, noticed also by Clarendon, 
 that Pym died of the morbus pedlcidosus. 
 
 + "Peard, a bold lawyer of little note." — Clarendon. 
 
 E E 2
 
 420 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Master Pearcl among the Lawyers, because he now lies sicke, 
 and so favre from being their new Lo7^d Keeper, that he now 
 despairs to become their Door Keeper, which office he per- 
 formed 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 per- 
 fect 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 liis 
 Majesty's forces in Lincolnshire." 
 
 This paper was immediately answered by Maechmo^'T 
 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 ventvire his soule upon the other lialf- 
 sJieet ; 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 con- 
 ceits ; 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 lull 
 jest ; and I am informed that the three-quarter conceits in the 
 last leafe of his Diurnall cost him fourteen pence in aqua vitce.'''' 
 
 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 Britan- 
 nicus never did." 
 
 In the next number of Needham, who had always written 
 it JBrittanicus, 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, 
 n their unparalleled gazettes. 
 
 At the first breaking out of the parliament's separation 
 from the royal party, when the public mind, full of conster-
 
 The Paper-Wars of the Civil Wars. 421 
 
 nation in that new anarchy, shook Avith 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 correspon- 
 dence written from Spain, France, Italj% or Denmark : they 
 had their amusing literature, mixed with their grave jjolitics ; 
 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 as- 
 sures us that one of the most prevailing dangers among the 
 Londoners was " a design laid for a mine of powder undeif 
 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/. they raised a plot, they terrified the people, they 
 appointed a thanksgiving-da}'', and while their ministers ad- 
 dressed to God himself all the news of the week, and even 
 r-eproached him for the rumours against their cause, all ended, 
 as is usual at such times, with the gulled multitude contri- 
 buting more heavily to the adventurers who ruled them than 
 the legal authorities had exacted in their greatest wants. 
 "TheDiurnals" 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 WeeMy Accompt, Januarj'', 1G43 : — 
 
 "This day afforded no newes at all, but onely what was 
 lieavenlif and spiritual ;''^ and he gives an account of the 
 public fast, and of the grave divine iSlaster Henderson's ser- 
 mon, 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 !* 
 
 * Tliese 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
 
 422 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Such news as the foUowmg was sometimes very agree- 
 able : — 
 
 " From Oxford it is informed, that on Sunday last was 
 fortnight in the evening, Prince Eupert, accompanied with 
 some lords, and other cavaliers, danced through the streets 
 openly, icith music hefore 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 facie of ivomen, or ciirtizans, as it may be sup- 
 posed, 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 dralling are insepa- 
 rable companions, and follow one another close at the heels." 
 He assm'es his readers, that the malignants, or royalists, only 
 fight like sensual beasts, to maintain theu* dancing and drab- 
 bing ! — 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. 
 
 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 hatli prepared an engine in heaven to break 
 and blast the designs of all covenant-breakers." — Eu.
 
 POLITICAL CRITICISM 
 
 ON 
 
 LITERARY COMPOSITIONS. 
 
 Anthony "Wood and Locke — Milton and Sprat — Buknet 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. 
 
 YoLTAiRE, 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 Maelboeough was a coward, and Mr. Pope a 
 fool." 
 
 A foreigner indeed could hardly expect that in collecting 
 the chai-acters of English authors by English authors (a laboui' 
 which has long afforded me pleasure often interrupted by in- 
 dignation) — 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 -Jur/e mens des Sgavans, 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 ma}^ call Political Criticism in Literature ; 
 where an author's literary character is attacked solely fx'om 
 the accidental circumstance of his differing in opinion from 
 his critics on subjects unconnected with the topics he 
 treats of. 
 
 Covdd 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?"* But Locke was the antagonist of 
 I'jLiiEE, that advocate of arbitrary power ; and Locke is 
 
 * A forcible description of Locke may be found in the curious " Life of 
 Wood," written by himself. I shall give the passage where Wood acknow-
 
 424 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 be3'ond 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 alwaj's deficient in his 
 perceptions of genius, could only discover " a trader in fac- 
 tion," 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 inspira- 
 tions 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 sepa- 
 rating for ever the republican Secretary of State from the 
 rival of Homei". 
 
 That the genius of Milton pined away in solitude, and that 
 all the consolations of fame were denied him during his Hie, 
 from this political criticism on his works, is generally known ; 
 but not perhaps that tliis 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 
 
 ledges his after celebrity, at the very moment tlie bigotry of liis feelings is 
 attempting to degrade him. 
 
 Wood belonged to a club with Locke and others, for the purpose of hear- 
 ing 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 tlie 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, 
 the would be prating and troublesome."
 
 Political Criticism on Literary Composition. 425 
 
 polluting a monument raised in a church.* A mere critical 
 opinion on versification was thus sacrificed to political feeling: 
 — a sti-eam indeed which in its course has hardly yet worked 
 itself clear. It could only have been the strong political feel- 
 ing of Warton which could liave induced him to censure the 
 prose of Milton with such asperity, while he closed his criti- 
 cal eyes on its resplendent passages, which certainly he wanted 
 not the taste to feel, — for he caught in his own pages, occa- 
 sionally, 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 pre- 
 sent noble effusion of his criticism ; any other Epic by Milton 
 
 * 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 Mlltono 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. Attekbury, 
 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. Simmons, 
 in his " Life of Milton," observing on what he calls Dr. Johnson's " bio- 
 graphical libel on Milton," that Dr. Johnson has mentioned this fact, 
 seems to suspect its authenticity; for, if true, "it would cover the 
 respectable came 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 ^YARTON, 
 from the motive we are discussing ; though Warton, as my te.xt 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 i-eigns of the two Charleses. She turned out one of the malig- 
 nant 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 alije to 
 have drawn so finished a character of Satan, and that the Pandemonium, 
 with all the oratorical devils, was only such as he had himself viewed at 
 Oliver's council-board.
 
 426 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 had probably sunk beneatb 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 cen- 
 sures, 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 mviltiplicity of his facts r 
 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 Ti'uth " 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 discom'se, from its 
 lasting and universal nature. Yet these hallowing protesta- 
 tions 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.* 
 
 * I tbrow into this note several curious notices respecting Burnet, and 
 cliiefly 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 licur, that he was mistaken in sucli 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 1 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 1 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 re-
 
 Political Criticism on Literary Composition. 427 
 
 But this victim to political criticism on literature was him- 
 self criminal, and has wreaked his own party feelings on the 
 fcq)ist Dryden, and the Tory Prior ; Drydeu he calls, in the 
 
 preached with the deepest ingratitude, for the purpose of gratifying his 
 darling passion of popularity, in his conduct respecting the Duke of Lau- 
 derdale, 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 Rennet's MSS. " Dr. Burnet having over nvjht given 
 in some important depositions against the Earl of Lauderdale to the House 
 
 of Commons, was, before moriiinff, 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. 
 
 Burnefs character has been vigorously attacked, v,-ith all the nerve of 
 satire, in " Faction Displayed," attributed to Shippen, whom Pope cele- 
 brates — 
 
 " 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 fierce- 
 ness," 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 Ruard, 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 vrrote the 
 following lines on a report of a fire breakhig 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 flar/rctnt prefaces of pet r I y 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 lialf-burn'd maggots. 
 And there an introeluction 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 per- 
 petually haunted him, in his " Life of Sir T. Pope," p. 53. But if wo
 
 428 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 most unguai-ded language, " a monster of immodesty and im- 
 pm-ity of all sorts." There had been a literary quarrel 
 between Dryden and Burnet respecting a translation of 
 Yarillas' " History of Heresies ;" Burnet had ruined the credit 
 otf 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 ivorst 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 
 stj'le not to be permitted in any controvers}-, 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.* It could only have been the spirit of party which 
 
 substitute tlie 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 j)opularity, would 
 often rush headlong into improprieties of conduct and language ; his enemies 
 liave 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 pre- 
 served in the " Biographia Britannica." Burnet is not the only instance of 
 the motives of a man being honoui-able, 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 usual good humour, in his " Anglia Judaica," p. 277, notices 
 "tliat pleasant copious imagination which will for ever rank our English 
 .Burnet viith. the Gi'cclan IIdiodo7'us.'" 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 " o?ie Burnet" tells a ridiculous 
 story, m.imicking 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. 
 
 * 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 liteiary men, entirely 
 <originating in political feeling. One examjile may suffice :
 
 Political Criticism on Literary Composition. 429 
 
 induced Burnet, in his Histor}', to mention with contempt 
 and pretended ignoranee so fine a genius as " one Prior, who 
 had been Jersey's secretary." It was the same party-leeHng 
 in tlie Tory Prior, in his elegant " Alma," where he has inter- 
 woven so graceful a wreath for Pope, that could sneer at tlie 
 fine soliloquy of the Roman Cato of the Whig Addison : 
 
 I hope yoxi 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 con- 
 temporar}" wit has recorded this literary injury, by repeating 
 it.* 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 charac- 
 ter, but raised the horrid yell of the war-whoop in his in- 
 human exultation over the unhappy close of the desultory life 
 of a man of genius. Bitterly has he written — 
 
 From perils of a hvindred jails, 
 Withdrew to stai-ve, 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 book- 
 seller, who boasted he had a thousand projects, fancied he had 
 
 " 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." 
 * Dr. Wagstaffe, in his " Character of Steele," alludes to the rumour 
 which Pope has sent do-mi 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. Worh, p. 136.
 
 430 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 methodised six hundred, and was ruined by the fifty he exe- 
 cuted. The following is a specimen of that powerful irony iu 
 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 recol- 
 lect 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. 
 E/idpath, who is celebrated by the Dutch Gazetteer as one of 
 the best j)ens 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 em- 
 ployed 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 keen- 
 ness 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."* 
 
 *■ I know not how to ascertain tlie degree of political skill wliicli Steele 
 reached in his new career — he was at least a spirited Whig, but the ministry 
 was then under the malignant intiueuce of the concealed adiiereuts 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 iu the House disappointed his friends ; 
 from his popular Essays, it was expected he would have been a tiiient orator ; 
 this was no more the case with him tlian Addison. On this De Foe said 
 he had better have continued the Spectator than the Tatler. — Lansdowne's 
 M&S. 1097.
 
 Political Criticism on Literary Composition. 431 
 
 So far this fine ironical satii'e 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 : — 
 
 " B}'- this he would insinuate that those papers among the 
 Tatters 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 ? JVas he ever able to tvalk icith- 
 out his leadincj-strings, or swim without bladders, without 
 heincj discovered by his hobbling or his sinTcing ?" 
 
 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 sviificient 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 Eichard St — ie, Esq.," 
 was Dr. Wagstaffe, one of those careless wits* who lived to 
 
 * Wagstafie'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 ^neid. WagstaflFe tells us he has found ' ' in the library of a school- 
 boy, among other undiscovered valuable authors, one more proper to adora
 
 432 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 repent a crazy life of wit, fancy, and hope, and an easy, indo- 
 lent 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 show- 
 ing 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 inven- 
 tion to our political adventurers ; — thus Dr. Wagstaflfe 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.* 
 
 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 jEneas. 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, 
 gpurning at the minstrelsy of the nation ; Johnson's ridicule of "Percy's Re- 
 liques" liad its hour, but the more poetical mind of Scott has brought us 
 back to home feelings, to domestic manners, and eternal nature. 
 
 * I shall content myself with referring to "The Character of Kichard 
 St — le, Esq.," in Dr. Wagstafte's Miscellaneous Works, 1720. Considering 
 that he bad 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 "aiTested for the main- 
 tuuauce of his bastards, and afterwards printed a proposal that the public
 
 Political Criticism on Litei'ary Composition. 433 
 
 Steele was doomed even to lose the friendship of Addison 
 amid political discords ; hut on that occasion Steele showed that 
 his taste for literature could not he injured by political ani- 
 mosity. It was at the close of Addison's life, and on occa- 
 sion of the Peerage Bill, Steele published " The Plebeian," a 
 cry against enlarging the aristocracy, Addison replied with 
 "The Old Whig," Steele rejoined wdthout 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." 
 
 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 Dich 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 
 
 jjcirishes." 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 incoiTectly. Steele had this sentence : " And all, 
 as one man, wQl join in a common indignation against all who would per- 
 plex 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 reasonahle 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 ivith Aw name, which 
 I find they think they have much more room to sport with than foi'merly, 
 as it is lengthened with the monosyllable Sir." 
 
 F F
 
 434 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Steele replied with his usual warmth ; but indignant at the 
 charge of " vassalage," he says, " I will end this joaper, by 
 firing every free breast with that noble exhortation of the 
 tragedian — 
 
 Remember, 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 Cathohc), 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. Spehnan, in replying to this concealed motive 
 of the Catholic, reprehends him with equal humour and bitter- 
 ness for his desire of roasting a Frotestant 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 dis- 
 covers 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 com- 
 mend the performance."* 
 
 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 per- 
 son " 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 
 
 * "Rehearsal Transprosod," p. 45.
 
 Political Criticism on Literary Composition. 435 
 
 his candour. We read May now, as well as Clarendon ; nor 
 is the work of May that oi" 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 com- 
 position, according to the rules of history ; written with much 
 judgment, penetration, manliness, and spirit, and with a can- 
 dour that will greatly increase your esteem, when you under- 
 stand 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 litei'ature which 
 has produced much false and unjust criticism.* The better 
 spirit of the present times will maintain a safer and a more 
 honourable principle, — the true objects of Liteeature, the 
 cultivation of the intellectual faculties, stand entirely un- 
 connected with Politics and Religioi^', 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 crj-s- 
 talline 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 ! 
 
 * The late Gilbert Wakefield is an instance where the political and theo- 
 logical opinions of a recluse student tainted his pure literary works. Con- 
 demned as an enraged Jacobin by those who were Unitarians in politics, and 
 rejected because he was a Unitarian in religion by the orthodox, poor Wake- 
 field'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 medi- 
 tate a beginning, during the winter, of my criticisms on all the ancient 
 Greek and Latin authors, hi/ small piecemeals, on the cheapest possible 
 paper, and at the least "possible expense of pirintinff. 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 litera- 
 ture. Since his death it has been reprinted, and is no doubt now a market- 
 able 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 publi- 
 cation" he was compelled to abandon ! Yet the classic erudition of Wake- 
 field was confessed, and is still remembered. No one will doubt that we 
 have lost a valuable addition to our critical stores by this literary persecu- 
 tion, were it only in the present instance ; but examples are too numerous ! 
 
 F F 2
 
 HOBBES, AND HIS QUARRELS; 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 Why Hobbes disguised liis 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 par- 
 ties — 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 philo- 
 sophy — the SELFISH of Hobbes — his higli sense of his works, in regard 
 to foreigners and posterity — his montrous egotism — his devotion to his 
 literary pursuits — the despotic principle of the Leviathan of an inno- 
 cent tendency — the fate of systems of opinions. 
 
 The history of the philosopher of Malmesbury exhibits a 
 large picture of hterary 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, sup- 
 press them ; and hence all their ambiguous proceedings, all 
 that ridicule and irony, and even recantation, with which in- 
 genious minds, when forced to their emplo}', have never failed 
 to try the patience, or the sagacity, of intolerance.* 
 
 * Shaftesbury has thrown out, on this head, some important truths :— 
 " If men are forbid to speak their minds seriously, they will do it ironi- 
 cally. If they find it dangerous to do so, they will then redouble their 
 disguise, involve themselves into mysteriousness, and talk so as hardly to be 
 •understood. The persecuting spirit has raised the hanterlnf/ one. The 
 higher the slavery, the more exquisite the buftoonery." — Vol. i. p. 71. 
 The subject of our present inquiry is a very remarkable instance of "in- 
 volving 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 AH-
 
 Hobbes. 437 
 
 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 theu 
 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 philo- 
 sopher the abject creature he has himself imagined ; and it is 
 then he libels the species from his own individual experience.* 
 
 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 ivay 
 of reasoning''' — that is, to a most extraordinary burlesque spirit in po- 
 litics 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 
 I'ing / it would not excuse him." 
 
 * The moral axiom of Solon "Know thyself" (Nosce teipsu7)i), ap- 
 plied by the ancient sage as a corrective for our own pride and vanity, 
 Hobbes contracts into a naiTow 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 en-or 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
 
 438 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 More generous tempers, men endowed with warmer imagina- 
 tions, awake to sympathies of a higher nature, will indig- 
 nantly reject the system, which has reduced the unlucky 
 s^'stem-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 per- 
 jDetuate their name by leaving it to a sect.* 
 
 found that courage was a real virtue, which had induced him, had it been 
 necessary, to have shed liis 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. 
 
 * They were distinguished as Hohbisfs, and the opinions as Tlohhianism, 
 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 quingeutos, oclo quoque undecies." 
 lint \hQ ITolibists 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 Cla- 
 rendon, in the preface to his "Survey of the Leviathan." The qualities 
 of the author, as well as the book, were well adapted for proselytisni ; 
 for Clarendon, who was intimately acquainted with him, notices his con- 
 fidence in conversation — his never allowing himself to be contradicted — his 
 bold inferences — the novelty of his expressions — and his jDrobity, 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 exist- 
 ing 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 admii-e ; 
 this appears by a jiublication of the times, intituled, "Twelve Ingenious 
 Characters, &c." 1(J86, 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 him- 
 self an Atheist, yet he boasts aloud that he holds his gospel from the 
 Apostle of JlJalincshurt/, though it is more than probable he never read, at
 
 Hobbes. 439 
 
 The eloquent and thinking Madame de Stael has asserted 
 that "Hobbes was an AiJieist and a Slave.^' Yet I still 
 think that Hobbes believed, and proved, the necessary exis- 
 tence 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 fer- 
 vent inquir}^, 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 om* own constitution, which presumes to 
 be neither.* 
 
 least understood, ten leaves of tJiat unlucTcy author^ If such were bis 
 wretched disciples, Hobbes was indeed "an unlucky author," for their 
 morals and habits were quite opposite to those of their master. Eaohard, 
 in the preface to his Second Dialogue, 1673, exhibits a very Lucianic ar- 
 rangement 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 J5o.r-/r(cnfZsof 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 comer ; for the satirist confesses that ' ' his Gallery-friends, who 
 were such resolved practicants in Hohhianism (by whicli 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. 
 
 * Hobbes, in defending Thucydides, whom he has so admirably trans- 
 lated, from the charge of some obscui-ity in his design, observes that 
 " j\Iarcellinus 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 
 uiueli controversy, and, in some respects, preseiwed him in an inglorious 
 security.
 
 440 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 As "The Leviathan" ])roduced the numerous controversies 
 of Hobbes, a history of this great moral curiosity enters intc^ 
 our subject. 
 
 Hobbes, living in times of anarchy, perceived the necessity 
 of re-establishing authority with more than its usual foi'ce. 
 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 ? — atopic 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 dedi- 
 cation of his work. " In a way beset with those that con- 
 tend on one side for too great liberty, on the other side for 
 too much authority, 'tis hard to pass between the points of 
 both iniwounded." 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 sove- 
 reign 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 Sove- 
 reign, or by whatever name was found most pleasing; he per- 
 sonified it by the image of " Leviathan." * 
 
 * 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." Reborrowed 
 the name from that sea-monster, that mightiest of jiowers, 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
 
 Hobbes. 441 
 
 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 i\\Q\\hec?irae a duty: these were 
 consequences quite natural to one who at his lirst step de- 
 graded 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 com- 
 municate 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 usui-per offered Hobbes the office 
 of Secretary of State ; and that he was afterwards pensioned 
 by the monarch, 
 
 A philosophical system, moral or pohtical, 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 conve- 
 nience of the philosopher himself; his personal character 
 enters a good deal into the system. The object of Hobbes in 
 
 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 Levi- 
 athan," 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 Cla- 
 rendon, who, he soon discovered, could not approve of the hardy tenets. 
 '* He frequently came to me," says his lordship, "and told me his book 
 {v:?iich he %could call Leviathan) was then printing in England. He 
 said, that he knew when I read his book I would not like it, and men- 
 tioned 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 philo- 
 sophical systems have, probably, been raised "between jest and earnest ;" 
 yet here was a text-book for the despot, as it is usually accepted, delibe- 
 rately 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 !
 
 412 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 his " Leviathan" was always ambiguous, because it was, in 
 truth, one of" these S3'stems of expedienc}'", conveniently adapted 
 to what has been termed of late "existing cii'cumstances." 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 per- 
 petuall}^ shifting and disguising ; for the truth is, no man 
 loved slavery less.* 
 
 * The duplicity of the system is strikingly revealed by Burnet, who 
 tells of Hobbes, that "he put all the law in the will of i\ie x>rince or the 
 X>coplc ; 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 Uchreivs were stern republicans ; and liberty seems to have 
 had a nobler birth in the North among our German ancestors, than per- 
 haps 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 iyra7ino2)hobia, 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 tlic Leviathan produced on the royal party 
 was quite unexpected by the autlior. 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 advo- 
 cates. Our philosopher must Iiave been thunderstruck at the insinuation, 
 for he had presented tlie royal exile, as Clarendon i)i liis "Survey" informs 
 Bs, with a magnificent copy of " The Leviatlian," written on vellum ; this 
 beautiful specimen of caligraphy may still be seen, as we learn from the Gen- 
 flcman's Magazine for January, 1813, where the curiosity is fully described. 
 The suspicion of Uobbes's principles was so strong, that it produced hi
 
 Hobbes. 443 
 
 The system of Hobbes could not be limited to politics : he 
 tnew that the safety of the people's morals required an 
 EstahJislied TLeVigion. The alliance between Church and State 
 had been so violently shaken, that it was necessar}^ to cement 
 them once more. As our philosopher had been terrified in 
 his politics by the viev/ of its contending factions, so, in reli- 
 gion, he experienced the same terror at the hereditarj'' 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 
 
 sudden dismissal from the presence of Charles II. -when at Paris. The 
 king, indeed, said ho believed Hobbe^ 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 ^santer 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 vehe- 
 ment advocate in flight ! 
 
 Theambiguity of "The Leviathan" seemed still more striking, whenHobbes 
 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 prin- 
 ciple, the republicans maintained the riglit 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 subtUely 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 rein- 
 stating 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 O'rni justification, after the Restoration of Charles II., 
 when accused by the great mathematician. Dr. AVallis, a republican imder 
 Cromwell, of having written his work in defence of Oliver's government.
 
 444 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 factions :* he therefore asserted that the rehgion of the 
 people ought to exist, in strict conformity to the will of the 
 State.f 
 
 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 
 
 Hobbes does Dot deny that " he placed the right of government whereso- 
 ever should be the strength." Most subtilely be 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 Reputa- 
 tion, Loyalty, d-c, of Mr. Hohhes. 
 
 * 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 
 eifect. 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. 
 
 + Warburton has most acutely distinguished between the intention of 
 Hobbes and that of some of his successors. The bissbop 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, Tiudal, 
 Bolingbroke, and all that school. They maliciou.sly endeavoured to show 
 the Gospel was unreasonahlc ; 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," book i. c. v. It is curious to observe the noble disciple 
 of Hobbes, Lord Bolingbroke, a strenuous advocate for his political and 
 moral opinions, enraged at vhat he calls his "High Church notions." 
 Trenchard and Gordon, in their Independent Whig, No. 44, that libel 
 on the clergy, accuse them of yl /Ae/.s'))i and llohbism ; while some divines 
 as earnestly reject Hobbes as an Atheist ! Our temperate sage, though 
 angi'ied at that spirit of contradiction which he had raised, must, however, 
 have sometimes smiled both on his advocates and his adversaries !
 
 Hobbes. 445 
 
 a man has washed himself clean, the stain will be found to 
 have dyed the skin.* 
 
 * The odious term of A thcist has been too often applied to many great 
 men of our nation by the hardy malignity of party. Were I to present a 
 catalogue, the very names would refute the charge. Let us examine the 
 religious sentiments of Hobbes. The materials for its investigation are not 
 common, but it will prove a dissertation of facts. I wai'n some of my 
 readers to escape from the tediousness, if they cannot value the curiosity. 
 
 Hobbes has himself thrown out an observation in his ' ' Life of Thucydides" 
 respecting Anaxagoras, that "his opinions, being of a strain above the 
 apprehension of the vulgar, procured him the estimation of an Atheist, 
 ■which name they bestowed upon all men that thought not as they did of 
 their ridiculous religion, and in the end cost him his life." This was a 
 parallel case with Hobbes himself, excejjt its close, which, however, seems 
 always to have been in the mind of our philosopher. 
 
 Bayle, who is for throwing all things into doubt, acknowledging that 
 the life of Hobbes was blameless, adds. One might, however, have been 
 tempted to ask him this question : 
 
 Heus age responde ; minimum est quod scire laboro ; 
 J)e Jove quid sends? — Persics, Sat. ii. v. 17. 
 
 Hark, now ! resolve this one short question, friend ! 
 What are thy thoughts of Jove ? 
 
 But Bayle, who compared himself to the Jupiter of Homer, powerful in 
 gathering and then dispersing the clouds, dissipates the one he had just 
 raised, by showing how "Hobbes might have answered the question with 
 sincerity and belief, according to the icriiers of his lifc.^' — But had Bayle 
 known that Hobbes was the author of all the lives of himself, so partial an 
 evidence might have raised another doubt with the great sceptic. It rp- 
 pears, by Aubrey's papers, that Hobbes did not wish his biography should 
 appear when he was living, that he might not seem the author of it. 
 
 Baxter, who knew Hobbes intimately, ranks him with Spinosa, by a strong 
 epithet for materialists — "The Brutists, Hobbes, and Spinosa." He tells 
 us that Selden would not have him in his chamber while dying, calling out, 
 " No Atheists !" But by Aubrey's papers it appears that Hobbes stood by 
 the side of his dying friend. It is certain his enemies raised stories against 
 him, and told them as suited their purpose. In the Lansdowne MSS. I 
 find Dr. Grenville, in a letter, relates how ' ' Hobbes, when in France, and 
 like to die, betrayed such expressions of repentance to a great prelate, from 
 whose mouth I had this relation, that he admitted him to the sacrament. 
 But Hobbes afterwards made this a subject of ridicule in companies." — Lans- 
 downe MSS. 990—73. 
 
 Here is a strong accusation, and a fact too ; yet, when fully developed, 
 the result will turn out greatly in favour of Hobbes. 
 
 Hobbes had a severe illness at Paris, which lasted six months, thus 
 noticed in his metrical life : 
 
 Dein per sex menses morbo decumbo propinque 
 Accinctus morti ; nee fugio, ilia fugit. 
 
 It happened that the famous Guy Patin was his physician ; and in one of 
 those amusing letters, where he puts down the events of the day, like a 
 newspaper of the times, in No. 61, has given an account of his intercourse
 
 446 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 To me it appears that Hobbes, to put an end to tTiese 
 religious wars, which his age and country had witnessed, per- 
 petually kindled by crazy fanatics and intolerant dogmatists, 
 insisted that the crosier should be carried in the left hand of 
 
 with the philosopher, in which he says that Hobbes endured such pain, 
 that he would have destroyed himself — " QuHl avoit roulu se tuer." — 
 Patin is a vivacious writer : we are not to take him au pied de la lettre. 
 Hobbes was systematically tenacious of life : and, so far from attempting 
 suicide, that he wanted even the courage to allow Patin to bleed him ! It 
 was during this illness that the Catholic party, who like to attack a Pro- 
 testant in a state of unresisting debility, got his learned and intimate friend, 
 Father Mersenne, to hold out all the benefits a philosopher might derive 
 from their Church. When Hobbes was acquainted with this proposed inter- 
 view (says a French contemporary, whose work exists in MS., but is quoted 
 in Joly's folio volume of Eemarks on Bayle), the sick man answered, 
 " Don't let him come for this ; I shall laugh at him ; and perhaps I may 
 convert him myself." Father Mersenne did come ; and when this mission- 
 ary was opening on the powers of Eome to grant a plenary pardon, he was 
 interrupted by Hobbes — ' ' Father, I have examined, a long time ago, all 
 these points ; I should be sorry to dispute now ; you can entertain me in 
 a more agreeable manner. When did you see Mr. Gassendi ?" TLe 
 monk, who was a philosopher, perfectly understood Hobbes, and this inter- 
 view never interrupted their friendship. A few days after. Dr. Cosiu 
 (afterwards Bishop of Durham), the great prelate whom Dr. Greuville 
 alludes to, prayed with Hobbes, who first stipulated that the prayers 
 should be those authorised by the Church of England ; and he also 
 received the sacrament with reverence. Hobbes says : — "Magnum hoc 
 erga disciplinam Episcopalem signum erat reverentiffi." — It is evident that 
 the conversion of Father Mersenne, to which Hobbes facetiously alluded, 
 could never be to Atheism, but to Protestantism : and had Hobbes been 
 an Atheist, he would not have risked his safety, when he arrived in Eng- 
 land, by his strict attendance to the Church of England, resolutely refusing 
 to unite with any of the sects. His views of the national religion were not 
 only enlightened, but in this respect he showed a boldness in his actions 
 very unusual with him. 
 
 But the religion of Hobbes was " of a strain beyond the apprehension of 
 the vulgar," and not very agreeable to some of the Church. A man may 
 have peculiar notions respecting the Deity, and yet be far removed from 
 Atheism ; and in his political system the Church may hold that subordinate 
 jjlace which some Bishops will not like. When Dr. Grenville tells us 
 " Hobbes ridiculed in companies" certain matters which the Doctor held 
 sacred, this is not sufficient to accuse a man of Atheism, though it may 
 prove him not to have held orthodox opinions. From the MS. collections 
 of the French contemporary, who well knew Hobbes at Paris, I transcribe 
 a remarkable observation : — "Hobbes said, that he was not surprised that 
 the Independents, who were enemies of monarchy, could not bear it in 
 heaven, and that therefore tliey placed there three Gods instead of one ; 
 but he was astonished that the English bishops, and those Presbyterians 
 who were favourers of monarchy, should persist in the same opinion con- 
 cerning the Trinity. He added, that the Episcopalians ridiculed the
 
 Hohbes. 4.47 
 
 his Leviathan, and the sword in his right.* He testified, as 
 strongly as man oould, by his pubhc 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 en- 
 Puritans, and the Puritans the Episcopalians ; but that the wise ridiculed 
 both alike." — Lantiniana MS. quoted by Joly, p. 434. 
 
 The religion of Hobbes was in conformity to State and Church. He 
 had, however, the most awful notions of the Divinity. He confesses he is 
 unacquainted with " the nature of God, but not with the necessity of the 
 existence of the Power of all powers, and First Cause of all causes ; so that 
 ■we know that God is, though not what he is." See his " Human 
 Nature," chap. xi. But was the God of Hobbes the inactive deity of 
 Epicurus, who takes no interest in the happiness or misery of his created 
 beings ; or, as Madame de Stael has expressed it, with the point and feli- 
 city of French antithesis, was this "an Atheism with a God ?" This con- 
 sequence some of his adversaries would draw from his principles, which 
 Hobbes indignantly denies. He has done more ; for in his De Corpore 
 Politico, he declares his belief of all the fundamental points of Christianity, 
 part i. c. 4, p. 116. Ed. 1652. But he was an open enemy to those "who 
 presume, out of Scripture, by their own interpretation, to raise any doc- 
 trine to the understamling, concerning those things which are incompre- 
 hensible ;" and he refers to St. Paul, who gives a good rule " to think 
 soberly, accordinrj as God hath dealt to evei~y man the measure of faith." 
 — Rom. xii. 3. 
 
 * This he pictures in a strange engraving prefixed to his book, and 
 representing a crowned figure, whose description will be found in the note, 
 p. 440. It is remarkable that when Hobbes adopted the principle that 
 the ecclesiastical should be united with the sovereign power, he was then 
 actually producing that portentous change which had terrified Luther and 
 Calvin ; who, even in their day, were alarmed by a* new kind of political 
 Antichrist; that " Cesarean Popery" which Stubbe so much dreaded, and 
 which I have here noticed, p. 358. Luther predicted that as the pope had 
 at times seized on the political sword, so this "Casareaa Popeiy," under 
 the pretence of policy, would grasp the ecclesiastical crosier, to form a poli- 
 tical church. The curious reader is referred to Wolfius Lectionum Memo- 
 rabilium et reconditarum, vol. ii. cent. x. p. 987. Calvin, in his com- 
 mentary on Amos, has also a remarkable passage on this political church, 
 animadverting on Amaziah, the priest, who would have proved the Bethel 
 worship warrantable, because settled by the royal authority: "It is tlie 
 king's chapel." Amos, vii. 13. Thus Amaziah, adds Calvin, assigns the 
 king a double function, and maintains it is in his power to transform reli- 
 gion into what shape he pleases, while he charges Amos with disturbing 
 the public repose, and encroaching on the royal prerogative. Calvin zeal- 
 ously reprobates the conduct of those inconsiderate persons, " who give 
 the civil magistrate a sovereignty in religion, and dissolve the Church into 
 the State." The supremacy in Church and State, conferred on Henry VIII., 
 was the real cause of these alarms ; but the passage of domination raged 
 not less fiercely in Calvin than in Henry VIII. ; in the enemy of kings than 
 in kings themselves. Were the forms of religion more celestial from the 
 sanguinary hands of that tyrannical reformer than from those of the re-
 
 448 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 croachments of the Churchmen in his poHtical system; jealous 
 of that supremacy at which some of them aimed. Many en- 
 lightened bishops sided with the philosopher.* At a time 
 when Milton sullenly withdrew from every public testimonial 
 of divine worship, Hobbes, with more enlightened views, 
 attended Clmrch service, and strenuously supported aw estab- 
 lished 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 contradic- 
 tion, was too often tried ; and if, as his adversary, Harrington, 
 in the " Oceana," says, " Truth be a spark whereunto objec- 
 tions 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."t 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." J These 
 
 forming tyrant ? The system of our philosopher was, to lay all the wild 
 spirits which have haunted us in the chimerical shapes of non-conformity. 
 I have often thought, after much observation on our Church history since 
 the Reformation, that the devotional feelings have not been so much con- 
 cerned in this bitter opposition to the National Church as the rage of 
 ■dominion, the spirit of vanity, the sullen pride of sectarism, and the delu- 
 sions of madness. 
 
 * Hobbes himself tells us that "some bishops are content to hold their 
 authority from the ]cin(fs letters patents ; others will needs have somewhat 
 more they know not what of divine rights, &c., not acknowledging the 
 poicer of the king. It is a relic still remaining of the venom of popish 
 ambition, lurking in that seditious distinction and division between the 
 power spiritual and civil. The safety of the State does not depend on the 
 safety of the clergy, but on the cntireness of the sovereign p>owcr.'" — Con- 
 siderations upon the Reputation, <£t. , of Mr. Hobbes, p. 44. 
 
 -)- This royal observation is recorded in the " Sorberiana." Sorbiere 
 gleaned the anecdote during his residence in England. By the *' Aubrey 
 Papers," which have been published since I composed this article, I find 
 that Charles II. was greatly delighted by the wit and repartees of Hobbes, 
 who was at once bold and happy in making his stand amidst the court wits. 
 The king, whenever he saw Ilobbes, who had the privilege of being ad- 
 mitted into the royal presence, would exclaim, " Here comes the bear to 
 be baited." This did not allude to his native roughness, but the force of 
 his resistance when attacked. 
 
 t See "Mr. Hobbes's State of Nature considered, in a Dialogue between 
 Philautus and Timothy." The second dialogue is not contained in the
 
 Hobbes. 449 
 
 were mucli extolled, and kept up the laugh a2;ainst the philo- 
 sophic misanthropist : once when he was told that the clerijy 
 said that "Eachard had crucified Hobhes," he bitterly retorted, 
 " Why, then, don't they fall down and tcorshij) me ?" * 
 
 " 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 des- 
 potic 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," Hung his harpoon, demon- 
 strating 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 wdio were labouring to 
 the same end.f The literary wars of Hobbes were fierce and 
 long ; heroes he encountered, but heroes too Avere 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 Hohhisfs, but 
 the greater one of dividing his adversaries, who often re- 
 treated, rather fatigued than victorious. Hobbes owed this 
 partly to the happiness of a genius which excelled in contro- 
 versy, 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 equi- 
 
 eleventh edition of Eachard's Works, 1705, which, however, was long after 
 his death, so careless were the publishers of those days of their authors' 
 works. The literary bookseller, Tom Davies, who ruined himself by giving 
 good editions of our old authors, has preserved it in his own. 
 
