Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still
prosecuted
his
design; and, in 1678, published the third part, which still leaves the
poem imperfect and abrupt.
design; and, in 1678, published the third part, which still leaves the
poem imperfect and abrupt.
Samuel Johnson - Lives of the Poets - 1
Newton,
after him, say a garden-house, i. e. a house situated in a garden, and of
which there were, especially in the north suburbs of London, very many,
if not few else. The term is technical, and frequently occurs in the
Athen. and Fast. Oxon. The meaning thereof may be collected from the
article, Thomas Farnaby, the famous schoolmaster, of whom the author
says, that he taught in Goldsmith's rents, in Cripplegate parish, behind
Redcross street, where were large gardens and handsome houses. Milton's
house in Jewin street was also a garden-house, as were, indeed, most of
his dwellings after his settlement in London. H. ]
[Footnote 32: Johnson did not here allude to Philips's Theatrum Poetarum,
as has been ignorantly supposed, but, as he himself informed Mr. Malone,
to another work by the same author, entitled, Tractatulus de carmine
dramatico poetarum veterum praesertim in choris tragicis et veteris
comoediae. Cui subjungitur compendiosa enumeratio poetarum (saltern
quorum fama maxima enituit) qui a tempore Dantis Aligerii usque ad hanc
aetatem claruerunt, etc. J. B. ]
[Footnote 33: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew
Newcomen, William Spurstow. R. ]
[Footnote 34: It was animadverted upon, but without any mention of
Milton's name, by bishop Hall, in his Cases of Conscience, Decade 4, Case
2. J. B. ]
[Footnote 35: He terms the author of it a shallow-brained puppy; and thus
refers to it in his index: "Of a noddy who wrote a book about wiving. "
J. B. ]
[Footnote 36: This charge, as far as regards Milton, is examined by Dr.
Symons with more moderation than usually characterizes his high-sounding
and wordy panegyrics. See Life of Milton. ED. ]
[Footnote 37: The work here referred to is Selectarum de Lingua Latina
Observationum Libri duo. Ductu et cura Joannis Ker, 1719. Ker observes,
that vapulandum is pinguis solaecismus. J. B. ]
[Footnote 38: It may be doubted whether _gloriosissimus_ be here used
with Milton's boasted purity. _Res gloriosa_ is an _illustrious thing_;
but _vir gloriosus_ is _commonly_ a _braggart_, as in _miles gloriosus_.
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 39: The Cambridge dictionary, published in 4to. 1693, is
no other than a copy, with some small additions, of that of Dr. Adam
Littleton in 1686, by sundry persons, of whom though their names are
concealed, there is great reason to conjecture that Milton's nephew,
Edward Philips, is one: for it is expressly said by Wood, Fasti, vol. i.
p. 266, that Milton's Thesaurus came to his hands; and it is asserted in
the preface thereto, that the editors thereof had the use of three large
folios in manuscript, collected and digested into alphabetical order by
Mr. John Milton. It has been remarked, that the additions, together
with the preface above mentioned, and a large part of the title of
the Cambridge dictionary, have been incorporated and printed with the
subsequent editions of Littleton's dictionary, till that of 1735. Vid.
Biogr. Brit. 2985, in not. So that, for aught that appears to the
contrary, Philips was the last possessor of Milton's manuscripts. H. ]
[Footnote 40: _Id est_, to be the subject of an heroick poem, written by
sir Richard Blackmore. H. ]
[Footnote 41: Trinity college. R. ]
[Footnote 42: The dramas in which Justice, Mercy, Faith, &c. were
introduced, were moralities, not mysteries. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 43: Philips says expressly, that Milton was excepted and
disqualified from bearing any office; but Toland says he was not excepted
at all, and consequently included in the general pardon, or act of
indemnity, passed the 29th of August, 1660. Toland is right, for I find
Goodwin and Ph. Nye, the minister, excepted in the act, but Milton not
named. However, he obtained a special pardon in December, 1660, which
passed the privy seal, but not the great seal. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 44: It was told before by A. Wood in Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p.
412. second edition. ]
[Footnote 45: That Milton saved Davenant, is attested by Aubrey, and by
Wood, from him; but none of them say that Davenant saved Milton: this is
Richardson's assertion merely. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 46: A different account of the means by which Milton secured
himself, is given by an historian lately brought to light: "Milton,
Latin secretary to Cromwell, distinguished by his writings in favour of
the rights and liberties of the people, pretended to be dead, and had a
publick funeral procession. The king applauded his policy in escaping
the punishment of death, by a seasonable show of dying. " Cunningham's
History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 14. R. ]
[Footnote 47: Gildon, in his continuation of Langbaine's account of the
dramatick poets, 8vo. 1693, says, that he had been told that Milton,
after the restoration, kept a school at or near Greenwich. The
publication of an Accidence at that period gives some countenance to this
tradition. MALONE]
[Footnote 48: It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that this
relation of Voltaire's was perfectly true, as far as relates to the
existence of the play which he speaks of, namely, the Adamo of Andreini;
but it is still a question whether Milton ever saw it. J. B. ]
[Footnote 49: This opinion is, with great learning and ingenuity,
refuted in a book now very little known, an Apology or Declaration of
the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, by Dr.
George Hakewill, London, folio, 1635. The first who ventured to propagate
it in this country was Dr. Gabriel Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, a man
of a versatile temper, and the author of a book entitled, the Fall of Man,
or the Corruption of Nature proved by Natural Reason. Lond. 1616, and
1624. quarto. He was plundered in the usurpation, turned Roman catholick,
and died in obscurity. See Athen, Oxon. vol. i. p. 727. H. ]
[Footnote 50:
--Unless _an age too late_, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing.
Par. Lost. b. ix. l. 44. ]
[Footnote 51: Johnson has, in many places of
his Rambler and Idler, ridiculed the notion of a dependance of our mental
powers on the variations of atmosphere. In Boswell's life, however,
there are some recorded instances of his own subjection to this
common infirmity. We cannot refrain from denouncing, as unfeeling and
ungenerous, Johnson's sarcasms at Milton's distempered imagination, when
old age, disease, and darkness had come upon him. Dr. Symons runs into
the diametrically opposite extreme. ED. ]
[Footnote 52: "Statura fateor non sum procera: seel quae mediocri tamen
quam parvae propior sit: sed quid si parva, qua et summi saepe tum pace
tum bello viri fuere, quanquam parva cur dicitur, quae ad virtutem satis
magna est. " Defensio Secunda. ED. ]
[Footnote 53: Both these persons were living at Holloway, about the year
1734, and, at that time, possessed such a degree of health and strength,
as enabled them, on Sundays and prayer-days, to walk a mile up a steep
hill to Highgate chapel. One of them was ninety-two at the time of her
death. Their parentage was known to few, and their names were corrupted
into Melton. By the crown-office, mentioned in the two last paragraphs,
we are to understand the crown-office of the court of Chancery. H. ]
[Footnote 54: Printed in the first volume of this collection. ]
[Footnote 55: With the exception of Comus, in which, Dr. J. afterwards
says, may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise
Lost. C. ]
[Footnote 56: Here, as Warton justly observes, "Johnson has confounded
two descriptions! "
The melancholy man does not go
out while it rains, but waits, till----the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams. J. B. ]
[Footnote 57: Mr. Warton intimates, and there can be little doubt of the
truth of his conjecture, that Milton borrowed many of the images in these
two fine poems from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book published
in 1621, and, at sundry times since, abounding in learning, curious
information, and pleasantry. Mr. Warton says, that Milton appears to have
been an attentive reader thereof; and to this assertion I add, of my own
knowledge, that it was a book that Dr. Johnson frequently resorted to,
as many others have done, for amusement after the fatigue of study.
H. --Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Johnson said, was the only book
that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.
Boswell's Life, ii. 120. ]
[Footnote 58: Surely there are precedents enough for the practice,
though pessimi exempli, in Milton's favourite tragedian Euripides. ED. ]
[Footnote 59: Author of the Essay on Study. ]
[Footnote 60: Algarotti terms it, "gigantesca sublimita Miltoniana. "
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 61: But, says Dr. Warton, it has, throughout, a reference to
human life and actions. C. ]
[Footnote 62: The earl of Surrey translated two books of Virgil without
rhyme; the second and the fourth. J. B. ]
BUTLER.
