"
A few years afterwards, 1751, by the death of his father, he inherited a
baronet's title with a large estate, which, though, perhaps, he did not
augment, he was careful to adorn by a house of great elegance and
expense, and by much attention to the decoration of his park.
A few years afterwards, 1751, by the death of his father, he inherited a
baronet's title with a large estate, which, though, perhaps, he did not
augment, he was careful to adorn by a house of great elegance and
expense, and by much attention to the decoration of his park.
Samuel Johnson
Walpole is now content to have it told
that it was by his fault. If we look, however, without prejudice on the
world, we shall find that men, whose consciousness of their own merit
sets them above the compliances of servility, are apt enough, in their
association with superiours, to watch their own dignity with troublesome
and punctilious jealousy, and in the fervour of independence to exact
that attention which they refuse to pay. Part they did, whatever was the
quarrel; and the rest of their travels was, doubtless, more unpleasant
to them both. Gray continued his journey in a manner suitable to his own
little fortune, with only an occasional servant.
He returned to England in September, 1741, and in about two months
afterwards buried his father, who had, by an injudicious waste of money
upon a new house, so much lessened his fortune, that Gray thought
himself too poor to study the law. He, therefore, retired to Cambridge,
where he soon after became bachelor of civil law; and where, without
liking the place or its inhabitants, or professing to like them, he
passed, except a short residence at London, the rest of his life.
About this time he was deprived of Mr. West, the son of a chancellor of
Ireland, a friend on whom he appears to have set a high value, and who
deserved his esteem by the powers which he shows in his letters, and in
the Ode to May, which Mr. Mason has preserved, as well as by the
sincerity with which, when Gray sent him part of Agrippina, a tragedy
that he had just begun, he gave an opinion which probably intercepted
the progress of the work, and which the judgment of every reader will
confirm. It was certainly no loss to the English stage that Agrippina
was never finished.
In this year, 1742, Gray seems first to have applied himself seriously
to poetry; for in this year were produced the Ode to Spring, his
Prospect of Eton, and his Ode to Adversity. He began likewise a Latin
poem, De Principiis Cogitandi.
It may be collected from the narrative of Mr. Mason, that his first
ambition was to have excelled in Latin poetry: perhaps it were
reasonable to wish that he had prosecuted his design; for, though there
is at present some embarrassment in his phrase, and some harshness in
his lyrick numbers, his copiousness of language is such as very few
possess; and his lines, even when imperfect, discover a writer whom
practice would quickly have made skillful.
He now lived on at Peterhouse, very little solicitous what others did or
thought, and cultivated his mind and enlarged his views without any
other purpose than of improving and amusing himself; when Mr. Mason,
being elected fellow of Pembroke hall, brought him a companion who was
afterwards to be his editor, and whose fondness and fidelity has kindled
in him a zeal of admiration, which cannot be reasonably expected from
the neutrality of a stranger, and the coldness of a critick.
In this retirement he wrote, 1747, an ode on the Death of Mr. Walpole's
Cat; and the year afterwards attempted a poem, of more importance, on
Government and Education, of which the fragments which remain have many
excellent lines.
His next production, 1750, was his far-famed Elegy in the Church-yard,
which, finding its way into a magazine, first, I believe, made him known
to the publick.
An invitation from lady Cobham, about this time, gave occasion to an odd
composition called a Long Story, which adds little to Gray's character.
Several of his pieces were published, 1753, with designs by Mr. Bentley;
and, that they might in some form or other make a book, only one side of
each leaf was printed. I believe the poems and the plates recommended
each other so well, that the whole impression was soon bought. This year
he lost his mother.
Some time afterwards, 1756, some young men of the college, whose
chambers were near his, diverted themselves with disturbing him by
frequent and troublesome noises, and, as is said, by pranks yet more
offensive and contemptuous. This insolence, having endured it awhile, he
represented to the governours of the society, among whom, perhaps, he
had no friends; and, finding his complaint little regarded, removed
himself to Pembroke hall.
In 1757 he published the Progress of Poetry, and the Bard, two
compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content to
gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them confessed their inability
to understand them, though Warburton said that they were understood as
well as the works of Milton and Shakespeare, which it is the fashion to
admire. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some hardy champions
undertook to rescue them from neglect; and, in a short time, many were
content to be shown beauties which they could not see.
Gray's reputation was now so high, that, after the death of Cibber, he
had the honour of refusing the laurel, which was then bestowed on Mr.
Whitehead.
His curiosity, not long after, drew him away from Cambridge to a lodging
near the Museum, where he resided near three years, reading and
transcribing; and, so far as can be discovered, very little affected by
two odes on Oblivion and Obscurity, in which his lyrick performances
were ridiculed with much contempt and much ingenuity.
When the professor of modern history at Cambridge died, he was, as he
says, "cockered and spirited up," till he asked it of lord Bute, who
sent him a civil refusal; and the place was given to Mr. Brocket, the
tutor of sir James Lowther.
His constitution was weak, and believing that his health was promoted by
exercise and change of place, he undertook, 1765, a journey into
Scotland, of which his account, so far as it extends, is very curious
and eleg'ant; for, as his comprehension was ample, his curiosity
extended to all the works of art, all the appearances of nature, and all
the monuments of past events. He naturally contracted a friendship with
Dr. Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philosopher, and a good man. The
Mareschal college at Aberdeen offered him the degree of doctor of laws,
which, having omitted to take it at Cambridge, he thought it decent to
refuse.
What he had formerly solicited in vain was at last given him without
solicitation. The professorship of history became again vacant, and he
received, 1768, an offer of it from the duke of Grafton. He accepted,
and retained it to his death; always designing lectures, but never
reading them; uneasy at his neglect of fluty, and appeasing his
uneasiness with designs of reformation, and with a resolution which he
believed himself to have made of resigning the office, if he found
himself unable to discharge it.
Ill health made another journey necessary, and he visited, 1769,
Westmorland and Cumberland. He that reads his epistolary narration,
wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his
employment; but it is by studying at home that we must obtain the
ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement.
His travels and his studies were now near their end. The gout, of which
he had sustained many weak attacks, fell upon his stomach, and, yielding
to no medicines, produced strong convulsions, which, July 30, 1771,
terminated in death.
His character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a
letter written to my friend Mr. Boswell, by the reverend Mr. Temple,
rector of St. Gluvias, in Cornwall; and am as willing as his warmest
well-wisher to believe it true.
"Perhaps he was the most learned man in Europe. He was equally
acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, and that not
superficially, but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both
natural and civil; had read all the original historians of England,
France, and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysicks,
morals, politicks, made a principal part of his study; voyages and
travels of all sorts were his favourite amusements; and he had a fine
taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a fund
of knowledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and
entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity.
There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think
the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather
effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his
inferiours in science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which
disgusted Voltaire so much in Mr. Congreve: though he seemed to value
others chiefly according to the progress that they had made in
knowledge, yet he could not bear to be considered himself merely as a
man of letters; and, though without birth, or fortune, or station, his
desire was to be looked upon as a private independent gentleman, who
read for his amusement. Perhaps it may be said, what signifies so much
knowledge, when it produced so little? Is it worth taking so much pains
to leave no memorial but a few poems? But let it be considered, that Mr.