 * "A Discourse Concerning Irony," 1729, p. 13. 
 
 t Men of very opposite principles, but aiming at the same purpose, are 
 reduced to a dilemma, by the spirit of party in controversy. Sir Robert 
 Filmer, who wrote against "The Anarchy of a Limited Monarchy," and 
 " Patriarcha," to re-establish absolute 2^oiuer, derived it from the scriptural 
 accounts of the patriarchal state. But Sir Kobert and Hobbes, though alike 
 the advocates for supremacy of power, were as opposite as possible on theo- 
 logical points. Filmer had the same work to perform, but he did not like the 
 instruments of his fellow-labourer. His manner of proceeding with Hubbes 
 shows his dilemma : he refutes the doctrine of the " Leviathan," while he 
 confesses that Hobbes is right in the main. The philosopher's reasonings 
 stand on quite another foundation than the scriptural authorities deduced 
 by Filmer. The result therefore is, that Sir Kobert had the trouble to 
 confute the very thing he afterwards had to establish ! 
 
 G a
 
 450 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 vocal 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 sophis- 
 try 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 philoso- 
 pher. 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,* without the participation of Wood, who resented it 
 
 * It may be curious to some of my readers to preserve that part of 
 Hobbes's Letter to Antbony Wood, in the rare tract of his "Latin 
 Life," in which, with great calmness, the pliilosopher has painfully col- 
 lated the odious interpolations. All that was written in favour of the 
 morals of Hobbes — of the esteem in which foreigners held him — of the 
 royal patronage, &c., were maliciously erased. Hobbes thus notices the 
 amendments of Bishop Fell : — 
 
 ' ' Nimirum iibi mihi tu ingenium attribuis Sohrium, ille, deleto Soirio, 
 substituit A cri. 
 
 ' ' Ubi tu scripseras Libellum scripsit de Give, interposuit ille inter Li- 
 hellum et de Cive, rebus 2^erniisccndis natum, de Cive, quod ita manifeste 
 ■falsum est, &c. 
 
 " Quod, ubi tu de libro meo Leviathan scripsisti, primo, quod esset, 
 Vicinis gentibus notissimus interposuit ille, publico damno. Ubi tu 
 scripseras, scripsit librum, interposuit ille moiistrosissimum." 
 
 A noble confidence in his own genius and celeVmty breaks out in this 
 Epistle to Wood. " In leaving out all that you have said of my character 
 and reputation, the dean has injured you, but cannot injure me ; for long 
 since has my fame winged its way to a station from which it can never 
 descend." One is surprised to find such a Jliltonic spirit in the contracted 
 soul of Hobbes, who in his own system might have cynically ridiculed the 
 passion for fame, which, however, no man felt more than himself. In his 
 controversy with Bishop Bramhall (whose book he was cautious not to answer 
 till ten years after it was published, and his adversary was no more, pre- 
 tending he had never heard of it till then !) he breaks out with the same 
 feeling: — "What my works are, he was no fit judge; but now he has 
 provoked me, I will say thus much of tliem, that neitlier he, if he had 
 lived, could — nor I, if I would, can — extinguish the light which is set up 
 in the world by the greatest part of them." 
 
 It is curious to observe that an idea occurred to Hobbes, which some 
 authors have attempted lately to put into practice against their critics — to 
 prosecute them in a court of law ; but the knowledge of mankind was one 
 of the liveliest faculties of Ilobbcs's mind ; he knew well to what account 
 common minds place the injured feelings of authorship ; yet were « Juri/ 
 of literary men to sit in judgment, we might have a good deal of business 
 in the court for a long time ; the critics and the authors would finally have 
 a very useful body of reports and pleadings to appeal to ; and the public 
 would be highly entertained and greatly instructed. On this attack of
 
 Hohbes. 451 
 
 with his honest warmth, was only an arrow snatched from a 
 quiver which was every clay 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 diflScult to assign 
 a reason for not liking : 
 
 I don't like thee, Dr. Fell, 
 The reason wliy I cannot tell, 
 But I don't like tliee, Dr. Fell ! 
 
 A curious incident in the history of the mind of this philo- 
 sopher, was the mysterious panic which accompanied him to 
 his latest day. It has not been denied that Hobbes was sub- 
 ject to occasional terrors : he dreaded to be left without com- 
 pany ; 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 ! '"' — another, that 
 he dreaded assassination ; an ideal poniard indeed might scare 
 even a materialist. But Bishop Atterbury, in a sermon on 
 tJie Terrors of Conscience, illustrates their nature by the 
 character of our philosopher. Hobbes is there accused of at- 
 tempting to destroy the principles of religion against his own 
 inward conviction : this would only prove the insanity of 
 
 Bishop Fell, Hobbes says — " I might perhaps have an action on the case 
 against him, if it were worth my while ; but juries seldom consider the 
 Quarrels of Authors as of much moment." 
 
 ■^ Bayle has conjured up an amusing theory of apparitions, to show that 
 Hobbes might fear that a certain combination of atoms agitating his brain 
 might so disorder his mind that it would expose him to spectral visions ; 
 and being very timorous, and distrusting his imagination, he was averse to 
 be left alone. Apparitions happen frequently in dreams, and they may 
 happen, even to an incredulous man, when awake, for reading and hearing 
 of them would revive their images — these images, adds Bayle, might play 
 him some unlucky trick ! \Ye are here astonished at the ingenuity of a 
 disciple of Pyrrho, who in his inquiries, after having exhausted all human 
 •evidence, seems to have demonstrated what he hesitates to believe ! Per- 
 haps the tnith was, that the sceptical Bayle had not entirely freed him- 
 self from the traditions which were then still iloating from the fireside to 
 the philosopher's closet : he points his pen, as J^lneas brandished his sword 
 at the Gorgons and Chimeras that darkened the entrance of Hell j wanting 
 the admonitions of the sibyl, he would have rushed in — 
 
 Et frustra ferro divcrbcret umlras. 
 
 G g2
 
 452 Quarrels of Author's. 
 
 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 combnrcndo was intended for him by Bishop Seth 
 "Ward, his quondam admirer.* 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 uncon- 
 trollable dictates of Necessity." He exhausts his imagina- 
 tion 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 bodi/, 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 car- 
 case." Death was perhaps the only subject about which 
 Hobbes would not dispute. 
 
 Such a materialist was then liable to terrors ; and though, 
 
 * The papers of Aubrey confirm my suggestion. I sliall give the words — 
 " There was a report, and surely true, that in parliament, not long after 
 the king was settled, some of the bishops made a motion to have the good 
 old gentleman burned for a heretique ; which he hearing, feared that his 
 papers might be seai-ched by their order, and he told me he had burned 
 part of them." — p. 612. When Aubrey requested Waller to write verses 
 on Hobbes, the poet said that he was afraid of the Churchmen. Aubrey 
 tells us — " I have often heard him say that he was not afraid of <S^5?v'//A?a-, 
 but afraid of being knocked on the head for five or ten pounds which rogues 
 miglit think he had in his chamber." Tlus reason given by Hobbes for 
 his frequent alarms was an evasive reply for too curious and talkative an 
 inquirer. Hobbes has not concealed the cause of his terror in his metrical 
 life— 
 
 " Tunc venit in mentem mihi Dorislaus et Ascham, 
 Tanquam proscripto terror ubique aderat." 
 
 Dr. Dorislaus and Ascham had f;illen under the daggers of proscription. 
 [The former was assassinated iu Holland, whither he had fled for safety.]
 
 Hobhes. 453 
 
 when his works were burnt, the author had not a hair singed, 
 the convulsion of the panic often produced, as Jiishop Atter- 
 bury expresses it, "an intermitting disease." 
 
 Persecution terrified liobbes, and magnanimity and courage 
 were no virtues in his philosophy. He went about hinting 
 that he was not obstinate (tliat 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 hidicrous) to mal^e his opmions a 
 distinct object from his person ; and, for tlie good order of the 
 latter, he appealed to the family chaplain for his attendance at 
 divine service, from whence, however, he alwaj's 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 there- 
 of," where, losing the dignity of the philosophic character, he 
 creeps into a subterfuge witli 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.* 
 
 * It is said that Hobbes completely recanted all his opinions ; and pro- 
 ceeded so far as to declare that the opinions he had published in his 
 "Leviathan," were not his real sentiments, and that he neither main- 
 tained them in public nor in private. Wood gives this title to a work of 
 his — "An Apology for Himself and his Writings," but without date. 
 Some have suspected that this Apology, if it ever existed, was not his 
 own composition. Yet why not ? Hobbes, no doubt, thouglit that "The 
 Leviathan" would outlast any recantation ; and, after all, that a recanta- 
 tion is by no means a refutation ! — recantations usually prove the force of 
 authority, rather than the force of conviction. I am much pleased with a 
 Dr. Pockliugton, who hit the etymology of the word recantation with the 
 spirit. Accused and censured, for a penance he was to make a recanta- 
 tion, which he began thus: — "If canto be to sing, rccanto is to sing 
 again :" so that he re-chantcd his ofl'ensive principles by his recantation/ 
 
 I suspect that the apology Wood alludes to was only a republication of 
 Hobbes's Address to the King, prefixed to the "Seven Philosophical 
 Problems," 1662, where he openly disavows his opinions, and makes an 
 apology for the "Leviathan." It is curious enough to observe how he 
 acts in this dilemma. It was necessary to give up his opinions to the 
 clergy, but stUl to prove they were of an innocent nature. He therefore 
 acknowledges that " his theological notions are not his opinions, but pro- 
 pounded with submission to the power ecclesiastical, never afterwards 
 having maintained them in writing or discourse." Yet, to show the king 
 that the regal power incurred no great risk in them, he laid down one 
 principle, which could not have been uupleasing to Charles II. He asserts, 
 truly, that he never wrote against episcopacy; "yet he is called an
 
 454 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 No man was more speculatively bold, and more practically 
 timorous :* 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 antisocial philosophy of Hobbes termhiated 
 in preserving a pitiful state of existence. He who considered 
 nothing more valuable than life, degraded himself by the 
 meanest artifices of self-love,t and exulted in the most cynical 
 
 Atheist, or man of no religion, because lie has made the authority of the 
 Church depend wholly upon the regal power, which, I hope, your majesty 
 will think is neither Atheism nor Heresy." Hobbes considered the religion 
 of his country as a subject of law, and not jiMlosopliy. He was not for 
 separating the Church from the State ; but, on the contrary, for joining 
 them more closely. The bishops ought not to have been his enemies ; and 
 many were not. 
 
 * In the MS. collection of the French contemporary, who personally 
 knew him, we find a remarkable confession of Hobbes. He said of him- 
 self that "he sometimes made openings to let in light, but that he could 
 not discover his thoughts but by half-views : like those who throw open 
 the window for a short time, but soon closing it, from the dread of the 
 storm." II disoit qiCil faisoit quelquefois dcs ouvertures, inais qii'il 7ic 
 pouvoit decouvrir ses pensCcs qiCd-demi; qiCil imitoit ceux qui ouvrent 
 la fcnCtre pendant quelqucs momens, mais qui la referment j^rompiement 
 de peur de Vorage.'" — Lantiniana MSS., quoted by Joly in his volume of 
 "Remarques sur Bayle." 
 
 + Could one imagine that the very head and foot of the stupendous 
 " Leviathan" bear tlie marks of the little artifices practised for self by 
 its author ? This grave work is dedicated to Francis Godolphin, a person 
 whom its author had never seen, merely to remind him of a certain legacy 
 ■which that person's brother had left to our philosopher. If read with this 
 fact before us, we may detect tlie concealed claim to the legacy, which it 
 seems was necessary to conceal from the Parliament, as Francis Godolphin 
 resided in England. It must ))e confessed this was a miserable motive for 
 dedicating a system of philosophy which was addressed to all mankind. 
 It discovers little dignity. Tliis secret history we owe to Lord Clarendon, 
 in his "Survey of tlie Lcviatlian," who adds anotlier. The postscript to 
 the " Leviathan," which is only in the English edition, was designed as au
 
 Hobbes, 455 
 
 truths.* 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 phi- 
 losopher 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 ui 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.f But those who feel moving 
 
 easy summary of the principles : and his lordship adds, as a sly address to 
 Cromwell, that he might be induced to be master of them at once, and 
 "as a pawn of his new subject's allegiance." It is possible that Hobbes 
 might have anticipated the sovereign power which the yeneral was on the 
 jjoiut of assuming in the protectorsldp. It was natural enough that Hobbes 
 should deny this suggestion. 
 
 * The story his antagonist (Dr. Wallis) relates is perfectly in character 
 Hobbes, to show the Countess of Devonshire his attachment to life, de- 
 clared that " were he master of all the world to dispose of, he would give 
 it to live one day." "But you have so many friends to oblige, had you 
 the world to dispose of!" "Shall I be the better for that when I am 
 dead ?" " No," repeated the sublime cjTiic, "I would give the whole world 
 to live one day." He asserted that " it was lawful to make use of ill instru- 
 ments to do ourselves good," and illustrated it thus : — " ^Vere I cast into 
 a deep pit, and the devil should put down his cloven foot, I would take 
 hold of it to be drawn out by it." It must be allowed this is a philosophy 
 which has a chance of being long popular ; but it is not that of another order 
 of human beings ! Hobbes would not, like Curtius, have leaped into a 
 "deep pit" for his country ; or, to drop the fable, have died for it in the 
 field or on the scaffold, like the Falklands, the Sidneys, the Montroses — 
 all the heroic brotherhood of genius ! One of his last expressions, when 
 informed of the approaches of death, was — " I shall be glad to find a hole 
 to creep out of the world at." Everything was seen in a little way by this 
 great man, who, having reasoned himself into an abject being, ' ' licked the 
 dust" through life. 
 
 + In our country, Mandeville, Swift, and Chesterfield have trod in 
 the track of Hobbes ; and in France, Helvetius, Kochefoucault in his 
 "Maxims," and L'Esprit more openly in his " Fausette des Vertus 
 Humaines." They only degrade us — they are polished cjaiics ! But what 
 are we to think of the tremendous cynicism of iVIachiavel ? That gi'eat 
 genius eyed human nature with the ferocity of an enraged savage. 
 Machiavel is a vindictive assassin, who delights even to turn his dagger 
 within the mortal wound he has struck ; but our Hobbes, said his friend 
 Sorbiere, " is a gentle and skilful surgeon, who, with regret, cuts into the
 
 456 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 within themselves the benevolent principle, and who delight 
 in acts of social sympathy, are conscious of passions and mo- 
 tives, 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 pi-inciples. 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 
 
 living flesh, to get rid of the corrupted." It is equally to be regretted 
 that the same system of degrading man has been adopted by some, under 
 the mask of religion. 
 
 Yet Hobbes, perhaps, never suspected the arms he was placing in the 
 hands of wretched men, when he furnished them with such fundamental 
 positions as, that " Man is naturally an evil being ; that he does not love 
 his equal ; and only seeks the aid of societj' for his own particular pur- 
 poses." He would at least have disowned some of his diabolical disciples. 
 One of them, so late as in 1774, vented his furious philosophy in " An 
 Essay on the Depravity and Corruption of Human Nature, wherein the 
 Opinions of Hobbes, . Mandeville, Helvetius, &c. are supported against 
 Shaftesbury, Hume, Sterne, &c. by Thomas O'Brien M'Mahon." This 
 gentleman, once informed that he was iorn iviclccd, appears to have con- 
 sidered that wickedness was his paternal estate, to be turned to as profit- 
 able an account as he could. The titles of his chapters, serving as a string of 
 the most extraordinary propositions, have been preserved in the " Monthly 
 Eeview," vol. Hi. 77. The demonstrations in the work itself must be 
 still more curious. In these axioms we find that " Man has an enmity to 
 all beings ; that had he pozver, the first victims of his revenge would be 
 his wife, children, &c. — a sovereign, if he could reign with the uvbounded 
 authoriti/ every man lo72r/s for, free from apprehension of punishment for 
 misrule, would slaughter all his subjects ; perhaps he would not leave one 
 of them alive at the end of his reign." It was pei'fectly in character with 
 this wretched being, after having quarrelled with human nature, that he 
 should be still more inveterate against a small part of her family, with 
 whom he was suffered to live on too intimate terms ; for he afterwards 
 published another extraordinary piece — " The Conduct and Good-Nature 
 of Englishmen Exemplified in their charitable way of Characterising the 
 Customs, Manners, &c. of Neighbouring Nations ; their Equitable and 
 Humane Mode of Governing States, &c. ; their Elevated and Courteous 
 Deportment, &c. of which their own Authors are everywhere produced as 
 Vouchers," 1777. One is tempted to think that this O'Brien M'Mahon, 
 after all, is only a wag, and has copied the horrid pictures of his mafeters, 
 as Hogarth did the School of Rembrandt by his "Paul before Felix, de- 
 signed and scratched in the true Dutch taste." These works seem, how- 
 ever, to have their use. To have carried the conclusions of the Anti- 
 social Philosophy to as great lengths as this writer has, is to display their 
 absurdity. But, as every rational Englishman will appeal to his own 
 heart, in declaring the one work to be nothing but a libel on the nation ; 
 BO every man, not destitute of virtuous emotions, will feel the other to be 
 a libel on human nature itself.
 
 Hobbes. 457 
 
 giving them ; and while he affected to hold his brothers in 
 contempt, he was sacrificing laborious days, and his peace of 
 mind, to acquire celebrit}-. Who loved glory more than this 
 sublime cynic? — " G/o?'y," says our philosopher, "by those 
 whom it displeaseth, is called Fride ; by those whom it 
 pleaseth, it is termed a just valuation of himself.^'* 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 roj'al cabinet ; how 
 it was frequently asked for by his friends, in England and in 
 France.f He has written his life several times, in verse and 
 in prose ; and never fails to throw into the eyes of his adver- 
 saries the reputation he gained abroad and at home. J He 
 
 * " Human Nature," c. ix. 
 
 + Hobbes did not exaggerate the truth. Aubrey says of Cooper's por- 
 trait of Hobbes, that "he intends to borrow the picture of his majesty, 
 for Mr. Loggan to engrave an accurate piece by, which will sell well at home 
 and abroad.'" We have only the rare print of Hobbes by Faith orne, pre- 
 fixed to a quarto edition of his Latin Life, 1682, remarkable for its expres- 
 sion and character. Sorbiere, returning from England, brought home a 
 portrait of the sage, which he placed in his collection ; and strangers, far 
 and near, came to look on the physiognomy of a great and original thinker. 
 One of the honours which men of genius receive is the homage the public 
 pay to their images : either, like the fat monk, one of the heroes of the 
 EpistoUe ohscurorum Virorum, who, standing before a portrait of Eras- 
 mus, spit on it in utter malice ; or when they are looked on in silent reve- 
 rence. It is alike a tribute paid to the masters of intellect. They have 
 had their shrines and pilgrimages. 
 
 None of our authors have been better known, nor more highly con- 
 sidered, than our Hobbes, abroad. I find many curious particulars of him 
 and his conversations recorded in French works, which are not known to 
 the English biographers or critics. His residence at Paris occasioned this. 
 See Ancillon's Melange Critique, Basle, 1698 ; Patin's Letters, 61 ; Sor- 
 beriana ; Kiceron, tome iv. ; Joly's Additions to Bayle. — All these contain 
 original notices on Hobbes. 
 
 J To his Life are additions, which nothing but the self-love of the 
 author could have imagined. 
 
 " Amicorum Elenchus." — He might be proud of the list of foreigners 
 and natives. 
 
 " Tractuum contra Hobbium editorum Syllabus."
 
 458 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 delighted to show he was living, by annual publications ; and 
 exultingly exclaims, " That when he had silenced his adver- 
 saries, he published, in the eight3^-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, aiad 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 sys- 
 tem, provided absolute authority was established, peevishly 
 referring to his own works whenever contradicted ; and his 
 friends stipulated with strangers, that " they should not dis- 
 pute 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 theu* battle.* 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 Cathohc 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 philo- 
 sophical matters," as our blunt and lively historian has 
 described.f 
 
 " Eorum qui in Scriptis suis Hobbio contradixerunt Indiculus." 
 " Qui Hobbii meminerunt sen in bonam seu in sequiorem partem." 
 "In Hobbii Defensionem." — Hobbes died 1679, aged 91, These two 
 editions are, 1681, 1682. 
 
 * Tliis fact has been recorded in one of the pamphlets of Richard Bax- 
 ter, who, however, was no well-wisher to our philosopher. "Additional 
 Notes on the Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale," 1682, p. 40. 
 
 t " Athen. Oxon.," vol. ii. p. 665, ed. 1721. No one, however, knew 
 better than Hobbes the vanity and uselessness of words : in one place he 
 compares them to "a spiders web ; for, by contexture of words, tender 
 and delicate wits are insnared and stopped, but strong wits break easily 
 through them." The ]iointed sentence with which Warburton closes his 
 preface to Shakspeare, is Hobbes' s — that " words are the counters of the 
 ■wise, and thp money of fools."
 
 Hohbes. 450 
 
 His little qualities were the errors of his own selfish philo- 
 sophy; his great ones were those of nature. He was a votary 
 to his studies :* he avoided marriage, to which he was in- 
 clined ; and refused place and wealth, which he might have 
 enjoyed, for literary leisure. He treated with philosophic 
 pleasantry his real contempt of money .f His health and his 
 studies were the sole objects of his thoughts ; and notwith- 
 
 * Aubrey has minutely preserved for us the manner in which Hobbes 
 composed his " Leviathan :" it is very curious for literary students. " He 
 "walked much, and contemplated ; and he had in the head of his cane a pen 
 and inkhorn, and carried always a note-book in his pocket ; and as soon as 
 a thought darted, he presently entered it into his book, or otherwise might 
 have lost it. He had drawn the design of the book into chapters, &c. , and 
 he knew whereabouts it would come in. Thus that book was made." — 
 Vol, ii. p. 607. Aubrey, the little Boswell of his day, has recorded an- 
 other literary peculiarity, -which some authors do not assuredly sufficiently 
 use. Hobbes said that he sometimes would set his thoughts upon 
 researching and contemplating, always with this proviso : ' ' that he very 
 much and deeply considered one thing at a time — for a week, or sometimes 
 a fortnight." 
 
 + A small annuity from the Devonshire family, and a small pension from 
 Charles II., exceeded the wants of his philosophic life. If he chose to 
 compute his income, Hobbes says facetiously of himself, in French sols or 
 Spanish maravedis, he could persuade himself that Croesus or Crassus were 
 by no means richer than himself ; and when he alludes to his property, he 
 considers wisdom to be his real wealth : — 
 
 ^" An quam dives, id est, quam sapiens fuerim ?" 
 He gave up his patrimonial estate to his brother, not wanting it himself ; 
 but he tells the tale himself, and adds, that though small in extent, it was 
 rich in its crops. Anthony Wood, with unusual delight, opens the cha- 
 racter of Hobbes : " Though he hath an ill name from some, and good from, 
 others, yet he was a person endowed with an excellent philosophical soul, 
 •was a contemner of riches, money, envy, the world, &c. ; a severe lover 
 of justice, and endowed with great morals ; cheerful, open, and free of his 
 discourse, yet without offence to any, which he endeavoured always to 
 avoid." What an enchanting picture of the old man in the green vigour of 
 his age has Cowley sent down to us ! 
 
 " Nor can the snow which now cold age does shed 
 Upon thy reverend head. 
 Quench or allay the noble fires within ; 
 
 But all which thou hast been, 
 And all that youth can be, thou'rt yet : 
 
 So fully still dost thou 
 Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of wit, 
 
 And all the natural heat, but not the fever too. 
 So contraries on Jitna's top conspire : 
 
 Th' embolden'd snow next to the flame does sleep. — 
 To things immortal time can do no wrong ; 
 And that which never is to die, for ever must be young."
 
 460 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 standing that panic which so often disturbed them, he wrote 
 and published beyond his ninetieth year. He closes the me- 
 trical 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 foiir-and-eiglity years, 
 
 Life's lengthen'd plot is o'er, and the last scene appears.* 
 
 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 daiTinable." The sanguine opinion of 
 the author himself was, that the might}" "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. f But the smaller 
 
 * ' ' Ipse meos nosti, Verdusi candide, mores, 
 Et tecum cuncti qui mea scripta legunt : 
 Nam mea vita meis non est incongrua scriptis ; 
 
 Justitiam doceo, Justitiamque colo. 
 Improbus esse potest nemo qui noa sit avarus, 
 Nee pulchrum quisquam fecit avarus opus. 
 Octoginta ego jam complevi et quatuor annos ; 
 Pene acta est vitse fabula longa mere." 
 ■|- Hobbes, in his metrical (by no means his poetical) life, says, the more 
 the " Leviathan" was written against, the more it was read ; and adds, 
 " Firmius inde stetit, spero stabitque per omne 
 ^vum, defensus viribus ipse suis. 
 Justitiaa mensura, atque ambitionis elenchus, 
 Kegum arx, pax populo, si doceatur, erit." 
 The term arx is here peculiarly fortunate, according to the system of the 
 author — it means a citadel or fortified place on an eminence, to which the 
 people might fly for their common safety. 
 
 His works were much read ; as appears by "The Court Burlesqued, "a 
 satii'e attributed to Butler. 
 
 "So those who wear the holy robes 
 That I'ail so much at Father Jlobbs, 
 Because he has exposed of late 
 The naJcedncss of Oh urch and State ; 
 Yet tho' they do his books condemn, 
 They love to buy and read the same." 
 Our author, so late as in 1750, was still so commanding a genius, that 
 his works were collected in a liandsome folio ; but that collection is not 
 complete. "When he could not get his works printed at home, be published
 
 Hobbes. 461 
 
 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 
 ••.f thought and language, yet he never elevates nor delights. 
 loo 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 Aiitliority, or, as he terms it, an "entireness 
 of sovereign power :" here he seems to have built his argu- 
 ments with such eternal truths and with such a contriving 
 wisdom as to adapt his S3'stem to all the changes of govern- 
 ment. 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 ; fo'r if 
 Authority, strong as man can create it, is not suffered to 
 exist in our free constitution, what will become of our free- 
 dom ? 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 
 
 them in Latin, including his mathematical works, at Amsterdam, by 
 Blaew, 166S, 4to. His treatises, "De Give," and "On Human Nature," 
 are of perpetual value. Gasseudi recommends these admirable works, and 
 Puifendorff acknowledges the depth of his obligations. The Life of 
 Hobbes in the "Biographia Britannica," by Dr. Campbell, is a work of 
 curious research.
 
 463 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 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 stamp- 
 ing 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 sub- 
 serviency. 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 !
 
 HOBBES'S QUARRELS 
 
 DR. WALLIS THE MATHEMATICIAN. 
 
 HoBBEs's passion for tlie study of Mathematics began late in life — attempts 
 to be an original discoverer — attacked by Wallis — various replies and 
 rejoinders — nearly maddened by the opposition he encountered — after 
 tour years Oi truce, the war again renewed — character of Hobees by Dr. 
 Wallis, a specimen of invective and irony ; serving as a remarkable 
 instance how the greatest genius may come down to us disguised by the 
 arts of an adversary — Hobbes's noble defence of himself ; of his own great 
 reputation ; of his politics ; and of his religion — a literary stratagem of 
 his — reluctantly gives up the contest, which lasted twenty years. 
 
 The Mathematical War between Hobbes and the celebrated 
 Dr. Wallis is now to be opened. A series of battles, the 
 renewed campaigns of more than twenty years, can be 
 described by no term less eventful. Hobbes himself con- 
 sidered it as a war, and it was a war of idle ambition, in which 
 he took too much delight. His " Amata Mathemata" 
 became his pride, his pleasure, and at length his shame. 
 He attempted to maintain his irruption into a province 
 he ought never to have entered in defiance, by " a new 
 method;" but having invaded the powerful natives, he seems 
 to have almost repented the folly, and retires, leaving " the 
 unmanageable brutes " to themselves : 
 
 Ergo meam statuo non ultra perdere opellam 
 Indocile expeetans discere posse pecus. 
 
 His language breathes war, while he sounds his retreat, and 
 confesses his repulse. The Algebraists had all declared against 
 the Invader. 
 
 "Wallisius contra pugnat ; victusque videbar 
 
 Algebristarum Theiologumque scholis, 
 Et simul eductus Castris exercitus omnis 
 
 Pugnre securus Wallisianus ovat. 
 
 And, 
 
 Pugna iilacet vertor — 
 Bella mea audisti — &c*
 
 464 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 So that we have sufficient authority to consider this Literary 
 Quarrel as a wai', and a " Bellum Peloponnesiacuni" too, for 
 it lasted as long. Political, literary, and even personal feel- 
 ings were called in to heat the temperate blood of two 
 Mathematicians. 
 
 What means this tumult in a Vestal's veins ? 
 
 Hobbes was one of the many victims who lost themselves 
 in squaring the circle, and doubling the cube. He applied, 
 late in life, to mathematical studies, not so much, he says, to 
 learn the subtile demonstrations of its figures, as to acquire 
 those habits of close reasoning, so useful in the discovery of 
 new truths, to prove or to refute. So justly he reasoned on 
 mathematics ; but so ill he practised the science, that it made 
 him the most unreasonable being imaginable, for he resisted 
 mathematical demonstration itself 1* 
 
 His great and original character could not but prevail in 
 everything he undertook ; and his egotism tempted him to 
 raise a name in the world of Science, as he had in that of 
 Politics and Morals. With the ardour of a young mathema- 
 tician, he exclaimed, '■'■ TlurelcaV "I have found it." The 
 quadrature of the circle was indeed the common Dulcinea of 
 the Quixotes of the time ; but they had all been disenchanted. 
 Hobbes alone clung to his ridiculous mistress. Repeatedly 
 confuted, he was perpetually resisting old reasonings and pro- 
 ducing new ones. Were only genius requisite for an able 
 mathematician, Hobbes had been among the first ; but patience 
 and docility, not fire and fancy, are necessary. His reasonings 
 were all paralogisms, and he had alwa5's much to say, from 
 not understanding the subject of his inquiries. 
 
 When Hobbes published his " De Corpore Philosophico," 
 1655, he there exulted that he had solved the great mj^steiy. 
 Dr. Wallis, the Savilian professor of mathematics at Oxford,t 
 
 * The origin of his taste for mathematics was pure!}- accidental : begun 
 in love, it continued to dotage. According to Aubrey, he was forty years 
 old when, " being in a gentleman's library, Euclid's Elements lay open at 
 the 47th Propos. lib. i., whicli, having read, he swore 'This is impos- 
 sible !' He read the demonstration, which referred him back to another — 
 at length he was convinced of tliat truth. This made him in love with 
 geometry. I have heard Mr. ILibbes say that he was wont to draw lines 
 on his thiglis and on the sheets a-bed." 
 
 -t" The author of the excellent Latin grammar of the English language, 
 so useful to every student in Europe, of which work that singular patriot, 
 Thomas Ilollis, printed an edition, to present to all the learned Institu- 
 tions of Europe. Henry Stubbe, the celebrated physician of Warwick, to
 
 Hobbes's Mathematical War. 465 
 
 with a deep aversion to Hobbes's political and religious senti- 
 ments, as he understood tbem, rejoiced to see this famous 
 combatant descending into his own arena. He certainly was 
 eager to meet him single-handed; for he instantly confuted 
 Hobbes, by his " Elenchus Geometrise Hobbianse." Hobbes, 
 who saw the newly-acquired province of his mathematics in 
 danger, and which, like every new possession, seemed to 
 involve his honour more than was necessary, called on all the 
 ■world to be witnesses of this mighty conflict. He now pub- 
 lished his work in English, with a sarcastic addition, in a 
 magisterial tone, of " Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathe- 
 matics in Ojcfordy These were Seth Ward * and Wallis, 
 both no friends to Hobbes, and who hungered after him as a 
 relishing morsel. AValHs now replied in English, by "Due 
 Correction for Mr. Hobbes, or School-discipline for not saying 
 his Lessons Right," 1656. That part of controversy which 
 is usually the last had already taken place in their choice of 
 phrases. t 
 
 ■whom the reader has been introduced, joined, for he loved a quarrel, in 
 the present controversy, when it involved philosophical matters, sidin,? with 
 Hobbes, because he hated Wallis. In his "Oneirocritica, or an Exact Ac- 
 count of the Grammatical Parts of this Controversy," he draws a strong 
 character of Wallis, who was indeed a great mathematician, and one of 
 the most extraordinary decypherers of letters ; for perhaps no new system of 
 character £ould be invented for which he could not make a key ; by which 
 means he had rendered the most important services to the Parliament. 
 Stubbe quaintly describes him as "the .sub-scribeto the tribe of Adoniram" 
 (i. e. Adoniram Byfield, who, with this cant name, was scribe to the fana- 
 tical Assembly of Divines), and " as the glory and pride of the Presby- 
 terian faction." 
 
 * Dr. Seth Ward, after the Restoration made Bishop of Salisbury, said, 
 some years before this event was expected, that " he had rather be the 
 author of one of Hobbes's books than be king of England." But after- 
 wards he seemed not a little inclined to cry out Crucififfe ! He who, to 
 one of these books, the admirable treatise on " Human Nature," had pre- 
 fixed one of the highest panegyrics Hobbes could receive ! — Atken. Oxon. 
 vol. ii. p. 647. 
 
 + It is mortifying to read such lanf/uagehetween two mathematicians, in 
 the calm inquiries of square roots, and the finding of mean proportionals 
 between two straight lines. I wish the example may prove a warning. 
 Wallis thus opens on Hobbes : — "It seems, Mr. Hobbs, that you have a 
 mind to say your lesson, aad that the mathematic professors of Oxford 
 should hear you. You are too old to learn, though you have as much need 
 as those that be younger, and yet will tliink much to be whipped. 
 
 " What moved you to say your lessons in English, when the books against 
 •which you do chiefly intend them were written in Latin '• Was it chiefly 
 for the perfecting your natural rhetoric whenever you thought it convenient 
 to repair to Billingsgate ? — You found that the oyster-women could not 
 
 H H
 
 466 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 In the following year the campaign was opened hy Hobbes 
 with " 2TirMAI ; or, marlas of the absurd Geometry, o^ural 
 Language, Scottish Church-politics, and Barbarisms, of John 
 Wallis." Quick was the routing of these fresh forces ; not 
 one was to escape alive ! for Wallis now took the field with 
 " Hobbiani Puncti dispunctio ! or, the undoing of Mr.Hobbes's 
 Points ; in answer to Mr. Hobbes's STIFMAI, id est, Stigmata 
 Hobbii." Hobbes seems now to have been reduced to great 
 straits ; perhaps he wondered at the obstinacy of his adver- 
 sary. It seems that Hobbes, who had been used to other 
 studies, and who confesses all the algebraists were against 
 him, could not conceive a point to exist without quantit}'' ; or 
 a line could be drawn without latitude •, or a superficies be 
 without depth or thickness ; but mathematicians conceive 
 them without these qualities, when they exist abstractedly in 
 the mind ; though, when for the purposes of science they are 
 produced to the senses, they necessarily have all the qualities. 
 It was understanding these figures, in the vulgar way, which 
 led Hobbes into a labyrinth of confusions and absurdities.* 
 They appear to have nearly maddened the clear and vigorous 
 intellect of our philosopher ; for he exclaims, in one of these 
 writings : — 
 
 " I alone am mad, or they are all out of their senses : so 
 that no third opinion can be taken, unless any will say that 
 we are all mad." 
 
 Four years of truce were allowed to intervene between the 
 next battle ; when the irrefutable Hobbes, once more collect- 
 ing his weak and his incoherent forces, arranged them, as well 
 as he was able, into " Six Dialogues," 1661. The utter anni- 
 hilation he intended for his antagonist fell on himself. 
 Wallis borrowing the character of " The Self-tormentor " from 
 Terence, produced " Hobbius Heauton-timorumenos (Hobbes 
 
 teacli you to rail in Latin. Now you can, upon all occasion, or without 
 occasion, give the titles otfool, hcasf, ass, dog, kc, which I take to be but 
 barking ; and they are no better than a man might have at Billingsgate for 
 a box o' the ear. 
 
 "You tell us, 'though the beasts that think our railing to be roaring 
 tavefor a time admired us ; yet now you have showed tliem our ears, they 
 will be less affrighted.' Sir, those persons (the professors themselves) needed 
 net the sight oiyour cars, but could tell by the voice what kind of creature 
 'brayed in your books : you dared not have said this to their faces." — He 
 bitterly says of Hobbes, that "he is a man who is always writing what 
 vas answered before he had written." 
 
 * Dr, Campbell's art. on Hobbes, in "Biog. Brit." p. 2619.
 
 Hobbes's Mathematical War. 467 
 
 the Self-tormentor) ; or, a Consideration of Mr. Hobbes's 
 Dialogues : addressed to Robert Boj'le," 1G62. 
 
