No More Learning

_

[59] This life first appeared in the Gentleman's magazine for 1754,
and is now printed from a copy revised by the author, at my request,
in 1781. N. --It was, in the magazine, introduced by a general remark,
which we have again prefixed.

[60] This was said in the beginning of the year 1781; and may with
truth be now repeated. N.

[61] The London Magazine ceased to exist in 1785. N.

[62] Mr. Cave was buried in the church of St. James, Clerkenwell,
without an epitaph; but the following inscription at Rugby, from the
pen of Dr. Hawkesworth, is here transcribed from the Anecdotes of Mr.
Bowyer, p. 88.

Near this place lies
The body of
JOSEPH CAVE,
Late of this parish:
Who departed this Life, Nov. 18, 1747,
Aged 79 years.
Me was placed by Providence in a humble station;
But
Industry abundantly supplied the wants of Nature,
And
Temperance blest him with
Content and Wealth.
As he was an affectionate Father,
He was made happy in the decline of life
By the deserved eminence of his eldest Son,
EDWARD CAVE,
Who, without interest, fortune, or connexion,
By the native force of his own genius,

[63] First printed in the Literary Magazine for 1756.

[64] Christian Morals, first printed in 1756.

[65] Life of sir Thomas Browne, prefixed to the Antiquities of
Norwich.

[66] Whitefoot's character of sir Thomas Browne, in a marginal note.

[67] Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[68] Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses.

[69] Wood.

[70] Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[71] Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[72] Biographia Britannica.

[73] Letter to sir Kenelm Digby, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
edit.

[74] Digby's Letter to Browne, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol.
edit.

[75] Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[76] Merryweather's letter, inserted in the Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[77] Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[78] Wood's Athenae Oxonienses.

[79] Wood.

[80] Whitefoot.

[81] Howell's Letters.

[82] Religio Medici.

[83] Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[84] Wood, and Life of sir Thomas Browne.

[85] the end of Hydriotaphia.

[86] Johnson, by trusting; to his memory, has here fallen into an
error. Howell, in his instructions for Foreign Travell, has said
directly the reverse of what is ascribed to him: "I have beaten my
brains," he tells us, "to make one sentence good Italian and congruous
Latin, but could never do it; but in Spanish it is very feasible, as,
for example, in this stanza:

Infausta Graecia, tu paris gentes
Lubricas, sed amicitias dolosas,
Machinando fraudes cautilosas,
Ruinando animas innocentes:

which is good Latin enough; and yet is vulgar Spanish, intelligible to
every plebeian. "--J. B.

[87] Browne's Remains. --Whitefoot.

[88] Therefore no hereticks desire to spread Their wild opinions like
these epicures. For so their staggering thoughts are computed,
And other men's assent their doubt assures.

DAVIES.

[89] First printed before his Works in 4to. published by Bennet, 1763.


END OF VOL. VI.


[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been numbered and relocated to the
end of the work. ]





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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. in Nine
Volumes, by Samuel Johnson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. in Nine Volumes
Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II

Author: Samuel Johnson

Release Date: January 8, 2008 [EBook #24218]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE POETS, VOL II ***




Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Roger Frank and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net





THE
WORKS
OF
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

IN NINE VOLUMES.

VOLUME THE EIGHTH.

[Illustration]

OXFORD,
PUBLISHED BY TALBOYS AND WHEELER;
AND W. PICKERING, LONDON.
MDCCCXXV.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS OF THE EIGHTH VOLUME

THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS.

Prior
Congreve
Blackmore
Fenton
Gay
Granville
Yalden
Tickell
Hammond
Somervile
Savage
Swift
Broome
Pope
Pitt
Thomson
Watts
A. Philips
West
Collins
Dyer
Shenstone
Young
Mallet
Akenside
Gray
Lyttelton

[Transcriber's Note: "CONTENTS OF THE EIGHTH VOLUME" list of poets
was not present in the original text. ]

------------------------------------------------------------------------




PRIOR.


