^'mi Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/calamitiesquarreOOdisrrich THE WORKS OF ISAAC DISRAELI I L THE CALAMITIES AND QUARRELS OP AUTHOES: ' ■ C L- (J WITH SOME INQTJIKIES KESPECTING THEIR MORAL AND LITERARY CHARACTERS, ginb P^mmrs bx am ITit-erarg fistorg. By ISAAC DISRAELI. Ji^ ISTETV EDITION", EDITED BY HIS SON, THE RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.R LONDON : ERICK WARNE AND CO, BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN. NEW YORK : SCRIBNER, WELFORD AND CO. 1869. [The Author reserves the right of TrantUUionJ] It LOKDOV t BAVILI., tDWXnm AKD CO., PBIITTSBS, OHAMDOS STB2X2 COTSVT ftABDfiff. T>H3 CONTENTS. CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS. PAGB PREFACE 3 AUTHORS BY PROFESSION: — GUTHRIE AND AMHURST — DRAKE — SMOLLETT 7 THE CASE OF AUTHORS STATED, INCLUDING THE HISTORY OF LITE- RARY PROPERTY 15 THE SUFFERINGS OF AUTHORS 22 A MENDICANT AUTHOR, AND THE PATRONS OP FORMER TIMES ... 25 COWLEY — OF HIS MELANCHOLY 35 THE PAINS OF FASTIDIOUS EGOTISM 42 INFLUENCE OF 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 98 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 OP A LITERARY SATIRE 114 WTERARY HATRED, EXHIBITING A CONSPIRACY AGAINST AN AUTHOR. 130 213009 VI Contents, TXBH UNDUE SEVERITY OF CRITICISM 139 A VOLUMINOUS AUTHOR WITHOUT JUDGMENT 146 GENIUS AND ERUDITION THE VICTIMS OP IMMODERATE VANITY . . 162 GENIUS, THE DUPE OF ITS PASSIONS 168 LITERARY DISAPPOINTMENTS DISORDERING THE INTELLECT . . . .172 REWARDS OF ORIENTAL STUDENTS 186 DANGER INCURRED BY GIVING THE RESULT OF 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 WARBURTON AND HIS QUARRELS ; INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS LITERARY CHARACTER 233 POPE AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUARRELS 278 POPE AND CURLL; OR A NARRATIVE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING THE PUBLICATION OF POPe's LETTERS 292 POPE AND CIBBER ; CONTAINING A VINDICATION OF -THE OOMIO WRITER • 301 POPE AND ADDISON 313 BOLINGBROKE AND MALLBT's POSTHUMOUS QUARREL WITH POPE . ,321 LINTOT's ACCOUNT-BOOK 328 pope's earliest satire 333 Xthe royal society 336 slfr john hill, with the royal society, fielding, smart, etc. . 363 boyle and bentley 377 Contents, vii PABEEB AND MABYELL • • . . . 891 V d'aVENANT and a OLUB op WIT3 403 THE PAPEB WABS OF THE CIVIL WABS 414 POLITICAL OBITICISM ON LITBBABY COMPOSITIONS 423 VHOBBES and his QTJABBELS; including an ILLUSTBATION of HIS CHABACTEB 437 HOBBES'S QUABBELS with DB. WALLIS, the MATHEMATICIAN . . . 463 JONSON AND DECKER CAMDEN AND ^BOOKE 491 MABTIN MAB-PBELATB 501 SUPPLEMENT TO MABTIN MAB-PBELATB 525 LITEBABY QUABBELS PBOM PEBSONAL MOTIVES 531 INDEX 54 CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS INOLUDINQ SOME INQUIEIES EESPECTmG 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-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions." — B.vis.a. PREFACE. '^HE 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 literary 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 Itahan 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 1680 he first published two * A modern writer observes, that " Valeriano is chiefly known to the present times by his brief but curious and interesting work, De Literatorum 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 injured class in the community. Most Authors close their lives in apathy or despair, and too many live by means which few of them would not blush to describe. Besides this perpetual struggle with penury, there are also * There is also a bulky collection of this kind, entitled, Analecta de Calamitate Literatorum, edited by Mencken, the author of Charlaianeri 86 Calamities of Authors. / fit to be seen by one or two in a chamber, but not to go abroad into the streets," A false criticism : which not only has proved to be so since their time by Mason's " Memoirs of Gray," but which these friends of Cowley might have themselves perceived, if they had recollected that the Letteiis of CicerQ.to AtticttS^.fprm 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 Clifford 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. MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQ. '^Barn Elms, March 23, 1663. "Sir, — 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 hav-e.Jatdy received of you, both by your letter and your presents. I have already sowed such of your seeds as I thought most proper upon a hot -bed ; but cannot find in all my books a catalogue of these plants which require that culture, nor of such as must be set in pots ; which defecLS, and all others, I hope shortly to see supplied, as I hope shortly to see your work of Horti- iculture finished and published ; and long to be in all things your dieeijile, M J jgim in all things now, \ '* Sir, your most humble and most obedient Servant, *'A. Cowley." [Bam Elms, from whence this letter is dated, was the first country resi- dence of Cowley. It liesi^;.on the banks of the Thames, and here the poet was first seized with a fever, which obliged him to remove ; but he chose an equally improper locality for a man of his temperament, in Chertsey, where lie died from the effects of a severe cold.] Such were the ordinary letters which passed between two men whom it /"would be difficult to parallel for their elegant tastes and gentle dispositions. I Evelyn's beautiful retreat at Sayes Court, at Deptford, is described by" a I contemporary as "agiardeiiex^quisite and most boscareaquei, and, as it were, •^ exemplar of his book of i'or^st-treea." It was the entertainment