 This attack of Wallis is of a very opposite character to the 
 arid discussion of abstract blunders in geometry. He who 
 began with points, and doubling the cube, and squaring the 
 circle, now assumes a loftier tone, and carr3'ing his personal 
 and moral feelings into a mere controversy between two idle 
 mathematicians, he has formed a solemn invective, and edged 
 it with ii'ony. I hope the reader has experienced sufficient 
 interest in the character of Hobbes to read the long, but 
 curious extract I shall now transcribe, with that awe and 
 reverence which the old man claims. It will show how even 
 the greatest genius may be disguised, when viewed throuo-h 
 the coloured medium of an adversaiy. One is, however, sm'- 
 prised to find such a passage in a mathematical work. 
 
 " He doth much improve ; I mean he doth, projicere in 
 pejus; more, indeed, than I could reasonably have expected 
 he would have done; — insomuch, that I cannot but profess 
 some relenting thoughts (though I had formerly occasion to 
 use him somewhat coarsely), to see an old man thus fret and 
 torment himself to no purpose. You, too, should pity your 
 antagonist ; not as if he did deserve it, but because he needs 
 it ; and as Chremes, in Terence, of his Senex, his seLf-torment- 
 ing Menedemus — , 
 
 Cum videam miserum hunc tarn excruciarier 
 Miseret me ejus. Quod potero adjutabo senem. 
 
 " Consider the temper of the man, to move your pity ; a 
 person extremely 'passionate and peevisli, and wliolly impatient 
 of contradiction. A temper which, whether it be a greater 
 fault or torment (to one who must so often meet with what 
 he is so ill able to bear), is hard to say. 
 
 " And to this fretful humour you must add another as bad, 
 which feeds it. You are therefore next to consider him as 
 one higlily opinionative and magisterial. Fanciful in his con- 
 ceptions, and deeply enamoui'ed with those phantasmes, with- 
 out a rival. He doth not spare to profess, upon all occasions, 
 how incomparably he thinks himself to have surpassed all, 
 ancient, modern, schools, academies, persons, societies, philoso- 
 phers, divines, heathens. Christians ; how despicable he thinks 
 all their writings in comparison of his ; and what hopes he 
 hath, that, by the sovereign command of some absolute prince, 
 all other doctrines being exploded, his new dictates should be 
 
 nn2
 
 468 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 f)eremptorily imposed, to he alone taught in all schools and 
 pulpits, and universnlli/ suhmitted to. To recount all which 
 he speaks of himself macjmficentlij , and contemptuously of 
 others, would fill a volume. Should some idle person read 
 over all his hooks, and collecting together his arrogant and 
 supercilious speeches, applauding himself, and despising all 
 other men, set them forth in one synopsis, with this title, 
 Sohhius de se — what a pretty piece of pageantry this would 
 make ! 
 
 " The admirable sweetness of your own nature has not 
 given you the experience of such a temper : yet your contem- 
 plation must have needs discerned it, in those symptoms 
 which yo\i have seen it work in others, like the strange effer- 
 vescence, ebullition, fumes, and fetors, which you have some- 
 times given j^ourself the content to observe, in some active 
 acrimonious ch3''mical spii'its upon the injection of some con- 
 trariant salts strangely vexing, fretting, and tormenting itself, 
 while it doth but administer spoj-t to the unconcerned specta- 
 tor. Which temper, being so eminent in the person we have 
 to deal with, j^our generous nature, which cannot but pity 
 affliction, how much soever deserved, must needs have some 
 compassion for him : who, besides those exquisite torments 
 wherewith he doth afflict himself, like that 
 
 quo Siculi non invenere Tyranni 
 
 Tormentum majus — 
 
 is unavoidably exposed to those two great mischiefs ; an in- 
 capacity to be taught what he doth not hnow, or to be advised 
 when he thinks amiss; and moreover, to this inconvenience, 
 that he must never hear his faults but from his adversaries ; 
 for those who are willing to be reputed friends must either 
 not advertise what the}'' see amiss, or incommode themselves. 
 
 "But, you will ask, what need he thus torment himself? 
 What need of pity ? If he have hojjes to be admitted the sole 
 dictator in philosophy, civil and natural, in schools and pulpits, 
 and to be owned as the only magister sententiarum, what 
 would he have more ? 
 
 ''True, if he have; but what if he have not? That he had 
 some hopes of such an honour, he hath not been sparing to let 
 ■us know, and was providing against the envy that might 
 attend it {iiec deprecalor invidiam, scd augendo, xdciscar, 
 was his resolution) ; but I doubt these hopes are at an end. 
 He did not find (as he expected) that \)l\q fairies and hohgohlins
 
 Hobbes's Mathematical War. 469 
 
 (for such he reputes all that went before him) did vanish pre- 
 sently, upon the first appearance of his sun.sliine : and, which 
 is worse, while he was on the one side guarding himself against 
 envi/, he is, on the other side, unhappily surprised by a worse 
 enemy, called contempt, and with which he is less able to 
 grapple. 
 
 " I forbeai- to mention (lest I might seem to reproach that 
 age which I reverence) the disadvuntages which he may sus- 
 tain by his old age. 'Tis possible that time and age, in a 
 person somewhat morose, may have riveted faster that pre- 
 conceived opinion of his own worth and excellency beyond 
 others. 'Tis possible, also, that he may h&xk: forgotten much 
 of what once he knew. He may, perhaps, be sometimes more 
 secure than safe ; while trusting to what he thinks a firm 
 foundation, his footing fails him ; nor always so vigilant or 
 quicksighted as to discern the incoherence or inconsequence of 
 his own discourses ; unwilling, notwithstanding, to make use 
 of the eyes of other men, lest he should seem thereby to dis- 
 parage his own ; but certainly (though his will may be as 
 good as ever) his parts are less vegete and nimble, as to inven- 
 tion at least, than in his younger days, 
 
 " While he had endeavoured only to raise an expectation, 
 or put the world in hopes of what great things he liad in 
 hand {to render all philosopliij as clear and certain as Euclid' s 
 Elements) , if he had then died, it might, perhaps, have been 
 thought by some that the world had been deprived of a great 
 philosopJier, and learning sustained an invaluable loss, b}^ the 
 abortion of so desired a inece. But since that Partus Moiitis 
 is come to light, and found to be no more than what little 
 animals have brought forth, and that deformed enough and 
 unamiahle, he might have sooner gone oft the stage with more 
 advantage than now he is like to do ; such is the misfortune 
 for a man to outlive Ids reputatio7i! 
 
 " By this time, perhaps, you may see cause to pity him 
 while you see him falling. But if you consider him tumbling 
 headlong from so great a height, 'twill make some addition to 
 that compassion which doth already begin to work. You are 
 therefore next to consider that when, upon the account of 
 geometry, he was unsafely mounted to that height of vanity, 
 he did unhappily fall into the hands of two mathematicians, 
 who have used him so unmercifully as would have put a per- 
 son of greater patience into passion, and meeting with such a 
 temp)er, have so discomposed him that he hath ever since
 
 470 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 taVced idly : and to augment the grief, these mathematicians 
 were both divines — he had rather have fallen by any other 
 hand. These mathematical divines (a term which he had 
 thought incomponible) began to unravel the wrong end ; and 
 while he thought they should have first untiled the roof, and 
 by degrees gone downward, they strike at i\\e foundation, scnOi 
 make the building tumble all at once ; and that in such confu- 
 sion, that by dashing one part against another, they make 
 each help to destroy the whole. They first fall upon his last 
 reserve, and rout his mathematics beyond a possibility of 
 rallying ; and hj firing his magazine upon the first assault, 
 make his own weapons fight against him. Not contented 
 herewith, they enter the breach, and pursue the rout through 
 his Logics, Physics, Metaphysics, Theology, where they find 
 all in confusion." 
 
 This invective and irony from this celebrated mathematician, 
 so much out of the path of his habitual studies, might have 
 proved a tremendous blow ; but the genius of Hobbes was 
 invulnerable to mere human opposition, unless accompanied by 
 the supernatural terrors of penal fires or perpetual dungeons. 
 Our hero received the whole discharge of this battering train, 
 and stood invulnerable, while he returned the fire in " Con- 
 siderations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and 
 Eeligion of Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, written by way 
 of Letter to a learned person. Dr. Wallis," 1662. 
 
 It is an extraordinary production. His lofty indignation 
 retorts on the feeble irony of his antagonist with keen and 
 caustic accusations ; and the green strength of youth was still 
 seen in the old man whose head was covered with snows. 
 
 From this spirited apology for himself I shall give some 
 passages. Hobbes thus replied to Dr. Wallis, who affected to 
 consider the old man as a fit object for commiseration. 
 
 " You would make him contemptible, and move Mr. Boyle 
 to pity him. This is a way of railing too much beaten to be 
 thought witty : besides, 'tis no argument of your contempt 
 to spend upon him so many angry lines, as w^ould have fur- 
 nished you with a dozen of sermons. If you had in good 
 earnest despised him, you would have let him alone, as he does 
 Dr. Ward, Mr. Baxter, Pike, and others, that have reviled him 
 as you do. As for his reputation beyond the seas, it fades not 
 yet ; and because, perhaps, you have no means to know it, I will 
 cite you a passage of an epistle written by a learned French-
 
 Hobbes's Mathematical War. 471 
 
 man to an eminent person in France, in a volume of epistles." 
 Hobbes quotes the passage at length, in which his name 
 appears joined with Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and Gassendi. 
 
 In reply to Wallis' sarcastic suggestion that an idle person 
 should collect together Hobbes's arrogant and supercilious 
 speeches applauding himself, under one title, HoVhius de se, 
 he says — 
 
 " Let your idle person do it ; Mr. Hobbes shall acknowledge 
 them under his hand, and be commended for it, and you 
 scorned. A certain Roman senator having propounded some- 
 thing in the assembly of the people, which they, misliking, 
 made a noise at, boldly bade them hold their peace, and told 
 them he knew better what was good for the commonwealth 
 than all they ; and his words are transmitted to us as an 
 argument of his virtue; so mucli do truth and vanity alter the 
 complexion of setf -'praise. You can have very little skill in 
 morality, that cannot see the justice of commending a man's 
 self, as well as of anything else, in his own defence ; and it 
 was want of prudence in you to constrain him to a thing 
 that would so much displease you. 
 
 "When you make his age a reproach to him, and show no 
 cause that might impair the faculties of his mind, but only age, 
 I admire how you saw not that you reproached all old men in 
 the world as much as him, and warranted all young men, at a 
 certain time which they themselves shall define, to call you 
 fool ! Your dislike of old age you have also otherwise suffi- 
 ciently signified, in ventmung so fairly as you have done to 
 escape it. But that is no great matter to one that hath so 
 many marks upon him of much greater reproaches. By Mr. 
 Hobbes's calculation, that derives prudence from experience, 
 and experience from age, you are a very young man ; but, by 
 your own reckoning, you are older already than Methuselah." 
 
 " During the late trouble, who made both Oliver and the 
 people mad but the preachers of your principles ? But besides 
 the wickedness, see the folly of it. You thought to make 
 them mad, but just to such a degree as should serve yom* own 
 turn ; that is to sa}', mad, and yet just as wise as yourselves. 
 Were you not very imprudent to think to govern madness ?" 
 —p. 15. 
 
 " The king was hunted as a partridge in the mountains, 
 and though the hounds have been hanged, yet the hunters 
 were as guilty as the}^, and deserved no less punishment.
 
 472 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 And the decypherers (Wallis had decyphered the royal 
 letters),* and all that blew the horn, are to be reckoned 
 among the hunters. Perhaps you would not have had the 
 prey killed, but rather have kept it tame. And yet who can 
 tell ? I have read of few kings deprived of their power by 
 their own subjects that have lived any long time after it, for 
 reasons that every man is able to conjecture." 
 
 He closes with a very odd image of the most cynical 
 contempt : — 
 
 " Mr. Hobbes has been always far from provoking any man, 
 though, when he is provoked, you find his pen as sharp as 
 yours. All you have said is error and railing ; that is, stink- 
 ing wind, such as a jade lets fly when he is too hard girt upon 
 a full belly. I have done. I have considered you now, but 
 will not again, whatsoever preferment any of your friends 
 shall procure you." 
 
 These were the pitched battles ; but many skirmishes occa- 
 sionally took place. Hobbes was even driven to a ruse de 
 (juerre. When he found his mathematical character in the 
 utmost peril, there appeared a pamphlet, entitled " Lux 
 Mathematica, &c., or, Mathematical Light struck out 
 from the clashings between Dr. John Wallis, Professor of 
 Geometry in the celebrated University of Oxford (celeber- 
 rima Academia), and Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury ; 
 augmented with many and shining rays of the Author, E. R." 
 1672. 
 
 Here the victories of Hobbes are trumpeted forth, but the 
 fact is, that R. R. should have been T. H. It was Hobbes's 
 own composition ! R. R. stood for Eoseti Hepertor, that is, 
 the Finder of the Rosary, one of the titles of Hobbes's mathe- 
 matical discoveries. Wallis asserts that this R. R. may still 
 serve, for it may answer his own book, " Roseti Refutator, or, 
 the Refuter of the Rosary." 
 
 Poor Hobbes gave up the contest reluctantly ; if, indeed, 
 the controversy may not be said to have lasted all his life. 
 He acknowledges he was writing to no purpose ; and that the 
 medicine was obliged to yield to the disease. 
 
 Sed nil profeci, niagnis autlioribus Error 
 Fultus erat, cessit sic Medicina malo. 
 
 * Found in the king's tent at Naseby, and which were written to the 
 queen on important political subjects, in a cypher of which they only had 
 the key. They were afterwards published iu a quarto pamphlet, and did 
 much mischief to the royal cause. — Ed.
 
 Hobbes's Mathematical IVai-. 473 
 
 He seems to have gone down to the grave, in spite of all 
 the reasonings of the geometricians on this side of it, with a 
 firm conviction that its superficies had both depth and thick- 
 ness.* Such were the fruits of a great genius, entering into a 
 province out of his own territories ; and, tliough a most 
 energetic reasouer, so httle skilful in these new studies, that 
 he could never know when he was confuted and refuted.f 
 
 * The strange conclusions some mathematicians have deduced from their 
 principles concerning the real quantity of matter, and the reality of space, 
 have been noticed by Pope, in the Dunciud : — 
 " Mad Mathesis alone was unconfined, 
 
 Too mad for mere material chains to bind : 
 
 Now to inirc space lifts her ecstatic stare ; 
 
 Now running round the circle, finds its square." 
 
 JJunciad, Book iv. ver. 31. 
 f When all animosities had ceased, after tlie death of Hobbes, I find 
 Dr. Wallis, in a very temperate letter to Tenison, exposing the errors of 
 Hobbes in mathematical studies ; Wallis acknowledges that philology had 
 never entered into his pursuits, — in this he had never designed to oppose 
 his superior genius : but it was Hobbes who had too often turned his ma- 
 thematical into a philological controversy. Wallis has made a just obser- 
 vation on the nature of mathematical truths : — "Hobbes's argumentations 
 are destructive in one part of what is said in another. This is more con- 
 vincingly evident, and more unpardonable, in mathematics than in other 
 discourses, which are things capable of cogent demonstration, and so evi- 
 dent, that though a good mathematician may be subject to commit an error, 
 yet one who understands but little of it cannot but see a fault when it is 
 showed him." 
 
 Wallis was an eminent genius in scientific pursuits. His art of decy- 
 phering letters was carried to amazing perfection ; and among other phe- 
 nomena he discovered was that of teaching a young man, born deaf and 
 dumb, to speak plainly. He humorously observes, in one of his letters : — 
 " I am now employed upon another work, as hard almost as to make Mr. 
 Hobbes understand mathematics. It is to teach a person dumb and deaf to 
 speak, and to understand a language."
 
 JONSON AND DECKER. 
 
 Ben Jonson appears to have carried liis military spirit into the literary re- 
 public — his gross convivialities, with anecdotes of the prevalent taste in 
 that age for drinking-bouts — his " Poetaster" a sort of Dunciad, be- 
 sides a personal attack on the frequenters of the theatres, with anecdotes 
 — his Apologetical Dialogue, which was not allowed to be repeated — cha- 
 racters of Decker and of Marston — Decker's Satiromastix, a parody on 
 Jonson's "Poetaster" — Ben exhibited under the character of "Horace 
 Junior" — specimens of that literary satire ; its dignified remonstrance, 
 and the honourable applause bestowed on the great bard — some foibles in 
 the literary habits of Ben, alluded to by Decker — Jonson's noble reply 
 to his detractors and rivals. 
 
 This quarrel is a splendid instance how genius of the first 
 order, lavishing its satirical powers on a number of contem- 
 poraries, may discover, among the crowd, some individual 
 who may return with a right aim the weapon he has himself 
 used, and who will not want for encouragement to attack the 
 common assailant : the greater genius is thus mortified by a 
 victory conceded to the inferior, which he himself had taught 
 the meaner one to obtain over him. 
 
 JoNSON, in his earliest productions, " Every Man in his 
 Humour," and " Every Man out of his Humour," usurped 
 that dictatorship, in the Literary Republic, which he so 
 sturdily and invariably maintained, though long and hardily 
 disputed. No bard has more courageously foretold that pos- 
 terity would be interested in his labours ; and often with 
 very dignified feelings he casts this declaration into the teeth 
 of his adversaries : but a bitter contempt for his brothers and 
 his contemi)oraries was not less vehement than his affections 
 for those who crowded under his wing. To his " sons" and his 
 admirers he was warmly attached, and no poet has left be- 
 hind him, in MS., so many testimonies of personal fondness, 
 in the inscriptions and addresses, in the copies of his works 
 which he presented to friends : of these I have seen more 
 than one fervent and impressive. 
 
 DiiUMMOND of Ilawthornden, who perhaps carelessly and 
 imperfectly minuted down the heads of their literary confer-
 
 Jonson and Becker. 475 
 
 ence on the chief authors of the age, exposes the severity of 
 criticism which Ben exercised on some spirits as noble as his 
 own. The genius of Jonson was rough, hardy, and invincible, 
 of which the frequent excess degenerated into ferocity ; and 
 by some traditional tales, this ferocity was still inflamed by 
 large potations : for Drummond informs us, " Drink was the 
 element in which he lived."* Old Ben had given, on two 
 
 * The gross convivialities of the times, from the age of Elizabeth, were 
 remarkable for several cii'cumstances. Hard-drinking was a foreign vice, 
 imported by our military men on their return from the Netherlands : and 
 the practice, of whose prevalence Camden complains, was even brought to 
 a kind of science. They had a dialect peculiar to their orgies. See 
 " Cui-iosities of Literature," vol. ii. p. 294 (last edition). 
 
 Jonson's inclinations were too well suited to the prevalent taste, and he 
 gave as largely into it as any of his contemporaries. Tavern-habits were 
 then those of our poets and actors. Ben's Humours, at "the Mermaid," 
 and at a later period, his Leges Convivalcs at "the Apollo," the club-room 
 of "the Devil," were doubtless one great cause of a small personal un- 
 happiness, of which he complains, and which had a very unlucky eS'ect in 
 rendering a mistress so obdurate, who ' ' through her eyes had stopt her 
 ears." This was, as his own verse tells us, 
 
 " His mountain-belly and his rocky face." 
 
 He weighed near twenty stone, according to his own avowal — an Ele- 
 phant-Cupid ! One of his "Sons," at the " Devil," seems to think that 
 his Catiline could not fail to be a miracle, by a certain sort of inspiration 
 which Ben used on the occasion. 
 
 "With strenuous sinewy words that Catiline swells, 
 I reckon it not among men-miracles. 
 How could that poem heat and vigour lack. 
 When each line oft cost Ben a cup of sacTc .?" 
 
 K. Baron's Pocula Castalia, p. 113, 1650. 
 
 Jonson, in the Bacchic phraseology of the day, was "a Canai^-bird." 
 "He would (says Aubrey) many times exceed in drink ; canary was his 
 beloved liquor ; then he would tumble home to bed ; and when he had 
 thoroughly perspired, then to study," 
 
 Tradition, too, has sent down to us several tavern-tales of "Rare Ben." 
 A good-humoured one has been preserved of the first interview between 
 Bishop Corbet, when a young man, and our great bard. It occurred at a 
 tavern, where Corbet was sitting alone. Ben, who had probably just 
 drank up to the pitch of good fellowship, desired the waiter to take to the 
 gentleman "a quart of raw wine ; and tell him," he added, " I sacri^ce 
 my service to him." — "Friend," replied Corbet, "I thank him for his 
 love ; but tell him, from me, that he is mistaken ; for sacrifices are alv-ays 
 turned." This pleasant allusion to the mulled wine of the time by the 
 young wit could not fail to win the affection of the master-wit himself. 
 Harl. MSS. 6395. 
 
 Ben is not viewed so advantageously, in an unlucky fit of ebriety re- 
 corded by Oldys, in his MS. notes on Langbaine ; but his authority is not to 
 me of a suspicious nature : he had drawn it from a ]\IS. collection of
 
 476 (parrels of Authors. 
 
 occasions, some remarkable proofs of his personal intrepidity. 
 When a soldier, in the ftice of both armies, he had fought single- 
 handed with his antagonist, had slain him, and carried off his 
 arms as trophies. Another time he killed his man in a duel, 
 Jonson appears to have carried the same military spirit into 
 the Literary Republic. 
 
 Such a genius would become more tyrannical by success, 
 and naturally provoked opposition, from the proneness of man- 
 kind to mortify usurped greatness, when they can securely do it. 
 The man who hissed the poet's play had no idea that he might 
 himself become one of the dramatic personages. Ben then 
 produced his " Poetaster," which has been called i\\Q Dunciad 
 
 Oldiswortli's, who appears to have been a cui'ious collector of the history of 
 his times. He was secretary to that strange character, Philip, Earl of 
 Pembroke. It was the custom of those times to form collections of little 
 traditional stories and other good things ; we have had lately given to us by 
 the Camden Society an amusing one, from the L'Estrange family, and the 
 MS. already quoted is one of them. There could be no bad motive in re- 
 cording a tale, quite innocent in itself, and which is further confirmed by 
 Isaac Walton, who, without alluding to the tale, notices that Jonson parted 
 from Sir Walter Raleigh and his son "not in cold blood." Mr. Gifford, 
 in a MS. note on this work, does not credit this story, it not being accor- 
 dant with dates. Such stories may not accord with dates or persons, and 
 yet may be founded on some substantial fact. I know of no injury to 
 Ben's poetical character, in showing that he was, like other men, quite in- 
 capable of taking care of himself, when he was sunk in the heavy sleep of 
 dmmkenness. It was an age when kings, as our James I. and his majesty 
 of Denmark, were as often laid under the table as their subjects. My 
 motive for preserving the story is the incident respecting carrying men in 
 haslcets : it was evidently a custom, which perhaps may have suggested the 
 memorable adventure of Falstaff. It was a convenient mode of conveyance 
 for those who were incapable of taking care of themselves before the in- 
 vention of hackney coaches, which was of later date, in Charles the First's 
 reign. 
 
 Camden recommended Jonson to Sir Walter Raleigh as a tutor to his son, 
 whose gay humours not brooking the severe studies of Jonson, took ad- 
 vantage of his foible, to degrade him in the eyes of his father, who, it 
 seems, was remarkable for his abstinence from wine : though, if another 
 tale be true, he was no common sinner in "the true Virginia." Young 
 Raleigh contrived to give Ben a surfeit, which threw the poet into a deep 
 slumber ; and then the pupil maliciously procured a buck-basket, and a 
 couple of men, who carried our Ben to Sir Walter, with a message that 
 "their young master had sent home his tutor." There is nothing impro- 
 bable in the story ; for the circumstance of cari'i/inr/ drunken men in bas- 
 kets was a usual practice. In the Harleian MS. quoted above, I find more 
 than one instance ; I will give one. An alderman, carried in a jtortcr's 
 iasket, at his own door, is thrown out of it in a qualmish state. The 
 man, to frighten away the jjassengers, and enable the grave citizen to creep 
 in unobserved, exclaims, that the man had the falling sickness!
 
 Jonson and Decker. 477 
 
 of those times ; but it is a Dunciad without notes. The per- 
 sonages themselves are now only known by their general 
 resemblance to nature, with the exception of two characters, 
 those of Crispinus and Demetrius * 
 
 In " The Poetaster," Ben, with flames too long smothered, 
 burst over the heads of all rivals and detractors. His enemies 
 seem to have been among all classes ; personages recognised 
 
 * These were Marston and Decker, but as is usual with these sort of 
 caricatures, the originals sometimes mistook their likenesses. They were 
 both town-wits, and cronies, of much the same stamjj ; by a careful 
 perusal of their works, the editor of Jonson has decided that Marston was 
 Crispinus. With him Jonson had once lived on the most friendly terms : 
 afterwards the great poet quarrelled with both, or they with him. 
 
 Dryden, in the preface to his " Notes and Observations on the Empress 
 of Morocco," in his quarrel with Settle, which has been sufficiently nar- 
 rated by Dr. Johnson, felt, when poised against this miserable rival, who 
 had been merely set up by a party to mortify the superior genius, as 
 Jonson had felt when pitched against Crisj^i'ius. It is thus that literary 
 liistory is so interesting to authors. How often, in recording the fates of 
 others, it reflects their own ! "I knew indeed (says Dryden) that to write 
 against him was to do him too great an honour ; but I considered Een 
 Jonson had done it before to Decker, our author's predecessor, whom he 
 chastised in his Poetaster, under the character of Crisjjinus." Langbaine 
 tells us the subject of the " Satiromastix" of Decker, which I am to notice, 
 was "the witty Ben Jonson ;" and with this agree all the notices I have 
 hitherto met with respecting "the Horace Junior" of Decker's Satiro- 
 mastix. Mr. Gilchrist has published two curious pamphlets on Jonson ; 
 and in the last, p. 56, he has shown that Decker was "the poet-ape of 
 Jonson," and that he avenged himself under the character of Crispinus in 
 his " Satiromastix ;" to which may be added, that the Fannius, in the same 
 satirical comedy, is probably his friend Marston. 
 
 Jonson allowed himself great liberty in personal satire, by which, doubt- 
 less, he rung an alarum to a waspish host ; he lampooned Ini(jo Jones, 
 the great machinist and architect. The lampoons are printed in Jonson's 
 works [but not in their entirety. The great architect had sufficient court 
 influence to procure them to be cancelled ; and the character of In-and-in 
 Medley, in "The Tale of a Tub," has come down to us with no other 
 satirical personal traits than a few fantastical expressions] ; and I have in 
 MS. an answer by Inigo Jones, in verse, so pitiful that I have not printed 
 it. That he condescended to bring obscure individuals on the stage, 
 appears by his character of Carlo Buffoon, in Every Man out of his 
 Humour. He calls this " a second untruss," and was censured for having 
 drawn it from personal revenge. The Aubrey Papers, recently publislied, 
 have given us the character of this Carlo Buffoon, "one Charles Chester, 
 a bold impertinent fellow ; and they could never be at quiet for him ; a 
 perpetual talker, and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time 
 at a tavei'n Sir Walter llaleigh beats him, and seals up his mouth ; i. e., 
 his upper and nether beard, with hard wax." — p. 514. Such a character 
 was no unfitting object for dramatic satire. Mr. Gilchrist's pamphlets de- 
 fended Jonson fi'om the frequent accusations raised against him for the
 
 478 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 on the scene as soon as viewed ; poetical, military, legal, and 
 histrionic. It raised a host in arms. Jonson wrote an apolo- 
 getieal epilogue, breathing a firm spirit, worthy of himself; 
 but its dignit}^ was too haughty to be endured by contempo- 
 raries, whom genius must soothe by equality. This apologetical 
 dialogue was never allowed to be repeated ; now we may do it 
 with pleasure. Writings, like pictures, require a particular light 
 and distance to be correctly judged and inspected, without any 
 personal inconvenience. 
 
 One of the dramatic personages in this epilogue inquires 
 
 I never saw the play breed all this tumult. 
 What was there in it could so deeply ofifeud, 
 And stir so many hornets ? 
 
 The author replies : 
 
 I never writ that piece 
 
 More innocent, or empty of offence ; 
 
 Some salt it had, but neither tooth nor gall. 
 
 Why, they say you tax'd 
 
 The law and lawyers, captains, and the players, 
 By their particular names. 
 
 It is not so : 
 
 I used no names. My books have still been taught 
 To spare the persons, and to speak the vices. 
 
 And he proceeds to tell us, that to obviate this accusation 
 he had placed his scenes in the age of Augustus. 
 
 To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest 
 Of those great master-spirits, did not want 
 Detractors then, or practisers against them : 
 And by this line, although no parallel, 
 I hoped at last they would sit down and blush. 
 
 But instead of their " sitting down and blushing," we 
 find— 
 
 That they fly buzzing round about my nostrils ; 
 And, like so many screaming grasshoppers 
 Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise. 
 
 Names were certainly not necessary to portraits, where 
 every day the originals were standmg by their side. This 
 
 freedom of his muse, in such portraits after tha life. Yet even our poet 
 himself does not deny their truth, while he excuses himself. In the dedi- 
 cation of "The Fox," to the two Universities, he boldly asks, "Where 
 have I been particular ? Where personal 1 — Except to a mimic, cheater, 
 bawd, buffoon, creatures (for their insolencics) worthy to be taxed." The 
 mere list he here furnishes us with would serve to crowd one of the " two- 
 penny audiences" in the small theatres of that day.
 
 Jonson and Decker. 479 
 
 is the studied pleading of a poet, who knows he is concealing 
 the truth. 
 
 There is a passage in the play itself where Jonson gives 
 the true cause of "the tumult" raised against him. Picturing 
 himself under the character of his favourite Horace, he makes 
 the enemies of Horace thus describe him, still, however, pre- 
 serving the high tone of poetical superiority. 
 
 "Alas, sir, Horace is a mex-e sponge. Nothing but humours 
 and observations he goes up and down sucking from every 
 society, and when he comes home squeezes himself dry again. 
 He will pen all he knows. He will sooner lose his best friend 
 than his least jest. What he once drops upon paper against 
 a man, hves eternally to upbraid him." 
 
 Such is the true picture of a town-wit's life ! The age of 
 Augustus was much less present to Jonson than his own ; and 
 Ovid, Tibullus, and Horace were not the personages he cared 
 so much about, as " that society in which," it was said, "he 
 went up and down sucking in and squeezing himself dry." 
 the formal lawyers, who were cold to his genius ; the sharking 
 captains, who would not cbaw to save their own swords, and 
 would cheat "their friend, or their friend's friend," while 
 they would bully down Ben's genius ; and the little sycophant 
 histrionic, " the twopenny* tear-mouth, copper-laced scoun- 
 drel, stifF-toe, who used to travel with pumps full of gravel 
 after a bhnd jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and 
 barrel-heads to an old crackt trumpet ;" and who all now made 
 a party with some rival of Jonson. 
 
 All these personages will account for " the tumult " which 
 excites the innocent astonishment of our author. These only 
 resisted him by "filling everj- ear with noise." But one of 
 the " screaming grasshoppers held by the wings," boldly 
 turned on the holder with a scorpion's bite ; and Decker, who 
 had been lashed in " The Poetaster," produced his "Satiromas- 
 tix, or the untrussing of the humorous Poet." Decker was a 
 subordinate author, indeed ; but, what must have been very 
 galling to Jonson, who was the aggressor, indignation proved 
 such an inspirer, that Decker seemed to have caught some 
 portion of Jonson's own genius, who had the art of making 
 even Decker popular ; while he discovered that his own laurel- 
 wreath had been dexterously changed by the " Satiromastix" 
 into a garland of " stinging nettles." 
 
 * AlludiDg, no doubt, to tlie price of seats at some of tlie minor theatres.
 
 480 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 In "The Poetaster," Crispinus is the picture of one of those 
 impertinent fellows who resolve to become poets, having an 
 equal aptitude to become anything that is in fashionable 
 request. When Hermogenes, the finest singer in Rome, 
 refused to sing, Crispinus gladly seizes the occasion, and 
 whispers the lady near him — " Entreat the ladies to entreat 
 me to sing, I beseech j^ou." This character is marked by a 
 ludicrous peculiarity which, turning on an individual charac- 
 teristic, must have assisted the audience in the true applica- 
 tion. Probably Decker had some remarkable head of hair,* 
 and that his locks hung not like " the curls of Hyperion ;" 
 for the jeweller's wife admiring among the company the per- 
 sons of Ovid, TibuUus, &c., Crispimis acquaints her that they 
 were poets, and, since she admires them, promises to become a 
 poet himself. The simple lady further inquires, " if, when he 
 is a poet, his looks will change ? and particularly if his hair 
 will change, and be like those gentlemen's?" "A man," 
 observes Crispimis, " may be a poet, and yet not change his 
 hair." " Well !" exclaims the simple jeweller's wife, "we shall 
 see your cunning ; yet if you can change your hair, I pray 
 do it." 
 
 In two elaborate scenes, poor Decker stands for a full-length. 
 Resolved to be a poet, he haunts the company of Horace : he 
 meets him in the street, and discovers all the variety of his 
 nothingness : he is a student, a stoic, an architect : everything 
 by turns, "and nothing long." Horace impatiently attempts 
 to escape from him, but Crispinus foils him at all points. 
 This affectionate admirer is even willing to go over the world 
 with him. He proposes an ingenious project, if Horace will 
 introduce him to Maecenas. Crispinus otters to become " his 
 assistant," assuring him that " he would be content with the 
 next place, not envying thy reputation with thy patron ;" and 
 he thinks that Horace and himself " would soon lift out of 
 favour Virgil, Varius, and the best of them, and enjo}'' them 
 wholly to ourselves." The restlessness of Horace to extricate 
 himself from this " Hydra of Discourse," the passing friends 
 whom he calls on to assist him, and the glue-like pertinacity 
 of Crispinus, are richly coloured. 
 
 A ludicrous and exquisitely satirical scene occurs at the trial 
 
 * It was the fasliion with the poets connected with the theatre to wear 
 longhair. Nashe censures Greene " for his fond (foolisli) disguising of a 
 Master of Arts (which was Greene's degree) with ruffianly hair." — Ed.
 
 Jonson and Decker. 481 
 
 of Crispinus and his colleagues. Jonson has hero introduced 
 an invention, which a more recent satirist so happily applied 
 to our modern Lexiphanes, Dr. Johnson, for his inniieasurable 
 polysyllables. Horace is allowed by Augustus to make 
 Crispinus swallow a certain pill ; the light vomit discharges a 
 great quantity of hard matter, to clear 
 
 His brain and stomach of their tumorous heats. 
 
 These consist of certain affectations in style, and adultera- 
 tion of words, which offended the Horatian taste : " the basin " 
 is called quickly for and Crispinus gets rid easily of some, but 
 others were of more difficult passage : — 
 
 ' Magnificate !' that came up somewhat hard ! 
 
 Crispinus. '0 barmy froth ' 
 
 Atigustus. What's that ? 
 
 Crispinus. ' Inflate ! — Turgidous ! — and Ventositous' — 
 
 Horace. ' Barmy froth, inflate, turgidous, and ventosity are come up. 
 
 Tibullus. terrible windy words ! 
 
 Gallus. A sign of a windy brain. 
 
 But all was not yet over : " Prorumpt" made a terrible 
 rumbling, as if his spirit Avas to have gone with it ; and 
 there were others which required all the kind assistance of 
 the Horatian "light vomit." This satirical scene closes with 
 some literary admonitions from the grave Virgil, who details 
 to Crispinus the wholesome diet to be observed after his sur- 
 feits, which have filled 
 
 His blood and brain thus full of crudities. 
 
 Virgil's counsels to the vicious neologist, who debases the 
 purity of English diction by affecting new words or 
 phrases, may too frequently be applied. 
 
 You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms 
 
 To stufl" out a peculiar dialect ; 
 
 But let your matter run before your words. 
 
 And if at any time you chance to meet 
 
 Some Gallo-Belgick phrase, you shall not straight 
 
 Eack your poor verse to give it entertainment, 
 
 But let it pass ; and do not think yourself 
 
 Much damnified, if you do leave it out 
 
 When not the sense could well receive it, 
 
 Virgil adds something which breathes all the haughty 
 spirit of Ben: he commands Crispinus: 
 
 I I
 
 482 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Henceforth, learn 
 
 To bear yourself more humbly, nor to swell 
 
 Or breathe your insolent and idle spite 
 
 On him whose laughter can your worst affright : 
 
 and dismisses him 
 
 To some dark place, removed from company ; 
 He will talk idly else after his physic. 
 
 "The Satiromastix" may be considered as a parody on 
 " The Poetaster." Jonson, with classical taste, had raised his 
 scene in the court of Augustus : Decker, with great unhap- 
 piness, places it in that of William Rufus. The interest of 
 the piece arises from the dexterity with which Decker has 
 accommodated those very characters which Jonson has sati- 
 rised in his "Poetaster." This gratified those who came 
 every day to the theatre, delighted to take this mimetic re- 
 venge on the arch bard. 
 