Gray was, to others at least, innocently employed, to himself certainly
beneficially. His time passed agreeably; he was every day making some
new acquisition in science; his mind was enlarged, his heart softened,
his virtue strengthened; the world and mankind were shown to him without
a mask; and he was taught to consider every thing as trifling, and
unworthy of the attention of a wise man, except the pursuit of knowledge
and practice of virtue, in that state wherein God hath placed us. "
To this character Mr. Mason has added a more particular account of
Gray's skill in zoology. He has remarked, that Gray's effeminacy was
affected most "before those whom he did not wish to please;" and that he
is unjustly charged with making knowledge his sole reason of preference,
as he paid his esteem to none whom he did not likewise believe to be
good.
What has occurred to me from the slight inspection of his letters, in
which my undertaking has engaged me, is, that his mind had a large
grasp; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his judgment cultivated;
that he was a man likely to love much where he loved at all; but that he
was fastidious and hard to please. His contempt, however, is often
employed, where I hope it will be approved, upon skepticism and
infidelity. His short account of Shaftesbury I will insert.
"You say you cannot conceive how lord Shaftesbury came to be a
philosopher in vogue; I will tell you: first, he was a lord; secondly,
he was as vain as any of his readers; thirdly, men are very prone to
believe what they do not understand; fourthly, they will believe any
thing at all, provided they are under no obligation to believe it;
fifthly, they love to take a new road, even when that road leads
nowhere; sixthly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and seems always to
mean more than he said. Would you have any more reasons? An interval of
above forty years has pretty well destroyed the charm. A dead lord ranks
with commoners; vanity is no longer interested in the matter; for a new
road has become an old one. "
Mr. Mason has added, from his own knowledge, that, though Gray was poor,
he was not eager of money; and that, out of the little that he had, he
was very willing to help the necessitous.
As a writer he had this peculiarity, that he did not write his pieces
first rudely, and then correct them, but laboured every line as it arose
in the train of composition; and he had a notion, not very peculiar,
that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments; a
fantastick foppery, to which my kindness for a man of learning and
virtue wishes him to have been superiour.
* * * * *
Gray's poetry is now to be considered; and I hope not to be looked on as
an enemy to his name, if I confess that I contemplate it with less
pleasure than his life. His ode on Spring has something poetical, both
in the language and the thought; but the language is too luxuriant, and
the thoughts have nothing new. There has, of late, arisen a practice of
giving to adjectives derived from substantives, the termination of
participles; such as the _cultured_ plain, the _daisied_ bank; but I was
sorry to see, in the lines of a scholar like Gray, the _honied_ spring.
The morality is natural, but too stale; the conclusion is pretty.
The poem on the Cat was, doubtless, by its author, considered as a
trifle; but it is not a happy trifle. In the first stanza, "the azure
flowers that blow" show resolutely a rhyme is sometimes made when it
cannot easily be found. Selima, the cat, is called a nymph, with some
violence both to language and sense; but there is no good use made of it
when it is done: for of the two lines,
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
The first relates merely to the nymph, and the second only to the cat.
The sixth stanza contains a melancholy truth, that "a favourite has no
friend;" but the last ends in a pointed sentence of no relation to the
purpose; if _what glistered_ had been _gold_, the cat would not have
gone into the water; and, if she had, would not less have been drowned.
The Prospect of Eton College suggests nothing to Gray which every
beholder does not equally think and feel. His supplication to father
Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless
and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than
himself[197] His epithet, "buxom health," is not elegant; he seems not
to understand the word. Gray thought his language more poetical as it
was more remote from common use; finding in Dryden "honey redolent of
spring," an expression that reaches the utmost limits of our language,
Gray drove it a little more beyond common apprehension, by making
"gales" to be "redolent of joy and youth. "
Of the Ode on Adversity, the hint was, at first, taken from "O Diva,
gratum quæ regis Antium;" but Gray has excelled his original by the
variety of his sentiments, and by their moral application. Of this
piece, at once poetical and rational, I will not, by slight objections,
violate the dignity.
My process has now brought me to the _wonderful wonder of wonders_, the
two sister odes; by which, though either vulgar ignorance or common
sense at first universally rejected them, many have been since persuaded
to think themselves delighted. I am one of those that are willing to be
pleased, and, therefore, would gladly find the meaning of the first
stanza of the Progress of Poetry.
Gray seems, in his rapture, to confound the images of "spreading sound"
and "running water. " A "stream of musick," may be allowed; but where
does "musick," however "smooth and strong," after having visited the
"verdant vales, roll down the steep amain," so as that "rocks and
nodding groves rebellow to the roar! " If this be said of musick, it is
nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the purpose.
The second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of
further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy to his
commonplaces.
To the third it may likewise be objected, that it is drawn from
mythology, though such as may be more easily assimilated to real life.
Idalia's "velvet green" has something of cant. An epithet or metaphor
drawn from nature ennobles art: an epithet or metaphor drawn from art
degrades nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.
"Many-twinkling" was formerly censured as not analogical; we may say
"many-spotted," but scarcely "many-spotting. " This stanza, however, has
something pleasing.
Of the second ternary of stanzas, the first endeavours to tell
something, and would have told it, had it not been crossed by Hyperion:
the second describes well enough the universal prevalence of poetry; but
I am afraid that the conclusion will not arise from the premises. The
caverns of the north and the plains of Chili are not the residences of
"Glory and generous shame. " But that poetry and virtue go always
together is an opinion so pleasing, that I can forgive him who resolves
to think it true.
The third stanza sounds big with "Delphi," and "Egean," and "Ilissus,"
and "Meander," and "hallowed fountains," and "solemn sound;" but in all
Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrflus splendour which we wish away.
His position is at last false: in the time of Dante and Petrarch, from
whom he derives our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by "tyrant
power" and "coward vice;" nor was our state much better when we first
borrowed the Italian arts.
Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of
Shakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true; but it is not
said happily: the real effects of this poetical power are put out of
sight by the pomp of machinery. Where truth is sufficient to fill the
mind, fiction is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases the
genuine. His account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by
study in the formation of his poem, a supposition surely allowable, is
poetically true, and happily imagined. But the car of Dryden, with his
_two coursers_, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in which any
other rider may be placed.
The Bard appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and others have
remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it
superiour to its original; and, if preference depends only on the
imagery and animation of the two poems, his judgment is right. There is
in the Bard more force, more thought, and more variety. But to copy is
less than to invent, and the copy has been unhappily produced at a wrong
time. The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; but its revival
disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. Incredulus odi.
To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous
appendages of spectres and predictions, has little difficulty; for he
that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous. And it has
little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as
we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see that the Bard
promotes any truth, moral or political. His stanzas are too long,
especially his epodes; the ode is finished before the ear has learned
its measures, and, consequently, before it can receive pleasure from
their consonance and recurrence.