and Cowley — of his Melancholy, 37 Fortunately for our literary sympathy, the fatal error of these fastidious critics has been in some degree repaired by the admirable genius himself whom they have injured. When Cowley retreated from society, he determined to draw up an apology for his conduct, and to have dedicated it to his patron, Lord St. Albans. His death interrupted the entire design ; but his Essays, which Pope so finely calls " the 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 tJie melancholy Cowley ? He employed no poetical cheville^ for the metre of a verse which his own feelings inspired. Cowley, at the beginning of the Civil War, joined the Eoyalists at Oxford ; followed the queen to Paris ; yielded his days and his nights to an employment 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 days he tells us how the poetic affections had stamped themselves on his heart, " like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which, with the tree, will grow proportionably." 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 greatest men of those times, and inspired the following lines of Cowley, to Evelyn and his lady, who excelled in the arts her husband loved J for she designed the frontispiece to his version of Lucretius — , "In books and gardens thou hast placed aright / (Things well which thou dost understand, f And both dost mak( with thy laborious hand) I Thju)J=JJ,eJumoceiMMiftU^ ; * And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet Both pleasures more refined and sweet j Th^fairest garden -in her loaks> X,,.,^ And in her ,pu»d the wieesfc^bookifib" * A term the French apply to those botches which bad poets use in» make out their metre. 88 Calamities of Authors., entice me when I saw it was adulterate. I met with seve- ral great persons whom I Hked very well, but could not per- ceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or de- sired. 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 ; yet 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, which some of his party interpreted as a relaxation of his loyalty. He has been fully defended. Cowley, with all his delicacy of temper, wished sincerely to retire from all parties; and saw enough among the fiery zealots of his own, to grow disgusted even with Royalists. 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 tame 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 enemiies were calumniating, was at this moment, under the disguise of a doctor of physic, occupied hj 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 First 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 barren sand. But neglect was not all Cowley had to endure ; the royal party seemed disposed to calumniate him. When Cowley was young he had hastily compos&d the comedy of " The Guar- dian ;" a piece which served the cause of lo3'alty. 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 appeared at the Revolution. It was not only ill received by a factio but by those vermin of a new court, who, without merit tL ^selves, put in their claims, by crying down those who, with great merit, are not in favour. All these to a man accused the author of having written a satire against the king's party. And this wretched party prevailed, too long for the author's repose, but not for his fame.* 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- ness 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 Piince Charles as he passed through Cambridge to York. Cowley himself describes it, then, as " neither made nor acted, but rough-drawn by him, and repeated by his scholars " for this temporary purpose. After the Restora- 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 coui-t their common master, were trampling on their honest brother ? We shall find an unbroken chain of evidence, clearly de- monstrating the agony of his literary feelings. The cynical Wood tells us that, " not finding that preferment he expected, while others for their money carried away most places, he retired 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 «ervices in the royal cause, the chancellor is said to have turned m him with a severe countenance, saying, " Mr. Cowley, your pardon is your reward !" It seems that ode was then considered to be of a dangerous tendency among half the nation ; Brutus would be the model of enthusiasts, who were sullenly bending their neck under the yoke of royalty. Charles II. feared the attempt of desperate men ; and he might have forgiven Rochester a loose pasquinade, but not Cowley a solemn invo- cation. This fact, then, is said to have been the true cause Cowley — of his Melancholy, 41 of the despondency so prevalent in the latter poetry of " the melancholy Cowley." And hence the indiscretion of the muse, in a single flight, condemned her to a painful, rather than a voluntary solitude ; and made the poet complain of " barren praise " and " neglected verse."* 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 — th6 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 melancholy Cowley^ he shall speak the feelings, which here are not exaggerated. In this Chro- nicle of Literary 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 by nature to the same folly, I believe I should bind him from it b}-- 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 offence ?" And thus he closes the preface, in all the solemn expression of injured feelings : — " This I do affirm, that from all which I have written, I never received the least henejlt or the least advantage ; but, on the contrary y 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 known, 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. 