 In Decker's prefatory address " To the World," he observes, 
 " Horace haled his Poetasters to the bar ;* the Poetasters 
 untrussed Horace : Horace made himself believe that his 
 Burgonian wit \ might desperately challenge all comers, 
 and that none durst take up the foils against him." But 
 Decker is the Earl Rivers ! He had been blamed for the 
 personal attacks on Jonson ; for " whipping his fortunes and 
 condition of life ; where the more noble reprehension had been 
 of his mind's deformity:" but for this he retorts on Ben. 
 Some censured Decker for barrenness of invention, in bringing 
 on those characters in his own play whom Jonson had stig- 
 matised ; but " it was not improper," he says, " to set the 
 same dog upon Horace, whom Horace had set to worry 
 others." Decker warmly concludes with defying the Jon- 
 sonians. 
 
 " Let that mad dog Detraction bite till his teeth be worn 
 to the stumps ; Envy, feed thy snakes so fat with poison till 
 they burst ; World, let all thy adders shoot out their Hydra- 
 headed forked stings ! I thank thee, thou true Venusian 
 Horace, for these good words thou givest me. Popidus me 
 sihilat, at mild plan do. ^'' 
 
 The whole address is spirited. Decker was a very popular 
 
 * Alluding to the trial of the Poetasters, M'hich takes place before 
 Augustus and his poetical jury of Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, &c., in Ben's play. 
 
 t Decker alludes here to the bastard of Burgundy, who considered him- 
 self unmatchable, till he was overthrown in Smithficld by Woodville, Earl 
 Elvers.
 
 Jonson and Decker. 483 
 
 writer, whose numerous tracts exhibit to posterity a more 
 detailed narrative of the manners of the town in the EUza- 
 bethan age than is elsewhere to be found. 
 
 In Decker's Satiromastix, Horace junior is first exhibited in 
 his study, rehearsing to himself an ode : suddenly the Pin- 
 daric rapture is interrupted by the want of a rhyme ; this is 
 satii'ically applied to an unlucky line of Ben's own. One of 
 his " sons," Asinius Bubo, who is blindly worshipping his 
 great idol, or " his Ningle," as he calls him, amid his admi- 
 ration of Horace, perpetually breaks out into digressive ac- 
 counts of what sort of a man his friends take him to be. 
 For one, Horace in wrath prepares an epigram : and for Cris- 
 pimis and Fanniiis, brother bards, who threaten " the}'^'!! 
 bring your life and death on the stage, as a bricklayer in a 
 play," he says, "I can bring a prepared troop of gallants, 
 who, for my sake, shall distaste every unsalted line in their 
 fly-blown comedies." "A3"," replies Asinius, "and all men 
 of my rank !" Ci'is^iims, Horace calls " a light voluptuous 
 reveller," and Fannius "the slightest cobweb-lawn piece of a 
 poet." Both enter, and Horace receives them with all 
 friendship. 
 
 The scene is here conducted not without skill. Horace 
 complains that 
 
 WKen I dip my pen 
 
 In (listill'd roses, and do strive to drain 
 
 Out of mine ink all gall — 
 
 Mine enemies, witli sharp and searchin eyes, 
 
 Look tlirougli and through me. 
 
 And when my lines are measured out as straight 
 
 As even parallels, 'tis strange, that still, 
 
 StiU some imagine that they're drawn awry. 
 
 The error is not mine, but in their eye, 
 
 That cannot take proportions. 
 
 To the querulous satirist, Crispimis replies with dignified 
 
 gravity — 
 
 Horace ! to stand within the shot of galling tongues 
 
 Proves not your guilt ; for, could we %vrite on paper 
 
 Made of these turning leaves of heaven, the clouds. 
 
 Or speak with angels' tongues, yet wise men know 
 
 That some would shake the head, though saints should sing ; 
 
 Some snakes must hiss, because they're born with stings. 
 
 Be not you grieved 
 
 If that which you mould ftiir, upright, and smooth, 
 Be screw'd awry, made crooked, lame, and vile, 
 By racking comments. — 
 
 ii2
 
 484) Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 So to be bit it rankles not, for Innocence 
 May with a feather brush oft' the foul wrong. 
 But when your dastard wit unll strike at men 
 In coma's, and in riddles fold the rices 
 Of your best friends, you must not take to heart 
 If they take off all gilding from their iiills, 
 And only offer you the bitter core. — 
 
 At this the galled Horace winces, Crispinus continues, 
 that it is in vain Horace swears, that 
 
 He puts on 
 
 The office of an executioner, 
 
 Only to strike off the swoln head of sin, 
 
 "Where'er you find it standing. Say j'ou swear, 
 
 And make damnation, j^arcel of your oath, 
 
 That when your lashing jests make all men bleed, 
 
 Yet you whip none — court, city, country, friends, 
 
 Foes, all must smart alike. — 
 
 Fannius, too, joins, and shows Ben the absurd oaths he 
 takes, when he swears to all parties, that he does not mean 
 them. How, then, of" five hundred and four, five hundred 
 
 Should all point with their fingers in one instant, 
 At one and the same man ? 
 
 Horace is awkwardly placed between these two friendly 
 remonstrants, to whom he promises perpetual love. 
 
 Captain Tucca, a dramatic personage in Jonson's Poetaster, 
 and a copy of his own Bobadil, whose original the poet had 
 found at " Powles," the fashionable lounge of that day, is 
 here continued with the same spirit ; and as that character 
 permitted from the extravagance of its ribaldry, it is now 
 made the vehicle for those more personal retorts, exhibiting 
 the secret history of Ben, which perhaps twitted the great 
 bard more than the keenest wit, or the most solemn admoni- 
 tion which Decker could ever attain. Jonson had cruelly 
 touched on Decker being out at elbows, and made himself too 
 merry with the histrionic tribe : he, who was himself a poet, 
 and had been a Thespian ! The blustering captain thus 
 attacks the great wit: — "Do'st stare, m}^ Saracen's head at 
 Newgate ? I'll march through thy Dunkirk guts, for slioot- 
 ing jests at me." He insists that as Horace, "that sly knave, 
 whose shoulders were once seen lapp'd in a player's old cast 
 cloak," and who had reflected on Crispimts's satin doublet 
 being ravelled out ; that he should wear one of Crispinus' s
 
 Jonson and Decker. 485 
 
 "old cast sattin suits," and that Fannius should write a 
 couple of scenes for his own " strong garlic comedies," and 
 Horace should swear that they were his own — he woukl easily 
 bear " the guilt of conscience." " Thy Muse is hut a hagler, 
 and wears clothes upon best be trust (a humorous Deckerian 
 phrase) — thou'rt great in somebody's books for this !" Did 
 it become Jonson to gibe at the histrionic tribe, who is himself 
 accused of "treading the stage, as if he were treading mortar."* 
 He once put up — " a supplication to be a poor journeyman 
 player, and hadst been still so, but that thou couldst not set 
 a good face upon't. Thou hast forget how thou ambled'st in 
 leather-pilch, by a play-waggon in the highway; and took'st 
 mad Jeronirno's part, to get service among the mimics," &c. 
 
 Ben's person was, indeed, not gracious in the playfulness of 
 love or fancy. A female, here, thus delineates Ben : — 
 
 " That same Horace has the most ungodly face, by my fan ; 
 it looks for all the world like a rotten russet-apple, when 'tis 
 bruised. It's better than a spoonful of cinnamon-water next 
 my heart, for me to hear him speak ; he sounds it so i' th' 
 nose, and talks and rants like the poor fellows under Lud- 
 gate — to see his face make faces, when he reads his songs and 
 sonnets." 
 
 Again, we have Ben's face compared with that of his 
 favourite, Horace's — " You staring Leviathan ! look on the 
 sweet visage of Horace ; look, parboil'd face, look — he has not 
 his face punchtfull of eyelet-holes, like the cover of a warm- 
 ing-pan." 
 
 Joseph Warton has oddly remarked that most of our poets 
 were handsome men. Jonson, however, was not poetical on 
 that score ; though his bust is said to resemble Menander's. 
 
 Such are some of the personalities with which Decker 
 recriminated. 
 
 Horace is thrown into many ludicrous situations. He is 
 told that "admonition is good meat." Various persons bring 
 forward their accusations ; and Horace replies that they envy 
 him, 
 
 Because I hold more worthy company. 
 
 The greatness of Ben's genius is by no means denied by 
 
 * Horace acknowledges he played Zulziman at Paris-garden. " Sir 
 Yaughan : Then, master Horace, you played the part of an honest man — " 
 
 Tucca exclaims : ' ' Death of Hercules ! he could never play that part well 
 in's life !"
 
 486 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 his rivals ; and Decker makes Fannius reply, with nohle feel- 
 ings, and in an elevated strain of poetry: — 
 
 Good Horace, no ! my cheeks do blush for thine, 
 
 As often as thou speakst so ; where one true 
 
 And nobly virtuous sijirit, for thy best part 
 
 Loves thee, I wish one, ten ; even from my heart ! 
 
 I make account, I put up as deep share 
 
 In any good man's love, which thy worth earns. 
 
 As thou thyself ; we envy not to see 
 
 Thy friends with bays to crown thy poesy. 
 
 No, here the gall lies ; — We, that know what stuff 
 
 Thy very heart is made of, know the stalk 
 
 On which thy learning grows, and can give life 
 
 To thy, once dying, baseness ; yet must we 
 
 Dance anticke on your paper — . 
 
 But were thy warp'd soul put in a new mould, 
 
 I'd wear thee as a jewel set iu gold. 
 
 To which one adds, that "jewels, master Horace, must be 
 hanged, you know." This " Whip of Men," with Asinius 
 his admirer, are brought to court, transformed into satyrs, 
 and bound together : " not lawrefied, but nettle-fied ;" crowned 
 with a wreath of nettles. 
 
 With stinging-nettles crown his stinging wit. 
 
 Horace is called on to swear, after Asinius had sworn to 
 give up his " Ningle." 
 
 " Now, master Horace, you must be a more horrible swearer ; 
 for your oath must be, like your wits, of many colours ; and 
 like a broker's book, of many parcels." 
 
 Horace offers to swear till his hairs stand up on end, to be 
 rid of this sting. " Oh, this sting!" alluding to the nettles. 
 " 'Tis not your sting of conscience, is it ?" asks one. In the 
 inventory of his oaths, there is poignant satire, with strong 
 humour ; and it probably exhibits some foibles in the literary 
 habits of our bard. 
 
 He swears " Not to hang himself, even if he thought any 
 man could write plays as well as himself; not to bombast 
 out a new play with the old linings of jests stolen from the 
 Temple's lieveJs ; not to sit in a galler)^ when your comedies 
 have entered their actions, and there make vile and bad faces 
 at every line, to make men have an eye to j'ou, and to make 
 pla3'ers afraid ; not to venture on the stage, when your play 
 is ended, and exchange courtesies and compliments with gal- 
 lants to make all the house rise and cry — 'That's Horace
 
 Jonson and Decker. 487 
 
 that's he that pens and purges humours.' "When you bid all 
 your friends to the marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, 
 your Wits and Necessities — alias, a poet's Whitsun-ale — you 
 shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, 
 in bookbinders' shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary- 
 kings, have done homage to you, or paid quarterage. More- 
 over, when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and 
 out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake — 
 you will swear not to make scald and wry-mouthed jests upon 
 his knighthood. When your plaj's are misliked at court, you 
 shall not cry Mew ! like a puss-cat, and say, you are glad you 
 write out of the courtier's element ; and in brief, when you 
 sup in taverns, amongst your betters, you shall swear not to 
 dip your manners in too much sauce ; nor, at table, to fling 
 epigrams or plaj^-speeches about you." 
 The king observes, that 
 
 He wliose pen 
 
 Draws both corrupt and clear blood from all men 
 Careless what vein he pricks ; let him not rave 
 When his own sides are struck ; blows, blows do crave. 
 
 Such were the bitter apples which Jonson, still in his youth, 
 plucked from the tree of his broad satire, that branched over 
 all ranks in society. That even his intrepidit}^ and hardiness 
 felt the incessant attacks he had raised about him, appears 
 from the close of theApologetical Epilogue to "The Poetaster;" 
 where, though he replies with all the consciousness of genius, 
 and all its haughtiness, he closes with a determination to give 
 over the composition of comedies ! This, however, lilce all 
 the vows of a poet, was soon broken ; and his masterpieces 
 were subsequently produced. 
 
 Friend. Will you not answer then the libels ? 
 
 Author. No. 
 
 Friend. Nor the Untrussers 
 
 Authoi'. Neither. 
 
 Friend. You are undone, then. 
 
 Author. With whom ? 
 
 Friend. The world. 
 
 Author. The bawd ! 
 
 Friend. It will be taken to be stupidity or tameness in yon. 
 
 Author. But they that have incensed me, can in soul 
 Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare 
 To spurn or baffle them ; or squirt theii- eyes 
 With ink or urine : or I could do worse, 
 Arai'd with Archilochus' fury, wTite iambicks. 
 Would make the desperate lashers hang themselves.—
 
 488 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 His Friend tells him that he is accused that "all his 
 writing is mere railing;" which Jonson nobl}' compares to 
 " the salt in the old comed}^ ;" that they say, that he is slow, 
 and " scarce brings forth a play a year." 
 
 Author. 'Tis true, 
 
 I would they could not say that I did that. 
 
 He is angry that their 
 
 Base and beggarly conceits 
 
 Should carry it, by the multitude of voices, 
 Against the most abstracted work, opposed 
 To the stufft nostrils of the drunken rout. — 
 
 And then exclaims with admirable enthusiasm — 
 
 this would make a learn'd and liberal soul 
 
 To rive his stained quill up to the back, 
 
 And damn his long-watch'd labours to the fire ; 
 
 Things, that were born, when none but the still night, 
 
 And the dumb caudle, saw his pinching throes. 
 
 And again, alluding to these mimics — 
 
 This 'tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips, 
 And apts me rather to sleep out my time. 
 Than I would waste it in contemned strifes 
 With these vile Ibides, these unclean birds. 
 That make their mouths their clysters, and still purge 
 From their hot entrails.* But I leave the monsters 
 To their own fate. And since the Comic Muse 
 Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try 
 If Tragedy have a more kind aspect. 
 Leave me ! There's something come into my thought 
 That must and shall be sung, high and aloof. 
 Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof. 
 Friend. I reverence these raptures, and obey them. 
 
 * Among those arts of imitation which man has derived from the prac- 
 tice of animals, naturalists assure us that he owes the use of cli/stcrs to 
 the Egyptian Iliis. There are some who pretend this medicinal invention 
 comes from the stork. Tlie French are more like Ibises than we are : Us 
 se donncnt dcs lavrmcnfs cux-manes. But as it is rather uncertain what 
 the Egyptian Ibis is ; whether, as translated in Leviticus xi. 17, the cor- 
 morant, or a species of stork, or only "a great owl," as we find in 
 Calmet ; it would be safest to attribute the invention to the unknown 
 bird. I recollect, in Wickliffe's version of the Pentateuch, which I onco 
 saw in MS. in the possession of my valued friend Mr. Douce, that that 
 venerable translator interpolates a little, to tell us that the Ibis "giveth to 
 herself a purge."
 
 Jonson and Decker. 489 
 
 Such was the noble strain in which Jonson repUed to his 
 detractors in the town and to his rivals about him. Yet this 
 poem, com]iosed with all the dignity and force of the bard, 
 was not surfered to be repeated. It was stopped by authority. 
 But Jonson, in preserving it in his works, sends it " TO 
 POSTEEiTT, that it may make a difierence between their 
 manners that provoked me then, and mine that neglected them 
 ever."
 
 CAMDEN AND BROOKE. 
 
 Literary, like political history, is interested in the cause of an obscure 
 individual, when deprived of his just rights — character of Camden — 
 Brooke's "Discovery of Errors" in the "Britannia" — his work dis- 
 turbed in the printing — afterwards enlarged, but never suffered to be 
 published — whether Brooke's motive was personal rancour ! — the per- 
 secuted author becomes vindictive — his keen reply to Camden — Cam- 
 den's beautiful picture of calumny — -Brooke furnishes a humorous com- 
 panion-piece — Camden's want of magnanimity and justice— when great 
 authors are allowed to suppress the works of their adversary, the public 
 receives the injury and the insult. 
 
 lis the literary as well as the political commonwealth, the 
 cause of an obscure individual violently deprived of his just 
 rights is a common one. We protest against the power of 
 genius itself, when it strangles rather than wrestles with its 
 adversary, or combats in mail against a naked man. The 
 general interests of literature are involved by the illegitimate 
 suppression of a work, of which the purpose is to correct 
 another, whatever may be the invective which accompanies 
 the correction : nor are we always to assign to malignant 
 motives even this spirit of invective, which, though it betrays 
 a contracted genius, may also show the earnestness of an honest 
 one. 
 
 The quarrel between Camden, the great author of the 
 "Britannia," and Beooke, the "York Herald," ma}' illus- 
 trate these principles. It has hitherto been told to the shame 
 of the inferior genius ; but the history of Brooke was im- 
 perfectly known to his contemporaries. Crushed by oppres- 
 sion, his tale was marred in the telling. A century sometimes 
 passes away before the world can discover the truth even of a 
 private history. 
 
 Brooke is aspersed as a man of the meanest talents, insen- 
 sible to the genius of Camden, rankling with envy at his fame, 
 and correcting the "Britannia" out of mere spite. 
 
 When the history of Brooke is known, and his labours 
 fairly estimated, we shall blame him much less than he has 
 been blamed ; and censure Camden, who has escaped all cen-
 
 Camden and Brooke. 491 
 
 sure, and whose conduct, in the present instance, was destitute 
 of magnanimity and justice. 
 
 The character of the author of " Britannia" is great, and 
 this error of his feelings, now first laid to his charge, may he 
 attributed as much to the weakness of the age as to his own 
 extreme timidit}', and perhaps to a little pride. Conscious as 
 was Camden of enlarged views, we can easily- pardon him for 
 the contempt he felt, when he compared them with the 
 suhordinate ones of his cynical adversary. 
 
 Camden possessed one of those strongly directed minds 
 which early in life plan some vast labour, while their imagi- 
 nation and their industry feed on it for many successive 
 years ; and they shed the flower and sweetness of their lives 
 in the preparation of a work which at its maturity excites 
 the gratitude of their nation. His passion for our national 
 antiquities discovered itself even in his school-days, grew up 
 with him at the University ; and, when afterwards engaged 
 in his public duties as master at Westminster school, he there 
 composed his " Britannia," " at spare hom-s, and on festival 
 days." To the perpetual care of his work, he voluntarily 
 sacrificed all other views in life, and even drew himself away 
 from domestic pleasures ; for he refused marriage and prefer- 
 ments, which might interrupt his beloved studies ! The work 
 at length produced, received all the admiration due to so great 
 an enterprise ; and even foreigners, as the work was composed 
 in the universal language of learning, could sympathise with 
 Britons, when they contemplated the stupendous labour. 
 Camden v.'as honoured hy the titles (for the very names of 
 illustrious genius become such), of the Yarro, the Strabo, and 
 the Pausanias of Britain. 
 
 While all Europe admired the "Britannia," a cynical 
 genius, whose mind seemed bounded hy his confined studies, 
 detected one error amidst the noble views the mighty volume 
 embraced ; the single one perhaps he could perceive, and for 
 which he stood indebted to his office as " York Herald." 
 Camden, in an appendage to the end of each county, had 
 committed numerous genealogical errors, which he afterwards 
 affected, in his defence, to consider as trivial matters in so 
 great a history, and treats his adversaiy with all the con- 
 tempt and bitterness he could inflict on him ; but lialph 
 Brooke entertained ver}' high notions of the importance of 
 heraldical studies, and conceived that the " Schoolmaster" 
 Camden, as he considered him, had encroached on the rights
 
 492 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 and honours of his College of Heralds. When particular ob- 
 jects engage our studies, we are apt to raise them in the scale 
 of excellence to a degree disproportioned to their real value ; 
 and are thus liable to incur ridicule. But it should be con- 
 sidered that many useful students are not philosophers, and 
 the pursuits of their lives are never ridiculous to them. It is 
 not the interest of the public to degrade this class too low. 
 Every species of study contributes to the perfection of human 
 knowledge, by that universal bond which connects them all 
 in a philosophical mind. 
 
 Brooke prepared " A Discovery of Certain Errors in the 
 Much-commended Britannia." When we consider Brooke's 
 character, as headstrong with heraldry as Don Quixote's with 
 romances of chivalry, we need not attribute his motives (as 
 Camden himself, with the partial feelings of an author, does, 
 and subsequent writers echo) to his envy at Camden's pro- 
 motion to be Clarencieux King of Arms ; for it appears that 
 Brooke began his work before this promotion. The indecent 
 excesses of his pen, with the malicious charges of plagiarism 
 he brings against Camden for the use he made of Leland's 
 collections, only show the insensibility of the mere heraldist 
 to the nobler genius of the historian. Yet Brooke had no 
 ordinary talents : his work is still valuable for his own pecu- 
 liar researches ; but his naive shrewdness, his pointed preci- 
 sion, the bitter invective, and the caustic humour of his 
 cynical pen, give an air of originality, if not of genius, which 
 no one has dared to notice. Brooke's first work against 
 Camden was violently disturbed in its progress, and hurried, 
 in a mutilated state, into the world, without licence or a 
 publisher's name. Thus impeded, and finally crushed, the 
 howl of persecution followed his name ; and subsequent 
 writers servilely traced his character from their partial pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 But Brooke, though denied the fair freedom of the press, 
 and a victim to the powerful connexions of Camden, calmly 
 pursued his silent labour with great magnanimity. He 
 vi^rote his "Second Discovery of Errors," an enlargement of 
 the first. This he carefully finished for the press, but could 
 never get published. The secret history of the controversy 
 may be found there.* 
 
 * This work was not given to the public till 1724, a small quarto, with 
 a fine portrait of ]5i-ooke. More than a century had elapsed si)ice its 
 forciUe suppression, Anstis printed it from the lair MS. which Bi'ooke
 
 Camden and Brooke. 493 
 
 Brooke had been loudly accused of indulging a personal 
 rancour against Camden, and the motive of his work was 
 attributed to envy of his great reputation ; a charge con- 
 stantly repeated. 
 
 Yet this does not appear, for when Brooke first began his 
 " Discovery of Errors," he did not design its publication ; for 
 he liberally offered Camden his Observations and Collections, 
 They were fastidiously, perhaps haughtily, rejected ; on tliis 
 pernicious and false principle, that to correct his errors in 
 genealogy might discredit the whole work. On which absurdity 
 Brooke shrewdly remarks — " As if healing the sores would 
 have maimed the body." He speaks with more humility on 
 this occasion than an insulted, yet a skilful writer, was likely 
 to do, who had his labours considered, as he says, " worthy 
 neither of thanks nor acceptance." 
 
 " The rat is not so contemptible but he may help the lion, 
 at a pinch, out of those nets wherein his strength is ham- 
 pered ; and the words of an inferior may often carry matter 
 in them to admonish his superior of some important con- 
 sideration ; and surely, of what account soever I might have 
 seemed to this learned man, yet, in respect to my profession 
 and courteous offer, (I being an officer-of-arms, and he then 
 but a schoolmaster), might well have vouchsafed the perusal 
 of my notes." 
 
 When he published, our herald stated the reasons of writing 
 against Camden with good-humour, and rallies him on his 
 " incongruity in his principles of heraldry — for which I 
 challenge him ! — for depriving some nobles of issue to succeed 
 them., who had issue, of whom are descended many worthy 
 famihes : denying barons and earls that were, and making 
 barons and earls of others that were not ; mistaking the son 
 for the father, and the father for the son ; affirming legitimate 
 children to be illegitimate, and illegitimate to be legitimate ; 
 and framing incestuous and unnatural marriages, making the 
 father to marry the son's wife, and the son his own mother." 
 
 He treats Camden with the respect due to his genius, 
 while he judiciously distinguishes where the greatest ought to 
 know when to yield. 
 
 " The most abstruse arts I profess not, but yield the palm 
 and victor}"- to mine adversary, that great learned Mr. Camden, 
 
 had left behind him. The author's paternal affection seemed fondly to 
 imagine its child might be worthy of posterity, though calumniated by its 
 contemporaries.
 
 49 1 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 with whom, yet, a long experimented navigatoi' may contend 
 about his chart and compass, about havens, creeks, and 
 sounds ; so I, an ancient herald, a little dispute, without im- 
 putation of audacity, concerning the honour of arms, and the 
 truth of honourable descents." 
 
 Brooke had seen, as he observes, in four editions of the 
 "Britannia," a continued race of errors, in false descents, &c., 
 and he continues, with a witty allusion : — 
 
 " Perceiving that even the brains of many learned men 
 beyond the seas had misconceived and miscarried in the 
 travail and birth of their relations, being gotten, as it were, 
 with child (as Diomedes's mares) by the blasts of his erro- 
 neous puffs ; I could not but a little question the original fatiier 
 of their absurdities, being so far blown, with the trumpet of 
 his learning and fame, into foreign lands," 
 
 He proceeds with instances of several great authors on the 
 Continent having been misled by the statements of Camden. 
 
 Thus largely have I quoted from Brooke, to show, that at 
 first he never appears to have been influenced by the mean 
 envy, or the personal rancour, of which lie is constantly 
 accused. As he proceeded in his work, which occupied him 
 several years, his reproaches are whetted with a keener edge, 
 and his accusations are less generous. But to what are we 
 to attribute this ? To the contempt and persecution Brooke 
 so long endured from Camden : these acted on his vexed and 
 degraded spirit, till it burst into the excesses of a man heated 
 with injured feelings. 
 
 When Camden took his station in the Herald's College 
 with Brooke, whose offers of his notes he had refused to 
 accept, they soon found what it was for two avithors to live 
 under the same roof, who were impatient to write against 
 each other. The cynical York, at first, would twit the new 
 king-of-arms, perpetually aflirming that " his predecessor was 
 a more able herald than any who lived in this age:" a truth, 
 indeed, acknowledged by Uugdale. On this occasion, once 
 the king-of-arms gave malicious York "the lie!" reminding 
 the crabbed herald of " his own learning ; who, as a scholar, 
 was famous through all the provinces of Christendom." " So 
 that (adds Brooke) now I learnt, that before him, when we 
 speak in commendation of any other, to say, I must always 
 except Plato." Camden would allow of no private communi- 
 cation between them ; and in Se-ruwnibiis Convivalibus, in his 
 table-talk, " the heat and height of his spirit" often scorched
 
 Camden and Brooke. 495 
 
 the contemned Yorkist, whose rejected " Discovery of Errors" 
 had no doubt been too frequently enlarged, after such rough 
 convivialities. Brooke now resolved to print ; but, in printing 
 the work, the press was disturbed, and his house was entered 
 by " this learned man, his friends, and the stationers." The 
 latter were alarmed for the sale of the " Britannia," which 
 might have been injured by this rude attack. The work was 
 therefoi-e printed- in an unfinished state : part was intercepted; 
 and the author stopped, by authority, from proceeding any 
 further. Some imperfect copies got abroail. 
 
 The treatment the exasperated Brooke now incurred was 
 more provoking than Camden's refusal of his notes, and the 
 haughtiness of his " Sermonibus Convivalibus." The imper- 
 fect work was, however, laid before the public, so that Camden 
 could not refuse to notice its grievous charges. He composed 
 an angry reply in Latin, addressed ad Lectorem! and never 
 mentioning Brooke by name, contemptuously alludes to him 
 only by a Quidcim and Iste (a certain person, and He !) — " He 
 considers me (cries the mortified Brooke, in his second sup- 
 pressed work) as an Individuum vagum, and makes me but a 
 Quidam in his pamphlet, standing before him as a school-boy, 
 while he whips me. Why does he reply in Latin to an 
 English accusation ? He would disguise himself in his school- 
 rhetoric; wherein, like the cuttle-fish, being stricken, he thinks 
 to hide and shift himself away in the ink of his rhetoric. I 
 will clear the waters again." 
 
 He fastens on Camden's former occupation, virulently 
 accusing him of the manners of a pedagogue : — " A man may 
 perceive an immoderate and eager desire of vainglory grow- 
 ing in hand, ever since he used to teach and correct children 
 for these things, according to the opinion of some, in mores 
 et naturam abeuntP He complains of "the school-hj^per- 
 boles" which Camden exhausts on him, among which Brooke 
 is compared to " the strumpet Leontion," who wrote against 
 "the divine Theophrastus." To this Brooke keenly replies : 
 
 " Surely, had Theophrastus dealt with women's matters, a 
 woman, though mean, might in reason have contended with 
 him. A kino- must be content to be laughed at if he come 
 into Apelles's shop, and dispute about colours and portraiture. 
 I am not ambitious nor envious to carp at matters of higher 
 learning than matters of heraldry, which I profess : that is 
 the shpper, wherein I know a slip when I find it. But see 
 your cunning ; you can. with the blur of your pen, dipped in
 
 496 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 copperas and gall, make me learned and unlearned ; nay, you 
 can almost change ni}' sex, and make me a whore, like 
 Leontion ; and, taking your silver pen again, make yourself 
 the divine Theophrastus." 
 
 At the close of Camden's answer, he introduced the alle- 
 gorical picture of Calumny, that elegant invention of the 
 Grecian fancy of Apelles, painted by him when suffering 
 under the false accusations of a rival. The picture is de- 
 scribed by Lucian ; but it has received many happy touches 
 from the classical hand of the master of Westminster School. 
 As a literary satire, he applies it with great dignity. I give 
 here a translation, but I preserve the original Latin in the note 
 as Camden's reply to Brooke is not easily to be procured. 
 
 " But though I am not disposed to waste more words on 
 these, and this sort of men, yet I cannot resist the tempta- 
 tion of adding a slight sketch, for I cannot give that vivacity 
 of colouring of the picture of the great artist Apelles that our 
 Antiphilus and the like, whose ears are ever open to calumny, 
 may, in contemplating it, find a reflection of themselves. 
 
 " On the right hand sits a man, who, to show his credu- 
 lity, is remarkable for his prodigious ears, similar to those of 
 Midas. He extends his hand to greet Calumny, who is ap- 
 proaching him. The two diminutive females around him are 
 Ignorance and Suspicion. Opposite tothem,Calumnyadvances, 
 betraying in her countenance and gesture the savage rage and 
 anger working in her tempestuous breast : her left hand holds 
 a flaming torch ; while with her right she drags by the hair 
 a youth, who, stretching his uplifted hands to Heaven, is call- 
 ing on the immortal powers to bear testimony to his inno- 
 cence. She is preceded by a man of a pallid and impure 
 appearance, seemingly wasting away under some severe disease, 
 except that his eye sparkles, and has not the dulness usual to 
 such. That Envy is here meant, you readily conjecture. Some 
 diminutive females, frauds and deceits, attend her as com- 
 panions, whose ofiice is to encourage and instruct, and stu- 
 diously to adorn their mistress. In the background, llepent- 
 ance, sadly arrayed in a mournful, worn-out, and ragged gar- 
 ment, who, with averted head, with tears and shame, acknow- 
 ledges and prepares to receive Truth, approaching from a dis- 
 tance."* 
 
 * " Veruin enimvero de bis et hoc genere hominum ne verbum ampliua 
 addani, tahellam tamen summi illius artificis Apellis, cum colorum vivaci- 
 tate dcpiugere uon possim, verbis leviter adumbrabu et pruponam, ut Auti-
 
 Camden and Brooke. 497 
 
 This elegant picture, so happily introduced into a piece of 
 literary controversy, appears to have only slightly affected 
 the mmd of Brooke, which was probably of too stout a grain 
 to take the folds of Grecian drapery. Instead of s^'mpathis- 
 ing with its elegance, he breaks out into a horse-laugh ; and, 
 what is quite unexpected among such grave inquiries into a 
 ludicrous tale in verse, which, though it has not Grecian 
 fancy, has broad English humour, where he maliciously in- 
 sinuates that Camden had appropriated to his own use, or 
 "new-coated his ' Britannia'" with Leland's MSS., and dis- 
 guised what he had stolen. 
 
 " Now, to show himself as good a painter as he is a herald, 
 he propounded, at the end of his book, a table (i. e. a picture) 
 of his own invention, being nothing comparable to " Apelles," 
 as he himself confesseth, and we believe him ; for, like the 
 rude painter that was fain to write, ' This is a Horse,' upon 
 his painted horse, he writes upon his picture the names of all 
 that furious rabble therein expressed — which, for to requite 
 him, I will return a tale of John Fletcher (some time of 
 Oxford) and his horse. Neither can this fable be any dis- 
 paragement to his table, being more ancient and authenticall, 
 and far more conceipted than his envious picture. And thus 
 it was : — 
 
 A TALE (not op A KOASTEd) BUT OP A PAINTED HOBSE. 
 
 John Fletcher, famous, and a man ■well known, 
 But using not his sirname's trade alone,* 
 Did hackney out poor jades for common hire, 
 Not fit for any pastime but to tire. 
 
 philus noster, suique similes, et qui calumniis credunt, banc, et in hac 
 seipsos semel simulque intueantur. 
 
 ' ' Ad dextram sedet quidam, quia credulus, auribus pra?longis insignis, 
 quales fere illte Midie feruntur. Jlauum porrigit procul accedenti Calum- 
 ni£B. Circumstant eum mTilierculre dua?, Ignorautia ac Suspicio. Adit 
 aliunde propius Calumnia eximie compta, vultu ipso et gestu corporis effe- 
 rens rabiem, et iram testuanti conceptam pectore prre se ferens : sinistra 
 facem tenens flammantem, dextra secum adolescentem capillis arreptum, 
 manus ad superos tendentem, obtestantemque immortalium deorum lidem, 
 trabit. Anteit vir pallidus, in specium impurus, acie oculorum minime 
 hebeti, cieterum plane iis similis, qui gravi aliquo morbo contabuerunt. 
 Hie livor est, ut facile conjicias. Quin, et mulierculse aliquot Insidije et 
 Fallacite ut comites Calumniam comitantur. Harum est munus, dominam 
 hortari, instruere, comere, et subornare. A tergo, habitu lugubri, pullato, 
 laceroque Poenitentia subsequitur, quje capite in tergum deflexo, cum 
 lachrymis, ac pudore procul venientem Veritatem agnoscit, et excipit." 
 
 * A Fletcher is a maker of bows and arrows. — Ash. 
 
 K K
 
 498 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 His conscience, once, surveying his jade's stable, 
 Prick'd liim, for keeping horses so unable. 
 " Oh why should I," saith John, " by scholars thrive. 
 For jades that will not carry, lead, nor drive ?" 
 
 To mend the matter, out he starts, one night. 
 And having spied a palfrey somewhat white, 
 He takes him up, and up he mounts his back, 
 Eides to his house, and there he turns him black ; 
 
 Marks him in forehead, feet, in rump, and crest, 
 As coursers mark those horses which are best. 
 So neatly John had coloured every spot. 
 That the right owner sees him, knows him not. 
 
 Had he but feather'd his new-painted breast, 
 He would have seemed Pegasus at least. 
 Who but John Fletcher's horse, in all the town, 
 Amongst all hackneys, purchased this renown ? 
 
 But see the luck ; John Fletcher's horse, one night, 
 By rain was wash'd again almost to white. 
 His first right owner, seeing such a change. 
 Thought he should know him, but his hue was strange ! 
 
 But ej'eiug him, and spying out his steed, 
 By flea-bit spots of his now washed weed, 
 Seizes the horse ; so Fletcher was attainted, 
 And did confess the horse — he stole and painted. 
 
 To close with honour to Brooke ; in his graver moments he 
 warmly repels the accusation Camden raised against him, as 
 an enemy to learning, and appeals to many learned scholars, 
 who had tasted of his liberality at the Universities, towards 
 their maintenance ; but, in an elevated tone, he asserts his 
 right to deliver his animadversions as York Herald. 
 
 " I know (says Brooke) the great advantage my adversary 
 has over me, in the received opinion of the world. If some 
 will blame me for that my writings carry some characters of 
 spleen against him, men of pure affections, and not partial, 
 will think reason that he should, by ill hearing, lose the plea- 
 sure he conceived by ill speaking. But since I presume not 
 to understand above that which is meet for me to know, I 
 must not be discouraged, nor fret myself, because of the 
 malicious ; for I find myself seated upon a rock, that is sure 
 from tempest and waves, from whence I have a prospect into 
 his errors and waverings. I do confess his great worth and 
 merit, and that we Britons are in some sort beholding to 
 him ; and might have been much more, if God had lent him
 
 Camden and Brooke. 499 
 
 the grace to have played the faithful steward, m the talent 
 committed to his trust and charge." 
 