Of the first stanza, the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but
technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in the
power of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read the
ballad of Johnny Armstrong:
Is there ever a man in all Scotland.
The initial resemblances, or alliterations, "ruin, ruthless, helm or
hauberk," are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at sublimity.
In the second stanza, the Bard is well described; but in the third we
have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that
"Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main," and that "Modred made huge Plinlimmon
bow his cloud-topp'd head," attention recoils from the repetition of a
tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn.
The _weaving_ of the _winding sheet_ he borrowed, as he owns, from the
Northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly the work
of female powers, as the act of spinning the thread of life in another
mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers of
slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. They are then
called upon to "weave the warp, and weave the woof," perhaps, with no
great propriety; for it is by crossing the _woof_ with the _warp_ that
men _weave_ the _web_ or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by
the admission of its wretched correspondent, "give ample room and verge
enough[198]. " He has, however, no other line as bad.
The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyond its
merit. The personification is indistinct. _Thirst_ and _hunger_ are not
alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been
discriminated. We are told, in the same stanza, how _towers_ are _fed_.
But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed,
that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example;
but suicide is always to be had without expense of thought.
These odes are marked by glittering accumulations of ungraceful
ornaments; they strike, rather than please; the images are magnified by
affectation; the language is laboured into harshness. The mind of the
writer seems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and
trouble. " He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on
tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too
little appearance of ease and nature[199].
To say that he has no beauties, would be unjust; a man like him, of
great learning and great industry, could not but produce something
valuable. When he pleases least, it can only be said that a good design
was ill-directed.
His translations of Northern and Welsh poetry deserve praise; the
imagery is preserved, perhaps often improved; but the language is unlike
the language of other poets.
In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common
reader; for, by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary
prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of
learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours. The
Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and
with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas
beginning "Yet even these bones," are to me original: I have never seen
the notions in any other place; yet he that reads them here persuades
himself that he has always felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it
had been vain to blame, and useless to praise him.
-----
[Footnote 197: We shall, in comparison with this criticism, quote a
passage from Rasselas, and deduce no inference: "As they were sitting
together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before
her: answer, said she, great father of waters, thou that rollest thy
floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy
native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single
habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint. " Ed. ]
[Footnote 198:
I have a soul, that like an _ample_ shield
Can take in all; and _verge enough_ for more.
Dryden's Sebastian. ]
[Footnote 199: Lord Orford used to assert, that Gray "never wrote any
thing easily, but things of humour;" and added, that humour was his
natural and original turn.
For a full examination of Johnson's strange and capricious strictures on
the poetry of Gray, we, with much satisfaction, refer our readers to the
life prefixed to, and the notes that accompany, an elegant edition of
Gray's works, 2 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1825. Much that is both elegant and
useful will be found in that publication. ED. ]
LYTTELTON.
George Lyttelton, the son of sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley in
Worcestershire, was born in 1709. He was educated at Eton, where he was
so much distinguished, that his exercises were recommended as models to
his schoolfellows.
From Eton he went to Christ-church, where he retained the same
reputation of superiority, and displayed his abilities to the publick in
a Poem on Blenheim.
He was a very early writer, both in verse and prose. His Progress of
Love, and his Persian Letters, were both written when he was very young;
and, indeed, the character of a young man is very visible in both. The
verses cant of shepherds and flocks, and crooks dressed with flowers;
and the letters have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour
for liberty, which a man of genius always catches when he enters the
world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.
He staid not long at Oxford; for, in 1728, he began his travels, and saw
France and Italy. When he returned, he obtained a seat in parliament,
and soon distinguished himself among the most eager opponents of sir
Robert Walpole, though his father, who was a commissioner of the
admiralty, always voted with the court.
For many years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of
every debate in the house of commons. He opposed the standing army; he
opposed the excise; he supported the motion for petitioning the king to
remove Walpole. His zeal was considered by the courtiers not only as
violent, but as acrimonious and malignant; and, when Walpole was at last
hunted from his places, every effort was made by his friends, and many
friends he had, to exclude Lyttelton from the secret committee.
The prince of Wales, being, 1737, driven from St. James's, kept a
separate court, and opened his arms to the opponents of the ministry.
Mr. Lyttelton became his secretary, and was supposed to have great
influence in the direction of his conduct. He persuaded his master,
whose business it was now to be popular, that he would advance his
character by patronage. Mallet was made under-secretary, with two
hundred pounds; and Thomson had a pension of one hundred pounds a year.
For Thomson, Lyttelton always retained his kindness, and was able, at
last, to place him at ease.
Moore courted his favour by an apologetical poem, called the Trial of
Selim; for which he was paid with kind words, which, as is common,
raised great hopes, that were at last disappointed.
Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of opposition; and Pope, who was
incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the
ministry, commended him among the other patriots. This drew upon him the
reproaches of Fox, who, in the house, imputed to him, as a crime, his
intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported
his friend; and replied, that he thought it an honour to be received
into the familiarity of so great a poet.
While he was thus conspicuous, he married, 1741, Miss Lucy Fortescue, of
Devonshire, by whom he had a son, the late lord Lyttelton, and two
daughters, and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree
of connubial felicity; but human pleasures are short; she died in
child-bed about five years afterwards; and he solaced his grief by
writing a long poem to her memory.
He did not, however, condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow;
for, after awhile, he was content to seek happiness again by a second
marriage with the daughter of sir Robert Rich: but the experiment was
unsuccessful.
At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way, and honour and
profit were distributed among his conquerors. Lyttelton was made, 1744,
one of the lords of the treasury; and from that time was engaged in
supporting the schemes of the ministry.
Politicks did not, however, so much engage him, as to withhold his
thoughts from things of more importance. He had, in the pride of
juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, entertained
doubts of the truth of Christianity; but he thought the time now come
when it was no longer fit to doubt or believe by chance, and applied
himself seriously to the great question. His studies, being honest,
ended in conviction. He found that religion was true; and what he had
learned he endeavoured to teach, 1747, by Observations on the Conversion
of St. Paul; a treatise to which infidelity has never been able to
fabricate a specious answer. This book his father had the happiness of
seeing, and expressed his pleasure in a letter which deserves to be
inserted:
"I have read your religious treatise with infinite pleasure and
satisfaction. The style is fine and clear, the arguments close,
cogent, and irresistible. May the King of kings, whose glorious
cause you have so well defended, reward your pious labours, and
grant that I may be found worthy, through the merits of Jesus
Christ, to be an eye-witness of that happiness which I don't
doubt he will bountifully bestow upon you. In the mean time, I
shall never cease glorifying God, for having endowed you with
such useful talents, and giving me so good a son.
"Your affectionate father,
"THOMAS LYTTELTON.
"
A few years afterwards, 1751, by the death of his father, he inherited a
baronet's title with a large estate, which, though, perhaps, he did not
augment, he was careful to adorn by a house of great elegance and
expense, and by much attention to the decoration of his park.