Of the great author of Hudibras there is a life prefixed to the later
editions of his poem, by an unknown writer, and, therefore, of disputable
authority; and some account is incidentally given by Wood, who confesses
the uncertainty of his own narrative; more, however, than they knew
cannot now be learned, and nothing remains but to compare and copy them.
Samuel Butler was born in the parish of Strensham, in Worcestershire,
according to his biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash finds
confirmed by the register. He was christened Feb. 14.
His father's condition is variously represented: Wood mentions him as
competently wealthy; but Mr. Longneville, the son of Butler's principal
friend, says he was an honest farmer, with some small estate, who made a
shift to educate his son at the grammar school of Worcester, under Mr.
Henry Bright[63], from whose care he removed, for a short time, to
Cambridge; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college.
Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford;
but, at last, makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge, without
knowing in what hall or college; yet it can hardly be imagined that he
lived so long in either university but as belonging to one house or
another; and it is still less likely that he could have so long inhabited
a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence
uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house
and a little land, worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler's
tenement.
Wood has his information from his brother, whose narrative placed him at
Cambridge, in opposition to that of his neighbours, which sent him to
Oxford. The brother's seems the best authority, till, by confessing his
inability to tell his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he
was resolved to bestow on him an academical education; but durst not name
a college, for fear of detection.
He was, for some time, according to the author of his life, clerk to Mr.
Jefferys, of Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire, an eminent justice of
the peace. In his service he had not only leisure for study, but for
recreation: his amusements were musick and painting; and the reward of
his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated Cooper. Some pictures,
said to be his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's Croomb; but, when he
inquired for them some years afterwards, he found them destroyed, to stop
windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate.
He was afterwards admitted into the family of the countess of Kent, where
he had the use of a library; and so much recommended himself to Selden,
that he was often employed by him in literary business. Selden, as is
well known, was steward to the countess, and is supposed to have gained
much of his wealth by managing her estate.
In what character Butler was admitted into that lady's service, how long
he continued in it, and why he left it, is, like the other incidents of
his life, utterly unknown. The vicissitudes of his condition placed him
afterwards in the family of sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers.
Here he observed so much of the character of the sectaries, that he is
said to have written or begun his poem at this time; and it is likely
that such a design would be formed in a place where he saw the principles
and practices of the rebels, audacious and undisguised in the confidence
of success.
At length the king returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped
for its reward. Butler, however, was only made secretary to the earl of
Carbury, president of the principality of Wales; who conferred on him the
stewardship of Ludlow castle, when the court of the marches was revived.
In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a
good family; and lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having studied
the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his
biographer, but it was lost by bad securities.
In 1663 was published the first part, containing three cantos, of the
poem of Hudibras, which, as Prior relates, was made known at court by
the taste and influence of the earl of Dorset. When it was known, it was
necessarily admired: the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the
whole party of the royalists applauded it. Every eye watched for the
golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not
without his part in the general expectation.
In 1664 the second part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was
rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was
his whole reward. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for
"places and employments of value and credit;" but no such advantages did
he ever obtain. It is reported that the king once gave him three hundred
guineas; but of this temporary bounty I find no proof.
Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers, duke of Buckingham, when
he was chancellor of Cambridge: this is doubted by the other writer, who
yet allows the duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these
accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by
Packe, in his account of the life of Wycherley; and from some verses
which Mr. Thyer has published in the author's Remains.
"Mr. Wycherley," says Packe, "had always laid hold of an opportunity
which offered of representing to the duke of Buckingham how well Mr.
Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable
Hudibras; and that it was a reproach to the court, that a person of his
loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did.
The duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough; and,
after some time, undertook to recommend his pretensions to his majesty.
Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his
grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate
poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of
meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended
accordingly; the duke joined them; but, as the d--l would have it, the
door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated
himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too
was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his
engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready
than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better
qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to
protect them; and, from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler
never found the least effect of his promise! "
Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such
as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite; and such as it
would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who
had any claim to his gratitude.
Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his
design; and, in 1678, published the third part, which still leaves the
poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with
what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor
can it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly.
To write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. He had now arrived
at an age when he might think it proper to be in jest no longer, and,
perhaps, his health might now begin to fail.
He died in 1680; and Mr. Longueville, having unsuccessfully solicited a
subscription for his interment in Westminster Abbey, buried him, at his
own cost, in the church-yard of Covent garden[64]. Dr. Simon Patrick read
the service.
Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr.
Lowndes, of the treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of an hundred
pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of
Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden; and, I am afraid, will never be
confirmed.
About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, mayor of London,
and a friend to Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in
Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed:
M. S.
SAMUELIS BUTLERI,
Qui Strenshamiae in agro Vigorn. nat. 1612,
obijt Lond. 1680.
Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer;
Operibus ingenii, non item praemiis, foelix:
Satyrici apud nos carminis artifex egregius;
Quo simulatae religionis larvam detraxit,
Et perduellium scelera liberrime exagitavit;
Scriptorum in suo genere, primus et postremus.
Ne, cui vivo deerant fere omnia,
Deesset etiam mortuo tumulus,
Hoc tandem posito marmore, curavit
JOHANNES BARBER, Civis Londinensis, 1721.
After his death were published three small volumes of his posthumous
works; I know not by whom collected, or by what authority
ascertained[65]; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr.
Thyer, of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of these pieces can
his life be traced, or his character discovered. Some verses, in the
last collection, show him to have been among those who ridiculed the
institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were, for some
time, very numerous and very acrimonious; for what reason it is hard to
conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but
to produce facts: and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit
the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical
temerity.
In this mist of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can
only perish with his language. The mode and place of his education are
unknown; the events of his life are variously related; and all that can
be told with certainty is, that he was poor.
* * * * *
The poem of Hudibras is one of those compositions of which a nation
may justly boast; as the images which it exhibits are domestick, the
sentiments unborrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original
and peculiar. We must not, however, suffer the pride, which we assume
as the countrymen of Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, nor
appropriate those honours which others have a right to share. The poem of
Hudibras is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the
history of Don Quixote; a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may
be indebted without disgrace.
Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the incessant perusal of incredible
tales, subjected his understanding to his imagination, and familiarized
his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events, and
scenes of impossible existence; goes out, in the pride of knighthood, to
redress wrongs, and defend virgins, to rescue captive princesses, and
tumble usurpers from their thrones; attended by a squire, whose cunning,
too low for the suspicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat
his master.
The hero of Butler is a presbyterian justice, who, in the confidence of
legal authority and the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the country to
repress superstition, and correct abuses, accompanied by an independent
clerk, disputatious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, but never
conquers him.
Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote, that, however he
embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and
virtue as may preserve our esteem; wherever he is, or whatever he does,
he is made, by matchless dexterity, commonly ridiculous, but never
contemptible.
But for poor Hudibras, his poet had no tenderness; he chooses not that
any pity should be shown, or respect paid him; he gives him up at once to
laughter and contempt, without any quality that can dignify or protect
him.
In forming the character of Hudibras, and describing his person and
habiliments, the author seems to labour with a tumultuous confusion of
dissimilar ideas. He had read the history of the mock knights-errant; he
knew the notions and manners of a presbyterian magistrate, and tried to
unite the absurdities of both, however distant, in one personage. Thus he
gives him that pedantick ostentation of knowledge which has no relation
to chivalry, and loads him with martial encumbrances that can add nothing
to his civil dignity. He sends him out a "colonelling," and yet never
brings him within sight of war.
If Hudibras be considered as the representative of the presbyterians, it
is not easy to say why his weapons should be represented as ridiculous or
useless; for, whatever judgment might be passed upon their knowledge or
their arguments, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were
not to be despised. The hero, thus compounded of swaggerer and pedant, of
knight and justice, is led forth to action, with his squire Ralpho, an
independent enthusiast.
Of the contexture of events planned by the author, which is called the
action of the poem, since it is left imperfect, no judgment can he
made. It is probable, that the hero was to be led through many luckless
adventures, which would give occasion, like his attack upon the "bear
and fiddle," to expose the ridiculous rigour of the sectaries; like his
encounter with Sidrophel and Whacum, to make superstition and credulity
contemptible; or, like his recourse to the low retailer of the law,
discover the fraudulent practices of different professions.