 Such was the dignified and the intrepid reply of Ralph 
 Brooke, a man whose name is never mentioned without an 
 epithet of reproach ; and who, in his own day, was hunted 
 down, and not suffered, vindictive as he was no doubt, to 
 relieve his bitter and angry spirit, by pouring it forth to the 
 public eye.* 
 
 But the story is not yet closed. Camden, who wanted the 
 magnanimity to endure with patient dignity the corrections 
 of an inferior genius, had the wisdom, with the meanness, 
 silently to adopt his useful corrections, but would never con- 
 fess the hand which had brought them.f 
 
 Thus hath Ealph Brooke told his own tale undisturbed, 
 and, after the lapse of more than a century, the press has been 
 opened to him. Whenever a great author is suffered to gag 
 the mouth of his adversary. Truth receives the insult. But 
 there is another point more essential to inculcate in hterary 
 controversy. Ought we to look too scrupulously into the 
 motives which ma}'" induce an inferior author to detect the 
 errors of a greater ? A man from no amiable motive may per- 
 form a proper action : Ritson was useful after Warton ; nor 
 have we a right to ascribe it to any concealed motives, which, 
 after all, may be doubtful. In the present instance, our much- 
 abused Ralph Brooke ffrst appears to have composed his ela- 
 
 * Brooke died at tlie old mausion opposite the Rcmian town of Reculver 
 in Kent. The house is still known as Brooke-farm ; and the original 
 gateway of decorative brickwork still exists. He was buried in Keculver 
 Church, now destroyed, where a mural monument was erected to his me- 
 mory, having a rhyming inscription, which told the reader : — 
 " Fifteenth October he was last alive, 
 One thousand six hundred and twenty-five, 
 Seaventy-three years bore he fortune's harms, 
 And forty-five an ofiicer of armes." 
 Brooke was originally a painter-stainer. His enmity to Camden appears 
 to have originated in the appointment of the latter to the office of Claren- 
 cieux on the death of Kichard Lee ; he believing himself to be qualified for 
 the place by greater knowledge, and by his long connexion with the College 
 of Arms. His mode of righting himself lacked judgment, and he was 
 twice suspended from his office, and was even attempted to be expelled 
 therefrom. — En. 
 
 ■f" In Anstis's edition of "A Second Discoverie of Errors in the Much- 
 commended ' Britannia,' &c.," 1724, the reader will find all the pas- 
 sages in the "Britannia" of the edition of 1594 to which Brooke made 
 exceptions, placed column-wise with the following edition of it in 1600^ 
 It is, as Anstis observes, a debt to truth, without making any reflections. 
 
 E k2
 
 500 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 borate work from the most honourable motives : the offer he 
 made of his Notes to Camden seems a sufficient evidence. 
 The pride of a great man first led Camden into an error, and 
 that error plunged him into all the barbarity of persecution ; 
 thus, by force, covering his folly. Brooke over-valued his 
 studies : it is the natm'e of those peculiar minds adapted to 
 excel in such contracted pursuits. He undertook an ungracious 
 office, and he has suffered by being placed by the side of the 
 illustrious genius with whom he has so skilfully combated in 
 his own province ; and thus he has endm-ed contempt, without 
 being contemptible. The public are not less the debtors to 
 Buch unfortunate, yet intrepid authors.* 
 
 * There is a sensible observation in the old " Biographia Britannica" on 
 Brooke. " From the splenetic attack originally made by Eafe Brooke upon 
 the " Britannia" arose very great advantages to the 2')uhlic, by the shift- 
 ing and bringing to light as good, perhaps a better and more authentic ac- 
 count of our nobility, than had been given at that time of those in any 
 other country of Euroije." — p. 1135.
 
 MARTIN MAR-PRELATE. 
 
 Of the two prevalent factions in tlie reign of Elizabeth, the Catholics and 
 the Puritans — Elizabeth's philosophical indifference offends both — Maun- 
 sell's Catalogue omits the books of both parties — of the Puritans, "the 
 mild and moderate, with the fierce and fiery," a great religious body 
 covering a political one — Thomas Cartwright, the chief of the Puritans, 
 and his rival Whitgift — attempts to make the Ecclesiastical paramount 
 to the Civil Power — his plan in dividing the country into comitial, pro- 
 vincial, and national assemblies, to be concentrated under the secret head 
 at Warwick, where Cai-twright was elected " perpetual Moderator !" — 
 after the most bitter conti'oversies, Cartwright became very compliant to 
 his old rival Whitgift, when Archbishop of Canterbury — of Martin 
 Mar-Prelate — his sons — specimens of their popular ridicule and invec- 
 tive — Cartwright approves of this mode of controversy — better counter- 
 acted by the wits than by the grave admonishers — specimens of the 
 Anti-^Uartin Mak-Pkelates — of the authors of these surreptitious 
 publications. 
 
 The Reformation , or the new Ileligion, as it was then called, 
 under Elizabeth, was the most philosophical she could form, 
 and therefore the most hateful to the zealots of all parties. 
 It was worthy of her genius, and of a better age ! Her sole 
 object was, a deliverance from the Papal usurpation. Her 
 own supremacy maintained, she designed to be the great sove- 
 reign of a great people ; and the Catholic, for some time, was 
 called to her council-board, and entered with the Reformer 
 into the same church. But wisdom itself is too weak to re- 
 gulate human affairs, when the passions of men rise up in 
 obstinate insurrection. Elizabeth neither won over the Re- 
 formers nor the Catholics. An excommunicating bull, preci- 
 pitated by Papal Machiavelism, driving on the brutalised obe- 
 dience of its slaves, separated the friends. This was a political 
 eri'or arising from a misconception of the weakness of our 
 government ; and when discovered as such, a tolerating dis- 
 pensation was granted " till better times ;" an unhealing ex- 
 pedient, to join again a dismembered nation ! It would sur- 
 prise many, were they aware how numerous were our ancient 
 families and our eminent characters who still remained
 
 503 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Catholics.* The country was then divided, and Englishmen 
 who were heroic Romanists fell the terrible victims. 
 
 On the other side, the national evil took a new form. It 
 is probable that the Queen, regarding the mere ceremonies of 
 religion, now venerable with age, as matters of indifference, 
 and her fine taste perhaps still lingering amid the solemn 
 gorgeousness of the Roman service, and her senses and her 
 emotions excited by the religious scenery, did not share in 
 that abhorrence of the paintings and the images, the chant 
 and the music, the censer and the altar, and the pomp of the 
 prelatical habits, which was prompting manj'' well-intentioned 
 Reformers to reduce the ecclesiastical state into apostolical 
 nakedness and primitive rudeness. She was slow to meet 
 this austerity of feeling, which in this country at length 
 extirpated those arts which exalt our nature, and for this 
 these pious Vandals nicknamed the Queen " the untamed 
 heifer ;" and the fierce Knox expressly wrote his " First Blast 
 Against the Monstrous Government of Women." Of these 
 Reformers, many had imbibed the republican notions of 
 Calvin. In their hatred of Popery, they imagined that they 
 had not gone far enough in their wild notions of reform, for 
 they viewed it, still shadowed out in the new hierarchy of the 
 bishops. The fierce Calvin, in his little church at Geneva, 
 presumed to rule a great nation on the scale of a parish insti- 
 tution ; copying the apostolical equality at a time when the 
 ■Church (say the Episcopalians) had all the weakness of in- 
 fancy, and could live together in a community of all things, 
 from a sense of their common poverty. Be this as it may, 
 the dignified ecclesiastical order was a vulnerable institution, 
 which could do no greater injury, and might efi'ect as much 
 ■public good as any other order in the state.f My business 
 
 * The Churcli History by Dodd, a Catholic, fills three vols, folio : it is 
 "very rare and curious. Much of our own domestic history is interwoven 
 in that of the fugitive papists, and the materials of this work are fre- 
 quently drawn from their own archives, preserved in their seminaries at 
 Douay, Valladolid, &c., which have not been accessible to Protestant 
 writers. Here I discovered a copious nomenclature of eminent persons, 
 and many literary men, with many unknown facts, both of a private and 
 public nature. It is useful, at times, to know whether an English author 
 ■was a Catholic. 
 
 "t* I refer the reader to Selden's " Table Talk" for many admirable ideas 
 on " Bishops." That enlightened genius, M'ho was no friend to the eccle- 
 siastical temporal power, acknowledges the absolute necessity of this order 
 in a great government. The preservers of our literature and our morals 
 they ought to be, and many have been. When the political reformers
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 503 
 
 is not with this discussion. I mean to show how the repub- 
 lican S3''stem of these Reformers ended in a pohtical struggle 
 which, crushed in the reign of Elizabeth, and beaten down in 
 that of James, so furiously triumphed under Charles. Their 
 history exhibits the curious spectacle of a great religious body 
 covering a political one — such as was discovered among the 
 Jesuits, and such as may again distract the empu'e, in some 
 new and unexpected shape. 
 
 Elizabeth was harassed by the two factions of the in- 
 triguing Catholic and the disguised Eepublican. The age 
 abounded with libels.* Many a Benedicite was handed to 
 
 ejected the bishops out of the house, what did they gain ? a more vulgar 
 prating race, but even more lordly ! Selden says — ' ' The bishops being 
 put out of the house, whom will they lay the fault upon now ? When the 
 dog is beat out of the room, where will they lay the stink ?" 
 
 * The freedom of the press hardly subsisted in Elizabeth's reign ; and 
 yet libels abounded ! A clear demonstration that nothing is really gained 
 by those violent suppressions and expurgatory indexes which jjower Ln its 
 usurpation may enforce. At a time when they did not dare even to publish 
 the titles of such libels, yet were they spread about, and even hoarded. 
 The most ancient catalogue of our vernacular literature is that by Andrew 
 JIaunsell, published in 1595. It consists of Divinity, Mathematics, Medi- 
 cine, &c. ; but the third jjart which he promised, and which to us would 
 have been the most interesting, of "Rhetoric, History, Poetry, and Policy," 
 never appeared. In the Preface, such was the temper of the times, and of 
 Elizabeth, we discover that he has deprived us of a catalogue of the works 
 alluded to in our text, for he thus distinctly points at them : — " The books 
 written by the fugitive papistes, as also those that are wnlten against the 
 present government (meaning those of the Puritans), I doe not think 
 meete for me to meddle -withall." In one part of his catalogue, however, 
 he contrived to insert the following passage ; the burden of the song seems 
 to have been chorused by the ear of our cautious Maunsell. He is noticing 
 a Pierce Plo^vman in prose. " I did not see the beginning of this booke, 
 but it ended thus : — 
 
 " God save the king, and speed the plougl\_ 
 And send the p>rclatti care inough, 
 
 Inough, inough, inough." — p. 80. 
 
 Few of our native productions are so rare as the Martin Mar-Prelate 
 publications. I have not found them in the public repositories of our 
 national literature. There they have been probably rejected with indig- 
 nity, though their answerers have been preserved ; yet even these are 
 almost of equal rarity and price. They were rejected in times less en- 
 lightened than the present. In a national library every book deserves 
 preservation. By the rejection of these satires, however absurd or infa- 
 mous, we have lost a link in the great chain of our National Literature 
 and History. [Since the above was written, many have been added to our 
 library ; and the Rev. William i\Iaskell, M. A., has published his "History 
 of the Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy." It is a most careful summary ot
 
 504 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 her from the Cathohcs ; but a portentous personagf, masked, 
 stepped forth from a club of Puritans, and terrified the 
 nation by continued visitations, yet was never visible till the 
 instant of his adieus — " starting like a guilty thing upon a 
 fearful summons !" 
 
 Men echo the tone of their age, yet still the same unvary- 
 ing human nature is at work ; and the Puritans,* who in the 
 
 the wi-itings and proceedings of all connected with this important event, 
 and is worthy the attentive perusal of such as desire accurate information 
 in this chapter of our Church history.] 
 
 * We know them by the name of Puritans, a nickname obtained by their 
 affecting superior sanctity ; but I find them often distinguished by the more 
 humble appellative of Precisians. As men do not leap up, but climb on 
 rocks, it is probable they were only precise before they were j)ure. A 
 satirist of their day, in " Kythmes against Martin Marre- Prelate," melts 
 their attributes into one verse : — 
 
 " The sacred sect, and perfect pure precise J''' 
 
 A more laughing satiri-st, " Pasquill of England to Martin Junior," per- 
 sists in calling them Puritans, a 2-)ruritu ! for their perpetual itching, or a 
 desire to do something. Elizabeth herself only considered them as "a 
 troublesome sort of people :" even that great politician could not detect 
 the political monster in a mere chrysalis of reform. I find, however, in a 
 poet of the Elizabethan age, an evident change in the public feeling respect- 
 ing the Puritans, who being always most active when the government was 
 most in trouble, their political views were discovered. Warner, in his 
 " Albion's England," describes them : — 
 " If ever England will in aught prevent her own mishap. 
 
 Against these Skommes (no terme too gross) let England shut the gap ; 
 
 With giddie heads — 
 
 Their countrie's foes they helpt, and most their country harm'd. 
 
 If Hi/pocrites why Puritaines we term, be asked, in breefe, 
 
 'Tis but an ironiscd terme: good-fellow so spells theefe !" 
 
 The gentle-humoured Fuller, in his "Church History," felt a tender- 
 ness for the name of Puritan, which, after the mad follies they had played 
 during the Commonwealth, was then held in abhorrence. He could not 
 venture to laud the good men of that party, without employing a new term 
 to conceal the odium. In noticing, under the date of 1563, that the bishops 
 urged the clergy of their dioceses to press uniformity, &c., he adds — '* Such 
 as I'efused were branded with the name of Puritans — a name which in this 
 nation began in this year, subject to several senses, and various in the 
 acceptions. Puritan was taken for the opposers of hierarchy and church 
 service, as resenting of superstition. But the nickname was quickly im- 
 proved by profane mouths to abuse pious persons. We will decline the 
 word to prevent exceptions, which, if casually slipping from our pen, the 
 reader knoweth that only nonconformists are intended," lib. ix. p. 76. 
 Fuller, however, divided them into classes — "the mild and moderate, and 
 the fierce and fiery." Heylin, in his "History of the Presbyterians," 
 blackens them as so many political devils ; and Neale, in his " History of 
 the Puritans," blanches them into a sweet and almond whiteness. 
 
 Let us be thankful to these Puiuxans for a political lesson. They began
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 505 
 
 reign of Elizabeth imagined it was impossible to go too far 
 in the business of reform, were the spirits called liound- 
 lieacls under Charles, and who have got another nickname in 
 our days. These wanted a lleformation of a Keformation — 
 they aimed at reform, but they designed Revolution ; and 
 they would not accept of toleration, because they had deter- 
 mined on predominance.* 
 
 Of this faction, the chief was Thomas Caetweight, a 
 person of great learning, and doubtless of great ambition. 
 
 their quarrels on the most indifferent matters. They raised distui-bancea 
 about the " Romish Rags," by -which they described the decent surplice as 
 well as the splendid scarlet chimere^ thrown over the white linen rochet, 
 with the square cap worn by the bishops. The scarlet robe, to please their 
 sullen fancy, was changed into black satin ; but these men soon resolved 
 to deprive the bishops of more than a scarlet robe. The affected niceties 
 of these Precisians, dismembering our images, and scratching at our paint- 
 ings, disturbed the uniformity of the religious service. A clergj^man in a 
 surplice was turned out of the church. Some wore square caps, some 
 round, some abhoiTed all caps. The communion-table placed in the East 
 was considered as an idolatrous altar, and was now dragged into the middle 
 of the church, where, to show their contempt, it was always made the 
 filthiest seat in the church. They used to kneel at the sacrament ; now 
 they would sit, because that was a proper attitude for a supper ; then they 
 would not sit, but stand : at length they tossed the elements about, because 
 the bread was wafers, and not from a loaf. Among their j>rcc/se7iess was a 
 qualm at baptism : the water was to be taken from a basin, and not from 
 a fount ; then they would not name their children, or if they did, they 
 would neither have Grecian, nor Roman, nor Saxon names, but Hebrew 
 ones, which they ludicrously translated into English, and which, as Heylin 
 observes, ' ' many of them when they came of age were ashamed to own" 
 — such as "Accepted, Ashes, Fight-the-good-Fight-of- Faith, Joy-again, 
 Kill-sin, &c." 
 
 Who could have foreseen that some pious men quarrelling about the square 
 caps and the rochets of bishops should at length attack bishops them- 
 selves ; and, by an easy transition, passing from bishops to kings, finally 
 close in levellers ! 
 
 * The oi-igin of the controversy may be fixed about 1588. "A far less 
 easy task," says the Rev. Mr. Maskell, "is it to guess at the authors. 
 The tracts on the Mar-Prelate side have been usuallj' attributed to Penry, 
 Throgmorton, Udal, and Fenner. Very considerable information may be 
 obtained about these writers in Wood's ' Athenre,' art. Penry ; in Collier, 
 Strype, and Herbert's edition of ' Arnes,' to whom I would refei". After 
 a careful examination of these and other authorities on the subject, the 
 question remains, in my judgment, as obscure as before ; and I think vhat 
 it is very far from clear that either one of the three last-named was actually 
 concerned in the authorship of any of the pamphlets." — Ed. 
 
 ^ So Heylin writes the word ; but in the " Rythmes against Martin," a 
 contemporary production, the term is Ckivcr. It is not in Cotgrave.
 
 506 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Early in life a disappointed man, the progress was easy to a 
 disaffected subject. At a Philosophy Act, in the University 
 of Cambridge, in the royal presence, the queen preferred and 
 rewarded his opponent for the slighter and more attractive 
 elegances in which the learned Cartwright was deficient. He 
 felt the wound rankle in his ambitious spirit. He began, as 
 Sir George Paul, in his " Life of Archbishop Whitgift," ex- 
 presses it, " to kick against her Ecclesiastical Government." 
 He expatriated himself several years, and returned fierce with 
 the republican spirit he had caught among the Calvinists at 
 Geneva, which aimed at the extirpation of the bishops. It 
 was once more his fate to be poised against another rival, 
 Whitgift, the Queen's Professor of Divinity. Cartwright, in 
 some lectures, advanced his new doctrines ; and these innova- 
 tions soon raised a formidable party, " buzzing their conceits 
 into the green heads of the University."* Whitgift regularly 
 preached at Cartwright, but to little purpose ; for when 
 Cartwright preached at St. Mary's they were forced to take 
 down the windows. Once our sly polemic, taking advantage 
 of the absence of Whitgift, so powerfully operated, in three 
 sermons on one Sunday, that . in the evening his victory de- 
 clared itself, by the students of Trinity College rejecting 
 their surplices, as Papistical badges. Cartwright was now 
 to be confuted by other means. The University refused him 
 his degree of D.D. ; condemned the lecturer to silence ; and 
 at length performed that last feeble act of power, expulsion. 
 In a heart already alienated from the established authorities, 
 this could only envenom a bitter spirit. Already he had felt 
 a personal dislike to royalty, and now he had received an in- 
 sult from the University : these were motives which, though 
 concealed, could not fail to work in a courageous mind, whose 
 new forms of religion accorded with his political feelings. 
 The "Degrees" of the University, which he now declared to 
 be "unlawful," were to be considered "as limbs of Anti- 
 christ." The whole hierarchy was to be exterminated for a 
 republic of Presbyters ; till, through the church, the repub- 
 
 * In the "Just Ccusureand Reproof of Martin Junior" (circre 1589), we 
 are told : "There is Cartwright, too, at Warwick ; he hath got him such a 
 company of disciples, both of the worshipfull and other of the poorer sort, 
 as wee have no cause to thank him. Never tell me that he is too grave to 
 trouble himself with Martin's conceits. Cai'twright seel<s the peace of the 
 Church uo otherwise than his platform may stand." He was accused be- 
 foi-e the commissioners in 1590 of knowing who wrote and printed these 
 Squibs, which he did not deny. — Ed,
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 507 
 
 lican, as we stall see, discovered a secret passage to the 
 Cabinet of his Sovereign, where he had many protectors. 
 
 Such is my conception of the character of Cartwright. 
 The reader is enabled to judge for himself by the note.* 
 
 * I give a remarkable extract from the writings of Cartwright. It will 
 prove two points. First, that the religion of those men became a cover 
 for a, 2^olilical design ; which was to raise the ecclesiastical above the civil 
 2wwer. Just the reverse of Hobbes's after scheme ; but while theorists 
 thus differ and seem to refute one another, they in reality work for an iden- 
 tical purpose. Secondly, it will show the not uucommou absurdity of man ; 
 while these nonconformists were afiecting to annihilate the hierarchy of 
 England as a remains of the Eomish supremacy, they themselves were de- 
 signing one according to their own fresher scheme. It was to be a state or re- 
 public of Presbyters, in which all Sovereigns were to hold themselves, to use 
 their style, as " Nourisses, or servants under the Church ; the Sovereigns 
 were to be as subjects ; they were to vail their sceptres and to offer their 
 crowns as the prophet speaketh, to licTc the dust of the feet of the Ch urch." 
 These are Cartwright's words, in his " Defence of the Admonition." But he 
 is still bolder, in a joint production with Travers. He insists that "the 
 Monarchs of the World should give up their sceptres and crowns unto him 
 (Jesus Christ) who is represented hy the Officers of the Church." See "A 
 Full and Plain Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline," p. 185. One would 
 imagine he was a disguised Jesuit, and an advocate for the Pope's supre- 
 macy. But observe how these saintly Republicans would govern the State. 
 Cartwright is explicit, and very ingenious. ' ' The world is now deceived that 
 thinketh that the Church must be framed according to the Commomcealth, 
 and the Church Government according to the Civil Government, which is as 
 much as to say, as if a man should fashion his house according to his hang- 
 ings ; whereas, indeed, it is clean contrary. That as the hangings are made fit 
 for the house, so the Commonwealth must be made to agree with the Church, 
 and the government thereof with her government ; for, as the house is be- 
 fore the hangings, therefore the hangings, which come after, must be framed 
 to the house, which was befoi-e ; so the Church being before there was a 
 commonwealth, and the commonwealth coming after, must be fashioned 
 and made suitable to the Church ; otherwise, God is made to give place to 
 men, heaven to earth." — Cartwright's Defence of the Admonition, p. 181. 
 
 Warburton's "Alliance between Church and State," which was in his 
 time considered as a hardy paradox, is mawkish in its pretensions, com- 
 pared with this sacerdotal republic. It is not wonderful that the wisest of 
 our Sovereigns, that great politician Elizabeth, should have punished with 
 death these democrats : but it is wonderful to discover that these inveterate 
 enemies to the Church of Rome were only trying to transfer its absolute 
 power into their o-nrn hands ! They wanted to turn the Church into a de- 
 mocracy. They fascinated the people by telling them that there would be 
 no beggars were there no bishops ; that every man would be a governor by 
 setting up a Presbytery. From the Church, I repeat, it is scarcely a single 
 step to the Cabinet. Yet the early Puritans come down to us as persecuted 
 saints. Doubtless, there were a few honest saints among them ; but they 
 were as mad politicians as their race afterwards proved to be, to whom they 
 left so many fatal legacies. Cartwi-ight uses the very language a certain 
 cast of political reformers have recently done. He declares "An estab-
 
 508 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 But Cartwright, chilled by an imprisonment, and witness- 
 ing some of his party condemned, and some executed, after 
 having long sustained the most elevated and rigid tone, sud- 
 denly let his alp of ice dissolve away in the gentlest thaw 
 that ever occurred in political life. Ambitious he was, but 
 not of martyrdom ! His party appeared once formidable,* 
 and his protection at Court sure. I have read several letters 
 of the Earl of Leicester, in MS., that show he always 
 shielded Cartwright, whenever in danger. Many of the mi- 
 nisters of Elizabeth were Puritans ; but doubtless this was 
 before their state policy had detected the politicians in mask. 
 When some of his followers had dared to do what he had 
 only thought, he appears to have forsaken them. They re- 
 proached him for this left-handed policy, some of the boldest 
 of them declaring that they had neither acted nor written 
 anything but what was warranted by his principles. I do 
 
 lishment may be made without the magistrate ;" and told the people that 
 ' ' if every hair of their head was a life, it ought to be offered for such a 
 cause." Another of this faction is for "registering the names of the fittest 
 and hottest brethren without lingering for Parliament ;" and another 
 exults that "there are a hundred thousand hands ready." Another, that 
 "we may overthrow the bishops and all the government in one day." 
 Such was the style, and such the confidence in the plans which the lowest 
 orders of revolutionists promulgated during their transient exhibition in this 
 country. More in this strain may be found in "Maddox's Vindication Against 
 Neale," theadvocatefor the Puritans, p. 255 ; and in an admirable letter of 
 that great politician, Sir Francis Walsingham, who, with many others of 
 the ministers of Elizabeth, was a favoiirer of the Puritans, till he detected 
 their seci-et object to subvert the government. This letter is preserved in 
 "Collier's Eccl. Hist." vol. ii. 607. They had begun to divide the whole 
 counti7 into classes, provincial synods, &;c. They kept registers, which re- 
 corded all the heads of their debates, to be finally transmitted to the secret 
 head of the CUissis of Warwick, where Cartwright governed as the perpetual 
 moderator! Heylin^s Hist, of Preshyt. p. 277. These violent advocates 
 for the freedom of the press had, however, an evident intention to mono- 
 polise it ; for they decreed that " no book should be put in print but by 
 consent of the Classes." — Sir G. Paul's Life of Whitrjift, p. 65. The 
 very Star-Chamber they justly protested against, they were for raising 
 among themselves ! 
 
 * Under the denomination of Barrowists and Broivnists. I find Sir 
 Walter Kaleigh declaring, in the House of Commons, on a motion for re- 
 ducing disloyal subjects, that " they are worthy to be rooted out of a Com- 
 monwealth." He is alarmed at the danger, "for it is to be feared that 
 men not guilty will be included in the law about to be passed. I am sorry 
 for it. I am afraid there is near twenty thousand of them in England ; 
 and when they be gone (that is, expelled) who shall maintain their wives 
 and children?" — Siu Si.monds D'Ewks' Journal, p. 517.
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 509 
 
 not know many political ejaculations move affecting than that 
 of Henry Barrow, said to have been a dissipated youtli. when 
 Cartwright refused, before Barrow's execution, to allow of a 
 conference. The deluded man, after a deep sigh, said : " Shall 
 I be thus forsaken by him ? Was it not he that brought me 
 first into these briars ? and will he now leave me in tlie same ? 
 Was it not from him alone that I took my grounds ? Or did 
 I not, out of such premises as he pleased to give me, infer 
 those propositions, and deduce those conclusions, for which I 
 am now kept in these bonds?" He was soon after executed, 
 with others. 
 
 Then occurred one of those political spectacles at which 
 the simple-minded stare, and the politic smile ; when, after 
 the most cruel civil war of words,* Cartwright wrote very 
 compliant letters to his old rival, Whitgilt, now Archbishop 
 of Canterbury ; while the Archbishop was pleading with the 
 Queen in favour of the inveterate Eepublican, declaring that 
 had Cartwright not so far engaged himself in the beginning, 
 he thought he would have been, latterly, drawn into con- 
 formity. To clear up this mysterious conduct, we must ob- 
 serve that Cartwright seems to have graduated his political 
 ambition to the degree the government touched of weakness 
 or of strength ; and besides, he was now growing prudent as 
 he was growing rich. For it seems that he who was for 
 scrambling for the Church revenues, while telling the people 
 of the Apostles, silver and gold ihey had none, was himself 
 " feeding too fair and fat " for the meagre groaning state of a 
 pretended reformation. He had early in lifia studied that part 
 of the law by which he had learned the marketable price of 
 
 * The controversies of Whitgift and Cartwright were of a nature which 
 could neverclose, for toleration was a notion which never occurred to either. 
 These rivals from early days wrote with such bitterness against each other, 
 that at length it produced mutual reproaches. Whitgift complains to Cart- 
 wright : "If you were writing against the veriest Papist, or the ignorantest 
 dolt, you could not be more spiteful and malicious." And Cartwright re- 
 plies : "If peace had been so precious unto you as you pretend, you would 
 not have brought so many hard words and bitter reproaches, as it were 
 sticks and coals, to double and treble the heat of contention." 
 
 After this it is curious, even to those accustomed to such speculations, 
 to observe some men changing with the times, and furious rivals converted 
 into brothers. Whitgift, whom Elizabeth, as a mark of her favour, called 
 " her black husband," soliciting Cartwright's pardon from the Queen ; and 
 the proud Presbyter Cartwright styling Whitgift his Lord the Archbishop's 
 Grace of Canterbury, and visiting him !
 
 510 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 landed property ; and as the cask still retains its old flavour, 
 this despiser of bishops was still making the best interest for 
 his money by land-jobbing.* 
 
 One of the memorable effects of this attempted innovation 
 was that continued stream of libels which ran throughout 
 the nation,under the portentous name of Martin Mar-Prelate. t 
 This extraordinary personage, in his collective form, for he is 
 to be splitted into more than one, long terrified Church and 
 State. He walked about the kingdom invisibly, dropping here 
 a libel, and there a proclamation for sedition ; but wherever 
 Martinism was found, Martin was not. He prided himself 
 in what he calls "Pistling the Bishops." Sometimes he hints 
 to his pursuers how they may catch him, for he prints, 
 " within two furlongs of a bouncing priest," or "in Europe ;" 
 while he acquaints his friends, who were so often uneasy for 
 his safety, that "he has neither wife nor child," and prays 
 " they may not be anxious for him, for he wishes that his head 
 might not go to the grave in peace." — " I come, with the rope 
 about my neck, to save you, howsoever it goeth with me." 
 His press is interrupted, he is silent, and Lambeth seems to 
 breathe in peace. But he has " a son ; nay, five hundred 
 sons !" and Martin Junior starts up ! He inquires 
 
 * Sir George Paul, a contemporary, attributes his wealth " to the benevO' 
 lence and bounty of his followers." Dr. Sutcliffe, one of his adversaries, 
 sharply upbraids him, that "in the persecution he perpetually complained 
 of, he was growTi rich." A Puritan advocate reproves Dr. Sutcliffe for 
 always carping at Cartwriglit's purchases : — " Why may not Cartwright 
 sell the lands he had from his father, and buy others with the money, as 
 well as some of the bishops, who by bribery, simony, extortion, racking of 
 rents, wasting of woods, and such like stratagems, wax rich, and purchase 
 great lordships for their posterity ?" 
 
 To this Sutcliffe replied : 
 
 " I do not carpe alway, no, nor once, at Master Cartwright's purchase. I 
 hinder hira not ; I envy him not. Only thus much I must tell him, that 
 Thomas Cartwright, a man that hafch more landcs of his own in possession 
 than any bishop that I know, and that fareth daintily every day, aud feedeth 
 fayre and fatte, and lyeth as soft as any tenderling of that brood, aud hath 
 wonne much wealth in short time, aud will leave more to his posterity than 
 any bishop, should not cry out either of persecution or of excess of bishop's 
 livinges." — Sutcliffe's Answer to Certain Calumnious Petitions. 
 
 + " The author of these libels," says Bishop Cooper, in his "Admoni- 
 tion to the People of England," 15S9, " calleth himself by a feigned name, 
 Martin Mar-Prelate, a very fit name undoubtedly. But if this outrage- 
 ous spirit of boldness be not stopped speedily, I fear he will prove him- 
 self to be, not only Mar-Prelate, but Mar-Prince, Mar-State, Mar-Law, 
 Mar-Magistrate, aud altogether, until he bring it to an Anabaptistical 
 equality and community." — Ed,
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate, 511 
 
 " "VVliere his father is ; he who had studied the art of pistle- 
 making ? Why has he been tongue-tied these four or five 
 months ? Good Nuncles (the bishops), have you closely 
 murthered the gentleman in some of your prisons ? Have 
 you choaked him with a fat prebend or two ? I trow my 
 father will swallow down no such pills, for he would thus soon 
 purge away all the conscience he hath. Do you mean to have 
 the keeping of him ? What need that ? he hath five hundred 
 sons in the land. My father would be sorry to put you to any 
 such cost as you intend to be at with him. A meaner house, 
 and less strength than the Tower, the Fleet, or Newgate, 
 would serve him well enough. He is not of that ambitious 
 vein that many of his brethren the bishops are, in seeking for 
 more costly houses than even his father built for him." 
 
 This same " Martin Junior," who, though he is but young, 
 as he says, " has a pretty smattering gift in this pistle- 
 making ; and I fear, in a while, I shall take a pride in it." He 
 had picked up beside a bush, where it had dropped from some- 
 body, an imperfect paper of his father's : — 
 
 " Theses Martinianae — set forth as an after-birth of the noble 
 gentleman himselfe, by a pretty stripling of his, Martin 
 Junior, and dedicated by him to his good nuncka, Maister 
 John Cankerbury (i.e. Canterbury). Printed without a sly 
 privilege of the Cater Caps" — (i.e. the square caps the 
 bishops wore). 
 
 Bvit another of these five hundred sons, who declares him- 
 self to be his " reverend and elder brother, heir to the 
 renowned Martin ^lar-Prelate the Great," publishes 
 
 " The just Censure and Eeproof of Martin Junior ; where, 
 lest the Springall should be utterly discouraged in his good 
 meaning, yo\x shall finde that he is not bereaved of his due 
 commendation." 
 
 Martin Senior, after finding fault with Martin Junior for 
 "his rash and indiscreet headiness," notwithstanding agrees 
 with everything he had said. He confirms all, and cheers 
 him ; but charges him, 
 
 " Should he meet their father in the street, never to ask 
 his blessing, but walke smoothly and circumspecth''; and if anie 
 ofier to talk with thee of Martin, talke thou straite of the 
 voyage into Portugal, or of the happie death of the Duke of 
 Guise, or some such accident ; but meddle not with thy 
 father. Only, if thou have gathered anie thing in visitation 
 for thy father, intreate him to signify, in some secret printed
 
 512 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 pistle, where a will have it lefte. I feare least some of us 
 should fall into John Canterburie's hand." 
 
 Such were the mysterious personages who, for a long time, 
 haunted the palaces of the bishops and the vicarages of the 
 clergy, disappearing at the moment they were suddenly per- 
 ceived to be near. Their slanders were not only coarse 
 buffooneries, but the hottest effusions of hatred, with an un- 
 paralleled invective of nicknames.* Levelled at the bishops, 
 even the natural defects, the personal infirmities, the domestic 
 privacies, much more the tyranny, of these now " petty 
 popes," now "bouncing priests," now " terrible priests," were 
 the inexhaustible subjects of these popular invectives.f Those 
 
 * Cartwi-ight approved of tliem, and well knew the concealed writers, 
 who frequently consulted him : this appears by Sir G. Paul's "Life of 
 Whitgift," p. 65. Being asked his opinion of such books, he said, that 
 "since the bishops, and others there touched, would not amend by grave 
 books, it was therefore meet they should be dealt withal to their farther 
 reproach ; and that some books must be earnest, some more mild and 
 temperate, whereby they may be both of the spirit of Elias and Eliseus ;" 
 the one the great mocker, the other the more solemn reprover. It must be 
 confessed Cartwright here discovers a deep knowledge of human nature. 
 He knew the power of ridicule and of invective. At a later day, a writer 
 of the same stamp, in ' ' The Second Wash, or the Moore Scoured once 
 more," (written against Dr. Henry More, the Platonist), in defence of that 
 vocabulai-y of names which he has poured on More, asserts it is a practice 
 allowed by the high authority of Christ himself. I transcribe the curious 
 passage : — "It is the practice of Christ himself to character men by those 
 things to which they assimilate. Thus hath he called Herod a fox ; Judas 
 a, devil ; false pastors he calls ivolvcs ; the buyers and sellers, theeves ; 
 and those Hebrew Puritans the Pharisees, hypocrites. This rule and 
 justice of his Master St. Paul hath well obsei'ved, and he acts freely 
 thereby ; for when he reproves the Cretians, he makes use of that ignomi- 
 nious proverb, Evil beasts and slow bellies. When the high priest com- 
 manded the Jews to smite him on the face, he replied to him, not without 
 some bitterness, God shall smite thee, thou white wall. I cite not these 
 places to justify an injurious spleen, but to argue the liberty of the truth." 
 — The Second Wash, or the Moore Scoured once more. 1651. P. 8. 
 