As he continued his activity in parliament, he was gradually advancing
his claim to profit and preferment; and accordingly was made, in time,
1754, cofferer and privy counsellor: this place he exchanged next year
for the great office of chancellor of the exchequer; an office, however,
that required some qualifications which he soon perceived himself to
want.
The year after, his curiosity led him into Wales; of which he has given
an account, perhaps rather with too much affectation of delight, to
Archibald Bower, a man of whom he had conceived an opinion more
favourable than he seems to have deserved, and whom, having once
espoused his interest and fame, he was never persuaded to disown. Bower,
whatever was his moral character, did not want abilities; attacked as he
was by an universal outcry, and that outcry, as it seems, the echo of
truth, he kept his ground: at last, when his defences began to fail him,
he sallied out upon his adversaries, and his adversaries retreated.
About this time Lyttelton published his Dialogues of the Dead, which
were very eagerly read, though the production rather, as it seems, of
leisure than of study: rather effusions than compositions. The names of
his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their
conversation; and, when they have met, they too often part without any
conclusion. He has copied Fénélon more than Fontenelle.
When they were first published, they were kindly commended by the
Critical Reviewers; and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned,
in a note which I have read, acknowledgments which can never be proper,
since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.
When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious
commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry
unavoidable, sir George Lyttelton, losing, with the rest, his
employment, was recompensed with a peerage; and rested from political
turbulence in the house of lords.
His last literary production was his History of Henry the second,
elaborated by the searches and deliberations of twenty years, and
published with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate.
The story of this publication is remarkable. The whole work was printed
twice over, a great part of it three times, and many sheets four or five
times. The booksellers paid for the first impression; but the charges
and repeated operations of the press were at the expense of the author,
whose ambitious accuracy is known to have cost him, at least, a thousand
pounds. He began to print in 1755. Three volumes appeared in 1764; a
second edition of them in 1767; a third edition in 1768; and the
conclusion in 1771.
Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable abilities, and not
unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to persuade Lyttelton,
as he had persuaded himself, that he was master of the secret of
punctuation; and, as fear begets credulity, he was employed, I know not
at what price, to point the pages of Henry the second. The book was at
last pointed and printed, and sent into the world. Lyttelton took money
for his copy, of which, when he had paid the pointer, he probably gave
the rest away; for he was very liberal to the indigent.
When time brought the history to a third edition, Reid was either dead
or discarded; and the superintendence of typography and punctuation was
committed to a man originally a comb-maker, but then known by the style
of doctor. Something uncommon was probably expected, and something
uncommon was at last done; for to the doctor's edition is appended, what
the world had hardly seen before, a list of errours in nineteen pages.
But to politicks and literature there must be an end. Lord Lyttelton had
never the appearance of a strong or of a healthy man; he had a slender,
uncompacted frame, and a meagre face: he lasted, however, sixty years,
and was then seized with his last illness. Of his death a very affecting
and instructive account has been given by his physician[200] which will
spare me the task of his moral character.
"On Sunday evening the symptoms of his lordship's disorder, which for a
week past had alarmed us, put on a fatal appearance, and his lordship
believed himself to be a dying man. From this time he suffered by
restlessness rather than pain; though his nerves were apparently much
fluttered, his mental faculties never seemed stronger, when he was
thoroughly awake.
"His lordship's bilious and hepatick complaints seemed alone not equal
to the expected mournful event; his long want of sleep, whether the
consequence of the irritation in the bowels, or, which is more probable,
of causes of a different kind, accounts for his loss of strength, and
for his death, very sufficiently.
"Though his lordship wished his approaching dissolution not to be
lingering, he waited for it with resignation. He said, 'It is a folly, a
keeping me in misery, now to attempt to prolong life;' yet he was easily
persuaded, for the satisfaction of others, to do or take any thing
thought proper for him. On Saturday he had been remarkably better, and
we were not without some hopes of his recovery.
"On Sunday, about eleven in the forenoon, his lordship sent for me, and
said he felt a great hurry, and wished to have a little conversation
with me, in order to divert it. He then proceeded to open the fountain
of that heart, from whence goodness had so long flowed as from a copious
spring. 'Doctor,' said he, 'you shall be my confessor: when I first set
out in the world, I had friends who endeavoured to shake my belief in
the Christian religion. I saw difficulties which staggered me; but I
kept my mind open to conviction. The evidences and doctrines of
Christianity, studied with attention, made me a most firm and persuaded
believer of the Christian religion. I have made it the rule of my life,
and it is the ground of my future hopes. I have erred and sinned; but
have repented, and never indulged any vitious habit. In politicks, and
publick life, I have made publick good the rule of my conduct. I never
gave counsels which I did not at the time think the best. I have seen
that I was sometimes in the wrong; but I did not err designedly. I have
endeavoured, in private life, to do all the good in my power, and never
for a moment could indulge malicious or unjust designs upon any person
whatsoever. '
"At another time he said, 'I must leave my soul in the same state it was
in before this illness; I find this a very inconvenient time for
solicitude about any thing. '
"On the evening, when the symptoms of death came on, he said, 'I shall
die; but it will not be your fault. ' When lord and lady Valentia came to
see his lordship, he gave them his solemn benediction, and said, 'Be
good, be virtuous, my lord; you must come to this. ' Thus he continued
giving his dying benediction to all around him. On Monday morning a
lucid interval gave some small hopes, but these vanished in the evening;
and he continued dying, but with very little uneasiness, till Tuesday
morning, August 22, when, between seven and eight o'clock, he expired,
almost without a groan. "
His lordship was buried at Hagley; and the following inscription is cut
on the side of his lady's monument:
This unadorned stone was placed here
by the particular desire and express
directions of the right honourable
GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON,
Who died August 22, 1773, aged 64.
Lord Lyttelton's poems are the works of a man of literature and
judgment, devoting part of his time to versification. They have nothing
to be despised, and little to be admired. Of his Progress of Love, it is
sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in Blenheim
has neither much force nor much elegance. His little performances,
whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes sprightly and sometimes
insipid. His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot
much tire, because they are short, but which seldom elevates or
surprises. But from this censure ought to be excepted his Advice to
Belinda, which, though for the most part written when he was very young,
contains much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously
expressed, and shows a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry
which cultivation might have raised to excellence.
-----
[Footnote 200: Dr. Johnstone, of Kidderminster. ]
END OF VOL. VIII.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. in
Nine Volumes, by Samuel Johnson
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE POETS, VOL II ***
***** This file should be named 24218-8. txt or 24218-8. zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www. gutenberg. org/2/4/2/1/24218/
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Roger Frank and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you! ) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg. net/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1. A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1. E. 8.
1. B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1. C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1. E below.
1. C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1. D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1. E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1. E. 1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www. gutenberg. net
1. E. 2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1. E. 1
through 1. E. 7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1. E. 8 or
1. E. 9.
1. E. 3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1. E. 1 through 1. E. 7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1. E. 4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1. E. 5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1. E. 1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1. E. 6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www. gutenberg. net),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1. E. 1.