What series of events he would have formed, or in what manner he would
have rewarded or punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. His
work must have had, as it seems, the defect which Dryden imputes to
Spenser; the action could not have been one; there could only have been
a succession of incidents, each of which might have happened without the
rest, and which could not all cooperate to any single conclusion.
The discontinuity of the action might, however, have been easily
forgiven, if there had been action enough; but, I believe, every reader
regrets the paucity of events, and complains that, in the poem of
Hudibras, as in the history of Thucydides, there is more said than done.
The scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention is tired with long
conversation.
It is, indeed, much more easy to form dialogues than to contrive
adventures. Every position makes way for an argument, and every objection
dictates an answer. When two disputants are engaged upon a complicated
and extensive question, the difficulty is not to continue, but to end
the controversy. But whether it be that we comprehend but few of the
possibilities of life, or that life itself affords little variety, every
man, who has tried, knows how much labour it will cost to form such a
combination of circumstances as shall have, at once, the grace of novelty
and credibility, and delight fancy without violence to reason.
Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging
the attention might have been added to it by quicker reciprocation, by
seasonable interruptions, by sudden questions, and by a nearer approach
to dramatick sprightliness; without which, fictitious speeches will
always tire, however sparkling with sentences, and however variegated
with allusions.
The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last,
though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when
expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
For this impatience of the present, whoever would please must make
provision. The skilful writer "irritat, mulcet," makes a due distribution
of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful
intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may
be tedious, though all the parts are praised.
If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever
leave half-read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so
many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse
a page without finding some association of images that was never found
before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is
delighted, and by a few more strained to astonishment; but astonishment
is a toilsome pleasure; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to be
diverted:
"Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, dic aliquando
Et bene, die neutrum, dic aliquando male. "
Imagination is useless without knowledge: nature gives in vain the power
of combination, unless study and observation supply materials to be
combined. Butler's treasures of knowledge appear proportioned to his
expense: whatever topick employs his mind, he shows himself qualified to
expand and illustrate it with all the accessories that books can furnish:
he is found not only to have travelled the beaten road, but the by-paths
of literature; not only to have taken general surveys, but to have
examined particulars with minute inspection.
If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of
confronting them with Butler.
But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which retired
study and native wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a book from
books may be useful, but can scarcely be great. Butler had not suffered
life to glide beside him unseen or unobserved. He had watched, with great
diligence, the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of
opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded
that great number of sententious distichs, which have passed into
conversation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of
practical knowledge.
When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of
intelligent curiosity is, how was it performed? Hudibras was not a hasty
effusion; it was not produced by a sudden tumult of imagination, or a
short paroxysm of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass of sentiments
at the call of accidental desire, or of sudden necessity, is beyond the
reach and power of the most active and comprehensive mind. I am informed
by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author's
relicks, that he could show something like Hudibras in prose. He has in
his possession the commonplace-book, in which Butler reposited, not
such events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks,
similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompted,
or meditation produced; those thoughts that were generated in his own
mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the
labour of those who write for immortality.
But human works are not easily found without a perishable part. Of the
ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppressive.
Of Hudibras, the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and
local, and, therefore, become every day less intelligible, and less
striking. What Cicero says of philosophy is true, likewise, of wit and
humour, that "time effaces the fictions of opinion, and confirms the
determinations of nature. " Such manners as depend upon standing relations
and general passions are coextended with the race of man; but those
modifications of life, and peculiarities of practice, which are the
progeny of errour and perverseness, or, at best, of some accidental
influence or transient persuasion, must perish with their parents.
Much, therefore, of that humour which transported the last century[66]
with merriment, is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the
sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of
the ancient puritans; or, if we know them, derive our information only
from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and
cannot, but by recollection and study, understand the lines in which they
are satirized. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge
of the life by contemplating the picture.
It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present
time, to image the tumult of absurdity, and clamour of contradiction,
which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and disturbed both publick
and private quiet, in that age when subordination was broken, and awe was
hissed away; when any unsettled innovator, who could hatch a half-formed
notion, produced it to the publick; when every man might become a
preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation.
The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to reside in the
parliament. What can be concluded of the lower classes of the people,
when in one of the parliaments, summoned by Cromwell, it was seriously
proposed, that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all
memory of things past should be effaced, and that the whole system of
life should commence anew?
We have never been witnesses of animosities excited by the use of minced
pies and plumporridge; nor seen with what abhorrence those, who could eat
them at all other times of the year, would shrink from them in December.
An old puritan who was alive in my childhood, being, at one of the feasts
of the church, invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him,
that if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer brewed for all times
and seasons he should accept his kindness, but would have none of his
superstitious meats or drinks.
One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance;
and he that reads Gataker upon Lots, may see how much learning and reason
one of the first scholars of his age thought necessary to prove, that it
was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hide a shilling for
the reckoning.
Astrology, however, against which so much of the satire is directed, was
not more the folly of the puritans than of others. It had, in that time,
a very extensive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in
minds, which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous
undertakings, care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious
planet; and, when the king was prisoner in Carisbrook castle, an
astrologer was consulted what hour would be found most favourable to an
escape.
What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it shamed imposture,
or reclaimed credulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can seldom
stand long against laughter. It is certain, that the credit of planetary
intelligence wore fast away; though some men of knowledge, and Dryden
among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppositions had a
great part in the distribution of good or evil, and in the government of
sublunary things.
Poetical action ought to be probable upon certain suppositions, and such
probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident.
Nothing can show more plainly the necessity of doing something, and the
difficulty of finding something to do, than that Butler was reduced to
transfer to his hero, the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable
fiction of Cervantes; very suitable, indeed, to the manners of that age
and nation, which ascribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but
so remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibrastick time, that
judgment and imagination are alike offended.
The diction of this poem is grossly familiar, and the numbers purposely
neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts, by their native
excellence, secure themselves from violation, being such as mean language
cannot express. The mode of versification has been blamed by Dryden, who
regrets that the heroick measure was not rather chosen. To the critical
sentence of Dryden, the highest reverence would be due, were not his
decisions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to
change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more.
If he intended that, when the numbers were heroick, the diction should
still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural
composition. If he preferred a general stateliness both of sound and
words, he can be only understood to wish that Butler had undertaken a
different work.
The measure is quick, sprightly, and colloquial, suitable to the
vulgarity of the words, and the levity of the sentiments. But such
numbers and such diction can gain regard, only when they are used by a
writer, whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge, entitle him
to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and
justness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets
away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification,
it will only be said, "Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. " The
meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may
justly doom them to perish together.
Nor even though another Butler should arise, would another Hudibras
obtain the same regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion between the
style and the sentiments, or between the adventitious sentiments and
the fundamental subject. It, therefore, like all bodies compounded of
heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All
disproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural, we can derive
only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a
strange thing; but, when it is no longer strange, we perceive its
deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects
itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down
his book, as the spectator turns away from a second exhibition of those
tricks, of which the only use is to show that they can be played.
* * * * *
We extract from the second volume of Aubrey's Letters, p. 263, the
following lines, entitled
_Hudibras imprinted. _
No jesuite ever took in hand,
To plant a church in barren land;
Or ever thought it worth his while
A Swede or Russe to reconcile.
For where there is not store of wealth,
Souls are not worth the chardge of health.
Spain and America had designes
To sell their gospell for their wines,
For had the Mexicans been poore,
No Spaniard twice had landed on their shore.
'Twas gold the catholick religion planted,
Which, had they wanted gold, they still had wanted. ED.
[Footnote 63: These are the words of the author of the short account of
Butler, prefixed to Hudibras, which Dr. Johnson, notwithstanding what he
says above, seems to have supposed was written by Mv. Longneville, the
father; but the contrary is to be inferred from a subsequent passage,
wherein the author laments that he had neither such an acquaintance nor
interest with Mr. Longneville, as to procure from him the golden remains
of Butler there mentioned. He was, probably, led into the mistake by
a note in the Biog. Brit. p. 1077, signifying, that the son of
this gentleman was living in 1736.