Matthew Prior is one of those that have burst out from an obscure
original to great eminence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to
some, at Winburn, in Dorsetshire, of I know not what parents; others
say, that he was the son of a joiner of London: he was, perhaps, willing
enough to leave his birth unsettled[1], in hope, like Don Quixote, that
the historian of his actions might find him some illustrious alliance.

He is supposed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the hands of
his uncle, a vintner[2], near Charing-cross, who sent him for some time
to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not intending to give him any
education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well advanced
in literature, to his own house, where the earl of Dorset, celebrated
for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading
Horace, and was so well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook
the care and cost of his academical education.

He entered his name in St. John's college, at Cambridge, in 1682, in his
eighteenth year; and it may be reasonably supposed that he was
distinguished among his contemporaries. He became a bachelor, as is
usual, in four years[3]; and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the
Deity, which stands first in his volume.

It is the established practice of that college, to send every year to
the earl of Exeter some poems upon sacred subjects, in acknowledgment of
a benefaction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his ancestor. On this
occasion were those verses written, which, though nothing is said of
their success, seem to have recommended him to some notice; for his
praise of the countess's musick, and his lines on the famous picture of
Seneca, afford reason for imagining that he was more or less conversant
with that family.

The same year, 1688, he published the City Mouse and Country Mouse, to
ridicule Dryden's Hind and Panther, in conjunction with Mr. Montague.
There is a story[4] of great pain suffered, and of tears shed, on this
occasion, by Dryden, who thought it hard that "an old man should be so
treated by those to whom he had always been civil. " By tales like these
is the envy, raised by superiour abilities, every day gratified: when
they are attacked, every one hopes to see them humbled; what is hoped is
readily believed; and what is believed is confidently told. Dryden had
been more accustomed to hostilities, than that such enemies should break
his quiet; and if we can suppose him vexed, it would be hard to deny him
sense enough to conceal his uneasiness.

The City Mouse and Country Mouse procured its authors more solid
advantages than the pleasure of fretting Dryden; for they were both
speedily preferred. Montague, indeed, obtained the first notice, with
some degree of discontent, as it seems, in Prior, who, probably, knew
that his own part of the performance was the best. He had not, however,
much reason to complain; for he came to London, and obtained such
notice, that, in 1691, he was sent to the congress at the Hague as
secretary to the embassy. In this assembly of princes and nobles, to
which Europe has, perhaps, scarcely seen any thing equal, was formed
the grand alliance against Lewis, which, at last, did not produce
effects proportionate to the magnificence of the transaction.

The conduct of Prior, in this splendid initiation into publick business,
was so pleasing to king William, that he made him one of the gentlemen
of his bedchamber; and he is supposed to have passed some of the next
years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry.

The death of queen Mary, in 1695, produced a subject for all the
writers; perhaps no funeral was ever so poetically attended. Dryden,
indeed, as a man discountenanced and deprived, was silent; but scarcely
any other maker of verses omitted to bring his tribute of tuneful
sorrow. An emulation of elegy was universal. Maria's praise was not
confined to the English language, but fills a great part of the Musæ
Anglicanæ.

Prior, who was both a poet and a courtier, was too diligent to miss this
opportunity of respect. He wrote a long ode, which was presented to the
king, by whom it was not likely to be ever read.

In two years he was secretary to another embassy at the treaty of
Ryswick, in 1697[5]; and next year had the same office at the court of
France, where he is said to have been considered with great distinction.

As he was one day surveying the apartments at Versailles, being shown
the victories of Lewis, painted by Le Brun, and asked whether the king
of England's palace had any such decorations: "The monuments of my
master's actions," said he, "are to be seen every where but in his own
house. " The pictures of Le Brun are not only in themselves sufficiently
ostentatious, but were explained by inscriptions so arrogant, that
Boileau and Racine thought it necessary to make them more simple.

He was, in the following year, at Loo with the king; from whom, after a
long audience, he carried orders to England, and upon his arrival became
under-secretary of state in the earl of Jersey's office; a post which he
did not retain long, because Jersey was removed; but he was soon made
commissioner of trade.