1. E. 7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1. E. 8 or 1. E. 9.
1. E. 8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. "
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1. F. 3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1. E. 9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1. F.
1. F. 1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1. F. 2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1. F. 3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1. F. 3.
that it was by his fault. If we look, however, without prejudice on the
world, we shall find that men, whose consciousness of their own merit
sets them above the compliances of servility, are apt enough, in their
association with superiours, to watch their own dignity with troublesome
and punctilious jealousy, and in the fervour of independence to exact
that attention which they refuse to pay. Part they did, whatever was the
quarrel; and the rest of their travels was, doubtless, more unpleasant
to them both. Gray continued his journey in a manner suitable to his own
little fortune, with only an occasional servant.
He returned to England in September, 1741, and in about two months
afterwards buried his father, who had, by an injudicious waste of money
upon a new house, so much lessened his fortune, that Gray thought
himself too poor to study the law. He, therefore, retired to Cambridge,
where he soon after became bachelor of civil law; and where, without
liking the place or its inhabitants, or professing to like them, he
passed, except a short residence at London, the rest of his life.
About this time he was deprived of Mr. West, the son of a chancellor of
Ireland, a friend on whom he appears to have set a high value, and who
deserved his esteem by the powers which he shows in his letters, and in
the Ode to May, which Mr. Mason has preserved, as well as by the
sincerity with which, when Gray sent him part of Agrippina, a tragedy
that he had just begun, he gave an opinion which probably intercepted
the progress of the work, and which the judgment of every reader will
confirm. It was certainly no loss to the English stage that Agrippina
was never finished.
In this year, 1742, Gray seems first to have applied himself seriously
to poetry; for in this year were produced the Ode to Spring, his
Prospect of Eton, and his Ode to Adversity. He began likewise a Latin
poem, De Principiis Cogitandi.
It may be collected from the narrative of Mr. Mason, that his first
ambition was to have excelled in Latin poetry: perhaps it were
reasonable to wish that he had prosecuted his design; for, though there
is at present some embarrassment in his phrase, and some harshness in
his lyrick numbers, his copiousness of language is such as very few
possess; and his lines, even when imperfect, discover a writer whom
practice would quickly have made skillful.
He now lived on at Peterhouse, very little solicitous what others did or
thought, and cultivated his mind and enlarged his views without any
other purpose than of improving and amusing himself; when Mr. Mason,
being elected fellow of Pembroke hall, brought him a companion who was
afterwards to be his editor, and whose fondness and fidelity has kindled
in him a zeal of admiration, which cannot be reasonably expected from
the neutrality of a stranger, and the coldness of a critick.
In this retirement he wrote, 1747, an ode on the Death of Mr. Walpole's
Cat; and the year afterwards attempted a poem, of more importance, on
Government and Education, of which the fragments which remain have many
excellent lines.
His next production, 1750, was his far-famed Elegy in the Church-yard,
which, finding its way into a magazine, first, I believe, made him known
to the publick.
An invitation from lady Cobham, about this time, gave occasion to an odd
composition called a Long Story, which adds little to Gray's character.
Several of his pieces were published, 1753, with designs by Mr. Bentley;
and, that they might in some form or other make a book, only one side of
each leaf was printed. I believe the poems and the plates recommended
each other so well, that the whole impression was soon bought. This year
he lost his mother.
Some time afterwards, 1756, some young men of the college, whose
chambers were near his, diverted themselves with disturbing him by
frequent and troublesome noises, and, as is said, by pranks yet more
offensive and contemptuous. This insolence, having endured it awhile, he
represented to the governours of the society, among whom, perhaps, he
had no friends; and, finding his complaint little regarded, removed
himself to Pembroke hall.
In 1757 he published the Progress of Poetry, and the Bard, two
compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content to
gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them confessed their inability
to understand them, though Warburton said that they were understood as
well as the works of Milton and Shakespeare, which it is the fashion to
admire. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some hardy champions
undertook to rescue them from neglect; and, in a short time, many were
content to be shown beauties which they could not see.
Gray's reputation was now so high, that, after the death of Cibber, he
had the honour of refusing the laurel, which was then bestowed on Mr.
Whitehead.
His curiosity, not long after, drew him away from Cambridge to a lodging
near the Museum, where he resided near three years, reading and
transcribing; and, so far as can be discovered, very little affected by
two odes on Oblivion and Obscurity, in which his lyrick performances
were ridiculed with much contempt and much ingenuity.
When the professor of modern history at Cambridge died, he was, as he
says, "cockered and spirited up," till he asked it of lord Bute, who
sent him a civil refusal; and the place was given to Mr. Brocket, the
tutor of sir James Lowther.
His constitution was weak, and believing that his health was promoted by
exercise and change of place, he undertook, 1765, a journey into
Scotland, of which his account, so far as it extends, is very curious
and eleg'ant; for, as his comprehension was ample, his curiosity
extended to all the works of art, all the appearances of nature, and all
the monuments of past events. He naturally contracted a friendship with
Dr. Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philosopher, and a good man. The
Mareschal college at Aberdeen offered him the degree of doctor of laws,
which, having omitted to take it at Cambridge, he thought it decent to
refuse.
What he had formerly solicited in vain was at last given him without
solicitation. The professorship of history became again vacant, and he
received, 1768, an offer of it from the duke of Grafton. He accepted,
and retained it to his death; always designing lectures, but never
reading them; uneasy at his neglect of fluty, and appeasing his
uneasiness with designs of reformation, and with a resolution which he
believed himself to have made of resigning the office, if he found
himself unable to discharge it.
Ill health made another journey necessary, and he visited, 1769,
Westmorland and Cumberland. He that reads his epistolary narration,
wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his
employment; but it is by studying at home that we must obtain the
ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement.
His travels and his studies were now near their end. The gout, of which
he had sustained many weak attacks, fell upon his stomach, and, yielding
to no medicines, produced strong convulsions, which, July 30, 1771,
terminated in death.
His character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a
letter written to my friend Mr. Boswell, by the reverend Mr. Temple,
rector of St. Gluvias, in Cornwall; and am as willing as his warmest
well-wisher to believe it true.
"Perhaps he was the most learned man in Europe. He was equally
acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, and that not
superficially, but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both
natural and civil; had read all the original historians of England,
France, and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysicks,
morals, politicks, made a principal part of his study; voyages and
travels of all sorts were his favourite amusements; and he had a fine
taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a fund
of knowledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and
entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity.
There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think
the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather
effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his
inferiours in science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which
disgusted Voltaire so much in Mr. Congreve: though he seemed to value
others chiefly according to the progress that they had made in
knowledge, yet he could not bear to be considered himself merely as a
man of letters; and, though without birth, or fortune, or station, his
desire was to be looked upon as a private independent gentleman, who
read for his amusement. Perhaps it may be said, what signifies so much
knowledge, when it produced so little? Is it worth taking so much pains
to leave no memorial but a few poems? But let it be considered, that Mr.