Of this friend and generous patron of Butler, Mr. William Longneville, I
find an account, written by a person who was well acquainted with him, to
this effect, viz. that he was a conveyancing lawyer, and a bencher of the
inner temple, and had raised himself from a low beginning, to very
great eminence in that profession; that he was eloquent and learned, of
spotless integrity; that he supported an aged father, who had ruined his
fortunes by extravagance, and by his industry and application, reedified
a ruined family; that he supported Butler, who, but for him, must
literally have starved; and received from him, as a recompense, the
papers called his Remains. Life of the lord-keeper Guildford, p. 289.
These have since been given to the public by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester:
and the originals are now in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Farmer, master of
Emanuel college, Cambridge. H. ]
[Footnote 64: In a note in the Biographia Britannica, p. 1075, he is
said, on the authority of the younger Mr. Longueville, to have lived for
some years in Rose street, Covent garden, and also that he died there;
the latter of these particulars is rendered highly probable, by his being
interred in the cemetery of that parish. ]
[Footnote 65: They were collected into one, and published in 12mo. 1732.
H. ]
[Footnote 66: The seventeenth. N. ]
ROCHESTER.
John Wilmot, afterwards earl of Rochester, the son of Henry, earl of
Rochester, better known by the title of lord Wilmot, so often mentioned
in Clarendon's History, was born April 10, 1647, at Ditchley, in
Oxfordshire. After a grammatical education at the school of Burford, he
entered a nobleman into Wadham college in 1659, only twelve years old;
and, in 1661, at fourteen, was, with some other persons of high rank,
made master of arts by lord Clarendon in person.
He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and, at his return,
devoted himself to the court. In 1665 he went to sea with Sandwich, and
distinguished himself at Bergen by uncommon intrepidity; and the next
summer served again on board sir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of the
engagement, having a message of reproof to send to one of his captains,
could find no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who, in an open boat,
went and returned amidst the storm of shot.
But his reputation for bravery was not lasting: he was reproached with
slinking away in street quarrels, and leaving his companions to shift, as
they could, without him; and Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, has left a
story of his refusal to fight him.
He had very early an inclination to intemperance, which he totally
subdued in his travels; but, when he became a courtier, he unhappily
addicted himself to dissolute and vitious company, by which his
principles were corrupted, and his manners depraved. He lost all sense
of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the
authority of laws, which he was resolved not to obey, sheltered his
wickedness behind infidelity.
As he excelled in that noisy and licentious merriment which wine incites,
his companions eagerly encouraged him in excess, and he willingly
indulged it; till, as he confessed to Dr. Burnet, he was for five years
together continually drunk, or so much inflamed by frequent ebriety, as
in no interval to be master of himself.
In this state he played many frolicks, which it is not for his honour
that we should remember, and which are not now distinctly known. He
often pursued low amours in mean disguises, and always acted with great
exactness and dexterity the characters which he assumed.
He once erected a stage on Tower hill, and harangued the populace as a
mountebank; and, having made physick part of his study, is said to have
practised it successfully.
He was so much in favour with king Charles, that he was made one of the
gentlemen of the bedchamber, and comptroller of Woodstock park.
Having an active and inquisitive mind, he never, except in his paroxysms
of intemperance, was wholly negligent of study: he read what is
considered as polite learning so much, that he is mentioned by Wood as
the greatest scholar of all the nobility. Sometimes he retired into the
country, and amused himself with writing libels, in which he did not
pretend to confine himself to truth.
His favourite author in French was Boileau, and in English Cowley.
Thus in a course of drunken gaiety, and gross sensuality, with intervals
of study, perhaps, yet more criminal, with an avowed contempt of all
decency and order, a total disregard of every moral, and a resolute
denial of every religious obligation, he lived worthless and useless, and
blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness, till, at
the age of one-and-thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced
himself to a state of weakness and decay.
At this time he was led to an acquaintance with Dr. Burnet, to whom he
laid open, with great freedom, the tenour of his opinions, and the
course of his life, and from whom he received such conviction of the
reasonableness of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced
a total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of those
salutary conferences is given by Burnet in a book entitled, Some Passages
of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester, which the critick ought
to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the
saint for its piety. It were an injury to the reader to offer him an
abridgment.
He died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-fourth year;
and was so worn away by a long illness, that life went out without a
struggle.
Lord Rochester was eminent for the vigour of his colloquial wit, and
remarkable for many wild pranks and sallies of extravagance. The glare of
his general character diffused itself upon his writings; the compositions
of a man whose name was heard so often, were certain of attention, and
from many readers certain of applause. This blaze of reputation is not
yet quite extinguished; and his poetry still retains some splendour
beyond that which genius has bestowed.
Wood and Burnet give us reason to believe, that much was imputed to him
which he did not write. I know not by whom the original collection was
made, or by what authority its genuineness was ascertained. The
first edition was published in the year of his death, with an air of
concealment, professing, in the titlepage, to be printed at Antwerp.
Of some of the pieces, however, there is no doubt: the Imitation of
Horace's Satire, the Verses to lord Mulgrave, Satire against Man, the
Verses upon Nothing, and, perhaps, some others, are, I believe, genuine;
and, perhaps, most of those which the late collection exhibits[67].
As he cannot be supposed to have found leisure for any course of
continued study, his pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of
resolution would produce.
His songs have no particular character; they tell, like other songs,
in smooth and easy language, of scorn and kindness, dismission and
desertion, absence and inconstancy, with the commonplaces of artificial
courtship. They are commonly smooth and easy; but have little nature, and
little sentiment.
His Imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the
reign of Charles the second began that adaptation, which has since been
very frequent, of ancient poetry to present times; and, perhaps, few will
be found where the parallelism is better preserved than in this. The
versification is, indeed, sometimes careless, but it is sometimes
vigorous and weighty.
The strongest effort of his muse is his poem upon Nothing. He is not the
first who has chosen this barren topick for the boast of his fertility.
There is a poem called Nihil in Latin, by Passerat, a poet and critick of
the sixteenth century, in France; who, in his own epitaph, expresses his
zeal for good poetry thus:
Molliter ossa quiescent
Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis.
His works are not common, and, therefore, I shall subjoin his verses.
In examining this performance, Nothing must be considered as having not
only a negative, but a kind of positive signification; as I need not fear
thieves, I have _nothing_, and _nothing_ is a very powerful protector. In
the first part of the sentence it is taken negatively; in the second it
is taken positively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it was a
question, whether he should use "a rien faire," or "a ne rien faire;"
and the first was preferred, because it gave "rien" a sense in some sort
positive. _Nothing_ can be a subject only in its positive sense, and such
a sense is given it in the first line:
_Nothing_, thou elder brother ev'n to shade.
In this line, I know not whether he does not allude to a curious book, De
Umbra, by Wowerus, which, having told the qualities of _shade_, concludes
with a poem, in which are these lines:
Jam primum terram validis circumspice claustris
Suspensam totam, decus admirabile mundi,
Terrasque, tractusque maris, camposque liquentes
Aeris, et vasti laqueata palatia coeli----
Omnibus UMBRA prior.
The positive sense is generally preserved, with great skill, through
the whole poem; though, sometimes, in a subordinate sense, the negative
_nothing_ is injudiciously mingled. Passerat confounds the two senses.
Another of his most vigorous pieces is his lampoon on sir Car Scroop,
who, in a poem called the Praise of Satire, had some lines like
these[68]:
He who can push into a midnight fray
His brave companion, and then run away,
Leaving him to be murder'd in the street,
Then put it off with some buffoon conceit;
Him, thus dishonour'd, for a wit you own,
And court him as top fiddler of the town.
This was meant of Rochester, whose "buffoon conceit" was, I suppose, a
saying often mentioned, that "every man would be a coward, if he durst;"
and drew from him those furious verses; to which Scroop made, in reply,
an epigram, ending with these lines:
Thou canst hurt no man's fame with thy ill word;
Thy pen is full as harmless as thy sword.
Of the Satire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains, when
all Boileau's part is taken away.
In all his works there is sprightliness and vigour, and every where may
be found tokens of a mind, which study might have carried to excellence.
What more can be expected from a life spent in ostentatious contempt of
regularity, and ended, before the abilities of many other men began to be
displayed[69]?