This year, 1700, produced one of his longest and most splendid
compositions, the Carmen Seculare, in which he exhausts all his powers
of celebration. I mean not to accuse him of flattery; he probably
thought all that he writ, and retained as much veracity as can be
properly exacted from a poet professedly encomiastick. King William
supplied copious materials for either verse or prose. His whole life had
been action, and none ever denied him the resplendent qualities of
steady resolution and personal courage. He was really, in Prior's mind,
what he represents him in his verses; he considered him as a hero, and
was accustomed to say, that he praised others in compliance with the
fashion, but that in celebrating king William he followed his
inclination. To Prior gratitude would dictate praise, which reason would
not refuse.

Among the advantages to arise from the future years of William's reign,
he mentions a society for useful arts, and, among them,

Some that with care true eloquence shall teach,
And to just idioms fix our doubtful speech;
That from our writers distant realms may know
The thanks we to our monarch owe,
And schools profess our tongue through ev'ry land,
That has invok'd his aid, or bless'd his hand.

Tickell, in his Prospect of Peace, has the same hope of a new academy:

In happy chains our daring language bound,
Shall sport no more in arbitrary sound.

Whether the similitude of those passages which exhibit the same thought,
on the same occasion, proceeded from accident or imitation, is not easy
to determine. Tickell might have been impressed with his expectation by
Swift's Proposal for ascertaining the English Language, then lately
published.

In the parliament that met in 1701, he was chosen representative of East
Grinstead. Perhaps it was about this time that he changed his party; for
he voted for the impeachment of those lords who had persuaded the king
to the partition-treaty, a treaty in which he had himself been
ministerially employed.

A great part of queen Anne's reign was a time of war, in which there was
little employment for negotiators, and Prior had, therefore, leisure to
make or to polish verses. When the battle of Blenheim called forth all
the versemen, Prior, among the rest, took care to show his delight in
the increasing honour of his country, by an epistle to Boileau.

He published, soon afterwards, a volume of poems, with the encomiastick
character of his deceased patron, the duke of Dorset[6]: it began with
the College Exercise, and ended with the Nut-brown Maid.

The battle of Ramilles soon afterwards, in 1706, excited him to another
effort of poetry. On this occasion he had fewer or less formidable
rivals; and it would be not easy to name any other composition produced
by that event which is now remembered.

Everything has its day. Through the reigns of William and Anne no
prosperous event passed undignified by poetry. In the last war, when
France was disgraced and overpowered in every quarter of the globe, when
Spain, coming to her assistance, only shared her calamities, and the
name of an Englishman was reverenced through Europe, no poet was heard
amidst the general acclamation; the fame of our counsellors and heroes
was entrusted to the Gazetteer.

The nation, in time, grew weary of the war, and the queen grew weary of
her ministers. The war was burdensome, and the ministers were insolent.
Harley and his friends began to hope that they might, by driving the
whigs from court and from power, gratify, at once, the queen and the
people. There was now a call for writers, who might convey intelligence
of past abuses, and show the waste of publick money, the unreasonable
conduct of the allies, the avarice of generals, the tyranny of minions,
and the general danger of approaching ruin.

For this purpose a paper, called the Examiner, was periodically
published, written, as it happened, by any wit of the party, and
sometimes, as is said, by Mrs. Manley. Some are owned by Swift; and one,
in ridicule of Garth's verses to Godolphin upon the loss of his place,
was written by Prior, and answered by Addison, who appears to have known
the author either by conjecture or intelligence.

The tories, who were now in power, were in haste to end the war; and
Prior, being recalled, 1710, to his former employment of making
treaties, was sent, July, 1711, privately to Paris with propositions of
peace. He was remembered at the French court; and, returning in about a
month, brought with him the abbé Gaultier, and M. Mesnager, a minister
from France, invested with full powers.

This transaction not being avowed, Mackay, the master of the Dover
packet-boat, either zealously or officiously, seized Prior and his
associates at Canterbury. It is easily supposed that they were soon
released.

The negotiation was begun at Prior's house, where the queen's ministers
met Mesnager, September 20,1711, and entered privately upon the great
business. The importance of Prior appears from the mention made of him
by St. John in his letter to the queen.