42 Calamities of Authors. the lips of ro3'^alty. 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 warm embers in the poet's urn. THE PAINS OP PASTIDIOUS 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. HoEACE 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 cmnous 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 before his time ? was he born that prodigy of indifierence, to despise the secret object he languished to possess ? His early associates were not only noblemen, but literary noblemen ; and need he have been so petulantl}^ fastidious at bearing the venerable title of author, when he saw Lyttleton, Chester- * He was the youngest son 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 maturity of his experience, that made him willing enough to undervalue literary honours, 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 brilHancy ;* and his picturesque fancy, easily excited, was soon extinguished ; his playful wit and keen irony were perpetually exercised in his observations on life, and his memory was stored with the most amusing knowledge, but much too lively to be accurate ; for his studies were but his sports. But other qualities of genius must distinguish the great author, and even him who would occupy that leading rank in the literary republic our author aspired to fill. He lived too much in that class of society which is little favourable to genius ; he exerted neither profound thinking, nor profound feeling ; and too volatile to attain to the pathetic, that higher quality of genius, he was so imbued with the petty elegancies of society that every impression of grandeur in the human character was deadened in the breast of the polished cynic. 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 please a child." — On Dr. Nash's first volume of ' Worcestershire ' : * ' It is a folio of prodigious corpulence, and yet diy enough ; but it is finely dressed with many beads and views." He characterises Pennant ; ''ITe 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. " His literary correspondence with his friend Cole abounds with this easy satirical criticism — he delighted to ridicule authors ! — as well as to starve the miserable artists he so grudgingly paid. In the very volumes he celebrated the arts, he disgraced them by his penuriousness ; so that he loved to indulge his avarice at the expense of his vanity ! 44 Calamities of Author's. without a rival;* but he probably divined, when he conde- scended to become an author, that something more was re- quired than tlie 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 varioijs 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 rarity, 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 curiosity, and not for an}'^ merit in them — and so they would if I printed Mother Goose's Tales, and but a few. If I am humbled as an author, I may be vain as a printer ; and when one has nothing else to be vain of, it is certainly very little worth while to be proud of that." 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, by 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 tbe present collection of his letters ; my prediction has been amply verified. He wrote a great number to Beutley, the son of Dr. Bentley, who ornamented Gray's works with sojie extraordinary designs. Walpole, who was always proud and capricious, obsei'ves his friend Cole, broke with Bentley because he would bring his wife with him to Strawberry-hill. He then asked Bentley for all his letters back, but he would not in return give Bentley's own. This whole correspondence abounded with literature, criticism, and wit of the most original and brilliant composition. This is the opinion of no friend, but an admirer, and a good judge ; for it was Bentley's own. The Pains of Fastidious Egotism. 45 opinions, or changed the characters, established for centuries. Singularity of opinion, vivacity of ridicule, 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 recourse 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 constructed on the same artificial principle ; an old paper lodging-house, converted by the magician of taste into a Grothic 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 vertu 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 Greneral Conway, "it is a little plaything house that I got out of Mrs. Chevenix's shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw." — Ei>. + 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 fl>lio he so poignantly ridicules. He doubts whether two pieces, " Tlie Prince's Cabala," and " The Duty of a King in his Royal Office," were genuine productions of James I. The truth is that both these works are nothing more than extracts printed with those separate titles and drawn from the king's " Basilicon Doron." He had probably neither read the extracts nor the original. 46 Calamities of Authors, mature than his life, was formed on the same principle as his " Historic Doubts" on Richard III. Horace Walpole was as willing to vilify the truly great, as to beautify deformity ; when he imagined that the fame he was destroying or 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 aiis- tocratic indifference. This cold unfeeling disposition for literary men, this dis- guised malice of envy, and this eternal vexation at his own disappointments, — break forth in his correspondence with one of those literary characters with whom he kept on terms while they were kneeling to him in the humility of worship, or moved about to fetch or to carry his little quests of curio- sity in town or country.