Poema Cl.
after him, say a garden-house, i. e. a house situated in a garden, and of
which there were, especially in the north suburbs of London, very many,
if not few else. The term is technical, and frequently occurs in the
Athen. and Fast. Oxon. The meaning thereof may be collected from the
article, Thomas Farnaby, the famous schoolmaster, of whom the author
says, that he taught in Goldsmith's rents, in Cripplegate parish, behind
Redcross street, where were large gardens and handsome houses. Milton's
house in Jewin street was also a garden-house, as were, indeed, most of
his dwellings after his settlement in London. H. ]
[Footnote 32: Johnson did not here allude to Philips's Theatrum Poetarum,
as has been ignorantly supposed, but, as he himself informed Mr. Malone,
to another work by the same author, entitled, Tractatulus de carmine
dramatico poetarum veterum praesertim in choris tragicis et veteris
comoediae. Cui subjungitur compendiosa enumeratio poetarum (saltern
quorum fama maxima enituit) qui a tempore Dantis Aligerii usque ad hanc
aetatem claruerunt, etc. J. B. ]
[Footnote 33: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew
Newcomen, William Spurstow. R. ]
[Footnote 34: It was animadverted upon, but without any mention of
Milton's name, by bishop Hall, in his Cases of Conscience, Decade 4, Case
2. J. B. ]
[Footnote 35: He terms the author of it a shallow-brained puppy; and thus
refers to it in his index: "Of a noddy who wrote a book about wiving. "
J. B. ]
[Footnote 36: This charge, as far as regards Milton, is examined by Dr.
Symons with more moderation than usually characterizes his high-sounding
and wordy panegyrics. See Life of Milton. ED. ]
[Footnote 37: The work here referred to is Selectarum de Lingua Latina
Observationum Libri duo. Ductu et cura Joannis Ker, 1719. Ker observes,
that vapulandum is pinguis solaecismus. J. B. ]
[Footnote 38: It may be doubted whether _gloriosissimus_ be here used
with Milton's boasted purity. _Res gloriosa_ is an _illustrious thing_;
but _vir gloriosus_ is _commonly_ a _braggart_, as in _miles gloriosus_.
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 39: The Cambridge dictionary, published in 4to. 1693, is
no other than a copy, with some small additions, of that of Dr. Adam
Littleton in 1686, by sundry persons, of whom though their names are
concealed, there is great reason to conjecture that Milton's nephew,
Edward Philips, is one: for it is expressly said by Wood, Fasti, vol. i.
p. 266, that Milton's Thesaurus came to his hands; and it is asserted in
the preface thereto, that the editors thereof had the use of three large
folios in manuscript, collected and digested into alphabetical order by
Mr. John Milton. It has been remarked, that the additions, together
with the preface above mentioned, and a large part of the title of
the Cambridge dictionary, have been incorporated and printed with the
subsequent editions of Littleton's dictionary, till that of 1735. Vid.
Biogr. Brit. 2985, in not. So that, for aught that appears to the
contrary, Philips was the last possessor of Milton's manuscripts. H. ]
[Footnote 40: _Id est_, to be the subject of an heroick poem, written by
sir Richard Blackmore. H. ]
[Footnote 41: Trinity college. R. ]
[Footnote 42: The dramas in which Justice, Mercy, Faith, &c. were
introduced, were moralities, not mysteries. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 43: Philips says expressly, that Milton was excepted and
disqualified from bearing any office; but Toland says he was not excepted
at all, and consequently included in the general pardon, or act of
indemnity, passed the 29th of August, 1660. Toland is right, for I find
Goodwin and Ph. Nye, the minister, excepted in the act, but Milton not
named. However, he obtained a special pardon in December, 1660, which
passed the privy seal, but not the great seal. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 44: It was told before by A. Wood in Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p.
412. second edition. ]
[Footnote 45: That Milton saved Davenant, is attested by Aubrey, and by
Wood, from him; but none of them say that Davenant saved Milton: this is
Richardson's assertion merely. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 46: A different account of the means by which Milton secured
himself, is given by an historian lately brought to light: "Milton,
Latin secretary to Cromwell, distinguished by his writings in favour of
the rights and liberties of the people, pretended to be dead, and had a
publick funeral procession. The king applauded his policy in escaping
the punishment of death, by a seasonable show of dying. " Cunningham's
History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 14. R. ]
[Footnote 47: Gildon, in his continuation of Langbaine's account of the
dramatick poets, 8vo. 1693, says, that he had been told that Milton,
after the restoration, kept a school at or near Greenwich. The
publication of an Accidence at that period gives some countenance to this
tradition. MALONE]
[Footnote 48: It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that this
relation of Voltaire's was perfectly true, as far as relates to the
existence of the play which he speaks of, namely, the Adamo of Andreini;
but it is still a question whether Milton ever saw it. J. B. ]
[Footnote 49: This opinion is, with great learning and ingenuity,
refuted in a book now very little known, an Apology or Declaration of
the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, by Dr.
George Hakewill, London, folio, 1635. The first who ventured to propagate
it in this country was Dr. Gabriel Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, a man
of a versatile temper, and the author of a book entitled, the Fall of Man,
or the Corruption of Nature proved by Natural Reason. Lond. 1616, and
1624. quarto. He was plundered in the usurpation, turned Roman catholick,
and died in obscurity. See Athen, Oxon. vol. i. p. 727. H. ]
[Footnote 50:
--Unless _an age too late_, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing.
Par. Lost. b. ix. l. 44. ]
[Footnote 51: Johnson has, in many places of
his Rambler and Idler, ridiculed the notion of a dependance of our mental
powers on the variations of atmosphere. In Boswell's life, however,
there are some recorded instances of his own subjection to this
common infirmity. We cannot refrain from denouncing, as unfeeling and
ungenerous, Johnson's sarcasms at Milton's distempered imagination, when
old age, disease, and darkness had come upon him. Dr. Symons runs into
the diametrically opposite extreme. ED. ]
[Footnote 52: "Statura fateor non sum procera: seel quae mediocri tamen
quam parvae propior sit: sed quid si parva, qua et summi saepe tum pace
tum bello viri fuere, quanquam parva cur dicitur, quae ad virtutem satis
magna est. " Defensio Secunda. ED. ]
[Footnote 53: Both these persons were living at Holloway, about the year
1734, and, at that time, possessed such a degree of health and strength,
as enabled them, on Sundays and prayer-days, to walk a mile up a steep
hill to Highgate chapel. One of them was ninety-two at the time of her
death. Their parentage was known to few, and their names were corrupted
into Melton. By the crown-office, mentioned in the two last paragraphs,
we are to understand the crown-office of the court of Chancery. H. ]
[Footnote 54: Printed in the first volume of this collection. ]
[Footnote 55: With the exception of Comus, in which, Dr. J. afterwards
says, may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise
Lost. C. ]
[Footnote 56: Here, as Warton justly observes, "Johnson has confounded
two descriptions! "
The melancholy man does not go
out while it rains, but waits, till----the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams. J. B. ]
[Footnote 57: Mr. Warton intimates, and there can be little doubt of the
truth of his conjecture, that Milton borrowed many of the images in these
two fine poems from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book published
in 1621, and, at sundry times since, abounding in learning, curious
information, and pleasantry. Mr. Warton says, that Milton appears to have
been an attentive reader thereof; and to this assertion I add, of my own
knowledge, that it was a book that Dr. Johnson frequently resorted to,
as many others have done, for amusement after the fatigue of study.
H. --Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Johnson said, was the only book
that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.
Boswell's Life, ii. 120. ]
[Footnote 58: Surely there are precedents enough for the practice,
though pessimi exempli, in Milton's favourite tragedian Euripides. ED. ]
[Footnote 59: Author of the Essay on Study. ]
[Footnote 60: Algarotti terms it, "gigantesca sublimita Miltoniana. "
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 61: But, says Dr. Warton, it has, throughout, a reference to
human life and actions. C. ]
[Footnote 62: The earl of Surrey translated two books of Virgil without
rhyme; the second and the fourth. J. B. ]
BUTLER.
