His
favourite
author in French was Boileau, and in English Cowley.
Samuel Johnson - Lives of the Poets - 1
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. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII,
Regii in Academia Parisiensi Professoris.
Ad ornatissimum virum ERRICUM MEMMIUM.
Janus adest, festae poscunt sua dona kalendae,
Munus abest festis quod possim offerre kalendis:
Siccine Castalius nobis exaruit humor?
Usque adeo ingenii nostri est exhausta facultas,
Immunem ut videat redeuntis janitor anni?
Quod nusquam est, potius nova per vestigia quaeram.
Ecce autem, partes dum sese versat in omnes,
Invenit mea musa NIHIL; ne despice munus:
Nam NIHIL est gemmis, NIHIL est pretiosius auro.
Hue animum, hue, igitur, vultus adverte benignos:
Res nova narratur quae nulli audita priorum;
Ausonii et Graii dixerunt caetera vates,
Ausoniae indictum NIHIL est, graecaeque, Camoenae,
E coelo quacunque Ceres sua prospicit arva,
Aut genitor liquidis orbem complectitur ulnis
Oceanus, NIHIL interitus et originis expers.
Immortale NIHIL, NIHIL omni parte beatum.
Quod si hinc majestas et vis divina probatur,
Num quid honore deum, num quid dignabimur aris?
Conspectu lucis NIHIL est jucundius almae,
Vere NIHIL, NIHIL irriguo formosius horto,
Floridius pratis, Zephyri clementius aura;
In bello sanctum NIHIL est, Martisque tumultu:
Justum in pace NIHIL, NIHIL est in foedere tutum.
Felix cui NIHIL est, (fuerant haec vota Tibullo)
Non timet insidias; fures, incendia temnit;
Sollicitas sequitur nullo sub judice lites.
Ille ipse invictis qui subjicit omnia fatis,
Zenonis sapiens, NIHIL admiratur et optat.
Socraticique gregis fuit ista scientia quondam,
Scire NIHIL, studio cui nunc incumbitur uni.
Nec quicquam in ludo mavult didicisse juventus,
Ad magnas quia ducit opes, et culmen honorum.
Nosce NIHIL, nosces fertur quod Pythagoreae
Grano haerere fabae, cui vox adjuncta negantis.
Multi, Mercurio freti duce, viscera terrae
Pura liquefaciunt simul, et patrimonia miscent,
Arcano instantes operi, et carbonibus atris,
Qui tandem exhausti damnis, fractique labore,
Inveniunt, atque inventum NIHIL usque requirunt.
Hoc dimetiri non ulla decempeda possit:
Nec numeret Libycae numerum qui callet arenae.
Et Phoebo ignotum NIHIL est, NIHIL altius astris:
Tuque, tibi licet eximium sit mentis acumen,
Omnem in naturam penetrans, et in abdita rerum,
Pace tua, Memmi, NIHIL ignorare videris.
Sole tamen NIHIL est, et puro clarius igne.
Tange NIHIL, dicesque NIHIL sine corpore tangi.
Cerne NIHIL, cerni dices NIHIL absque colore.
Surdum audit loquiturque NIHIL sine voce, volatque
Absque ope pennarum, et graditur sine cruribus ullis.
Absque loco motuque NIHIL per inane vagatur.
Humano generi utilius NIHIL arte medendi;
Ne rhombos igitur, neu Thessala murmura tentet
Idalia vacuum trajectus arundine pectus,
Neu legat Idaeo Dictaeum in vertice gramen.
Vulneribus saevi NIHIL auxiliatur amoris.
Vexerit et quemvis trans moestas portitor undas,
Ad superos imo NIHIL hunc revocabit ab orco.
Inferni NIHIL inflectit praecordia regis,
Parcarumque colos, et inexorabile pensum.
Obruta Phlegraeis campis Titania pubes
Fulmineo sensit NIHIL esse potentius ictu.
Porrigitur magni NIHIL extra moenia mundi.
Diique NIHIL metuunt. Quid longo carmine plura
Commemorem? Virtute NIHIL praestantius ipsa,
Splendidius NIHIL est. NIHIL est Jove denique majus.