* The following literary confessions illustrate this character: — * It was such a person as Cole of Milton, his correspondent of forty years, who lived at a distance, and obsequious to his wishes, always looking up to him, though never with a parallel glance — with whom he did not quarrel, though if Walpole could have read the private notes Cole made in his MSS. at the time he was often writing the civilest letters of admiration, — even Cole would have been cashiered from his correspondence, Walpole could not endure equality in literary men. — Bentley observed to Cole, that Walpole's pride and hauteur were excessive ; which betrayed themselves in the treatment of Gray who had himself too much pride and spirit to for- give 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 be there on the terms of their fomner friendship^ which he had totally cancelled. — From Cole's MSS. The Pains of Fastidious Egotism. 4^7 ''June, 1778. " I have taken a thorough dislike to being an author; and, if it would not look like begging you to compliment one by contradicting me, I would tell you what I am most seriously convinced of, that I find what small share of parts I had grown dulled. And when I perceive it myself, I may well believe that others would not be less sharp-sighted. It is very natural ; mine were spirits rather i\\2in parts; 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 author, a very 7niddling one, which who- ever thinks a comfortahle ranh, 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 desultory life perpetually scattered his firmest resolutions into air. This conflict appears beautifully described when the view of King's College, Cambridge, throws his mind into meditation ; and the passion for study and seclu- sion instantly kindled his emotions, lasting, perhaps, as long as the letter which describes them occupied in writing. ''May 22, 1117. " The beauty of King's College, Cambridge, now it is restored, penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk in it. Though my life has been passed in turbulent scenes, in pleasures or other pastimes, and in much fashionable 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 have been infinitely more merit than going to doze in a convent. One may avoid actual guilt in a sequestered life, but the virtue of it is merely negative ; the innocence is beautiful." There had been moments when Horace Walpole even ex- pressed the tenderest feehngs 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 my age, can efface. It has at once damped every pursuit which my spirits had even now prevented me from being weaned from, I mean of virtu. It is like a mortal distemper in my- self ; for can amusements amuse, if there is but a glimpse, a vision of outhving one's friends ? I have had dreams in which I thought 1 wished for fame — it icas not certainly posthumous fame at any distajice ; I feel, I feel it was 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 they could be called so, and my productions, were alike desultory. In my latter age I discovered the futility both of my objects and writings — I felt how 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 scorner of true greatness should at length feel the poisoned chalice return to his own lips. He who had contemned the eminent men of former times, and quarrelled with and ridi- culed every contemporary genius ; who had affected to laugli 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 : — HOEAOE WALPOLE TO ^^ Arlington Street, April 27, 1773. " Mr. Gough wants to be introduced to me ! Indeed ! I would see him, as he has been midwife to Masters ; but he is so dull that he would only be troublesome — and besides, you know I shun authors, and would never have been one 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 dread letters being pubHshed 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- 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 read one of them, because I do not understand what is not understood by those that write about it ; and I did not get acquainted with one of the writers. I should like to be intimate with Mr. Anstey, even though he wrote Lord Buckhorse, or with the author of the Heroic Epistle — I have no thirst to know the rest of my contemporaries, from the absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to the silly Dr. 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. Prom such we might expect the unfeeling observation in the " Anecdotes of Painting," that " want of patronage is the apology for want of genius. Milton and La Fontaine did not write in the bask of court favour. A poet or a painter may want an equipage or a villa, by wanting protection ; they can always afford to buy ink and paper, colours and pencil. Mr. Ho- garth has received no honours, but universal admiration." ^tronage, indeed, cannot convert dull men into men of genius, but it maj^ preserve men of genius from becoming dull men. It might have afforded Dryden that studious leisure which he ever wanted, and which would have given us not imperfect tragedies, and uncorrected poems, but the regulated flights of a noble genius. It might have animated Gainsborough to have created an English school in landscape, which I have heard from those who knew him was his fa- vourite yet neglected pursuilf:) But Wal])ole 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 youth. Gray abandoned this man of birth and rank in the midst of their journey through Europe ; Mason