Of the great author of Hudibras there is a life prefixed to the later
editions of his poem, by an unknown writer, and, therefore, of disputable
authority; and some account is incidentally given by Wood, who confesses
the uncertainty of his own narrative; more, however, than they knew
cannot now be learned, and nothing remains but to compare and copy them.
Samuel Butler was born in the parish of Strensham, in Worcestershire,
according to his biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash finds
confirmed by the register. He was christened Feb. 14.
His father's condition is variously represented: Wood mentions him as
competently wealthy; but Mr. Longneville, the son of Butler's principal
friend, says he was an honest farmer, with some small estate, who made a
shift to educate his son at the grammar school of Worcester, under Mr.
Henry Bright[63], from whose care he removed, for a short time, to
Cambridge; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college.
Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford;
but, at last, makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge, without
knowing in what hall or college; yet it can hardly be imagined that he
lived so long in either university but as belonging to one house or
another; and it is still less likely that he could have so long inhabited
a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence
uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house
and a little land, worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler's
tenement.
Wood has his information from his brother, whose narrative placed him at
Cambridge, in opposition to that of his neighbours, which sent him to
Oxford. The brother's seems the best authority, till, by confessing his
inability to tell his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he
was resolved to bestow on him an academical education; but durst not name
a college, for fear of detection.
He was, for some time, according to the author of his life, clerk to Mr.
Jefferys, of Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire, an eminent justice of
the peace. In his service he had not only leisure for study, but for
recreation: his amusements were musick and painting; and the reward of
his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated Cooper. Some pictures,
said to be his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's Croomb; but, when he
inquired for them some years afterwards, he found them destroyed, to stop
windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate.
He was afterwards admitted into the family of the countess of Kent, where
he had the use of a library; and so much recommended himself to Selden,
that he was often employed by him in literary business. Selden, as is
well known, was steward to the countess, and is supposed to have gained
much of his wealth by managing her estate.
In what character Butler was admitted into that lady's service, how long
he continued in it, and why he left it, is, like the other incidents of
his life, utterly unknown. The vicissitudes of his condition placed him
afterwards in the family of sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers.
Here he observed so much of the character of the sectaries, that he is
said to have written or begun his poem at this time; and it is likely
that such a design would be formed in a place where he saw the principles
and practices of the rebels, audacious and undisguised in the confidence
of success.
At length the king returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped
for its reward. Butler, however, was only made secretary to the earl of
Carbury, president of the principality of Wales; who conferred on him the
stewardship of Ludlow castle, when the court of the marches was revived.
In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a
good family; and lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having studied
the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his
biographer, but it was lost by bad securities.
In 1663 was published the first part, containing three cantos, of the
poem of Hudibras, which, as Prior relates, was made known at court by
the taste and influence of the earl of Dorset. When it was known, it was
necessarily admired: the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the
whole party of the royalists applauded it. Every eye watched for the
golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not
without his part in the general expectation.
In 1664 the second part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was
rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was
his whole reward. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for
"places and employments of value and credit;" but no such advantages did
he ever obtain. It is reported that the king once gave him three hundred
guineas; but of this temporary bounty I find no proof.
Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers, duke of Buckingham, when
he was chancellor of Cambridge: this is doubted by the other writer, who
yet allows the duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these
accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by
Packe, in his account of the life of Wycherley; and from some verses
which Mr. Thyer has published in the author's Remains.
"Mr. Wycherley," says Packe, "had always laid hold of an opportunity
which offered of representing to the duke of Buckingham how well Mr.
Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable
Hudibras; and that it was a reproach to the court, that a person of his
loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did.
The duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough; and,
after some time, undertook to recommend his pretensions to his majesty.
Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his
grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate
poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of
meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended
accordingly; the duke joined them; but, as the d--l would have it, the
door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated
himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too
was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his
engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready
than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better
qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to
protect them; and, from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler
never found the least effect of his promise! "
Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such
as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite; and such as it
would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who
had any claim to his gratitude.
Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his
design; and, in 1678, published the third part, which still leaves the
poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with
what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor
can it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly.
To write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. He had now arrived
at an age when he might think it proper to be in jest no longer, and,
perhaps, his health might now begin to fail.
He died in 1680; and Mr. Longueville, having unsuccessfully solicited a
subscription for his interment in Westminster Abbey, buried him, at his
own cost, in the church-yard of Covent garden[64]. Dr. Simon Patrick read
the service.
Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr.
Lowndes, of the treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of an hundred
pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of
Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden; and, I am afraid, will never be
confirmed.
About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, mayor of London,
and a friend to Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in
Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed:
M. S.
SAMUELIS BUTLERI,
Qui Strenshamiae in agro Vigorn. nat. 1612,
obijt Lond. 1680.
Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer;
Operibus ingenii, non item praemiis, foelix:
Satyrici apud nos carminis artifex egregius;
Quo simulatae religionis larvam detraxit,
Et perduellium scelera liberrime exagitavit;
Scriptorum in suo genere, primus et postremus.
Ne, cui vivo deerant fere omnia,
Deesset etiam mortuo tumulus,
Hoc tandem posito marmore, curavit
JOHANNES BARBER, Civis Londinensis, 1721.
After his death were published three small volumes of his posthumous
works; I know not by whom collected, or by what authority
ascertained[65]; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr.
Thyer, of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of these pieces can
his life be traced, or his character discovered. Some verses, in the
last collection, show him to have been among those who ridiculed the
institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were, for some
time, very numerous and very acrimonious; for what reason it is hard to
conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but
to produce facts: and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit
the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical
temerity.
In this mist of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can
only perish with his language. The mode and place of his education are
unknown; the events of his life are variously related; and all that can
be told with certainty is, that he was poor.
* * * * *
The poem of Hudibras is one of those compositions of which a nation
may justly boast; as the images which it exhibits are domestick, the
sentiments unborrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original
and peculiar. We must not, however, suffer the pride, which we assume
as the countrymen of Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, nor
appropriate those honours which others have a right to share. The poem of
Hudibras is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the
history of Don Quixote; a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may
be indebted without disgrace.
Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the incessant perusal of incredible
tales, subjected his understanding to his imagination, and familiarized
his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events, and
scenes of impossible existence; goes out, in the pride of knighthood, to
redress wrongs, and defend virgins, to rescue captive princesses, and
tumble usurpers from their thrones; attended by a squire, whose cunning,
too low for the suspicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat
his master.
The hero of Butler is a presbyterian justice, who, in the confidence of
legal authority and the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the country to
repress superstition, and correct abuses, accompanied by an independent
clerk, disputatious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, but never
conquers him.
Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote, that, however he
embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and
virtue as may preserve our esteem; wherever he is, or whatever he does,
he is made, by matchless dexterity, commonly ridiculous, but never
contemptible.
But for poor Hudibras, his poet had no tenderness; he chooses not that
any pity should be shown, or respect paid him; he gives him up at once to
laughter and contempt, without any quality that can dignify or protect
him.
In forming the character of Hudibras, and describing his person and
habiliments, the author seems to labour with a tumultuous confusion of
dissimilar ideas. He had read the history of the mock knights-errant; he
knew the notions and manners of a presbyterian magistrate, and tried to
unite the absurdities of both, however distant, in one personage. Thus he
gives him that pedantick ostentation of knowledge which has no relation
to chivalry, and loads him with martial encumbrances that can add nothing
to his civil dignity. He sends him out a "colonelling," and yet never
brings him within sight of war.
If Hudibras be considered as the representative of the presbyterians, it
is not easy to say why his weapons should be represented as ridiculous or
useless; for, whatever judgment might be passed upon their knowledge or
their arguments, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were
not to be despised. The hero, thus compounded of swaggerer and pedant, of
knight and justice, is led forth to action, with his squire Ralpho, an
independent enthusiast.
Of the contexture of events planned by the author, which is called the
action of the poem, since it is left imperfect, no judgment can he
made. It is probable, that the hero was to be led through many luckless
adventures, which would give occasion, like his attack upon the "bear
and fiddle," to expose the ridiculous rigour of the sectaries; like his
encounter with Sidrophel and Whacum, to make superstition and credulity
contemptible; or, like his recourse to the low retailer of the law,
discover the fraudulent practices of different professions.