 ■f" One of their works is "A Dialogue, wherein is laid open the tj-ran- 
 nical dealing of L. Bishopps against God's children." It is full of scurri- 
 lous stories, probably brought together by two active cobblers who were so 
 useful to their junto. Yet the bishops of that day were not of dissolute 
 manners ; and the accusations are such, that it only proves their willing- 
 ness to raise charges against them. Of one bishop they tell us, that after 
 declaring he was poor, and what expenses he had been at, as Paul's church 
 could bear witness, shortly after hanged four of his servants for having 
 I'obbed him of a considerable sum. Of anotlicr, who cut down all the 
 woods at Hampstead, till the towns- women " fell a swaddling of his men," 
 and so saved Hampstead by their resolution. But when Martin would 
 give a proof that the Bishop of London was one of the bishops of the devil,
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 513 
 
 " pillars of the State" were now called " its caterpillars ;" and 
 the inferior clergy, who perhaps were not always friendly to 
 their superiors, yet dreaded this new race of innovators, 
 were distinguished as " halting neutrals." These invectives 
 were well farced for the gross taste of the multitude ; and 
 even the jargon of the lowest of the populace affected, and 
 perhaps the coarse malignity of two cobblers who were con- 
 nected with the party, often enlivened the satirical page. 
 The Martin Mar-Prelate productions are not, however, effu- 
 sions of genius ; they were addressed to the coarser passions 
 of mankind, their hatred and contempt. The authors were 
 grave men, but who affected to gain over the populace with a 
 
 in his "Pistle to the terrible priests," he tells this story: — "When the 
 bishop throws his bowl (as he useth it commonly upon the Sabbath-day), he 
 runnes after it ; and if it be too hard, he cries Rub J rub ! rub ! the diuel 
 ffoc xcitk thee I and he goeth himself with it ; so that by these words he 
 names himself the Bishop of the Divel, and by his tirannical practice 
 prooveth himselfe to be." He tells, too, of a parson well known, who, 
 being in the pulpit, and "hearing his dog cry, he out with this text : 
 ' Why, how now, hoe ! can you not let my dog alone there ? Come, 
 Spi'inge ! come, Springe !' and whistled the dog to the pulpit." One of 
 their chief objects of attack was Cooper, Bishop of Lincoln, a laborious 
 student, but married to a dissolute woman, whom the University of Ox- 
 ford offered to separate from him : but he said he knew his infirmity, and 
 could not live without his wife, and was tender on the point of divorce. 
 He had a greater misfortune than even this loose woman about him — his 
 name could be punned on ; and this bishop may be placed among that un- 
 lucky class of authors who have fallen victims to their names. Shenstone 
 meant more than he expressed, when he thanked God that he could not 
 be punned on. Mar-Prelate, besides many cruel hits at Bishop Cooper's 
 wife, was now always " making the Cooper s hoops to flye of, and the 
 bishop's tubs to leake out." In " The Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat," 
 where he tells of tv/o bishops, " who so contended in throwing down elmes, 
 as if the wager had bene whether of tbem should most have impoverished 
 their bishopricks. Yet I blame not Mar-Elme so much as Cooper for this 
 fact, because it is no less given him by his name to spoil elmes, than it is 
 allowed him by the secret judgment of God to mar the Church. A man of 
 Cooper's age and occupation, so wel scene in that trade, might easily knowe 
 that tubs made of green timber must needs leak out ; and yet I do not so 
 greatly marvel ; for he that makes no conscience to be a deceiver in the 
 building of the churche, will not stick for his game to be a deceitfull worke- 
 man in making of tubbs.'' — p. 19. The author of the books against Bishop 
 Cooper is said to have been Job Throckmorton, a learned man, affecting 
 raillery and humour to court the mob. 
 
 Such was the strain of ribaldry and malice which Martin Mar-Prelate 
 indulged, and by which he obtained full possession of the minds of the 
 people for a considerable time. His libels were translated, and have been 
 often quoted by the Roman Catholics abroad and at home for their par- 
 ticular purposes, just as the revolutionary publications in this country have 
 
 L L
 
 514 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 popular familiarity.* In vain the startled bishops remon- 
 strated : they were supposed to be criminals, and were little 
 attended to as their own advocates. Besides, they were 
 solemn admonishers, and the mob are composed of laughers 
 and scorners. 
 
 The Court-party did not succeed more happily when they 
 persecuted Martin, broke up his presses, and imprisoned his 
 
 been concluded abroad to be tlie general sentiments ef the people of Eng- 
 land ; and thus our factions always will serve the interests of our enemies. 
 Martin seems to have wi-itten little verse ; but there is one epigram worth 
 preserving for its bitterness. 
 
 Martin Senior, in his "Eeproofe of Martin Junior," complains that 
 ' ' his younger brother has not taken a little paines in ryming with Mar- 
 Martin (one of their poetical antagonists), that the Cater-Caps may know 
 how the meanest of my father's sonnes is able to answeare them both at 
 blunt and sharpe." He then gives his younger brother a specimen of what 
 he is hereafter to do. He attributes the satire of Mar-Martin to Dr. 
 Bridges, Dean of Sarum, and John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 " The first Rising, Generation, and Original of Mar-Martin. 
 
 ** From Sarum came a goos's egg. 
 
 With specks and spots bepatched ; 
 A priest of Lambeth coucht thereon, 
 Thus was Mar-Martin hatched. 
 
 Whence hath Mar-3Iartin all his wit, 
 
 But from that egge of Sarum ? 
 The rest comes all from great Sir John, 
 
 Who rings us all this 'larum. 
 
 What can the cockatrice hatch up 
 
 But serpents like himselfe ? 
 What sees the ape ^rithin the glasse 
 
 But a deformed elfe ? 
 
 Then must Mar-Martin have some smell 
 
 Of forge, or else of fire : 
 A sotte in wit, a beaste in minde, 
 
 For so was damme and sire." 
 
 * It would, however, appear that these revolutionary publications reached 
 the universities, and probably fermented "the green heads" of our stu- 
 dents, as the following grave admonition directed to them evidently 
 proves : — 
 
 " Anti-Martinus sive monitio cujusdam Londinensis ad adolescentes 
 vtrimque academia! contra personatum quendam rabulam qui se Anglice 
 Martin Marprelat, &c. Londini, 15S9, 4°." 
 
 A popular favourite as he was, yet even Martin, in propria persona, 
 acknowledges that his manner was not ai)proved of by cither party. His 
 "Theses Jlartinianai" opens thus : "I see my doings and my course mis- 
 liked of many, both the good and the bad ; though also I have favourers of 
 both sortes. The bishops and their traine, though they stumble at the
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 515 
 
 assistants. Never did sedition travel so fast, nor conceal 
 itself so closely ; for they employed a moveable press ; and, 
 as soon as it was sui-mised that Martin was in Surrey, it was 
 found he was removed to Northamptonshire, while the next 
 account came that- he was showing his head in Warwickshu'e. 
 And long they invisibly conveyed themselves, till in Lanca- 
 shire the snake was scotched by the Earl of Derby, with all its 
 little brood.* 
 
 cause, yet especially mislike my maner of writing. Those whom foolishly 
 men call Puritanes, like of the matter I have handled, but the forme they 
 cannot brooke. So that herein I have them both for mine adversaries. 
 But now what if I should take the course in certain theses or conclusions, 
 without inveighing againsi either person or cause." This was probably 
 written after Mai'tin had swallowed some of his own sauce, or taken his 
 "Pap (offered to hun) with a Hatchet," as one of the most celebrated go- 
 vernment pamphlets is entitled. But these "Theses Martinianae," with- 
 out either scurrility or invective are the dullest things imaginable ; ab- 
 stract propositions were not palatable to the multitude ; and then it was, 
 after the trial had been made, that Martin J^inior and Senior attempted 
 to revive the spirit of the old gentleman ; but if sedition has its progress, 
 it has also its decline ; and if it could not strike its blow when strongest, 
 it only puled and made grimaces, prognostics of weakness and dissolution. 
 This is admirably touched in " Pappe with an Hatchet." "Now Old 
 Martin appeared, with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and pinking 
 like the snuffe of a candle ; quantum mutatus ah illo, how uidike the 
 knave he was before, not for malice, but for sharpnesse ! The hogshead 
 was even come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him 
 but dregs ; yet the emptie caske sounds lowder than when it was full, and 
 protests more in his waining than he could performe in his waxing. I drew 
 neere the sillie soul, whom I found quivering in two sheets of protestation 
 paper (alluding to the work mentioned here in the following note). how 
 meager and leane he looked, so crest falne that his combe hung downe to 
 his bill ; and had I not been sure it was the picture of Envie, I should 
 have sworn it had been the image of Death : so like the verie anatomic of 
 Mischief, that one might see through all the ribbes of his conscience." 
 
 In another rare pamphlet from the same school, ' ' Pasquill of England to 
 Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to Martin Junior," he humorously 
 threatens to write "The Owle's Almanack, wherein your night labours be 
 set down;" and "some fruitful volumes of 'The Lives of the Saints,' 
 which, maugre your father's five hundred sons, shall be printed," with 
 "hays, jiggs, and roundelays, and madrigals, serving for epitaphs for his 
 father's hearse." 
 
 * Some of these works still bear evident marks that the "pursuivants" 
 were hunting the printers. "The Protestatyon of Martin Mar-Prelate, 
 wherein, notwithstanding the surprising of the printer, he maketh it 
 knowne vnto the world that he feareth neither proud priest, tirannous 
 prelate, nor godlesse eater-cap; but defieth all the race of them," including 
 "a challenge" to meet them personally ; was probably one of their latest 
 efforts. The printing and the orthography show all the imperfections of 
 that haste in which they were forced to print this work. As thcr lost 
 
 ll2
 
 516 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 These pamphlets were " speedily dispersed and greedily 
 read," not only by the people ; they had readers and even 
 patrons among persons of condition. They were found in 
 the corners of chambers at Court ; and when a prohibition 
 issued that no pei'son should carry about them any of the 
 Mar-Prelate pamphlets on pain of punishment, the Earl of 
 Essex observed to the Queen, " What then is to become of 
 me?" drawing one of these pamphlets out of his bosom, and 
 presenting it to her. 
 
 The Martinists were better counteracted by the Wits, in 
 
 their strength, they were getting more venomous. Among the little Mar- 
 tins disturbed in the hour of parturition, but already christened, there 
 •were: " Episto Mastix ;" "The Lives and Doings of English Popes ;" 
 * ' Itinerarium, or Visitations;" " Lambethisms." The "Itinerary" was 
 a survey of every clergyman of England ! and served as a model to a 
 similar work, which appeared during the time of the Commonwealth. The 
 "Lambethisms" were secrets divulged by Martin, who, it seems, had got 
 into the palace itself ! Their productions were, probably, often got up in 
 haste, in utter scorn of the Horatian precept. [These pamphlets were 
 printed with difficulty and danger, in secrecy and fear, for they were 
 rigidly denounced by the government of Elizabeth. Sir George Paul, in 
 his " Life of Archbishop Whitgift," informs us that they were printed with 
 a kind of wandering press, which was first set iip at Moulsey, near King- 
 ston-on-Thames, and from thence conveyed to Fauseley in Northampton- 
 shire, and from thence to Norton, afterwards to Coventry, from thence to 
 Welstone in Warwickshire, from which place the letters were sent to an- 
 other press in or near Manchester ; where by the means of Henry, Earl of 
 Derby, the press was discovered in printing ' ' More Work for a Cooper ;" 
 an answer to Bishop Cooper's attack on the party, and a work so rare Mr. 
 Maskell says, " I believe no copy of it, in any state, remains."] 
 
 As a great curiosity, I preserve a fragment in the Scottish dialect, which 
 well describes them and their views. The title is wanting in the only copy 
 I have seen ; but its extreme rarity is not its only value : there is some- 
 thing venerable in the criticism, and poignant in the political sarcasm. 
 
 " Weil lettred clarkis endite their M'arkes, quoth Horace, slow and 
 geasoun, 
 Bot thou can wise forth buike by buike, at every spurt and seasoun ; 
 For men of litrature t' endite so fast, them doth not fitte, 
 Enanter in them, as in thee, their pen outrun thair witte. 
 The shaftis of foolis are soone shot out, but fro the merke they stray; 
 So art thou glibbe to guibe and taunte, but rouest all the way, 
 Quhen thou hast parbrackt out thy gorge, and shot out all thy arrowes, 
 See that thou hold thy clacke, and hang thy quiver on the gallows, 
 Els Clarkis will soon all be Sir Johns, the priestis craft will empaire, 
 And Dickin, Jackin, Tom, and Hob, mon sit in llabbies chaire. 
 Let Georg and Nichlas, cheek by jul, bothe still on cock-horse yode, 
 That dignitie of Pristis with thee may hau a long abode. 
 El'i Litrature mon sprcdde her wings, and piercing welkin bright, 
 To Heaven, from whence she did first wend, retire and take her flight."
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 517 
 
 some extraordinary effusions, prodigal of humour and invective 
 Wit and raillery were liappily exercised against these maskeiJ 
 divines : for the gaiety of the Wits was not foreign to their 
 feelings. The Mar-Prelates showed merry faces, but it was 
 with a sardonic grin they had swallowed the convulsing herb ; 
 they horridly laughed against their will — at bottom all was 
 gloom and despau-. The extraordinaiy style of their pamph- 
 lets, concocted in the basest language of the populace, might 
 have originated less from design than from the impotence of 
 the writers. Grave and learned persons have often found to 
 their cost that wit and humour must spring from the soil ; 
 no art of man can plant them there. With such, this play 
 and grace of the intellect can never be the movements of their 
 natui'e, but its convulsions. 
 
 Father Martin and his two sons received " A sound boxe 
 of the eare," in " apistle" to " the father and the two sonnes, 
 Huffe, Euflfe, and Snuffe, the three tame ruffians of the 
 Church, who take pepper in the nose because they cannot 
 marre prelates grating," when they once met with an adver- 
 sary who openly declared — 
 
 " I profess rayling, and think it is as good a cudgel for a 
 Martin as a stone for a dogge, or a whip for an ape, or poison, 
 for a rat. Who would curry an ass with an ivory comb ? 
 Give this beast thistles for provender. I doe but yet angle 
 with a silken flie, to see whether Martins wiU nibble ; and if 
 I see that, why then I have wormes for the nonce, and will 
 give them line enough, like a trowte, till they swallow both 
 hooke and line, and then, Martin, beware your gills, for I'll 
 make you daunce at the pole's end." 
 
 " Fill thy answer as full of hes as of lines, swell like a 
 toade, hiss Uke an adder, bite like a dog, and chatter like a 
 monkey, my pen is prepared, and my mind ; and if you 
 chaiince to find anie worse words than you broughte, let 
 them be put in your dad's dictionarie. Farewell, and be 
 hanged ; and, I pray God you fare no worse. — Yours at an 
 hour's warning." 
 
 This was the proper way to reply to such writers, by 
 di'iving them out of the field with their own implements of 
 warfare. " Pasquill of England"* admirably observed of the 
 papers of this faction — " Doubt not but that the same reckon- 
 ing in the ende will be made of you which your favourers 
 
 * "Pasquill of England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to 
 Martin Junior. "
 
 518 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 commonly make of their old sliooes — when they are past 
 wearing, they barter them awaie for newe broomes, or carrie 
 them forth to the dunghill and leave them there." The 
 writers of these Martin Mar- Prelate books have been tolerably 
 ascertained,* considering the secrecy with which they were 
 printed — sometimes at night, sometimes hid in cellars, and 
 never long in one place : besides the artifices used in their 
 dispersion, by motley personages, held together by an in- 
 visible chain of confederacy. Conspiracy, like other misery, 
 ^' acquaints a man with strange bedfellows ;" and the present 
 confederacy combined persons of the most various descriptions, 
 ■and perhaps of very opposite views. I find-men of learning, 
 and of rigid lives, intimately associated with dissipated, or 
 with too ardently -tempered youths ; connected, too, with 
 maniacs, whose lunacy had taken a revolutionary turn ; and 
 men of rank combining with old women and cobblers. f Such 
 
 * "Most of the books under Martin's name were composed by Jotn 
 Penry, John Udall, John Field, and Job Throckmorton, who all concurred 
 in making Martin. See ' Answer to Throgmorton's Letter by Sutcliflfe,' 
 p. 70 ; ' More Work for a Cooper ; ' and ' Hay any Work for a Cooper ; ' and 
 'Some layd open in his Colours ;' were composed by Job Throckmorton." 
 — MS. Note by Thomas Baker. Udall, indeed, denied having any concern 
 in these invectives, and professed to disapprove of them. We see Cart- 
 ■vvrlght, however, of quite a different opinion. In Udall's library some 
 MS. notes had been seen by a person who considered them as materials for 
 a Martin Mar- Prelate work in embryo, which Udall confessed were written 
 "by a friend." All the writers were silenced ministers; though it is 
 not improbable that their scandalous tales, and much of the ribaldry, 
 might have been contributed by their lowest retainers, those purveyors for 
 the mob, of what they lately chose to call their "Pig's-meat." 
 
 + The execution of Hacket, and condemnation of his party, who had 
 declared him " King of Europe," so that England was only a province to 
 him, is noted in our " Greneral History of England." This was the first 
 serious blow which alarmed the Puritanic party. Doubtless, this man was 
 a mere maniac, and his ferocious passions broke out early in life ; but, in 
 that day, they permitted no lunacy as a plea for any politician. Cart- 
 wright held an intercourse with that party, as he had with Barrow, said to 
 liave been a debauched youth ; yet we had a sect of Barrowists ; and Robert 
 Brown, the founder of another sect, named after him Brotonists ; which 
 became very formidable. This Brown, for liis relationship, was patronised 
 by Cecil, Earl of Burleigh. He was a man of violent passions. He had a 
 wife, with whom he never lived ; and a church, wherein he never pi-eached, 
 observes the characterising Fuller, who knew liim when Fuller was young. 
 In one of the pamphlets of the time I have seen, it is mentioned that being 
 reproached with beating his wife, he replied, "I do not beat Mrs. Brown 
 as my wife, but as a curst cross old woman." He closed his life in prison ; 
 not for his opinions, but for his brutality to a constable. The old women 
 and the cobblers connected with these Martin Mar-Prelates are noticed in
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 519 
 
 are the partj-coloured apostles of insurrection ! and thus their 
 honourable and dishonourable motives lie so blended together, 
 that the historian cannot separate them. At the moment 
 the haughty spirit of a conspirator is striking at the head of 
 established authority, he is himself crouching to the basest 
 intimates ; and to escape often from au ideal degradation, 
 he can bear with a real one. 
 
 the burlesque epitaphs on Martin's death, supposed to be made by his 
 favourites; a humorous appendix to "Martin's Mouthminde." Few po- 
 litical conspiracies, whenever religion forms a pretext, is without a woman. 
 One Dame Lawson is distinguished, changing her " silke for sacke ;" and 
 other names might be added of ladies. Two cobblers are particularly- 
 noticed as some of the industrious purveyors of setlition through the king- 
 dom — Cliffe, the cobbler, and one Newman. Clifie's epitaph on his friend 
 Martin is not without humour : — 
 
 " Adieu, both naule and bristles now for euer ; 
 The shoe and soale — ah, woe is me ! — must sever. 
 Bewaile, mine awle, thy sharpest point is gone ; 
 My brL«Me's broke, and I am left alone. 
 Farewell old shoes, thumb-stall, and clouting-leather ; 
 Martin is gone, and we undone together." 
 Nor is Newman, the other cobbler, less mortified and pathetic. " The 
 London Corresponding Society" had a more ancient origin than that sodality 
 veas aware. 
 
 ' ' My hope once was, my old shoes should be sticht ; 
 My thumbs ygilt, that were before bepicht : 
 Now Martin's gone, and laid full deep in ground, 
 My gentry's lost, before it could be found." 
 Among the Martin Mar-Prelate books was one entitled "The Cobbler's 
 Book. " This I have not seen ; but these cobblers probably picked up in- 
 telligence for these scandalous chronicles. The wi-iters, too, condescended 
 to intersperse the cant dialect of the populace, yfiih. which the cobblers 
 doubtless assisted these learned men, when busied in their bufi'oonery. 
 Hence all their vulgar gibberish ; the Shibboleth of the numerous class of 
 their admirers — such as, "0, whose ta<?" John A'ankerbury, for Can- 
 terbuiy ; PaZ<H-politans, for Metropolitans ; See Villains, for Civilians ; 
 and Doctor of Devility, for Divinity ! and more of this stamp. Who could 
 imagine that the writers of these scuiTilities were learned men, and that 
 their patrons were men of rank ! We find two knights heavily fined for 
 secreting these books in their cellars. But it is the nature of rebellion to 
 unite the two extremes ; for ^cant stirs the populace to rise, and excess 
 the higher orders. This idea is admu-ably expressed in one of our elder 
 poets : — 
 
 " Want made them murmur ; for the people, who 
 To get their bread, do wrestle with their fate, 
 Or those, who in superfluous riot flow, 
 Soonest rebel. Convulsions in a State, 
 Like those which natural bodies do oppress, 
 Else from repletion, or from emptiness." 
 
 AhEYmE'S'JSenrij VII.
 
 520 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Of the heads of this party, I shall notice Peniy and Udall, 
 two self-devoted victims to Nonconformity. The most active 
 was John Penry, or Ap Henry. He exulted that " he was 
 horn and hred in the mountains of Wales :" he had, however, 
 studied at both our Universities. He had all the heat of his 
 soil and of his party. He " wished that his head might not 
 go down to the grave in peace," and was just the man to 
 obtain his pui-pose. When he and his papers were at length • 
 seized, Penry pleaded that he could not be tried for sedition, 
 professing unbounded loyalt}^ to the Queen : such is the usual 
 plea of even violent Reformers. Yet how could Elizabeth be 
 the sovereign, unless she adopted the mode of government 
 planned by these Reformers ? In defence of his papers, he 
 declared that they were only the private memorandums of a 
 scholar, in which, during his wanderings about the kingdom, 
 he had collected all the objections he had heard against the 
 government. Yet these, though written down, might not be 
 his own. He observed that they were not even English, nor 
 intelligible to his accusers ; but a few Welshisms could not 
 save Ap Heniy ; and the judge, assuming the hardy position, 
 that scribere est agere, the author found more honour con- 
 ferred on his MSS. than his genius cared to receive. It was 
 this very principle which proved so fatal, at a later period, to 
 a more elevated politician than Penry ; yet Algernon Sidney, 
 perhaps, possessed not a spirit more Roman.* State necessity 
 claimed another victim ; and this ardent young man, whose 
 execution had been at first unexpectedly postponed, was sud- 
 denly hurried from his dinner to a temporary gallows ; a 
 
 * The writer of Algernon Sidney's Memoirs could not have known this 
 fact, or he would not have said that "this was the first indictment of 
 high treason upon which any man lost his life for ivriting anything with- 
 out publishing it." — Edit. 1751, p. 21. It is curious to have Sidney'? 
 own opinion on this point. We discover this on his trial. He gives it, 
 assuming one of his own noble i^rinciples, not likely to have heen allowed 
 by the wretched Tories of that day. Addressing the villanous Jefi'ries, 
 the Lord Chief Justice : — "My Lord, I think it is a right of manic ind, 
 and ''tis e.xerciscd bi/ all studious men, to write, in their own closets, 
 what they please, for their own memory ; and no man can be answerable 
 for it, unless they publish it." Jeffries replied : — "Pray don't go away 
 with that right of mankind, that it is lawful for me to write what I will 
 in my own closet, so I do not publish it. We must not endui-e men to 
 talk thus, that by the right of nature every man may contrive mischief in 
 his own chamber, and is not to be punished till he thinks fit to be called 
 to it." Jeflries was a profligate sophist, but his talents were as great as 
 his vices.
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 521 
 
 circumstance marked by its cruelty, but designed to prevent 
 an expected tumult.* 
 
 Contrasted with this fiery Mar- Prelate was another, the 
 learned subtile John Udall. His was the spirit which dared 
 to do all that Penry had dared, yet conducting himself in the 
 heat of action witli the tempered wariness of age : " If they 
 silence me as a minister." said he, " it will allow me leisure 
 to write ; and then I will give the bishops such a blow as 
 shall make their hearts ache." It was agreed among the 
 party neither to deny, or to confess, writing any of their 
 books, lest among the suspected the real author might thus 
 be discovered, or forced solemnly to deny his own work ; and 
 when the Bishop of Rochester, to catch Udall by surprise, 
 
 * Penry's uDfinished petition, which he designed to have presented to 
 the Queen before the trial, is a bokl and energetic composition ; his protes- 
 tation, after the trial, a pathetic prayer ! Neale has preserved both in his 
 "History of the Puritans." With what simplicity of eloquence he remon- 
 strates on tlie temporising government of Elizabeth. He thus addresses the 
 Queen, under the title of Madam ! — " Your standing is, and has been, by 
 the Gospel : it is little beholden to you for anything that appears. The 
 practice of your government shows that if you could have ruled without 
 the Gospel, it would have been doubtful whether the Gospel should be 
 established or not ; for now that you are established in your throne by 
 the Gospel, you suffer it to reach no farther than the end of your sceptre 
 limiteth unto it." Of a milder, and more melancholy cast, is the touching 
 language, when the hope of life, but not the firmness of his cause had de- 
 serted him. " I look not to live this week to an end. I never took my- 
 self for a rebuker, much less for a reformer of states and kingdoms. I 
 never did anything in this cause for contention, vainglory, or to draw dis- 
 ciples after me. Great things, in this life, I never sought for : sufficiency 
 I had, with great outward trouble ; but most content I was with my lot, 
 and content with my untimely death, though I leave behind me a friend- 
 less widow and four infants." — Such is often the pathetic cry of the simple- 
 heai'ted, who fall the victims to the political views of more designing heads. 
 We could hardly have imagined that this eloquent and serious young man 
 was that Martin Mar-Prelate who so long plaj'ed the political ape before the 
 populace, with all the mummery of their low buffoonery, and even mimick- 
 ing their own idioms. The populace, however, seems to have been divided 
 in their opinions respecting the sanity of his politics, as appears by some 
 ludicrous lines, made on Penry's death, by a northern rhymer. 
 " The Welshman is hanged, 
 
 Who at our kirke flanged, 
 
 And at the state banged, 
 And brened are his bnks. 
 
 And though he be hanged, 
 
 Yet he is not wranged ; 
 
 The deil has him fanged 
 In his kruked kluks." 
 Weeter's Funerall Monuments, p. 56. Edit. 1631.
 
 523 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 suddenly said, " Let me ask you a question concerning your 
 book," the wary Udall replied, " It is not yet proved to be 
 mine!" He adroitly explained away the offending passages 
 the lawyers picked out of his book, and in a contest between 
 him and the judge, not only repelled him with his own arms, 
 but when his lordship would have wrestled on points of di- 
 vinity, Udall expertly perplexed the lawyer by showing he 
 had committed an anachronism of four hundred years ! He 
 was equally acute with the witnesses ; for when one deposed 
 that he had seen a catalogue of Udall' s library, in which was 
 inserted " The Demonstration of Discipline," the anonymous 
 book for which Udall was prosecuted ; with great ingenuity 
 he observed that this was rather an argument that he was 
 not the author, for " scholars use not to put their own books 
 in the catalogue of those they have in theii* study." We 
 observe with astonishment the tyrannical decrees of our 
 courts of justice, which lasted till the happy Revolution, 
 The bench was as depraved in their notions of the rights of 
 the subject in the reign of Elizabeth as in those of Charles 
 II. and James II. The Court refused to hear Udall's wit- 
 nesses, on this strange principle, that " witnesses in favour of 
 the prisoner were against the queen !" To which Udall re- 
 plied, " It is for the queen to hear all things when the life of 
 any of her subjects is in question." The criminal felt what 
 was just more than his judges ; and yet the judge, though to 
 be reprobated for his mode, calling so learned a man 
 " Sirrah !" was right in the thing, when he declared that 
 "you would bring the queen and the crown under your 
 girdles." It is remarkable that Udall repeatedly employed 
 that expression which Algernon Sidney left as his last legacy 
 to the people, when he told them he was about to die for 
 " that Old Cause in which I was from my youth engaged." 
 Udall perpetually insisted on " The Cause .'^ This was a term 
 which served at least for a watchword : it rallied the scat- 
 tered members of the republican party. The precision of the 
 expression might have been difficult to ascertain ; and, per- 
 haps, like every popular expedient, varied with " existing cir- 
 cumstances." I did not, however, know it had so remote an 
 origin as in the reign of Elizabeth ; and suspect it may still 
 be freshened up, and varnished over, for any present occasion. 
 The last stroke for Udall's character is the history of his 
 condemnation. He suffered the cruel mockery of a pardon 
 granted conditionally, by the intercession of the Scottish
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 523 
 
 monarch but never signed by the Queen — and Udall moul- 
 dered away the remnant of his days in a rigid imprison- 
 ment.* Cartwright and Travers, the chief movers of this 
 faction, retreated with haste and caution from the victims 
 they had conducted to the place of execution, while they 
 themselves sunk into a quiet forgetfulness and selfish repose. 
 
 SUPPLEMENT TO MARTIN MAE-PRELATE. 
 
 As a literary curiosity, I shall preserve a very rare poetical 
 tract, which describes with considerable force the Revolu- 
 tionists of the reign of Elizabeth. They are indeed those of 
 ■wild democracy ; and the subject of this satire will, I fear, be 
 never out of time. It is an admirable political satire against 
 a mob-government. In our poetical history, this specimen 
 too is curious, for it will show that the stanza in alternate 
 rhymes, usually denominated elegiac, is adapted to very op- 
 posite themes. The solemnity of the versification is impres- 
 sive, and the satire equally dignified and keen. 
 
 The taste of the mere modern reader had been more grati- 
 fied by omitting some unequal passages ; but, after delibera- 
 tion, I found that so short a composition would be injured by 
 dismembering extracts. I have distinguished by italics the 
 lines to which I desire the reader's attention, and have added 
 a few notes to clear up some passages which might appear 
 obscure. 
 
 * Observe wliat different conclusions are drawn from the same fact by 
 opposite writers. Heylin, arguing that Udall had been justly condemned, 
 adds, "the man remained a living monument of the archbishop's extraor- 
 dinary goodness to him in the preserving of that life which by the law he 
 had forfeited." But Neale, on the same point, considers him as one who 
 "died for his conscience, and stands upon record as a momiment of the 
 oppression and cruelty of the government." All this opposition of feeling 
 is of the nature of party-spirit ; but what is more curious in the history of 
 human nature, is the change of opinion in the same family in the course of 
 the same generation. The son of this Udall was as great a zealot for Con- 
 formity, and as great a sufferer for it from his fathei-'s party, when they 
 possessed political power. This son would not submit to their oaths and 
 covenants, but, with his bedridden wife, was left unmercifully to perish 
 in the open streets. — Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, part ii. p. 178.
 
 524 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 RYTHMES AGAINST MARTIN MARRE-PRELATE.* 
 
 Ordo Saccrdotum fatuo turhatur ah omni, 
 Labitur et passim Religionis honos. 
 
 Since Reason, Martin, cannot stay thy pen, 
 We 'il see what rime will do ; have at thee then ! 
 
 A Dizard late skipt out upon our stage, 
 
 But in a sacke, that no man might him see ; 
 
 And though we know not yet the paltiie page, 
 Himselfe hath Martin made his name to bee. 
 
 A proper name, and for his feates most fit ; 
 
 The only thing wherein he hath shew'd wit. 
 
 Who knoweth not, that Apes, men Martins call,+ 
 Which beast, this baggage seemes as 't were himselfe : 
 
 So as both nature, nurture, name, and all, 
 Of that's expressed in this apish elfe. 
 
 Which He make good to Martin Marre-als face, 
 
 In three plaine poynts, and will not bate an ace. 
 
 For, first, the Ape delights with moppes and mowes. 
 And mochcth Prince and Peasants all alike; 
 
 This jesting JacJce, that no good manners knowes, 
 With his Asse-heeles pi-esumes all states to strike. 
 
 Whose scoffes so stinking in each nose doth smell. 
 
 As all mouthes saie of Dolts he beares the bell. 
 
 Sometimes his chappes do walke in poynts too high, 
 Wherein the Ape himself a Woodcock tries. 
 
 Sometimes with floutes he drawes his mouth awrie, 
 And sweares by his ten bones, and falselie lies. 
 
 Wherefore be he what he will I do not passe ; 
 
 He is the paltriest Ape that euer was. 
 
 Such fleering, leering, jeering fooles bopeepe, 
 Such hahas ! teehees ! weehees ! wild colts play ; 
 
 * In Herbert's " Typographical Antiquities," p. 1689, this tract is in- 
 tituled, " A Whip for an Ape, or Martin Displaied." I have also seen the 
 poem with this title. Readers were then often invited to an old book by 
 a change of title : in some cases, I think the same work has been published 
 with several titles. 
 
 + Martin was a name for a bird, and a cant term for an Ass ; and, as 
 it appears hei'e, an Ape. Our Martins, considered as birds, were often 
 reminded that their proper food was "hempen seed," which at length 
 choked them. That it meant an Ass, appears from " Pappe with a 
 Hatchet." " Be thou Martin the bird or Martin the beast, a bird with 
 the longest bill, or a heast with the longest ears, there's a net spread for 
 your neck." — Sign. B. 5. There is an old French proverb, quoted by Cot- 
 grave, voce Martin : — ^^ Plus d'un asne « la foire, a nom Martin."
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 525 
 
 Such Sohoes ! whoopes and hallowes ; hold and keepe ; 
 
 Such rangings, vagings, reuelings, roysters ray; 
 With so foule mouth, and knaue at euery catch, 
 'Tis some knaue's nest did surely Martin hatch. 
 
 Now out he runnes with CucTcowe Hng of May, 
 Then in he leapes with a wild Momce daunce; 
 
 Then strikes he up Dame Lawsoii's* lustie lay; 
 Then comes Sir Jeffrie^ s ale-tub, tapp'd by chaunc( 
 
 Which makes me gesse, and I can shrewdly smell, 
 
 He loues both t' one and t'other passing well. 
 
 Then straight, as though he were distracted quite. 
 He chafeth like a cut-purse layde in warde; 
 
 And rudely railcs with all his maine and might, 
 Against both knights and lords without regard: 
 
 So as Bridewell must tame his dronken fits, 
 
 And Bedlem help to bring him to his wits. 
 
 But, Martin, why, in matters of such weight, 
 
 Dost thou iixMS play the dawe, and dauncing foole ? 
 
 sir (quoth he) this is a pleasant baite 
 
 For men of sorts, to traine them to my schoole. 
 
 Ye noile states, hoio can you like hereof, 
 
 A shamelesse Ap)e at your sage head should scoffe? 
 
 Good Neddie, now leaue scribbling in such matters ; 
 
 They are no tooles for fooles to tend unto ; 
 Wise meo regard not what mad monkies patters ! 
 
 'Twere trim a beast should teach men what to do. 
 Now Tarleton's dead, the consort lackes a Vice. 
 For knaue and foole thou maist bear prick and price. 
 
 The sacred sect, and perfect pure precise. 
 
 Whose cause must be by Scoggin's jests mainteinde, 
 
 Ye shewe, although that Purple, Apes disguise, 
 Yet Apes are still, and so must be, disdainde. 
 
 For though your Lyons lookes weake eyes escapes. 
 
 Your babling bookes bewraies you, all for Apes. 
 
 * Martin was a protegi of this Dame Laioson. There appear to have 
 been few political conspiracies without a woman, whenever religion forms 
 a part. This dame is thus noticed in the mock epitaphs on Martin's funeral — • 
 
 " Away with silk, for I will mourn in sacke ; 
 Martin is dead, our new sect goes to wrack. 
 Come, gossips mine, put finger in the eie. 
 He made us laugh,- but now must make us crie." 
 
 Dame Lawson. 
 
 " Sir Jeflfrie's Ale-tub" alludes to two knights who were ruinously fined, 
 and hardly escaped with life, for their patronage of JIartin.
 
 526 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 The next point is, Apes use to tossc and teare 
 What once their Jidling fingers fasten on ; 
 
 And clime aloft, and cast downe euery where, 
 And neuer daie till all that stands be gon! 
 
 Now whetlaer this in Martin be not true, 
 
 You wiser heads marke here what doth ensue. 
 
 What is it not that Martin doth not rent ? 
 
 Cappes, tippets, go-woies, black chiuers, rotchets white ; 
 Communion bookes, and homelies : yea, so bent 
 
 To teare, as women's wimples feele his spite. 
 Thus tearing all, as all apes use to doo. 
 He teares withall the Church of Christ in two. 
 
 Marke now what thinges he meanes to tumble downe. 
 For to this poynt to look is worth the while. 
 
 In one that makes no choice 'twixt cap and crowne, 
 Cathedral churches he would fain untile. 
 
 And snatch up bishops' lands, and catch away 
 
 All gaine of learning for his prouling pray. 
 