"My lord treasurer moved, and all my lords were of the same opinion,
that Mr. Prior should be added to those who are empowered to sign; the
reason for which is, because he, having personally treated with monsieur
de Torcy, is the best witness we can produce of the sense in which the
general preliminary engagements are entered into: besides which, as he
is the best versed in matters of trade of all your majesty's servants
who have been trusted in this secret, if you shall think fit to employ
him in the future treaty of commerce, it will be of consequence that he
has been a party concerned in concluding that convention, which must be
the rule of this treaty. "

The assembly of this important night was, in some degree, clandestine,
the design of treating not being yet openly declared, and, when the
whigs returned to power, was aggravated to a charge of high treason;
though, as Prior remarks in his imperfect answer to the report of the
committee of secrecy, no treaty ever was made without private interviews
and preliminary discussions.

My business is not the history of the peace, but the life of Prior. The
conferences began at Utrecht on the 1st of January, 1711-12, and the
English plenipotentiaries arrived on the 15th. The ministers of the
different potentates conferred and conferred; but the peace advanced so
slowly that speedier methods were found necessary; and Bolingbroke was
sent to Paris to adjust differences with less formality; Prior either
accompanied him or followed him, and, after his departure, had the
appointments and authority of an ambassador, though no publick
character.

By some mistake of the queen's orders, the court of France had been
disgusted; and Bolingbroke says in his letter, "Dear Mat, hide the
nakedness of thy country, and give the best turn thy fertile brain will
furnish thee with to the blunders of thy countrymen, who are not much
better politicians than the French are poets. "

Soon after, the duke of Shrewsbury went on a formal embassy to Paris. It
is related by Boyer, that the intention was to have joined Prior in the
same commission, but that Shrewsbury refused to be associated with a man
so meanly born. Prior, therefore, continued to act without a title, till
the duke returned, next year, to England, and then he assumed the style
and dignity of ambassador.

But, while he continued in appearance a private man, he was treated with
confidence by Lewis, who sent him with a letter to the queen, written in
favour of the elector of Bavaria. "I shall expect," says he, "with
impatience, the return of Mr. Prior, whose conduct is very agreeable to
me. " And while the duke of Shrewsbury was still at Paris, Bolingbroke
wrote to Prior thus: "Monsieur de Torcy has a confidence in you; make
use of it, once for all, upon this occasion, and convince him
thoroughly, that we must give a different turn to our parliament and our
people, according to their resolution at this crisis. "

Prior's publick dignity and splendour commenced in August, 1713, and
continued till the August following; but I am afraid that, according to
the usual fate of greatness, it was attended with some perplexities and
mortifications. He had not all that is customarily given to ambassadors;
he hints to the queen, in an imperfect poem, that he had no service of
plate; and it appeared, by the debts which he contracted, that his
remittances were not punctually made.

On the 1st of August, 1714, ensued the downfal of the tories, and the
degradation of Prior. He was recalled; but was not able to return, being
detained by the debts which he had found it necessary to contract, and
which were not discharged before March, though his old friend Montague
was now at the head of the treasury.

He returned then as soon as he could, and was welcomed, on the 25th of
March, 1715, by a warrant, but was, however, suffered to live in his own
house, under the custody of the messenger, till he was examined before a
committee of the privy council, of which Mr. Walpole was chairman, and
lord Coningsby, Mr. Stanhope, and Mr. Lechmere, were the principal
interrogators; who, in this examination, of which there is printed an
account not unentertaining, behaved with the boisterousness of men
elated by recent authority. They are represented as asking questions
sometimes vague, sometimes insidious, and writing answers different from
those which they received. Prior, however, seems to have been
overpowered by their turbulence; for he confesses that he signed what,
if he had ever come before a legal judicature, he should have
contradicted or explained away. The oath was administered by Boscawen,
a Middlesex justice, who, at last, was going to write his attestation
on the wrong side of the paper.

They were very industrious to find some charge against Oxford; and asked
Prior, with great earnestness, who was present when the preliminary
articles were talked of or signed at his house?