broke with him ; even his humble correspondent Cole, this " friend of forty years," was often sent away in dudgeon ; and he quarrelled with all the authors and artists he had ever been acquainted with. The Gothic castle at Strawberry-hill was rarely graced with living genius — there the greatest was Horace Walpole 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 large for his house." After many years, having dis- covered that he still retained his mediocrity, he could never pardon 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 fear. INFLUENCE OF A BAD TEMPER IN CRITICISM. TJNFRiEisrDLT to the literary character, some have imputed the brutality of certain authors to their literary habits, when it may be more truly said that they derived their literature from their brutality. The spirit was envenomed before it entered into the fierceness of literary controversy, and the insanity was in the evil temper of the man before he roused our notice by his ravings. Ritson, 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- e2 52 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 urged fair pretensions to the office of critic. Some of his "Original Letters," and particularly the "Eemarks 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 3'^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 penmious virtue. Dennis could not be carried beyond the cold line of a precedent, and before he ventured to be pleased, he was compelled to look into Aristotle. His learning was the bigotry of literature. It was ever Aristotle explained by Dennis. But in the explanation of the obscm'e 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 Blackmore's Epic is consigned to oblivion, so likewise must be the criticism, which, however, he confesses he could never meet with. An odd fate attends Dennis's works : his criticism on a bad work ought to survive it, as good works have survived his criticisms. 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 E-oyal 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, mahce, and dulness, were the heavy residuum ; and now he much resembled that congenial soul whom the ever- witty South compared to the tailor's goose, which is at once hot and heavy. Dennis was sent to Cambrido:e 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. Re haunted the literary coteries, and dropped into a galaxy of wits and noblemen. At a time when our literature, like our politics, was divided into two factions, Dennis enlisted himself under Dryden and Congreve ;* 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 like 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 folly against ivisdom, weaJcness against power, &c. ; 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 Authors, 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 flung down the new poem, exclaiming, " By G — , he means me !" He is painted to the hfe. Lo ! ApTphis 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 be caricature, but 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 imfit for the execution of it. He starts, stares, and looks round him. This constant shuffle of haste without speed, makes the man thought a little touched ; but the vacant look of his two eyes gives you to understand that he could never run out of his wits, which seemed not so much to be lost, as to want employment; they are not so much astray, as they are a wool-gathering. He has the face and surliness of a mastiff, which has often saved him from being treated like a cur, till some more 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 narrative of his frenzy (quoted p. 56), his personnel is thus given. "His aspect was furious, his eyes were rather fiery than lively, which he rolled about in an uncommon manner. He often opened his mouth as if he would have uttered some matter of importance, but the sound seemed lost inwardly. His beard was grown, which they told me he would not sufier to be shaved, believing the modern dramatic poets had corrupted all the barbers of the town to take the first opportunity of cutting his throat. His eyebrows were grey, long, and grown together, which he knit with indignation when anything was spoken, insomuch that he seemed not to have smoothed his forehead for many years." — 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, who had nothing but a verse to give, returned them very poetical thanks in the name of Dennis. He was then blind and old, but his critical ferocity had no old age ; his surliness overcame every grateful sense, and he swore as usual, " They could be no one's but that/oo? Savage's" — an evidence of his sagacity and brutahty ! * 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 Dunciad — specimens which show how low false wit and malignity can get to by hard pains. I will throw into the note a curious illustration of the anti-poetical notions of a mechanical critic, who has no wing to dip into the hues of the imagination.f * There is an epigram on Dennis by Savage, wliich Johnson has preserved in his Life ; and I feel it to be a very correct likeness, although Johnson censures Savage for writing an epigram against Dennis, while he was living in great familiarity with the critic. Perhaps that was the happiest moment to write the epigram. The anecdote in the text doubtless prompted " the fool " to take this fair revenge and just chastisement. Savage has brought out the features strongly, in these touches — ** 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, tlie '* Rape of the Lock." He is inquiring into the nature of poetical machinery, 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 the human persons, which is without 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 only foolish. We may thus account for the manners and style of Dennis, pushed almost to the verge of insanity, and acting on him very much like insanity itself — a circumstance which the quick vengeance of wit seized on, in the humorous " Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris, con- cerning the Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis, an officer of the Custom-house."