 And thinlce you, not he will pull downe at length 
 As tcell the top from tower as cocJce from steeple; 
 
 And when his head hath gotten, some more strength. 
 To play tvith Prince as now he doth with People: 
 
 Yes, he that now saith. Why should Bishops bee ? 
 
 Will next crie out, Why Kings ? The Saincts are free/ 
 
 The Germaine boores with Ciergiemen began, 
 But neuer left till Prince and Peeres were dead. 
 
 JacJce Leyden was a holy zealous man, 
 
 But ceast not till the Crowne was on his head. 
 
 And Martinis mate, Jacke Straive, would alwaies ring, 
 
 The Clergie's faults, but sought to kill the King. 
 
 "Oh that," quoth Martin, " chvjere a Nobleman !"* 
 Avaunt, vile villain ! 'tis not for such swads. 
 
 And of the Couusell, too : marke Princes then : 
 These roomes are raught at by these lustie lads. 
 
 For Apes must climbe, and neuer stay their wit, 
 
 Untill on top of highest hillcs they sit. 
 
 What meane they els, in euery towne to craue 
 Their Priest and King like Christ himself to be : 
 
 And for one Pope ten thousand Popes to have. 
 And to controll the highest he or she ? 
 
 Aske Scotland that, whose King so long they crost, 
 
 As he was like his kingdome to haue lost. 
 
 Beware ye States and Nobles of this lande. 
 The Clergie is but one of these men's buttes. 
 
 Tlie Ape at last on master'' s necke ivill stande: 
 Then gegge betimes these gaping greedie gutts. 
 
 • Chwerc, i. e. "that I were," alluding to their frequently adopting the 
 corrupt phi-ascology of the populace, to catch the ears of the mob.
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate. 527 
 
 Least that too soone, and tJien too late ye feele, 
 He strikes at head that first began %vith heele. 
 
 The third tricke is, what Apes by flattering waies 
 Cannot come by with biting, theyvAll snatch; 
 
 Our Martin makes no bones, but plaiuely sales. 
 
 Their fists shall walke, they will both bite and scratch. 
 
 He'll make their hearts to ake, and will not faile, 
 
 Where 2^ en cannot, their penhnife shall prevail.* 
 
 But this is false, he saith he did but mock : 
 A foole he was, that so his words did scanne. 
 
 He only meant with pen their pates to knocke ; 
 A knaue he is, that so turns cat in pan. 
 
 But, Martin, sweare and stare as deepe as hell. 
 
 Thy sprite, thy spite and mischeuous minde doth tell. 
 
 The thing that neither Pope with bool-e nor hidl, 
 Nor Spanish King with ships could doe without. 
 
 Our Martins heere at home will vjorke at full: 
 J f Prince curbe not betimes that rabble rout. 
 
 That is, destroy both Church and State and all ; 
 
 For if t' one faile, the other needes must fall. 
 
 Thou England, then, whom God doth make so glad 
 Through Gospel's grace and Prince's prudent reigne, 
 
 Take heede lest thou at last be made as sad. 
 
 Through Martin's makebates marring, to thy paine. 
 
 For he marrs all and maketh nought, nor will, 
 
 Saue lies and strife, and works for England's ill. 
 
 And ye graue men that answere Martin's mowes, 
 He mocks the more, and you in vain loose times. 
 
 Leaue Apes to Doggs to baite, their skins to Crowes, 
 And let old Lanamf lashe him with his rimes. 
 
 The beast is proud when men read his enditings; 
 
 Let his workes goe the waie of all wast writings. 
 
 Now, Martin, you that say you will spawne out 
 Your brawling brattes, in euery towne to dwell, 
 
 We viill provide in each place for your route, 
 A bell and whipipe that Apes do loue so well. 
 
 And if yo skippe, and will not wey the checke, 
 
 We 'il haue a springe, and catche you by the necke. 
 
 * It is a singular coincidence that Arnauld, in his caustic retort on 
 the Jesuits, said — "I do not fear your pen, but your penknife." The 
 play on the word, tells even better in our language than in the original — 
 plume and canife. 
 
 + I know of only one Laneham, who wrote " A Narrative of the Queen's 
 Visit at Kenilworth Castle," 1575. He was probably a redoubtable satirist. 
 I do not find his name in Ritson's " Bibliographia Poetica."
 
 528 Quarrels of AutJwrs, 
 
 And so adieu, mad i>fa?'<Mi-mar-the-land 
 
 Leaue oflf thy worke, and "more work"* hearest thou me ; 
 Thy work's nought worth, take better worke in hand. 
 
 Thou viarr'st thy toorJcc, and thy work vjill marre thee. 
 Worke not anevve, least it doth work thy wracke, 
 And then make worke for him that worke doth lacke. 
 
 And this I warn thee, Martin Monckies-face, 
 
 Take heed of me ; my rime doth charm thee bad. 
 
 I am a rimer of the Irish race, 
 
 And haue alreadie rimde thee staring mad. 
 
 But if thou cease not thy bald jests to spread, 
 
 I'le never leave till I have rimde thee dead. 
 
 * Alluding to the title of one of their most virulent libels against Bishop 
 Cooper ["Hay any worke for Cooper," which was a pun on the Bishop's 
 name, conveyed in the street cry of an itinerant trader, and was followed 
 by another entitled] "More work for a Cooper." Cooper, in his " Admo- 
 nition to the People of England," had justly observed that this Mar-Prelate 
 ought to have many other names. See note, p. 510. 
 
 I will close this note with an extract from "Pappe with a Hatchet," 
 which illustrates the ill effects of all sudden reforms, by an apposite and 
 original image. 
 
 "There was an aged man that lived in a well-ordered Commonwealth 
 by the space of threescore years, and finding, at the length, that by the 
 heate of some men's braines, and the warmness of other men's blood, that 
 newe alterations were in hammering, and that it grewe to such an height, 
 that all the desperate and discontented persons were readie to runne their 
 heads against their head ; comming into the midst of these mutiners, 
 cried, as loude as his yeeres would allow : — 'Springalls, and vnripened 
 youthes, whose wisedomes are yet in the blade, when this snowe shall be 
 melted (laying his hand on his siluer haires) then shall you find store of 
 dust, and rather ivish for the conthmance of a lortg frost, than the in- 
 comming of an vntimely thavj.''" — iSig. D. 3. verso.
 
 LITERARY QUARRELS 
 
 PERSONAL MOTIVES 
 
 Anecdote of a Bishop and a Doctor— Dr. Middleton and Dr. Bentlet — 
 Warburton and Dr. Taylor — Warburton and Edwards — Swift and 
 Dryden — Pope and Bentlet — why fiction is necessary for satire, ac- 
 cording to Lord Kochester's confession — Rowe and Addison — Popb 
 and Atterburt — Sir John Hawkins and George Steevens — a fierce 
 controversial author a dangerous neighbour — a ludicrous instance of a 
 literary quarrel from personal motives between Bohun and the Wyke- 
 hamists. 
 
 LiTEBAET QuAEEELS have abundantly sprung from mere per- 
 sonal motives ; and controversies purely literary, sometimes 
 of magnitude, have broken out, and been voluminously carried 
 on, till the public are themselves involved in the contest, 
 while the true origin lies concealed in some sudden squabble ; 
 some neglect of petty civility; some unlucky epithet ; or some 
 casual observation dropped without much consideration, which 
 mortitied or enraged the author. How greatly has passion 
 prevailed in literary history ! How often the most glorious 
 pages in the chronicles of literature are tainted with the secret 
 history which must be placed by their side, so that the origin 
 of many considerable works, which do so much honour to the 
 heads of their authors, sadly accuse their hearts. But the 
 heaven of Virgil was disturbed with quarrels — 
 Tantsene animis coelestibus irse ? 
 
 Can heavenly minds such high resentment show ? 
 
 Drydeii, 
 
 And has not a profound observer of human affairs declared, 
 Ex privatis odiis respublica crescit? individual hatreds ag- 
 grandize the republic. This miserable philosophy will satisfy 
 those who are content, from private vices, to derive pubUc 
 benefits. One wishes for a purer morality, and a more noble 
 inspiration. 
 
 M M
 
 530 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 To a literary quarrel from personal motives we owe the 
 origin of a very remarkable volume. When Dr. Parr deli- 
 vered his memorable sermon, which, besides the " sesqui- 
 pedalia verba," was perhaps the longest that ever was heard 
 — if not listened to — Bishop Hurd, who had always played 
 the part of one of the most wary of politicians in private life, 
 and who had occasion once adroitly to explain the French 
 word Hetenue, which no man better understood, in a singu- 
 larly unguarded moment, sarcastically observed that he did 
 not like "the doctor's long vernacular sermon." The happy 
 epithet was soon conveyed to the classical ear of the modern 
 Grecian : it was a wasp in it ! The bishop had, in the days 
 of literary adventure, published some pieces of irony, which 
 were thought more creditable to his wit than his feelings — 
 and his great patron, Warburton, certain juvenile prose and 
 verse — all of which they had rejected from their works. But 
 this it is to be an author ! — his errors remain when he has 
 outlived and corrected them. The mighty and vindictive 
 Grecian in rage collected them all ; exhausted his own genius 
 in perpetuating follies ; completed the works of the two 
 bishops in utter spite ; and in " Tracts by Warburton and a 
 Warburtonian," has furnished posterity with a specimen of 
 the force of his own "vernacular" style, giving a lesson to 
 the wary bishop, who had scarcely wanted one all his life — of 
 the dangers of an unlucky epithet ! 
 
 Dr. Conyers Middleton, the author of the " Life of Cicero," 
 seldom wrote but out of pique ; and he probably owed his 
 origin as an author to a circumstance of this nature. Mid- 
 dleton when young was a Dilettante in music ; and Dr. 
 Bentley, in contempt, applied the epithet "fiddling Conyers." 
 Had the irascible Middleton broken his violin about the head 
 of the learned Grecian, and thus terminated the quarrel, the 
 epithet had then cost Bentley's honour much less than it 
 afterwards did. It seems to have excited Middleton to deeper 
 studies, which the great Bentley not long after felt when he 
 published proposals for an edition of the New Testament in 
 Greek. Middleton published his " Bemarks, paragraph by 
 paragraph, upon the proposals," to show that Bentley had 
 neither talents nor materials proper for the work. This 
 opened a great paper-war, and again our rabid wolf fastened 
 on the majestic lion, " paragraph by paragraph." And though 
 the lion did affect to bear in contempt the fangs of his little 
 active enemy, the flesh was torn. " The proposals" sunk
 
 Literary Quarrels from Personal Motives. 531 
 
 before the "paragraph by paragraph," and no edition of the 
 Greek Testament by Bentley ever appeared. Bentley's pro- 
 posals at first had met with the greatest success ; the sub- 
 sci'iption-money amounted to two thousand pounds, and it 
 was known that his nephew had been employed by him to 
 travel abroad to collect these MSS. He declared he would 
 make use of no MS. that was not a thousand years old, or 
 above ; of which sort he had collected twenty, so that they 
 made up a total of twenty thousand years. He was four 
 years studying them before he issued his proposals. The 
 Doctor rested most on eight Greek MSS., the most recent of 
 which was one thousand years old. All this wore a very 
 imposing appearance. At a touch the whole magnificent 
 edifice fell to pieces ! Middleton says, " His twenty old 
 MSS. shrink at once to eight, and he is forced again to own 
 that even of these eight there are only four which had not 
 been used by Dr. Mill ;" and these Middleton, by his sarcastic 
 reasoning, at last reduces to " some pieces only of the New 
 Testament in MS." So that twenty MSS. and their twenty 
 thousand years were battered by the " fiddling Conyers" into 
 a solitary fragment of little value ! Bentle}'' returned the 
 subscription-monej'', and would not publish ; the work still lies 
 in its prepared state, and some good judges of its value have 
 expressed a hope to see it yet published. But Bentley him- 
 self was not untainted in this dishonourable quarrel : he well 
 knew that Middleton was the author of this severe attack ; 
 but to show his contempt of the real author, and desirous, in 
 his turn, of venting his disappointment on a Dr. Colbatch, 
 he chose to attribute it to him, and fell on Colbatch with a 
 virulence that made the reply perfectly libellous, if it was 
 Bentley's, as was believed. 
 
 The irascibility of Middleton, disguising itself in a literary 
 form, was still more manifested by a fact recorded of him by 
 Bishop Newton. He had applied to Sir Robert Walpole for 
 the mastership of the Charter-house, who honestly informed 
 him that Bishop Sherlock, with the other Bishops, were 
 against his being chosen. Middleton attributed the origin of 
 this opposition to Bishop Sherlock, and wreaked his vengeance 
 by publishing his "Animadversions upon Sherlock's Discourses 
 on Prophecy." The book had been long published, and had 
 passed through successive editions ; but Middleton pretended 
 he had never seen them before, and from this time Lambeth- 
 house was a strong provocative for his vindictive temper. 
 
 ii M 2
 
 533 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 Nor was the other great adversary of Middleton, he who so 
 long affected to be the lord paramount, the Suzerain in the 
 feudal empire, rather than the republic of letters — Warburton 
 himself — less easily led on to these murderous acts of personal 
 rancour. A pamphlet of the day has preserved an anecdote 
 of this kind. Dr. Taylor, the Chancellor of Lincoln, once 
 threw out in company an opinion derogatory to the scholar- 
 ship of Warburton, who seems to have had always some choice 
 spirits of his legion as spies in the camp of an enemy, and 
 who sought their tyrant's grace by their violation of the social 
 compact. The tyrant himself had an openness, quite in con- 
 trast with the dark underworks of his satellites. He boldly 
 interrogated our critic, and Taylor replied, undauntedly and 
 more poignantly than Warburton might have suspected, that 
 " he did not recollect ever saying that Dr. Warburton was no 
 scholar, but that indeed he had always tlwught so." To this 
 intrepid spirit the world owes one of the remarkable prefaces 
 to the "Divine Legation" — in which the Chancellor of Lincoln, 
 intrepid as he was, stands like a man of straw, to be buffeted 
 and tossed about with all those arts of distortion which the 
 wit and virulence of Warburton almost eveiy day was prac- 
 tising at his " established places of execution," as his prefaces 
 and notes have been wittily termed. 
 
 Even Warburton himself, who committed so many personal 
 injuries, has, in his turn, most eminently suffered from the 
 same motive. The personal animosity of a most ingenious 
 man was the real cause of the utter destruction of Warbur- 
 ton's critical reputation. Edwards, the author of the " Canons 
 of Criticism," when young and in the army, was a visitor at 
 Allen's of Prior-park, the patron of Warburton ; and in those 
 literary conversations which usually occupied their evenings, 
 Warburton affected to show his superiority in his acquaint- 
 ance with the Greek writers, never suspecting that a red coat 
 covered more Greek than his own — which happened unluckily 
 to be the case. Once, Edwards in the library, taking down a 
 Greek author, explained a passage in a manner whicli did not 
 suit probably with some new theory of the gi'cat inventor of 
 so many ; a contest arose, in which Edwards discovered how 
 Warburton came by his illegitimate knowledge of Greek 
 authors : Edwards attempted to convince him that he really 
 did not understand Greek, and that his knowledge, such as it 
 was, was derived from French translations — a provoking act 
 of literary kindness, which took place in the presence of lialph
 
 Literary Quarrels from Personal Motives. 533 
 
 Allen and his niece, who, though they could not stand as 
 umpires, did as witnesses. An incurable breach took place 
 between the parties, and from this trilling altercation, Edwards 
 produced the bitter " Canons of Criticism," and Warburton 
 those foaming notes in the Dunciad. 
 
 Such is the implacable nature of literary irascibility ! Men 
 so tenderly alive to intellectual sensibilit}', find even the 
 lightest touch profoundly enter into the morbid constitution 
 of the literary temper ; and even minds of a more robust 
 nature have given proof of a sickly delicacy hanging about 
 them quite unsuspected. Swift is a remarkable instance of 
 this kind : the foundation of the character of this great wit 
 was his excellent sense. Yet having, when young, composed 
 one of the wild Pindarics of the time, addressed to the Athe- 
 nian Societ}^, and Dry den judiciously observing that " cousin 
 Jonathan would never be a poet," the enraged wit, after he 
 had reached the maturity of his own admirable judgment, 
 and must have been \vell aware of the truth of the friendly 
 prediction, could never forgive it. He has indvdged the utmost 
 licentiousness of personal rancour ; he even puns miserably 
 on his name to degrade him as the emjjtiest of writers. His 
 spirited translation of Virgil, which was admired even by Pope, 
 he levels b}^ the most grotesque sarcastic images to mark 
 the poet's diminutive genius — he says this version-maker is 
 so lost in Virgil, that he is like " the l-ddj in a lobster; a mouse 
 under a canopy of state ; a shrivelled beau within the pent- 
 house of a full-bottomed perriwig." He never was generous 
 enough to contradict his opinion, and persisted in it to the 
 last. Some critic, about Swift's own time, astonished at his 
 treatment of Dryden, declares he must have been biassed by 
 some prejudice — the anecdote here recorded, not then pro- 
 bably known, discovers it. 
 
 What happened to Pope on the publication of his Homer 
 shows all the anxious temper of the author. Being in com- 
 pany with Bentley, the poet was very desirous of obtaining 
 the doctor's opinion of it, which Bentley contrived to parry 
 as well as he could ; but in these matters an author who cal- 
 culates on a compliment, will risk everything to obtain it. The 
 question was more plainly put, and the answer was as plainly 
 given. Bentley declared that " the verses were good verses, 
 but the work is not Homer — it is Spondanus!" From this 
 interview posterity derives from the mortified poet the full-
 
 534 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 length figure of " tlie slasTiing Bentley," in the fourth book 
 of the Dunciad : 
 
 The mighty Scholiast, whose unwearied pains 
 Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains. 
 
 When Bentley was told by some officious friend that Pope 
 had abused him, he only replied, " Ay, like enough ! I spoke 
 against his Homer, and the portentous cub never forgives !" 
 Part of Pope's severe criticism only is true ; but to give full 
 effect to their severit}^ poets always infuse a certain quantity 
 of fiction. This is an artifice absolutely necessary to practise ; 
 so I collect from a great master in the arts of satire, and who 
 once honestly avowed that no satire could be composed 
 unless it was personal ; and no personalities would sufficiently 
 adorn a poem without lies. This great satirist was Eochester. 
 Burnet details a curious conversation between himself and his 
 lordship on this subject. The bishop tells us that " he 
 would often go into the countrj^, and be for some months 
 wholly employed in study, or the sallies of his wit chiefly 
 directed to satire. And this he often defended to me by say- 
 ing, there were some people that could not be kept in order, 
 or admonished, but in this way." Burnet remonstrated, and 
 Eochester replied — " A man could not write with life unless 
 he were heated hy revenge ; for to make a satire without 
 resentments, upon the cold notions of philosophy, was as if 
 a man would, in cold blood, cut men's throats who had never 
 offended him. And he said, the lies in these libels came often 
 in as ornaments, that could not be spared without spoiling the 
 heauty of the poem." It is as useful to know how the 
 materials of satire are put together ; as thus the secret of 
 pulling it to pieces more readily may sometimes be obtained. 
 These facts will sufficiently establish this disgraceful prin- 
 ciple of the personal motives which have influenced the 
 quarrels of authors, and which they have only disguised by 
 giving them a literary form. Those who are conversant in 
 literary history can tell how many works, and some consider- 
 able ones, have entirely sprung out of the vengeance of 
 authors. Johnson, to whom the feelings of the race were so 
 well known, has made a curious observation, which none but 
 an author could have made : — " The best advice to authors 
 would be, that they should keep out of the way of one 
 another." He says this in the "Life of Eowe," on the
 
 Literary Quarrels from Personal Motives. 535 
 
 occasion of Addison's Observations on Eowe's Charac- 
 ter. Rowe had expressed his happiness to Pope at Addi- 
 son's promotion ; and Pope, who wished to conciliate 
 Addison towards Rowe, mentioned it, adding, that he 
 believed Rowe was sincere. Addison repUed, " That he 
 did not suspect Rowe feigned ; but the levity of his heart is 
 such, that he is struck loith any new adventure : and it would 
 affect him just in the same manner as if he heard I was going 
 to be hanged." Warbm-ton adds that Pope said he could not 
 deny but Addison understood Rowe well. Such is the fact 
 on which Johnson throws out an admirable observation : — 
 " This censure time has not left us the power of confirming or 
 refuting ; but observation daily shows that much stress is not 
 to be laid on hyperbolical accusations and pointed sentences, 
 which even he that utters them desires to be applauded, rather 
 than credited. Addison can hardly be supposed to have meant 
 all that he said. Feio characters can bear the microscopic 
 scrutiny of'Wii quickened by anqee." I could heap up facts 
 to demonstrate this severe truth. Even of Pope's best 
 friends, some of their severities, if they ever reached him, 
 must have given the pain he often inflicted. His friend 
 Atterbury,'to whom he was so partial, dropped an expression, 
 in the heat of conversation, which Pope could never have for- 
 given ; that GUI' poet had "a crooked mind in a crooked body." 
 There was a rumour, after Pope's death, that he had left 
 behind him a satirical "Life of Dean Swift." Let genius, 
 whose faculty detects the foibles of a brother, remember he is 
 a rival, and be a generous one. In that extraordinary morsel 
 of literary history, the " Conversations of Ben Jonson with 
 his friend Drummond of Hawthornden," preserving his 
 opinions of his contemporaries, if I err not in my recollection, 
 I believe that he has not spoken favourably of a single indi- 
 vidual ! 
 
 The personal motives of an author, influencing his literary 
 conduct, have induced him to practise meannesses and subter- 
 fuges.' One remarkable instance of this nature is that of Sir 
 John Hawkins, who indeed had been hardly used by the caustic 
 pleasantries of George Steevens. Sir John, in his edition of 
 Johnson, with ingenious malice contrived to suppress the 
 acknowledgment made by Johnson to Steevens of his dili- 
 gence and sagacity, at the close of his preface to Shakspeare. 
 To preserve the panegyric of Steevens mortified Hawkins 
 beyond endurance ; yet, to suppress it openly, his character
 
 536 Quarrels of Authors, 
 
 as an editor did not permit. In this dilemma he pretended 
 he reprinted the preface from the edition of 1765 ; which, as 
 it appeared before Johnson's acquaintance with Steevens, 
 could not contain the tender passage. However, this was 
 unluckily discovered to be only a subterfuge, to get rid of the 
 offensive panegyric. On examination, it proved not true ; 
 Hawkins did not reprint from this early edition, but from the 
 latest, for all the corrections are inserted in his own. " If 
 Sir John were to be tried at Hicks's Hall (long the seat of 
 that justice's glory), he would be found guilty of clipping^^ 
 archly remarks the periodical critic. 
 
 A fierce controversial author may become a dangerous 
 neighbovu' to another author : a petulant fellow, who does 
 not write, may be a pestilent one; but he who prints a book 
 against us may disturb our life in endless anxieties. There 
 was once a dean who actually teased to death his bishop, 
 wore him out in journeys to London, and at length drained 
 all his faculties — by a literary quarrel from personal motives. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Pikece, Dean of Sarum — a perpetual con- 
 troversialist, and to whom it was dangerous to refuse a re- 
 quest, lest it might raise a controversy — wanted a prebend 
 of Dr. Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, for his son Eobert. He 
 was refused ; and now, studying revenge, he opened a con- 
 troversy with the bishop, maintaining that the king had the 
 right of bestowing all dignities in all cathedrals in the king- 
 dom, and not the bishops. This required a reply from the 
 bishop, who had been formerly an active controversialist 
 himself. Dean Pierce renewed his attack with a folio 
 volume, entitled " A Vindication of the King's Sovereign 
 Right, &c.," 1683. — Thus it proceeded, and the web thick- 
 ened around the bishop in replies and rejoinders. It cost him 
 many tedious journeys to London, through bad roads, fretting 
 at "the King's Sovereign Right" all the way; and, in the 
 words of a witness, " in unseasonable times and weather, 
 that by degrees his spirits were exhausted, his memory quite 
 gone, and he was totally unfitted for business."* Such was 
 the fatal disturbance occasioned by Dean Pierce's folio of 
 " The King's Sovereign Right," and his son Bob being left 
 without a prebend ! 
 
 I shall close this article with a very ludicrous instance of a 
 literary quarrel from personal motives. This piece of secret 
 
 ♦ Lansdowne MSS. 1042—1316.
 
 Literary Quarrels from Personal Motives. 537 
 
 history had been certainly lost, had not Bishop Lowth con- 
 descended to preserve it, considering it as necessary to assign 
 a sufficient reason for the extraordinary libel it produced. 
 
 Bohun, an antiquarian lawyer, in a work entitled " The 
 English Lawyer," in 1732, in illustrating the origin of the 
 Act of Scandalmn Magnatum, which arose in the time of 
 William of Wykeham, the chancellor and bishop of Edward 
 III. and the founder of New College, in Oxford ; took that 
 opportunity of committing the very crime on the venerable 
 manes of Wykeham himself. He has painted this great man 
 in the darkest colours. Wykeham is charged with having 
 introduced " Alice Piers, his niece or," &c., for the truth is 
 he was uncertain who she was, to use his peculiar language, 
 "into the king's bosom ;" to have joined her in excluding the 
 Black Prince from all power in the state ; and he hints at 
 this hero having been poisoned by them; of Wykeham's em- 
 bezzling a million of the public money, and, when chancellor, 
 of forging an Act of Parliament to indemnify himself, and 
 thus passing his own pardon. It is a singularity in this 
 libellous romance, that the contrary of all this only is true. 
 But Bohun has so artfully interwoven his historical patches 
 of misrepresentations, surmises, and fictions, that he suc- 
 ceeded in framing an historical libel. 
 
 Not satisfied with this vile tissue, in his own obscure 
 volume, seven years afterwards, being the editor of a work of 
 high reputation, Nathaniel Bacon's " Historical and Political 
 Discourse of the Laws and Government of England," he 
 further satiated his frenzy by contriving to preserve his libel 
 in a work which he was aware would outlive his own. 
 
 Whence all this persevering malignity ? Why this quarrel 
 of Mr. Bohun, of the Middle Temple, with the long-departed 
 WiUiam of Wykeham ? 
 
 What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ? 
 
 He took all these obscure pains, and was moved with this 
 perpetual rancour against William of Wykeham, merely to 
 mortify the Wykehamists ; and slandered their founder, with 
 the idea that the odium might be reflected on New College. 
 Bohun, it seems, had a quarrel with them concerning a lease 
 on which he had advanced money ; but the holder had con- 
 trived to assign it to the well-known Eustace Budgell : the 
 college confirmed the assignment. At an interview before
 
 538 Quarrels of Authors. 
 
 the warden, high words had arisen hetween the parties : the 
 warden withdrew, and the wit graduall}' shoved the antiquary 
 oif the end of the hench on which they were sitting : a blow 
 was struck, and a cane broken, Bohun brought an action, 
 and the Wj^kehamites travelled down to give bail at West- 
 minster Hall, where the legal quarrel was dropped, and the 
 literary one then began. Who could have imagined that the 
 venerable bishop and chancellor of Edward III. was to be 
 involved in a wretched squabble about a lease with an anti- 
 quary^ and a wit? "Fancying," says Bishop Lowth, "he 
 covdd inflict on the Society of New College a blow which 
 would affect them more sensibly by wounding the reputation 
 of their founder, he set himself to collect everything he could 
 meet with that was capable of being represented to his dis- 
 credit, and to improve it with new and horrible calumnies of 
 his own invention." Thus originated this defamatory attack 
 on the character of William of Wykeham! And by arts 
 which active writers may practise, and innocent readers can- 
 not easily suspect, a work of the highest reputation, like that 
 of Nathaniel Bacon's, may be converted into a vehicle of 
 personal malignity, while the author himself disguises his 
 real purpose under the specious appearance of literature ! 
 The present case, it must be acknowledged, is peculiar, where 
 a dead person was attacked with a spirit of rancour to which 
 the living only appear subject ; but the author was an anti- 
 quary'-, who lived as much with the dead as the living : his 
 personal motive was the same as those already recorded, and 
 here he was acting with a double force on the dead and the 
 living ! 
 
 But here I stop my hand, my list would else be too com- 
 plete. Great names are omitted — Whitaker and Gibbon ;* 
 Pope and Lord Hervey ;t Wood and South \% Eowe, Mores, 
 and Ames ;§ and George Steevens and Gough.|| 
 
 This chapter is not honourable to authors ; but historians 
 are only Lord Chief Justices, who must execute the laws, 
 even on their intimate friends, when standing at the bar. 
 The chapter is not honourable — but it may be useful ; and 
 
 * Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. 243. 
 
 •f Walpolk's Memoirs, vol. iii. 40. 
 
 J The Life of Wood, by Gutch, vol. i. 
 
 § Nichols's Literary Anecdotes. 
 
 II " Curiosities of Literature," voL iii. p. 303 -4. 
 
 I
 
 Literary Quayi-els from Personal Motives. 539 
 
 that is a quality not less valuable to the public. It lets in 
 their readers to a kind of knowledge, which opens a necessary 
 comment on certain works, and enlarges our comprehension of 
 their spirit. 
 
 If in the heat of controversy authors imprudently attack 
 each other with personalities, they are only scattering mud and 
 hurling stones, and will incur the ridicule or the contempt of 
 those who, unfriendly to the literary character, feel a secret 
 pleasure in its degradation ; but let them learn, that to open a 
 literary controversy from mere personal xnotives ; thus to con- 
 ceal the dagger of private hatred under the mantle of litera- 
 ture, is an expedient of short duration, for the secret history 
 is handed down with the book ; and when once the dignity of 
 the author's character sinks in the meanness of his motives, 
 powerful as the work may be, even Genius finds its lustre 
 diminished, and Truth itself becomes suspicious.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Addison, quarrels vrith Pope .313 
 
 disapproves of bis sa- 
 tire on Dennis . . . 315 
 
 aids a rival version of 
 
 Homer 316 
 
 satirized by Pope as 
 
 Atticus, n 317 
 
 his nervous fear of cri- 
 ticism ..... 317 
 
 ■ his last interview with 
 
 Pope . . . .318—320 
 
 quarrels with Steele 
 
 on political grounds 
 
 his disbelief in Eowe . 
 
 Akenside exhibited as a ludi- 
 crous personage by Smollett ; 
 his real character cast in the 
 mould of antiquity, n. . 
 
 severely criticised by 
 
 433 
 535 
 
 114 
 
 264 
 
 Warburton 
 Aldkich, Dean, secretly fosters 
 
 the attacks on Bentley 37S, n. 383 
 Amhurst, a political author, his 
 
 history . . . . .11 
 Aknall, a great political scribe 10 
 AscHAM, Roger, the founder of 
 
 English Prose 
 Athen.t; BKiTANXid, one of 
 
 the rarest works, account of, n. 
 Athjen-e Oxonienses, an apo- 
 logy for 
 
 Atterbury, Bp., on terrors of 
 
 conscience .... 
 severe remarks on 
 
 19 
 
 31 
 
 89 
 
 451 
 
 Pope 
 
 AtTBRET gives the real reason for 
 the fears of Hobbes the philo- 
 sopher, n 
 
 minutely narrates the 
 
 mode in which he composed 
 his " Leviathan," n. 
 
 Authors by profession, a phrase 
 of modern origin . 
 
 ■ original 
 
 letter to a Minister from one . 
 
 —— Fielding's 
 
 apology for them . 
 
 535 
 
 Authors, Horace Walpole af- 
 fects to despise them . . 43 
 
 their maladies . . 78 
 
 case of, stated . .15 
 
 incompetent remune- 
 ration of 21 
 
 who wrote above the 
 
 genius of their own age . .84 
 
 •^— — — ill reception from the 
 
 public of their valuable works 85 
 ^^—^ who have sacrificed 
 
 their fortunes to their studies i6. 
 who commenced their 
 
 literary life with ardour, and 
 found their genius obstructed 
 by numerous causes . . 87 
 
 -^—^— who have never pub- 
 lished their works . . .90 
 
 provincial, liable to 
 
 bad passions .... 128 
 
 Aire's Memoirs of Pope.n. 318, 319 
 
 Baker and his microscopical 
 discoveries, n. . . 366 — 367 
 
 Rev. Thomas, his collec- 
 tion 93 
 
 Baxguy, Dr. Thos., n. . . 273 
 
 Barnes, Joshua, wrote a poem 
 to prove Solomon was the au- 
 thor of the " Iliad," and why 97 
 
 his pathetic letter de- 
 scriptive of his literary cala- 
 mities ib. 
 
 hints at the vast num- 
 
 ber of his unpublished works 98 
 Bayle, his use of paradox . 247 
 his theory of appari- 
 tions, n. .... 451 
 Batne, Alexander, died of in- 
 tense application . . . 72 
 Bentley, Dr., his controversy 
 with Boyle . . . 378, 390 
 
 his haughtiness, 
 
 n 379 
 
 his dissertation 
 
 on "Phalaris" . . . 380
 
 542 
 
 Index. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bentley satirized by Dr. Mid- 
 dleton 531 
 
 BlOGRAPHIA BkITANNICA iu 
 
 danger of being left unfinished 84 
 
 Birkenhead, Sir J., a news- 
 paper-writer . . . .416 
 
 Black STONE investigates the 
 quarrel between Pope and 
 Addison 314 
 
 BoHDN, his unjustifiable attack 
 on William of Wykeham . 537 
 
 BoLiNGBROKE, his share in 
 Pope's " Essay on Man," . 256 
 
 quarrel with Pope 
 
 321—328 
 
 his " Patriot King" 
 
 secretly printed by Pope . 321 
 
 ^——^— his hatred of 
 
 Warburton . . 323—328 
 
 Booksellers in the reign of 
 Elizabeth . . . .23 
 
 why their interest 
 
 is rarely combined with the 
 advancement of literature, n. 87 
 why they prefer 
 
 the crude to the matured 
 fruit . . . .210 
 
 Boyle, his controversy with 
 Bentley .... 378—300 
 
 his edition of " Pha- 
 
 laris" .... 378—381 
 
 his literary aids, n. . 3S2 
 
 Bramhall opposes Hobbes' 
 
 philosophy . . . .449 
 
 Brereton, Sir W., characterised 
 by Clarendon and Cleveland, 
 n 418 
 
 Brooke attacks errors in Cam- 
 den's " Britannia" . . .492 
 ' his work unfairly sup- 
 
 pressed .... 405 
 
 . his severe remarks on 
 
 Camden .... ih. 
 
 • humorous rhymes on a 
 
 horse 497 
 
 his self-defence . .408 
 
 his real motives vindi- 
 cated 409 
 
 biographical note . ib. 
 
 Brown, Dr., liis panegyric on 
 Warburton, and his sorrow for 
 writing it, n. . . . . 235 
 
 account of, n. . . 273 
 
 Brown, Robt., founder of a sect 
 
 of Puritans n. . . . 518 
 Blrnet, Bp., his character at- 
 tacked 426 
 
 FIGS 
 
 Burton, his laborious work . 83 
 
 his constitutional me- 
 lancholy, 11 182 
 
 C^SALPiNcs, originally the pro- 
 pounder of a theory of the 
 circulation of the blood . . 335 
 
 Calvin's opinions on govern- 
 ment, n. .... 447 
 
 Calvin, his narrowed sectarian- 
 ism 502 
 
 Camden recommends Jonson to 
 llaleigh, re. ... . 476 
 
 his industry, and his 
 
 great work the " Britannia" . 491 
 
 Brooke points out its 
 
 errors . . . . .492 
 
 his works suppressed 
 
 through Camden's interest . 495 
 
 — — ^-— his exasperation . ib. 
 
 his powerful picture of 
 
 calumny .... 496 
 
 his quiet adoption of 
 
 Brooke's corrections . . 409 
 
 Campanella and his political 
 works . . . .351 — 352 
 
 Carey, Henry, inventor of 
 " Namby Pamby" . . .101 
 
 — — " Carey's Wish," a patrio- 
 tic song on the Freedom of 
 Election, by the author of 
 " God save the King," n. . 102 
 
 — " Sally in our Alley," a 
 
 popular ballad, its curious 
 origin ..... 103 
 
 author of several of our 
 
 national poems . . .104 
 
 his miserable end . . ib. 
 
 Carte, Thomas, his valuable 
 Iiistory .... 110—111 
 
 the first proposer 
 
 of public libraries . . .Ill 
 
 its fate from his 
 
 indiscretion .... 112 
 
 Cartwkight, Thomas, chief of 
 the Puritan faction . . 505 
 
 progress of his opi- 
 nions 506 
 
 his great popu- 
 larity ib. 
 
 forsakes his party 
 
 508-509 
 
 Caryll's voluminous commen- 
 tary on Job, n. . . . 392 
 
 Castell, Dr., ruined in health 
 and fortune by the publication 
 of his Polyglott, n. . . . 189
 
 Index. 
 