What series of events he would have formed, or in what manner he would
have rewarded or punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. His
work must have had, as it seems, the defect which Dryden imputes to
Spenser; the action could not have been one; there could only have been
a succession of incidents, each of which might have happened without the
rest, and which could not all cooperate to any single conclusion.
The discontinuity of the action might, however, have been easily
forgiven, if there had been action enough; but, I believe, every reader
regrets the paucity of events, and complains that, in the poem of
Hudibras, as in the history of Thucydides, there is more said than done.
The scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention is tired with long
conversation.
It is, indeed, much more easy to form dialogues than to contrive
adventures. Every position makes way for an argument, and every objection
dictates an answer. When two disputants are engaged upon a complicated
and extensive question, the difficulty is not to continue, but to end
the controversy. But whether it be that we comprehend but few of the
possibilities of life, or that life itself affords little variety, every
man, who has tried, knows how much labour it will cost to form such a
combination of circumstances as shall have, at once, the grace of novelty
and credibility, and delight fancy without violence to reason.
Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging
the attention might have been added to it by quicker reciprocation, by
seasonable interruptions, by sudden questions, and by a nearer approach
to dramatick sprightliness; without which, fictitious speeches will
always tire, however sparkling with sentences, and however variegated
with allusions.
The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last,
though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when
expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
For this impatience of the present, whoever would please must make
provision. The skilful writer "irritat, mulcet," makes a due distribution
of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful
intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may
be tedious, though all the parts are praised.
If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever
leave half-read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so
many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse
a page without finding some association of images that was never found
before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is
delighted, and by a few more strained to astonishment; but astonishment
is a toilsome pleasure; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to be
diverted:
"Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, dic aliquando
Et bene, die neutrum, dic aliquando male. "
Imagination is useless without knowledge: nature gives in vain the power
of combination, unless study and observation supply materials to be
combined. Butler's treasures of knowledge appear proportioned to his
expense: whatever topick employs his mind, he shows himself qualified to
expand and illustrate it with all the accessories that books can furnish:
he is found not only to have travelled the beaten road, but the by-paths
of literature; not only to have taken general surveys, but to have
examined particulars with minute inspection.
If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of
confronting them with Butler.
But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which retired
study and native wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a book from
books may be useful, but can scarcely be great. Butler had not suffered
life to glide beside him unseen or unobserved. He had watched, with great
diligence, the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of
opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded
that great number of sententious distichs, which have passed into
conversation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of
practical knowledge.
When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of
intelligent curiosity is, how was it performed? Hudibras was not a hasty
effusion; it was not produced by a sudden tumult of imagination, or a
short paroxysm of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass of sentiments
at the call of accidental desire, or of sudden necessity, is beyond the
reach and power of the most active and comprehensive mind. I am informed
by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author's
relicks, that he could show something like Hudibras in prose. He has in
his possession the commonplace-book, in which Butler reposited, not
such events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks,
similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompted,
or meditation produced; those thoughts that were generated in his own
mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the
labour of those who write for immortality.
But human works are not easily found without a perishable part. Of the
ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppressive.
Of Hudibras, the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and
local, and, therefore, become every day less intelligible, and less
striking. What Cicero says of philosophy is true, likewise, of wit and
humour, that "time effaces the fictions of opinion, and confirms the
determinations of nature. " Such manners as depend upon standing relations
and general passions are coextended with the race of man; but those
modifications of life, and peculiarities of practice, which are the
progeny of errour and perverseness, or, at best, of some accidental
influence or transient persuasion, must perish with their parents.
Much, therefore, of that humour which transported the last century[66]
with merriment, is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the
sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of
the ancient puritans; or, if we know them, derive our information only
from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and
cannot, but by recollection and study, understand the lines in which they
are satirized. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge
of the life by contemplating the picture.
It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present
time, to image the tumult of absurdity, and clamour of contradiction,
which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and disturbed both publick
and private quiet, in that age when subordination was broken, and awe was
hissed away; when any unsettled innovator, who could hatch a half-formed
notion, produced it to the publick; when every man might become a
preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation.
The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to reside in the
parliament. What can be concluded of the lower classes of the people,
when in one of the parliaments, summoned by Cromwell, it was seriously
proposed, that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all
memory of things past should be effaced, and that the whole system of
life should commence anew?
We have never been witnesses of animosities excited by the use of minced
pies and plumporridge; nor seen with what abhorrence those, who could eat
them at all other times of the year, would shrink from them in December.
An old puritan who was alive in my childhood, being, at one of the feasts
of the church, invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him,
that if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer brewed for all times
and seasons he should accept his kindness, but would have none of his
superstitious meats or drinks.
One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance;
and he that reads Gataker upon Lots, may see how much learning and reason
one of the first scholars of his age thought necessary to prove, that it
was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hide a shilling for
the reckoning.
Astrology, however, against which so much of the satire is directed, was
not more the folly of the puritans than of others. It had, in that time,
a very extensive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in
minds, which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous
undertakings, care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious
planet; and, when the king was prisoner in Carisbrook castle, an
astrologer was consulted what hour would be found most favourable to an
escape.
What effect this poem had upon the publick, whether it shamed imposture,
or reclaimed credulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can seldom
stand long against laughter. It is certain, that the credit of planetary
intelligence wore fast away; though some men of knowledge, and Dryden
among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppositions had a
great part in the distribution of good or evil, and in the government of
sublunary things.
Poetical action ought to be probable upon certain suppositions, and such
probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident.
Nothing can show more plainly the necessity of doing something, and the
difficulty of finding something to do, than that Butler was reduced to
transfer to his hero, the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable
fiction of Cervantes; very suitable, indeed, to the manners of that age
and nation, which ascribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but
so remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibrastick time, that
judgment and imagination are alike offended.
The diction of this poem is grossly familiar, and the numbers purposely
neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts, by their native
excellence, secure themselves from violation, being such as mean language
cannot express. The mode of versification has been blamed by Dryden, who
regrets that the heroick measure was not rather chosen. To the critical
sentence of Dryden, the highest reverence would be due, were not his
decisions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he wished to
change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more.
If he intended that, when the numbers were heroick, the diction should
still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural
composition. If he preferred a general stateliness both of sound and
words, he can be only understood to wish that Butler had undertaken a
different work.
The measure is quick, sprightly, and colloquial, suitable to the
vulgarity of the words, and the levity of the sentiments. But such
numbers and such diction can gain regard, only when they are used by a
writer, whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge, entitle him
to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and
justness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets
away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification,
it will only be said, "Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. " The
meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may
justly doom them to perish together.
Nor even though another Butler should arise, would another Hudibras
obtain the same regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion between the
style and the sentiments, or between the adventitious sentiments and
the fundamental subject. It, therefore, like all bodies compounded of
heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All
disproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural, we can derive
only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a
strange thing; but, when it is no longer strange, we perceive its
deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects
itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down
his book, as the spectator turns away from a second exhibition of those
tricks, of which the only use is to show that they can be played.
* * * * *
We extract from the second volume of Aubrey's Letters, p. 263, the
following lines, entitled
_Hudibras imprinted. _
No jesuite ever took in hand,
To plant a church in barren land;
Or ever thought it worth his while
A Swede or Russe to reconcile.
For where there is not store of wealth,
Souls are not worth the chardge of health.
Spain and America had designes
To sell their gospell for their wines,
For had the Mexicans been poore,
No Spaniard twice had landed on their shore.
'Twas gold the catholick religion planted,
Which, had they wanted gold, they still had wanted. ED.
[Footnote 63: These are the words of the author of the short account of
Butler, prefixed to Hudibras, which Dr. Johnson, notwithstanding what he
says above, seems to have supposed was written by Mv. Longneville, the
father; but the contrary is to be inferred from a subsequent passage,
wherein the author laments that he had neither such an acquaintance nor
interest with Mr. Longneville, as to procure from him the golden remains
of Butler there mentioned. He was, probably, led into the mistake by
a note in the Biog. Brit. p. 1077, signifying, that the son of
this gentleman was living in 1736.