Gray was, to others at least, innocently employed, to himself certainly
beneficially. His time passed agreeably; he was every day making some
new acquisition in science; his mind was enlarged, his heart softened,
his virtue strengthened; the world and mankind were shown to him without
a mask; and he was taught to consider every thing as trifling, and
unworthy of the attention of a wise man, except the pursuit of knowledge
and practice of virtue, in that state wherein God hath placed us. "
To this character Mr. Mason has added a more particular account of
Gray's skill in zoology. He has remarked, that Gray's effeminacy was
affected most "before those whom he did not wish to please;" and that he
is unjustly charged with making knowledge his sole reason of preference,
as he paid his esteem to none whom he did not likewise believe to be
good.
What has occurred to me from the slight inspection of his letters, in
which my undertaking has engaged me, is, that his mind had a large
grasp; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his judgment cultivated;
that he was a man likely to love much where he loved at all; but that he
was fastidious and hard to please. His contempt, however, is often
employed, where I hope it will be approved, upon skepticism and
infidelity. His short account of Shaftesbury I will insert.
"You say you cannot conceive how lord Shaftesbury came to be a
philosopher in vogue; I will tell you: first, he was a lord; secondly,
he was as vain as any of his readers; thirdly, men are very prone to
believe what they do not understand; fourthly, they will believe any
thing at all, provided they are under no obligation to believe it;
fifthly, they love to take a new road, even when that road leads
nowhere; sixthly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and seems always to
mean more than he said. Would you have any more reasons? An interval of
above forty years has pretty well destroyed the charm. A dead lord ranks
with commoners; vanity is no longer interested in the matter; for a new
road has become an old one. "
Mr. Mason has added, from his own knowledge, that, though Gray was poor,
he was not eager of money; and that, out of the little that he had, he
was very willing to help the necessitous.
As a writer he had this peculiarity, that he did not write his pieces
first rudely, and then correct them, but laboured every line as it arose
in the train of composition; and he had a notion, not very peculiar,
that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments; a
fantastick foppery, to which my kindness for a man of learning and
virtue wishes him to have been superiour.
* * * * *
Gray's poetry is now to be considered; and I hope not to be looked on as
an enemy to his name, if I confess that I contemplate it with less
pleasure than his life. His ode on Spring has something poetical, both
in the language and the thought; but the language is too luxuriant, and
the thoughts have nothing new. There has, of late, arisen a practice of
giving to adjectives derived from substantives, the termination of
participles; such as the _cultured_ plain, the _daisied_ bank; but I was
sorry to see, in the lines of a scholar like Gray, the _honied_ spring.
The morality is natural, but too stale; the conclusion is pretty.
The poem on the Cat was, doubtless, by its author, considered as a
trifle; but it is not a happy trifle. In the first stanza, "the azure
flowers that blow" show resolutely a rhyme is sometimes made when it
cannot easily be found. Selima, the cat, is called a nymph, with some
violence both to language and sense; but there is no good use made of it
when it is done: for of the two lines,
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
The first relates merely to the nymph, and the second only to the cat.
The sixth stanza contains a melancholy truth, that "a favourite has no
friend;" but the last ends in a pointed sentence of no relation to the
purpose; if _what glistered_ had been _gold_, the cat would not have
gone into the water; and, if she had, would not less have been drowned.
The Prospect of Eton College suggests nothing to Gray which every
beholder does not equally think and feel. His supplication to father
Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless
and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than
himself[197] His epithet, "buxom health," is not elegant; he seems not
to understand the word. Gray thought his language more poetical as it
was more remote from common use; finding in Dryden "honey redolent of
spring," an expression that reaches the utmost limits of our language,
Gray drove it a little more beyond common apprehension, by making
"gales" to be "redolent of joy and youth. "
Of the Ode on Adversity, the hint was, at first, taken from "O Diva,
gratum quæ regis Antium;" but Gray has excelled his original by the
variety of his sentiments, and by their moral application. Of this
piece, at once poetical and rational, I will not, by slight objections,
violate the dignity.
My process has now brought me to the _wonderful wonder of wonders_, the
two sister odes; by which, though either vulgar ignorance or common
sense at first universally rejected them, many have been since persuaded
to think themselves delighted. I am one of those that are willing to be
pleased, and, therefore, would gladly find the meaning of the first
stanza of the Progress of Poetry.
Gray seems, in his rapture, to confound the images of "spreading sound"
and "running water. " A "stream of musick," may be allowed; but where
does "musick," however "smooth and strong," after having visited the
"verdant vales, roll down the steep amain," so as that "rocks and
nodding groves rebellow to the roar! " If this be said of musick, it is
nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the purpose.
The second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of
further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy to his
commonplaces.
To the third it may likewise be objected, that it is drawn from
mythology, though such as may be more easily assimilated to real life.
Idalia's "velvet green" has something of cant. An epithet or metaphor
drawn from nature ennobles art: an epithet or metaphor drawn from art
degrades nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.
"Many-twinkling" was formerly censured as not analogical; we may say
"many-spotted," but scarcely "many-spotting. " This stanza, however, has
something pleasing.
Of the second ternary of stanzas, the first endeavours to tell
something, and would have told it, had it not been crossed by Hyperion:
the second describes well enough the universal prevalence of poetry; but
I am afraid that the conclusion will not arise from the premises. The
caverns of the north and the plains of Chili are not the residences of
"Glory and generous shame. " But that poetry and virtue go always
together is an opinion so pleasing, that I can forgive him who resolves
to think it true.
The third stanza sounds big with "Delphi," and "Egean," and "Ilissus,"
and "Meander," and "hallowed fountains," and "solemn sound;" but in all
Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrflus splendour which we wish away.
His position is at last false: in the time of Dante and Petrarch, from
whom he derives our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by "tyrant
power" and "coward vice;" nor was our state much better when we first
borrowed the Italian arts.
Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of
Shakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true; but it is not
said happily: the real effects of this poetical power are put out of
sight by the pomp of machinery. Where truth is sufficient to fill the
mind, fiction is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases the
genuine. His account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by
study in the formation of his poem, a supposition surely allowable, is
poetically true, and happily imagined. But the car of Dryden, with his
_two coursers_, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in which any
other rider may be placed.
The Bard appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and others have
remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it
superiour to its original; and, if preference depends only on the
imagery and animation of the two poems, his judgment is right. There is
in the Bard more force, more thought, and more variety. But to copy is
less than to invent, and the copy has been unhappily produced at a wrong
time. The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; but its revival
disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. Incredulus odi.
To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous
appendages of spectres and predictions, has little difficulty; for he
that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous. And it has
little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as
we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see that the Bard
promotes any truth, moral or political. His stanzas are too long,
especially his epodes; the ode is finished before the ear has learned
its measures, and, consequently, before it can receive pleasure from
their consonance and recurrence.
Of the first stanza, the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but
technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in the
power of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read the
ballad of Johnny Armstrong:
Is there ever a man in all Scotland.