* can be so contemptible as tlie persons or so foolish as the understandings of these hobgoblins. 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 moi-e ridiculous is the place where it is spoken, on the sails and cordage of Belinda's barge." And then he compares the Sylphs to the Discord of Homer, whose feet are upon the earth, and head in the skies. *' They are, indeed, beings so diminutive that they bear the same propor- tion to the rest of the intellectual that Eels in vinegar do to the rest of the material wox'ld ; the latter are only to be seen through microscopes, and the former only through the false optics of a Rosicrucian understanding." And finally, he decides that " these diminutive beings are only Sawney (that is, Alexander Pope), taking the change ; for it is he, a little lump of flesh, that talks, instead of a little spirit." Dennis's profound gravity 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 tasteless principle he decides on the improbability of that incident in the "Conscious Lovers" of Steele, raised by Bevil, who, having received great obligations from his father, has promised not to marry 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 affecting 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 desci-ibes the fii'st attack of his madness coming on when "a poor simple child came to him from the printers ; the boy had no soonei entered the Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism. 57 It is curious to observe that 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 Jiints without their motions of fury and pride 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, bat have not excellent organs, feel the fore-mentioned motions, without the extra- ordinary Jiints; and these we call fustian writers." His motions and his hints, 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 rmis on the ItaUan 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 ci-ied out ' the devil was come !' " The constant idiosyncrasy he had that his writings against France and the Pope might endanger hia liberty, is amusingly hit ofi ; "he perpetually starts and runs to the window when any one knocks, crying out ' 'Sdeath ! a messenger from the French King ; I shall die in the Bastile !' "—Ed. 58 Calamities of Authors. encouraged, 1 have been too much neglected" — ^hia CsiToiinte sjst^n, that religion gives principallj to great poetry its spirit and enthusiasm, was an important point, which, he says, ^ has been left to be treated by a perton who has the honour of heing your lordship* s countryman — ^yoor lordship knows that persons so much and so long oppressed as I have been have lK«n always allowed to say things concerning them- selves which in others might be offensive." His vanity, we see, was equal to his vexation, and as he grew old he became more enraged ; and, writing too often without Aristotle or Locke by his side, he gave the town pure Dennis, and almost ceased to be read. ** The oppression" of which he complains might not be less imaginary than his alarm, while a treaty was pending with France, that he should be delivered up to the Grand Monarque for having written a tragedy, which no one could read, against his majesty. 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 finom 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 style of Dennis. He had thrown himself among the walks of genius, and aspired to fix himself on a throne to which Xature had refused him a Intimate claim. Wliat a lasting source of vexation and rage, even for a long-lived patriarch of criticism ! Accustomed to suspend the scouige 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, eiq>erienoe one hour of amenity, one idea of grace, one generous impulse of sensibility ? But the poor critic himself at length fell, really more the victim of his criticisms than the genius he had insulted. Ha^dng incurred the public n^lect, 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 sdms be craved from triumphant genius. 59 DKAPPODfTKD GEXIUS CASn A TASA& BfBBCXUHl BT US ABSSK. How the moral and liieniy duaaeter aze ledprocallj infla- flieed, maj be tiaeed in the diaiaeler of a posonage peca- liarlj a pp oftiie to these inqoines. This worthj of Ktraatiire is Okatos Qestlst, who is lather known trafitionaDj than histoneallj.* He is so oTerwhehned witii the echoed satire of P<^, and his own extravagant conduct for manj years, that I should not care to extricate him, had I not discorered a feature in the character of Henler not jeA drawn, and con- stituting no inferior calamitT among authors. Henley stands in his '^ gQt tub" in the Dunciad; and a portrait of him hangs in the picture-galloy of the Commen- tary. Pope's TCfse and Warburton's noties are the pidde and the bandages for any Egyptian mnmmy <^ dnlness, who will lai^ as long as the pyrunid that endoees him. I shall transcribe, for the reader's eonTeniaiee, the lines of Pope : — Embffovifd with wm&wb \mmae, lo ! Beakj ttmaOs, Tmui^ Us Toiee^ aadbalsKnigbiskuids; How iwat HMone tncUes from kk toi^w ! H