Of this friend and generous patron of Butler, Mr. William Longneville, I
find an account, written by a person who was well acquainted with him, to
this effect, viz. that he was a conveyancing lawyer, and a bencher of the
inner temple, and had raised himself from a low beginning, to very
great eminence in that profession; that he was eloquent and learned, of
spotless integrity; that he supported an aged father, who had ruined his
fortunes by extravagance, and by his industry and application, reedified
a ruined family; that he supported Butler, who, but for him, must
literally have starved; and received from him, as a recompense, the
papers called his Remains. Life of the lord-keeper Guildford, p. 289.
These have since been given to the public by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester:
and the originals are now in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Farmer, master of
Emanuel college, Cambridge. H. ]
[Footnote 64: In a note in the Biographia Britannica, p. 1075, he is
said, on the authority of the younger Mr. Longueville, to have lived for
some years in Rose street, Covent garden, and also that he died there;
the latter of these particulars is rendered highly probable, by his being
interred in the cemetery of that parish. ]
[Footnote 65: They were collected into one, and published in 12mo. 1732.
H. ]
[Footnote 66: The seventeenth. N. ]
ROCHESTER.
John Wilmot, afterwards earl of Rochester, the son of Henry, earl of
Rochester, better known by the title of lord Wilmot, so often mentioned
in Clarendon's History, was born April 10, 1647, at Ditchley, in
Oxfordshire. After a grammatical education at the school of Burford, he
entered a nobleman into Wadham college in 1659, only twelve years old;
and, in 1661, at fourteen, was, with some other persons of high rank,
made master of arts by lord Clarendon in person.
He travelled afterwards into France and Italy; and, at his return,
devoted himself to the court. In 1665 he went to sea with Sandwich, and
distinguished himself at Bergen by uncommon intrepidity; and the next
summer served again on board sir Edward Spragge, who, in the heat of the
engagement, having a message of reproof to send to one of his captains,
could find no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who, in an open boat,
went and returned amidst the storm of shot.
But his reputation for bravery was not lasting: he was reproached with
slinking away in street quarrels, and leaving his companions to shift, as
they could, without him; and Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, has left a
story of his refusal to fight him.
He had very early an inclination to intemperance, which he totally
subdued in his travels; but, when he became a courtier, he unhappily
addicted himself to dissolute and vitious company, by which his
principles were corrupted, and his manners depraved. He lost all sense
of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the
authority of laws, which he was resolved not to obey, sheltered his
wickedness behind infidelity.
As he excelled in that noisy and licentious merriment which wine incites,
his companions eagerly encouraged him in excess, and he willingly
indulged it; till, as he confessed to Dr. Burnet, he was for five years
together continually drunk, or so much inflamed by frequent ebriety, as
in no interval to be master of himself.
In this state he played many frolicks, which it is not for his honour
that we should remember, and which are not now distinctly known. He
often pursued low amours in mean disguises, and always acted with great
exactness and dexterity the characters which he assumed.
He once erected a stage on Tower hill, and harangued the populace as a
mountebank; and, having made physick part of his study, is said to have
practised it successfully.
He was so much in favour with king Charles, that he was made one of the
gentlemen of the bedchamber, and comptroller of Woodstock park.
Having an active and inquisitive mind, he never, except in his paroxysms
of intemperance, was wholly negligent of study: he read what is
considered as polite learning so much, that he is mentioned by Wood as
the greatest scholar of all the nobility. Sometimes he retired into the
country, and amused himself with writing libels, in which he did not
pretend to confine himself to truth.
His favourite author in French was Boileau, and in English Cowley.
Thus in a course of drunken gaiety, and gross sensuality, with intervals
of study, perhaps, yet more criminal, with an avowed contempt of all
decency and order, a total disregard of every moral, and a resolute
denial of every religious obligation, he lived worthless and useless, and
blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness, till, at
the age of one-and-thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced
himself to a state of weakness and decay.
At this time he was led to an acquaintance with Dr. Burnet, to whom he
laid open, with great freedom, the tenour of his opinions, and the
course of his life, and from whom he received such conviction of the
reasonableness of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced
a total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of those
salutary conferences is given by Burnet in a book entitled, Some Passages
of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester, which the critick ought
to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the
saint for its piety. It were an injury to the reader to offer him an
abridgment.
He died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-fourth year;
and was so worn away by a long illness, that life went out without a
struggle.
Lord Rochester was eminent for the vigour of his colloquial wit, and
remarkable for many wild pranks and sallies of extravagance. The glare of
his general character diffused itself upon his writings; the compositions
of a man whose name was heard so often, were certain of attention, and
from many readers certain of applause. This blaze of reputation is not
yet quite extinguished; and his poetry still retains some splendour
beyond that which genius has bestowed.
Wood and Burnet give us reason to believe, that much was imputed to him
which he did not write. I know not by whom the original collection was
made, or by what authority its genuineness was ascertained. The
first edition was published in the year of his death, with an air of
concealment, professing, in the titlepage, to be printed at Antwerp.
Of some of the pieces, however, there is no doubt: the Imitation of
Horace's Satire, the Verses to lord Mulgrave, Satire against Man, the
Verses upon Nothing, and, perhaps, some others, are, I believe, genuine;
and, perhaps, most of those which the late collection exhibits[67].
As he cannot be supposed to have found leisure for any course of
continued study, his pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of
resolution would produce.
His songs have no particular character; they tell, like other songs,
in smooth and easy language, of scorn and kindness, dismission and
desertion, absence and inconstancy, with the commonplaces of artificial
courtship. They are commonly smooth and easy; but have little nature, and
little sentiment.
His Imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the
reign of Charles the second began that adaptation, which has since been
very frequent, of ancient poetry to present times; and, perhaps, few will
be found where the parallelism is better preserved than in this. The
versification is, indeed, sometimes careless, but it is sometimes
vigorous and weighty.
The strongest effort of his muse is his poem upon Nothing. He is not the
first who has chosen this barren topick for the boast of his fertility.
There is a poem called Nihil in Latin, by Passerat, a poet and critick of
the sixteenth century, in France; who, in his own epitaph, expresses his
zeal for good poetry thus:
Molliter ossa quiescent
Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis.
His works are not common, and, therefore, I shall subjoin his verses.
In examining this performance, Nothing must be considered as having not
only a negative, but a kind of positive signification; as I need not fear
thieves, I have _nothing_, and _nothing_ is a very powerful protector. In
the first part of the sentence it is taken negatively; in the second it
is taken positively, as an agent. In one of Boileau's lines it was a
question, whether he should use "a rien faire," or "a ne rien faire;"
and the first was preferred, because it gave "rien" a sense in some sort
positive. _Nothing_ can be a subject only in its positive sense, and such
a sense is given it in the first line:
_Nothing_, thou elder brother ev'n to shade.
In this line, I know not whether he does not allude to a curious book, De
Umbra, by Wowerus, which, having told the qualities of _shade_, concludes
with a poem, in which are these lines:
Jam primum terram validis circumspice claustris
Suspensam totam, decus admirabile mundi,
Terrasque, tractusque maris, camposque liquentes
Aeris, et vasti laqueata palatia coeli----
Omnibus UMBRA prior.
The positive sense is generally preserved, with great skill, through
the whole poem; though, sometimes, in a subordinate sense, the negative
_nothing_ is injudiciously mingled. Passerat confounds the two senses.
Another of his most vigorous pieces is his lampoon on sir Car Scroop,
who, in a poem called the Praise of Satire, had some lines like
these[68]:
He who can push into a midnight fray
His brave companion, and then run away,
Leaving him to be murder'd in the street,
Then put it off with some buffoon conceit;
Him, thus dishonour'd, for a wit you own,
And court him as top fiddler of the town.
This was meant of Rochester, whose "buffoon conceit" was, I suppose, a
saying often mentioned, that "every man would be a coward, if he durst;"
and drew from him those furious verses; to which Scroop made, in reply,
an epigram, ending with these lines:
Thou canst hurt no man's fame with thy ill word;
Thy pen is full as harmless as thy sword.
Of the Satire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains, when
all Boileau's part is taken away.
In all his works there is sprightliness and vigour, and every where may
be found tokens of a mind, which study might have carried to excellence.
What more can be expected from a life spent in ostentatious contempt of
regularity, and ended, before the abilities of many other men began to be
displayed[69]?
Poema Cl.