The initial resemblances, or alliterations, "ruin, ruthless, helm or
hauberk," are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at sublimity.
In the second stanza, the Bard is well described; but in the third we
have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that
"Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main," and that "Modred made huge Plinlimmon
bow his cloud-topp'd head," attention recoils from the repetition of a
tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn.
The _weaving_ of the _winding sheet_ he borrowed, as he owns, from the
Northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly the work
of female powers, as the act of spinning the thread of life in another
mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers of
slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. They are then
called upon to "weave the warp, and weave the woof," perhaps, with no
great propriety; for it is by crossing the _woof_ with the _warp_ that
men _weave_ the _web_ or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by
the admission of its wretched correspondent, "give ample room and verge
enough[198]. " He has, however, no other line as bad.
The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyond its
merit. The personification is indistinct. _Thirst_ and _hunger_ are not
alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been
discriminated. We are told, in the same stanza, how _towers_ are _fed_.
But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed,
that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example;
but suicide is always to be had without expense of thought.
These odes are marked by glittering accumulations of ungraceful
ornaments; they strike, rather than please; the images are magnified by
affectation; the language is laboured into harshness. The mind of the
writer seems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and
trouble. " He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on
tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too
little appearance of ease and nature[199].
To say that he has no beauties, would be unjust; a man like him, of
great learning and great industry, could not but produce something
valuable. When he pleases least, it can only be said that a good design
was ill-directed.
His translations of Northern and Welsh poetry deserve praise; the
imagery is preserved, perhaps often improved; but the language is unlike
the language of other poets.
In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common
reader; for, by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary
prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of
learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours. The
Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and
with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas
beginning "Yet even these bones," are to me original: I have never seen
the notions in any other place; yet he that reads them here persuades
himself that he has always felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it
had been vain to blame, and useless to praise him.
-----
[Footnote 197: We shall, in comparison with this criticism, quote a
passage from Rasselas, and deduce no inference: "As they were sitting
together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before
her: answer, said she, great father of waters, thou that rollest thy
floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy
native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single
habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint. " Ed. ]
[Footnote 198:
I have a soul, that like an _ample_ shield
Can take in all; and _verge enough_ for more.
Dryden's Sebastian. ]
[Footnote 199: Lord Orford used to assert, that Gray "never wrote any
thing easily, but things of humour;" and added, that humour was his
natural and original turn.
For a full examination of Johnson's strange and capricious strictures on
the poetry of Gray, we, with much satisfaction, refer our readers to the
life prefixed to, and the notes that accompany, an elegant edition of
Gray's works, 2 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1825. Much that is both elegant and
useful will be found in that publication. ED. ]
LYTTELTON.
George Lyttelton, the son of sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley in
Worcestershire, was born in 1709. He was educated at Eton, where he was
so much distinguished, that his exercises were recommended as models to
his schoolfellows.
From Eton he went to Christ-church, where he retained the same
reputation of superiority, and displayed his abilities to the publick in
a Poem on Blenheim.
He was a very early writer, both in verse and prose. His Progress of
Love, and his Persian Letters, were both written when he was very young;
and, indeed, the character of a young man is very visible in both. The
verses cant of shepherds and flocks, and crooks dressed with flowers;
and the letters have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour
for liberty, which a man of genius always catches when he enters the
world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.
He staid not long at Oxford; for, in 1728, he began his travels, and saw
France and Italy. When he returned, he obtained a seat in parliament,
and soon distinguished himself among the most eager opponents of sir
Robert Walpole, though his father, who was a commissioner of the
admiralty, always voted with the court.
For many years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of
every debate in the house of commons. He opposed the standing army; he
opposed the excise; he supported the motion for petitioning the king to
remove Walpole. His zeal was considered by the courtiers not only as
violent, but as acrimonious and malignant; and, when Walpole was at last
hunted from his places, every effort was made by his friends, and many
friends he had, to exclude Lyttelton from the secret committee.
The prince of Wales, being, 1737, driven from St. James's, kept a
separate court, and opened his arms to the opponents of the ministry.
Mr. Lyttelton became his secretary, and was supposed to have great
influence in the direction of his conduct. He persuaded his master,
whose business it was now to be popular, that he would advance his
character by patronage. Mallet was made under-secretary, with two
hundred pounds; and Thomson had a pension of one hundred pounds a year.
For Thomson, Lyttelton always retained his kindness, and was able, at
last, to place him at ease.
Moore courted his favour by an apologetical poem, called the Trial of
Selim; for which he was paid with kind words, which, as is common,
raised great hopes, that were at last disappointed.
Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of opposition; and Pope, who was
incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the
ministry, commended him among the other patriots. This drew upon him the
reproaches of Fox, who, in the house, imputed to him, as a crime, his
intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported
his friend; and replied, that he thought it an honour to be received
into the familiarity of so great a poet.
While he was thus conspicuous, he married, 1741, Miss Lucy Fortescue, of
Devonshire, by whom he had a son, the late lord Lyttelton, and two
daughters, and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree
of connubial felicity; but human pleasures are short; she died in
child-bed about five years afterwards; and he solaced his grief by
writing a long poem to her memory.
He did not, however, condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow;
for, after awhile, he was content to seek happiness again by a second
marriage with the daughter of sir Robert Rich: but the experiment was
unsuccessful.
At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way, and honour and
profit were distributed among his conquerors. Lyttelton was made, 1744,
one of the lords of the treasury; and from that time was engaged in
supporting the schemes of the ministry.
Politicks did not, however, so much engage him, as to withhold his
thoughts from things of more importance. He had, in the pride of
juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, entertained
doubts of the truth of Christianity; but he thought the time now come
when it was no longer fit to doubt or believe by chance, and applied
himself seriously to the great question. His studies, being honest,
ended in conviction. He found that religion was true; and what he had
learned he endeavoured to teach, 1747, by Observations on the Conversion
of St. Paul; a treatise to which infidelity has never been able to
fabricate a specious answer. This book his father had the happiness of
seeing, and expressed his pleasure in a letter which deserves to be
inserted:
"I have read your religious treatise with infinite pleasure and
satisfaction. The style is fine and clear, the arguments close,
cogent, and irresistible. May the King of kings, whose glorious
cause you have so well defended, reward your pious labours, and
grant that I may be found worthy, through the merits of Jesus
Christ, to be an eye-witness of that happiness which I don't
doubt he will bountifully bestow upon you. In the mean time, I
shall never cease glorifying God, for having endowed you with
such useful talents, and giving me so good a son.
"Your affectionate father,
"THOMAS LYTTELTON.
"
A few years afterwards, 1751, by the death of his father, he inherited a
baronet's title with a large estate, which, though, perhaps, he did not
augment, he was careful to adorn by a house of great elegance and
expense, and by much attention to the decoration of his park.
As he continued his activity in parliament, he was gradually advancing
his claim to profit and preferment; and accordingly was made, in time,
1754, cofferer and privy counsellor: this place he exchanged next year
for the great office of chancellor of the exchequer; an office, however,
that required some qualifications which he soon perceived himself to
want.