 543 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Charles the Second's jest at 
 the Royal Society, 71. . .311 
 
 ■ an ad- 
 mirer of Hobbes's ability in 
 disputation, n. . . . 448 
 
 Chatterton, his balance-sheet 
 on the Lord Mayor's death, n. lb 
 
 Chdrchill's satire on Warbur- 
 ton . . 240, 242, 243, 246 
 
 Chdrchyard, Thomas, an un- 
 happy poet, describes liis 
 
 patrons 20 
 
 ■■ his pa- 
 thetic description of his 
 wretched old age . . . ib. 
 
 CiBBER, his easy good-nature . 306 
 
 his reasonable defence 
 of himself, n. . . . 305—307 
 • his " Essay on Cicero," ?(. 306 
 
 apology for his Life . 307 
 
 — — attacks on himself, 305, 308 
 
 unjustly degraded . 312 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, his prejudice 
 against Hay . . . 434 
 
 ■^—^— his opinion of 
 
 Hobbes's philosophy, n. . . 438 
 
 Clergy fight in the great civil 
 wars, n. .... 422 
 
 Cleland, biographical note on 282 
 
 Cleveland's character of a jour- 
 nal-maker .... 416 
 
 Cole, Rev. William, his charac- 
 ter 90 
 
 ^— — — — — ^— his melan- 
 choly confession on his length- 
 ened literary labours . .92 
 his anxiety 
 
 how best to dispose of his col- 
 lections 93 
 
 Collins, Arthur, historian of 
 the Peerage . . . .85 
 
 Collins, AVm., the poet, quits 
 the university suddenly with 
 romantic hopes of becoming 
 an author .... 172 
 
 publishes his "Odes" 
 
 without success, and after- 
 wards indignantly burns the 
 edition 180 
 
 ■ defended from some re- 
 
 proaches of irresolution, made 
 
 by Johnson .... 181 
 
 anecdote of his life in 
 
 the metropolis. . . .182 
 anecdotes of, when 
 
 under the influence of a dis- 
 ordered uiteilect . . . 183 
 
 FAOB 
 
 Collins, his monument described 184 
 
 ' two sonnets descriptive 
 
 of Collins .... 185 
 
 his poetical character 
 
 defended 180 
 
 Contemporaries, how they seek 
 to level genius . . . 206 
 
 Cooper, author of " Life of 
 Socrates," attacked by War- 
 burton, n 272 
 
 Cooper, Bishop, attacked by 
 Mar- Prelates, n. . 513, 514 
 
 Copyrights, Lintot's payments 
 for .... 323—333 
 
 Corbet, his humorous introduc- 
 tion to Ben Jonson, n. . . 475 
 
 CoTGRAVE, Randle, falls blind 
 in the labour of his " Diction- 
 ary" 73 
 
 CocRT of Charles II. satirised by 
 Marvell 393 
 
 its charac- 
 teristics . . . .414 
 
 CowEL incurs by his curious work 
 " The Interpreter " the cen- 
 sure of the King and the Com- 
 mons on opposite principles . 193 
 
 Cowley, original letter from, n. 30 
 
 ■ his essays form a part 
 
 of his confessions . . .37 
 
 —^— describes his feelings at 
 court ib. 
 
 ' his melancholy attributed 
 
 to his " Ode to Brutus," by 
 
 which lie incurred the disgrace 
 
 of the court . . . .40 
 
 his remarkable lamenta- 
 
 tion for having written poetry 41 
 
 his Epitaph composed by 
 
 himself 42 
 
 Critic, poetical, without any 
 taste, how he contrived to criti- 
 cise poems . . . .143 
 
 Criticisms, illiberal, some of its 
 consequences stated . . 140 
 
 Cross attacks the Royal Society 
 
 344—345 
 
 Crocsaz dissects Pope's " Essay 
 on Man" .... 256 
 
 CuRLL, and his publication of 
 Pope's letters . . .292 
 
 D'A^TiNANT.his poem of " Grondi- 
 bert" 404 
 
 history of its com- 
 position, 71 404
 
 544 
 
 Index. 
 
 30 
 
 PAGE 
 
 D'AvENANT, its merits and de- 
 fects . . . 405—408 
 
 a club of wits sa- 
 tirize it 409 
 
 and its author .412 
 
 ■ and occasion it to be 
 
 left unfinished . . .413 
 
 Davies, Myles, a mendicant au- 
 thor, his life . . . .30 
 
 Decker quarrels with Ben Jon- 
 son for his arrogance 47") — 4S7 
 
 • ridicules him in his 
 
 " Satiromastix" . 482 — 487 
 
 Dedication, composed by a pa- 
 tron to himself, n. 
 
 Dedications, used in an ex- 
 traordinary way, n. 
 
 De Lolme's work on the Consti- 
 tution could find no patronage, 
 and the author's bitter com- 
 plaints 
 
 ■ relieved by the 
 
 Literary Fund, n. . 
 
 Denham falsely satirized, n. 
 
 Dennis, John, distinguished as 
 " The Critic " . 
 
 his " Original 
 
 Letters " and " Remarks on 
 Prince Arthur," his best pro- 
 ductions 
 
 •^— — — anecdotes of his 
 
 201 
 429 
 
 brutal vehemence . 
 curious caricature 
 
 of his personal manners . 
 
 a specimen of his 
 
 anti-poetical notions, n. 
 
 his frenzy on the 
 
 Italian Opera 
 
 acknowledges that 
 
 57 
 
 he is considered as ill-natured, 
 and complains of public neglect ib. 
 ■^^^— — more the victim 
 
 of his criticisms than the genius 
 he insulted .... 
 his insatiable 
 
 5S 
 
 vengeance toward Tope 
 his attack on Addison's 
 
 28G 
 
 ' Cato" 
 
 315 
 
 his account with the 
 
 bookseller Lin tot . 
 Drake, Dr. John, a political 
 
 writer, his miserable life 
 Drayton's national work, " The 
 
 Polyolbion," ill received, and 
 
 the author greatly dejected 
 
 angry preface ad- 
 
 210 
 
 dressed " To any that will read it" 211 
 
 PASS 
 
 DR0MMOND of Hawthornden, his 
 love of poetry . . . 213 
 
 conversation with 
 
 Jonson ..... 475 
 
 Dryden, in his old age, com- 
 plains of dying of over-study 204 
 
 his dramatic life a 
 
 series of vexations . . . 205 
 
 regrets he was bom 
 
 among Englishmen . .206 
 
 ^^—^— remarkable confession 
 of the poet . . . . ib. 
 
 vilified by party spirit 427 
 
 ■ compares his quarrel 
 
 with Settle to that of Jonson 
 with Decker, n. . . .477 
 Dunciad, Pope's collections for . 273 
 
 early editions of, n. . 283 
 
 ■ rage of persons sa- 
 
 tirized in, n. . . . . 284 
 
 satire on naturalists in 3 42 
 
 DuNTON the bookseller satirized 
 
 by Swift . . . .430 
 
 Dyson defends Akenside . . 265 
 
 Eachakd's satire on Hobbes and 
 his sect, n 439 
 
 Edwards, Thomas, author of 
 " Canons of Criticism" . 261 
 
 biographical notice, Ji. 532 
 
 anecdotes of his cri- 
 tical sagacity, n. . 262 — 263 
 
 origin of his " Canons 
 
 of Criticism" .... 532 
 
 Evans, Arise, a fanatical Welsh 
 prophet, patronised by War- 
 burton, n 240 
 
 EvELYN^defendstheRoyal Society 340 
 
 Exercise, to be substituted for 
 medicine by literary men, and 
 which is the best, 7i. . .68 
 
 False rumours in the great 
 Civil War . . . .421 
 
 Farneworth's Translation of 
 Machiavel . . . .84 
 
 Fell, Dr., an opponent of the 
 Koyal Society . . . 350 
 
 ungenerous to Hobbes 450 
 
 —^— rhymes descriptive of 
 his unpopularity . . . 451 
 
 Fielding attacks Sir John Hill, 
 
 368—369 
 
 FiLMER, Sir R., writes to esta- 
 blish despotism, n. . . . 449 
 
 FoLKES, Martin, President of the 
 Royal Society, n. . . . 864
 
 Index. 
 
 545 
 
 FAGB 
 
 FoLKES attacked by Sir John 
 Hill, n 3CG 
 
 Fuller's " Medicina Gymnas- 
 tica," n 71 
 
 Garth, Dr., and his Dispensary 429 
 
 Gat acts as mediator with Pope 
 and Addison . . . .320 
 
 his account with Lintot the 
 
 bookseller . . . .330 
 
 Gibbon, Ed., price of his copy- 
 right 87 
 
 GiLDEN supposed by Pope to 
 have been employed by Addi- 
 son to write against him . 31C 
 
 Glanvill a defender of the 
 Koyal Society. . . .344 
 
 Glover, Leonidas, declines to 
 write a Life of Marlborough, ri. 325 
 
 Goldsmith's remonstrance on 
 illiberal criticism, from which 
 the law gives no protection . 142 
 
 Granger's complaint of not re- 
 ceiving half the pay of a sca- 
 venger 85 
 
 Greene, Robert, a to^vn wit, his 
 poverty and death . . .23 
 
 ■ a-\vful satirical 
 
 address to, Ji. . . .119 
 
 Grey, Dr. Zachary, the father of 
 our commentators, ridiculed 
 and abused .... 104 
 
 the probable 
 
 origin of his new mode of il- 
 lustrating Hudibras . . t6. 
 
 ^-^-^— Warburton's 
 
 double-dealing with him, n. . 259 
 Guthrie offers his services as a 
 hackney-writer to a minister 8 
 
 Hackett executed for attacks 
 
 on the church n. . . .518 
 Hansier, Sir T., his edition of 
 
 Shakspeare, n. . . 242, n. 258 
 Hardouin supposes the classics 
 composed by monks in the 
 Middle Ages . . . 249 — 252 
 Harrington and his " Oceana" 449 
 Harvey, Dr., and his discovery 
 
 of the circulation of the blood 335 
 Harvev, Gabriel, his character 117 
 
 his device 
 
 against his antagonist, n. .119 
 
 his portrait . 121 
 
 . severely sati- 
 rised by Nash for his prolix 
 periods 122 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Harvey, Gabriel, cannot be en- 
 dured to be considered as the 
 son ot a rope-maker . . 123 
 
 his pretended 
 
 sordid manners . . . 124 
 
 his affectation 
 
 of Italian fashions . . ib. 
 
 his friends ri- 
 diculed 125 
 
 his pedantic 
 
 taste for hexameter verses, &c. 127 
 
 his curious re- 
 monstrance with Nash . .126 
 
 his lamenta- 
 tion on invectives . . .129 
 ■ his books, and 
 
 Nash's, suppressed by order of 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 for their mutual virulence . 120 
 
 Hawkesworth, Dr., letter on 
 presenting his MS. of Cook's 
 Voyages for examination, the 
 publication of which over- 
 whelmed his fortitude and 
 intellect .... 199 
 
 Henley, Orator, this buffoon an 
 indefatigable student, an ele- 
 gant poet, and \rit . . .59 
 
 his poem of 
 
 " Esther, Queen of Persia" . 60 
 
 sudden change 
 
 in his character . . .62 
 
 — . seems to have 
 
 attempted to pull down the 
 Church and the University . 63 
 
 1 — some idea of his 
 
 lectures, n 64 
 
 his projects to 
 
 supply a Universal School . ib. 
 ■ specimens of his 
 
 buffoonery on solemn occasions 66 
 his " Defence of 
 
 the Oratory ," n. . . . ib. 
 once found his 
 
 match in two disputants . 67 
 
 specimen of the 
 
 diary of his " Oratory Trans- 
 actions" . . . . ib. 
 
 close of his ca- 
 reer, n. .... 68 
 
 his character . 69 
 
 i parallel between 
 
 him and Sir John Hill . . 363 
 
 Henry', Dr., the Historian, the 
 sale of his work, on which he 
 had expended most of his for- 
 tune and his life, stopped, and
 
 546 
 
 Index. 
 
 136 
 
 t6. 
 
 81 
 
 215 
 
 290 
 
 himself ridiculed, by a conspi- 
 racy raised against liim 
 
 Henry, Dr., caustic review of his 
 history,?!. .... 
 
 Heron, Kobert, draws up the dis- 
 tresses of a man of letters living 
 by literary industry, in the con- 
 finement of a sponging-house, 
 from his original letter . 
 
 Herrick, Robert, petulant in- 
 vective against Devonshire 
 
 Hill, Aaron, and his quarrel 
 with Pope .... 
 
 Hull, Sir John . . . 362 — 396 
 
 parallel between 
 
 him and Orator Henley . . 383 
 his great work on 
 
 . *. 
 his personalities . 364 
 
 ■ attacks the Royal 
 . 365 
 
 his Inspector . 367 
 
 ■ war ol wit with 
 . 368 
 
 • and Smart . 370 — 372 
 
 • attacks Wood- 
 
 Botany, n. 
 
 Society 
 
 Fielding 
 
 ward, who replies with some 
 ridiculous anecdotes, n. . 
 
 ■ proposes himself 
 
 372 
 
 as keeper of the Sloane collec- 
 tion ..... 
 manufactures 
 
 Travels, n 374 
 
 his death . . 375 
 
 Hobbes contemns the Royal So- 
 ciety 342 
 
 ■ praises D'Avenant's poem 
 
 of " Gondibert" . .408—412 
 
 his quarrels . . . 436 
 
 peculiarities of his cha- 
 racter 437 
 
 his sect .... 438 
 
 ' his real opinions . . 439 
 
 his "Leviathan" .440 — 448 
 
 feared and suspected by 
 
 both parties, n. . , . 442 
 no atheist, n. . . 445 
 
 ' his continual disputations 
 
 448 — 450 
 
 fears 
 
 his terror of death . 
 
 the real solution of his 
 
 his disciples in litera- 
 
 451 
 
 ture, n. . 
 
 his pride 
 
 his mode 
 
 455 
 
 456 
 
 of composi- 
 
 tion, n. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hobbes his contented poverty, 
 and consistent conduct . . ib. 
 
 characteristics of his writ- 
 ings 461 
 
 his passion for mathe- 
 matics 464 
 
 ■ leads to a quarrel with 
 
 Dr. Wallis . . . 4G5— 473 
 
 Home and his tragedy of " Dou- 
 glas" 79 
 
 HowEL, nearly lost his life by 
 excessive study . . .74 
 
 Hume, his literary life mortified 
 with disappointments . .202 
 
 •- wished to change his name 
 
 and his country . . .204 
 
 his letter to Des Maiseaux 
 
 requesting his opinion of his 
 philosophy .... 202 
 
 HuRD, Bishop, biographical note 
 on 253 
 
 imitates Warburton's 
 
 style, n 269 
 
 Icon Libellorum. See A theruB Bri- 
 tannicce. 
 
 Johnson, Dr , his aversion to 
 Milton's politics . . . 425 
 
 Jones, luigo, ridiculed by Ben 
 Jonson, n 477 
 
 JoNSON, Ben, his quarrel with 
 Decker 475 
 
 his conversation 
 
 with Drummond of Haw- 
 thornden . . . 475, 535 
 
 his general con- 
 viviality, n 475 
 
 — his play " The 
 
 Poetaster" . . ,476 — 481 
 
 his powerful satire 
 
 on Decker . . .48:.' — 487 
 
 his bitter allu- 
 
 sions to his enemies .487 — 488 
 
 Kennet's, Bishop, Register and 
 Chronicle . . . .87 
 
 Kenrick, Dr., a caustic critic, 
 treats our great authors with 
 the most amusing arrogance . 141 
 
 ■ an epigram on 
 
 himself, by himself, n. . . 142 
 
 King, Dr., his payments as an 
 author 332 
 
 biographical notice of, »j. 358 
 
 ridicules the Transac- 
 tions of the Royal Society 358, 3C1
 
 Index. 
 
 547 
 
 PAGB 
 
 King, Dr., aids in attacking 
 Beiitley 3S4 
 
 his satirical Inrtex to 
 
 Bentley's Characteristics, n. . 386 
 
 Lawson, Dame, a noted female 
 Puritan, n. . . .519, 
 
 Lee, Nat., his love of praise 
 
 Leland, the antiquary, an ac- 
 complished scholar . 
 
 — — ^ his " Strena," or New 
 Year's Gift to Henry VIII. ; an 
 account of his studies, and 
 his magnificent projects . 
 
 doubts that his labours 
 
 will reach posterity 
 he values "the furni- 
 
 ture " of his mind . 
 his bust strikins; from 
 
 its physiognomy 
 the ruins of his mind 
 
 525 
 213 
 
 17t 
 
 175 
 
 ih. 
 
 177 
 
 discovered in his library 
 
 the inscription on his 
 
 tomb probably had been com- 
 posed by himself, before his 
 insanity ..... 
 • thoughts on Eloquence 
 
 178 
 255 
 
 Libels abounded in the age of 
 Elizabeth . . . .503 
 
 LiGHTFooT could not procure the 
 printing of his work . .132 
 
 LiNTOT's account-book . 328 — 333 
 
 Literary Property, difficulties 
 to ascertain its nature . .16 
 
 history of ih. 
 
 value of, n. ib. 
 
 Literary quarrels from personal 
 motives .... 529 — 639 
 
 Lloyd's, Bishop, collections and 
 their fate . . . .93 
 
 Logan, the history of his literary 
 disappointments . . .78 
 
 — — dies broken-hearted . ib. 
 
 his poetic genius . . 60 
 
 LowTH, Bishop, attack on preten- 
 sions of Warbiu-ton, n. . 235 — 246 
 n. 252 — 268 
 
 M'Donald, or Matthew Bramble, 
 his tragical reply to an inquiry 
 after his tragedy . . .77 
 
 Macdiarmid, .John, died of over- 
 study and exhaustion . . 74 
 
 Mallet, his knowledge of Pope 
 and Warburton, n. . . . 242 
 
 ■ his attacks on Warbur- 
 ton, n 271 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Mallet employed by Boling- 
 brokc to libel Pope . . ib. 
 
 anecdote of his egotism 824 
 
 employed by the Uuchess 
 
 o( Marlborough on a Life of the 
 Duke, n. .... 325 
 
 M' M a HON and his anti-social phi- 
 losophy, 11. . . . 456 
 
 Marston, John, satirised by Ben 
 Jonson, n 477 
 
 Martin Mar-Prelate's libels 
 issuing from a moveable press 
 carried about the country . 116 
 
 a party- 
 name for satirists of the Church 510 
 
 their popularity 513 — 516 
 
 their secret printings . 515 
 
 opposed by other wits 517 
 
 authors of these sa- 
 tires, n. 505, n. 518 — 520 — 523 
 
 curious rhymes against 
 
 524—528 
 
 Marvell attacks the intolerant 
 tenets of Bishop Parker . 
 
 severity of his satire 
 
 392 
 
 on the Court of Charles II., n. 393 
 
 comments on the early 
 
 career of Parker . . 394 — 395 
 
 origin of quarrel . 396 
 
 his noble defence of 
 
 Milton 399 
 
 his rencontre with Par- 
 ker in the streets 
 
 his political honesty . 
 
 his generous criticism 
 
 401 
 402 
 
 on Butler 
 
 JIaskell, Rev. W., history of 
 the Mar-Prelate controversy, 
 n. . . , . . . . 503 
 
 date of its origin, and 
 
 opinion on its authors, n. . 505 
 
 Melancholy persons frequently 
 the most deligiitful com- 
 panions, n. . . . . 182 
 
 Menassah, Ben Israel, his trea- 
 tise "DeResurrectioneMortuo- 
 rum," n 252 
 
 MiCKLE's pathetic address to his 
 muse 207 
 
 ^— his disappointments 
 
 after the publication of the 
 "Lusiad" induce him to wish 
 to abandon his native country 208 
 
 MiDDLETON.Dr, Conyers, quarrel 
 with Bentley .... 530 
 
 — and 
 
 with Warburton . . .532
 
 548 
 
 Index. 
 
 Milton's works the favourite 
 prey of booksellers . .17 
 
 ' vilified by party 
 spirit .... 4-M — 425 
 
 MORTLMER, Thomas, his com- 
 plaint in old age of the prefer- 
 ence given to young adven- 
 turers ..... 75 
 
 MoTTEDX, Peter, and his patron 30 
 
 MuGHOuSE, political clubs, n. .32 
 
 Nash, Tom, the misery of his 
 literary life . . . .23 
 
 threatens his patrons 24 
 
 silences Mar- Prelate 
 
 with his own weapons . . 116 
 
 • his character as a 
 
 Lucianic satirist . . .120 
 
 — — his " Have with you 
 
 to Saffron Walden," a singular 
 literary invective against Ga- 
 briel Harvey . . . -120 
 
 Needham, Marchmont, a news- 
 paper writer in the great 
 Civil War . . . .420 
 
 Newspapers of the great Civil 
 War .... 415,422 
 
 Newton, of a fearful temper in 
 criticism n 140 
 
 Newton's " Optics" first favour- 
 ably noticed in France . . 84 
 
 OcklEy, Simon, among the first 
 of our authors who exhibited 
 a great nation in the East in 
 his " History of the Saracens" 1C3 
 
 • his sufferings ex- 
 pressed in a remarkable pre- 
 face dated from gaol . . 187 
 
 dines with the 
 
 Earl of Oxford ; an original 
 letter of apology for his un- 
 courtly behaviour . . . 189 
 exults in prison 
 
 for the leisure it afibrds for 
 study n ib. 
 
 • neglected, but 
 
 employed by ministers . . 19G 
 
 Oldmixon asserts Lord Claren- 
 don's " History" to have been 
 interpolated, while himself fal- 
 sifies Daniel's " Chronicle," n. 10 
 
 Palermo, Prince of; and his 
 Palace of Monsters, n. . . 243 
 
 Paper-wars of the Civil 
 Wars .... 415,422 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Parker, Bishop of Oxford, his 
 early career . . . 394 — 395 
 
 the intolerance of his 
 
 style 397 
 
 attacks Milton . .399 
 
 and Marvell in the 
 
 streets 401 
 
 ■ his posthumous portrait 
 
 of Marvell . . . .402 
 
 Parr, Dr., his talent and his 
 egotism, n 236 
 
 his defence of War- 
 burton, n 239 
 
 in revenge for Bishop 
 
 Hurd's criticism, publishes his 
 early works of irony . . 531 
 
 Patin, Guy, his account of 
 Hobbes, re. ... . 445 
 
 Pattison, a young poet, his col- 
 lege career . . . .98 
 
 his despair in an ad- 
 dress to Heaven, and a pathe- 
 tic letter . . . .101 
 
 Penry, one of the writers of Mar- 
 Prelate tracts n. 505, n. 518 
 
 his career . . . 620 
 
 his execution . .521 
 
 his petition and protest,n. 521 
 
 ■ rhymes on his death . ih. 
 Phalaris, Epistles of . . 378 
 Phillips asperses Pope . .316 
 Pierce, Dr. T., his controversies 537 
 Poets, mediocre Critics are the 
 
 real origin of n2«7joere . .212 
 
 Nat. Lee describes their 
 
 wonderful susceptibility of 
 praise 213 
 
 provincial, their situa- 
 tion at variance with their feel- 
 ings 214 
 
 Pope, Alex., his opinion of " the 
 Dangerous Fate of Authors" . 214 
 
 . the Poet Prior . 216 
 
 Pope, Alexander, his high esti- 
 mation of Warburton . 257,273 
 
 AVarburton's 
 
 edition of his works . 263,270 
 
 his miscel- 
 laneous quarrel . . 278,291 
 
 collects libels 
 
 . 27S 
 
 on himself, n. 
 
 literary stra- 
 tagems 
 
 early neglect 
 
 of his " Essay on Criti.'iism," n. 
 
 the real author 
 
 280 
 
 of the " Key to the Lock," n. . 280
 
 Index. 
 
 549 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pope, Alexander, hostilities be- 
 tween him and others . .282 
 
 tlie finest 
 
 character-painter, »i. . .283 
 
 ' liis personal 
 
 suflferings on Gibber's satire . 285 
 
 ■ his first in- 
 troduction to Dennis, n. . 28G 
 
 ■ narrative of 
 
 the publication of liis letter to 
 Curll .... 292,300 
 
 ■ his attacks 
 
 on Gibber . . . 301, 312 
 his con- 
 demned comedy, w. . 301,307 
 
 quarrels with 
 
 Addison . . . .313 
 
 urges an 
 
 attacli on his Cato, n. . .315 
 
 ■ believes him 
 
 to have employed adverse 
 critics, n. . . . 316 — 317 
 
 satirizes Ad- 
 dison as Atticus, n. , .317 
 
 his last inter- 
 view whh Addison . 318,320 
 
 ' surreptitiously 
 
 prints Bo'.iugbroke's " Patriot 
 King" 321 
 
 his book- 
 selling account with Lintot . 329 
 
 — — his earliest 
 
 satire .... 333 — 335 
 
 ■ his satires 
 
 and their elTects . . .535 
 
 Prideaux's " Connection of Old 
 and New Testament" . . 81 
 
 Prince's " Wortliies of Devon" ib. 
 
 Prior, curious character of, from 
 a Whig satire . . .210 
 
 felicitated himself that 
 
 his natural inclination for 
 poetry had been checked . 217 
 
 attacked for his political 
 
 creed 429 
 
 Proclamation issued by James 
 I. agaiust Cowel's book, " The 
 Interpreter," a curious docu- 
 ment in literary history , 195 
 
 Prynne, a voluminous author 
 without judgment, but the cha- 
 racter of the man not so ridi- 
 culous as the autlior . .146 
 
 his intrepid character 147 
 
 —^^—^ his curious argument 
 
 against being debarred from 
 pen and ink, n. . . . 148 
 
 PAGB 
 
 PR'i-NNE,his interviewwith Laud 
 in the Tower, n. . . . 149 
 
 had a good deal of cun- 
 ning in his cliaracter, n. . 160 
 
 grieved for the Revo- 
 lution in which he himself had 
 been so conspicuous a leader . 148 
 
 • his speeches as volu- 
 minous as his writings, n. . 151 
 
 seldom dined, n. . 152 
 
 account of his famous 
 
 " Histriomastix' . . . ib. 
 Milton admirably cha- 
 
 racterises Prynne's absurd 
 learning, n ib. 
 
 how the " Histriomas- 
 tix" was at once an elaborate 
 work of many years, and yet a 
 temporary satire — the secret 
 liistory of the book being as 
 extraordinary as the book it- 
 self 153 
 
 Puritans, origin of their name, 
 n 504 
 
 EAiiEiGH, Sir AV., an opposer of 
 Puritanism, n. . . . 608 
 
 Reformation, the, under Eliza- 
 beth 501 
 
 Ridicule described . . .114 
 
 it creates a fictitious 
 
 personage .... ib. 
 
 a test of truth . 264,267 
 
 Ritson, Joseph, the late poetical 
 
 antiquary, carried criticism to 
 insanity . . . . .51 
 
 Ritson, Isaac, a young Scotch 
 writer, perishes by attempting 
 to exist by tlie efl'orts of his 
 pen 75 
 
 his extemporary 
 
 rhapsody descriptive of his 
 melancholy fate . . .76 
 
 Royal Society, the . . 335, 361 
 
 encounters much 
 
 opposition when first estab- 
 lished ib. 
 
 Ruffhead'S Life of Pope . . 290 
 
 RiisuwoRTH dies of a broken 
 heart, liaving neglected his 
 own affairs for liis " Historical 
 Gollectious" . . . .85 
 
 Rymer's distress in forming his 
 " Historical Gollections" . 85 
 
 Ryves, Eliza, her extraordinary 
 literary exertions and melan- 
 choly end .... 107
 
 550 
 
 Index. 
 
 Sale, the learned, often wanted 
 a meal wliile translating ihe 
 Koran, n. . . . . 189 
 
 Savage the Poet employed by 
 Pope to collect materials for 
 notes to the Dtincmd, n. . .27 9 
 
 Scot, Reginald, persecuted for 
 his work against Witchcraft . IDS 
 
 Scott, of Annvell, the Quaker 
 and poet, oflended at being 
 compared to Capt. Macheath 
 by the affected witticism of a 
 Reviewer . . . .113 
 
 his extraordinary "Letter 
 
 to the Critical Reviewers," in 
 which he enumerates his own 
 poetical beauties . . . ih. 
 
 Selden compelled to recant his 
 opinions, and not suffered to 
 reply to his calumniators . 198 
 
 refuses James I. to pub- 
 lish his defence of the " Sove- 
 reignty of the Seas" till Gro- 
 tius provoked his reply . . ib. 
 
 opinions on bishops, n. . 502 
 
 Settle, Elkanah, the ludicrous 
 close of a scribbler's life . 
 
 the hero of 
 
 Pope's earliest satire 
 
 — — — manages Pope 
 
 burnings .... 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, on the 
 origin of irony, n. . . 
 
 his character 
 
 of Hobbes, n. .... 
 
 his conversa- 
 tion with Hobbes in Paris on 
 
 441 
 
 85 
 
 his work, "The Leviathan," n. 
 
 SnL'CKFOKD, " Sacred and Pro- 
 fane History Connected" 
 
 Sloane, Sir Hans, his peculiari- 
 ties of style . . . 358 — 360 
 
 Ssiakt and his satire, " The 
 Uilliad" . . .371—372 
 
 Smollett confesses the incre- 
 dible labour and chagrin he 
 had endured as an author . 1 3 
 
 Socrates ridiculed by Aristo- 
 plianes 266 
 
 SouTii's poignant reflection on 
 the Royal Society . . .312 
 
 Sprat's History of the Royal 
 Society .... 337 — 339 
 
 his aversion to Milton . 424 
 
 Steele, his paradoxical charac- 
 ter 168 
 
 satirized by Swift . 429—431 
 
 Steele, why he wrote a laugh- 
 able comedy after his " Chris- 
 tian Hero" .... 
 
 his ill choice in a wife 
 
 of an uncongenial character . 
 
 specimens of his " Love 
 
 Despatches, 
 
 finely contrasts his own 
 
 character with that of Addi- 
 son, n. , . . . . 
 introduces Pope to Ad- 
 
 170 
 
 172 
 
 314 
 
 dison 
 
 manages a friendly inter- 
 view between them after a 
 long disseverance . . .319 
 
 his political creed loses him 
 
 Addison's friendship . . 433 
 
 Steevens, G., satirizes Sir John 
 Hawkins .... 535 
 
 Stillingfleet, Bishop, his end 
 supposed to have been has- 
 tened by Locke's confutation 
 of his metaphysical notions, n. 140 
 
 Stockdale, Perceval, his cha- 
 racter an extraordinary in- 
 stance of the illusions of writers 
 in verse 218 
 
 draws a parallel be- 
 tween Charles XII. and him- 
 self 224 
 
 Stowe, the chronicler, petitions 
 to be a licensed beggar . . 29 
 
 Strutt, the antiquary, a man 
 of genius and imagination . 86 
 
 his spirited letters oncom- 
 
 mencing his career of author- 
 ship 88 
 
 Stuart, Dr. Gilbert, his envious 
 character ; desirous of destroy- 
 ing the literary works of his 
 countrymen . . . .131 
 
 projects the " Edinburgh 
 
 Magazine and Review ; " its de- 
 sign . . . . . ib. 
 
 ' his horrid feelings ex- 
 
 cited by his disappointments . 132 
 
 raises a literary con- 
 spiracy against Dr. Henry . 135 
 
 dies miserably . . 139 
 
 Stubre and his attacks on the 
 
 Royal Society. . . . 346 
 
 his early history . . 347 
 
 influenced by Dr. Fell in 
 
 his attacks, n 350 
 
 specimens of them . . 356 
 
 SvsTKiMS of Opinions, often fal- 
 lacies in practice , . .461
 
 Index, 
 
 551 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SuBSCRimoNS once inundated 
 ow literature with wortliless 
 works 29 
 
 Temple, Sir "W., Essay on 
 
 Learning . . . .378 
 
 TnEOBALD, his payments from, 
 
 and literary arrangements with 
 
 Liutot .... 3a 1—332 
 
 TiCKELL's Homer . . . 31G 
 
 ToLAND, a lover of study . . 157 
 
 defends himself from 
 
 tlie aspersion of atheism or 
 
 deism 
 
 accused of an intention 
 
 to found a sect 
 
 had the art of explain- 
 ing away his own words 
 
 a great artificer of title- 
 
 pages 
 
 his " Pantheisticon " . 
 
 projects a new office of 
 
 a private monitor to the 
 
 minister 
 
 of the books he read 
 
 and his MSS. n. . . . 
 his panegyrical epitaph 
 
 composed by himself 
 Locke's admirable fore- 
 
 sight of his character 
 
 the miserable payment 
 
 150 
 
 159 
 
 ib. 
 
 ICO 
 161 
 
 163 
 166 
 167 
 16S 
 
 for his life of literary labour 
 TOJJSON, Jacob, bickerings with 
 
 Dry den, n 
 
 his bookselling career 
 
 171 
 i6. 
 
 Udall, John, a writer in the Mar- 
 Prelate controversy n. 605, n. 51S 
 
 his character and 
 
 career . . . 521 — 523 
 
 Wagstaffe, Dr., his character 
 of Steele, n. . . . 429 — 132 
 
 — — his satirical 
 
 works, n. .... 431 
 
 Wakefield, Gilbert, his works 
 luisuccessful because of his poli- 
 tics, 78. . . . . . 435 
 
 "VVallis, Dr., his curious narra- 
 tive of a dialogue between 
 Hobbes and the Countess of 
 Devonshire, n. . . . 455 
 
 his quarrel with 
 
 Hobbes . . . 465 — 473 
 
 his power of decipher- 
 ing secret ^vriting . . .472 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Wallis, Dr., his real opinion of 
 Hobbes, « 473 
 
 Walpole, Horace, his literary 
 character . . . .43 
 
 instances of 
 
 his pointed vivacity ag-iinst 
 authors, n. . 
 
 • why he at- 
 
 43 
 
 tacked the fame of Sydney, 
 and defended lUchard III. 
 
 his literary 
 
 mortifications, acknowledged 
 by himself from his original 
 
 letters 
 
 how Gray 
 
 treated him when invited to 
 Strawberry-hill, «. 
 
 extraordi- 
 
 nary letter of, expressing his 
 contempt of his most celebrated 
 contemporaries . . .49 
 
 Walsingham, Sir Francis, origi- 
 nally favours the Puritans, 
 n 508 
 
 Warburton, dishonest criticism 
 on Gray's " Hudibras" . .105 
 
 and his quar- 
 rels .... 233 — 277 
 
 his early career . 239 
 
 his traffic in dedica- 
 tions 241 
 
 his contemptuous 
 
 criticism on Pope and Addison 244 
 
 his miscellaneous 
 
 reading .... 245, 246 
 
 his love of conjecture 247 
 
 Divine Legation, 
 
 n. .... 250, 267 
 
 unhappy in his la- 
 bours, n. .... 252 
 
 his coarseness of in- 
 vective n. . . . 224, 268 
 
 his contemptuous 
 
 criticisms . . . 258, 269 
 
 conjectural criticism 
 
 on Shakspeare . . . 260 
 his edition of 
 
 Pope . . . 2G3, 270, 271 
 
 his literary recruits 274 
 
 defendsl'ope against 
 
 Bolingbroke . . . .321 
 influenced Pope 
 
 through his religion n. . . 323 
 his opinion of Hobbes 
 
 n. . ■ 444 
 
 offends Edwards in 
 
 a contest . . . .532
 
 552 
 
 Index. 
 
 Ward, Dr. Seth, his double opi- 
 nion of Hobbes' Works n. 
 
 "Ward, Dr., his quarrel with Dr. 
 Pierce 
 
 AVharton, Henry, sunk under 
 his historical studies 
 
 Whitgift, Archbisliop, his con- 
 troversies with Cartwright the 
 Puritan, and ultimate friend- 
 ship M'ith him, n. . 
 
 "William of Wykeham attacked 
 by Bohun .... 
 
 Wood, Anthony, his character 
 apology 
 
 537 
 94 
 
 for the " Athenae Oxonienses" 92 
 
 Wood, Anthony, the writers of 
 a party whom he abhorred fre- 
 quently refer to him in their 
 owTi favour .... 
 
 defines Mar- 
 
 veil's style 
 
 ■ gives Bishop 
 Parker's early history 
 
 ' his prejudice 
 
 394 
 
 423 
 
 against Lake 
 Woodward the actor attacked 
 
 by Hill . . . 372, and note 
 Works, valuable, not completed 
 
 from deficient encouragement 84 
 Wotton's reflections on learning 378 
 
 THE END.
 
 I
 
 >''vu','; 
 
 
 
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