The year after, his curiosity led him into Wales; of which he has given
an account, perhaps rather with too much affectation of delight, to
Archibald Bower, a man of whom he had conceived an opinion more
favourable than he seems to have deserved, and whom, having once
espoused his interest and fame, he was never persuaded to disown. Bower,
whatever was his moral character, did not want abilities; attacked as he
was by an universal outcry, and that outcry, as it seems, the echo of
truth, he kept his ground: at last, when his defences began to fail him,
he sallied out upon his adversaries, and his adversaries retreated.
About this time Lyttelton published his Dialogues of the Dead, which
were very eagerly read, though the production rather, as it seems, of
leisure than of study: rather effusions than compositions. The names of
his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their
conversation; and, when they have met, they too often part without any
conclusion. He has copied Fénélon more than Fontenelle.
When they were first published, they were kindly commended by the
Critical Reviewers; and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned,
in a note which I have read, acknowledgments which can never be proper,
since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.
When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious
commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry
unavoidable, sir George Lyttelton, losing, with the rest, his
employment, was recompensed with a peerage; and rested from political
turbulence in the house of lords.
His last literary production was his History of Henry the second,
elaborated by the searches and deliberations of twenty years, and
published with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate.
The story of this publication is remarkable. The whole work was printed
twice over, a great part of it three times, and many sheets four or five
times. The booksellers paid for the first impression; but the charges
and repeated operations of the press were at the expense of the author,
whose ambitious accuracy is known to have cost him, at least, a thousand
pounds. He began to print in 1755. Three volumes appeared in 1764; a
second edition of them in 1767; a third edition in 1768; and the
conclusion in 1771.
Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable abilities, and not
unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to persuade Lyttelton,
as he had persuaded himself, that he was master of the secret of
punctuation; and, as fear begets credulity, he was employed, I know not
at what price, to point the pages of Henry the second. The book was at
last pointed and printed, and sent into the world. Lyttelton took money
for his copy, of which, when he had paid the pointer, he probably gave
the rest away; for he was very liberal to the indigent.
When time brought the history to a third edition, Reid was either dead
or discarded; and the superintendence of typography and punctuation was
committed to a man originally a comb-maker, but then known by the style
of doctor. Something uncommon was probably expected, and something
uncommon was at last done; for to the doctor's edition is appended, what
the world had hardly seen before, a list of errours in nineteen pages.
But to politicks and literature there must be an end. Lord Lyttelton had
never the appearance of a strong or of a healthy man; he had a slender,
uncompacted frame, and a meagre face: he lasted, however, sixty years,
and was then seized with his last illness. Of his death a very affecting
and instructive account has been given by his physician[200] which will
spare me the task of his moral character.
"On Sunday evening the symptoms of his lordship's disorder, which for a
week past had alarmed us, put on a fatal appearance, and his lordship
believed himself to be a dying man. From this time he suffered by
restlessness rather than pain; though his nerves were apparently much
fluttered, his mental faculties never seemed stronger, when he was
thoroughly awake.
"His lordship's bilious and hepatick complaints seemed alone not equal
to the expected mournful event; his long want of sleep, whether the
consequence of the irritation in the bowels, or, which is more probable,
of causes of a different kind, accounts for his loss of strength, and
for his death, very sufficiently.
"Though his lordship wished his approaching dissolution not to be
lingering, he waited for it with resignation. He said, 'It is a folly, a
keeping me in misery, now to attempt to prolong life;' yet he was easily
persuaded, for the satisfaction of others, to do or take any thing
thought proper for him. On Saturday he had been remarkably better, and
we were not without some hopes of his recovery.
"On Sunday, about eleven in the forenoon, his lordship sent for me, and
said he felt a great hurry, and wished to have a little conversation
with me, in order to divert it. He then proceeded to open the fountain
of that heart, from whence goodness had so long flowed as from a copious
spring. 'Doctor,' said he, 'you shall be my confessor: when I first set
out in the world, I had friends who endeavoured to shake my belief in
the Christian religion. I saw difficulties which staggered me; but I
kept my mind open to conviction. The evidences and doctrines of
Christianity, studied with attention, made me a most firm and persuaded
believer of the Christian religion. I have made it the rule of my life,
and it is the ground of my future hopes. I have erred and sinned; but
have repented, and never indulged any vitious habit. In politicks, and
publick life, I have made publick good the rule of my conduct. I never
gave counsels which I did not at the time think the best. I have seen
that I was sometimes in the wrong; but I did not err designedly. I have
endeavoured, in private life, to do all the good in my power, and never
for a moment could indulge malicious or unjust designs upon any person
whatsoever. '
"At another time he said, 'I must leave my soul in the same state it was
in before this illness; I find this a very inconvenient time for
solicitude about any thing. '
"On the evening, when the symptoms of death came on, he said, 'I shall
die; but it will not be your fault. ' When lord and lady Valentia came to
see his lordship, he gave them his solemn benediction, and said, 'Be
good, be virtuous, my lord; you must come to this. ' Thus he continued
giving his dying benediction to all around him. On Monday morning a
lucid interval gave some small hopes, but these vanished in the evening;
and he continued dying, but with very little uneasiness, till Tuesday
morning, August 22, when, between seven and eight o'clock, he expired,
almost without a groan. "
His lordship was buried at Hagley; and the following inscription is cut
on the side of his lady's monument:
This unadorned stone was placed here
by the particular desire and express
directions of the right honourable
GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON,
Who died August 22, 1773, aged 64.
Lord Lyttelton's poems are the works of a man of literature and
judgment, devoting part of his time to versification. They have nothing
to be despised, and little to be admired. Of his Progress of Love, it is
sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in Blenheim
has neither much force nor much elegance. His little performances,
whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes sprightly and sometimes
insipid. His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot
much tire, because they are short, but which seldom elevates or
surprises. But from this censure ought to be excepted his Advice to
Belinda, which, though for the most part written when he was very young,
contains much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously
expressed, and shows a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry
which cultivation might have raised to excellence.
-----
[Footnote 200: Dr. Johnstone, of Kidderminster. ]
END OF VOL. VIII.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. in
Nine Volumes, by Samuel Johnson
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE POETS, VOL II ***
***** This file should be named 24218-8. txt or 24218-8. zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www. gutenberg. org/2/4/2/1/24218/
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Roger Frank and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you! ) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg. net/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1. A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1. E. 8.
1. B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1. C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1. E below.
1. C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1. D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1. E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1. E. 1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www. gutenberg. net
1. E. 2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1. E. 1
through 1. E. 7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1. E. 8 or
1. E. 9.
1. E. 3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1. E. 1 through 1. E. 7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1. E. 4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1. E. 5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1. E. 1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1. E. 6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www. gutenberg. net),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1. E. 1.
1. E. 7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1. E. 8 or 1. E. 9.
1. E. 8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. "
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1. F. 3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1. E. 9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1. F.
1. F. 1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1. F. 2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1. F. 3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1. F. 3.