Sed tempus finem argutis imponere nugis:
Ne tibi si multa laudem mea carmina charta,
De NIHILO NIHILI pariant fastidia versus.
[Footnote 67: Dr. Johnson has made no mention of Valentinian, altered
from Beaumont and Fletcher, which was published after his death by a
friend, who describes him in the preface, not only as being one of the
greatest geniuses, but one of the most virtuous men that ever existed.
J. B. ]
[Footnote 68: I quote from memory. Dr. J. ] [Footnote 69: The late George
Steevens, esq. made the selection of Rochester's poems which appears in
Dr. Johnson's edition; but Mr. Malone observes, that the same task had
been performed, in the early part of the last century, by Jacob Tonson.
C. ]
ROSCOMMON
Wentworth Dillon, earl of Roscommon, was the son of James Dillon and
Elizabeth Wentworth, sister to the earl of Strafford. He was born in
Ireland[70], during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who, being both his
uncle and his godfather, gave him his own surname. His father, the
third earl of Roscommon, had been converted by Usher to the protestant
religion[71]; and when the popish rebellion broke out, Strafford,
thinking the family in great danger from the fury of the Irish, sent for
his godson, and placed him at his own seat in Yorkshire, where he was
instructed in Latin; which he learned so as to write it with purity and
elegance, though he was never able to retain the rules of grammar.
Such is the account given by Mr. Fenton, from whose notes on Waller most
of this account must be borrowed, though I know not whether all that he
relates is certain. The instructer whom he assigns to Roscommon is one
Dr. Hall, by whom he cannot mean the famous Hall, then an old man and a
bishop.
When the storm broke out upon Strafford, his house was a shelter no
longer; and Dillon, by the advice of Usher, was sent to Caen, where the
protestants had then an university, and continued his studies under
Bochart.
Young Dillon, who was sent to study under Bochart, and who is represented
as having already made great proficiency in literature, could not be more
than nine years old. Strafford went to govern Ireland in 1633, and
was put to death eight years afterwards. That he was sent to Caen, is
certain: that he was a great scholar, may be doubted. At Caen he is said
to have had some preternatural intelligence of his father's death.
"The lord Roscommon, being a boy of ten years of age, at Caen in
Normandy, one day was, as it were, madly extravagant in playing, leaping,
getting over the tables, boards, &c. He was wont to be sober enough;
they said, God grant this bodes no ill luck to him! In the heat of this
extravagant fit, he cries out, 'My father is dead. ' A fortnight after,
news came from Ireland that his father was dead. This account I had from
Mr. Knolles, who was his governour, and then with him,--since secretary
to the earl of Strafford; and I have heard his lordship's relations
confirm the same. " Aubrey's Miscellany.
The present age is very little inclined to favour any accounts of this
kind, nor will the name of Aubrey much recommend it to credit: it ought
not, however, to be omitted, because better evidence of a fact cannot
easily be found, than is here offered; and it must be by preserving such
relations that we may, at last, judge how much they are to be regarded.
If we stay to examine this account, we shall see difficulties on both
sides: here is the relation of a fact given by a man who had no interest
to deceive, and who could not be deceived himself; and here is, on the
other hand, a miracle which produces no effect; the order of nature is
interrupted to discover not a future, but only a distant event, the
knowledge of which is of no use to him to whom it is revealed. Between
these difficulties, what way shall be found? Is reason or testimony to be
rejected? I believe, what Osborne says of an appearance of sanctity may
be applied to such impulses or anticipations as this: "Do not wholly
slight them, because they may be true; but do not easily trust them,
because they may be false. "
The state both of England and Ireland was, at this time, such, that he
who was absent from either country had very little temptation to return;
and, therefore, Roscommon, when he left Caen, travelled into Italy, and
amused himself with its antiquities, and, particularly, with medals, in
which he acquired uncommon skill. At the restoration, with the other
friends of monarchy, he came to England, was made captain of the band of
pensioners, and learned so much of the dissoluteness of the court, that
he addicted himself immoderately to gaming, by which he was engaged in
frequent quarrels, and which, undoubtedly, brought upon him its usual
concomitants, extravagance and distress.
After some time, a dispute about part of his estate forced him into
Ireland, where he was made, by the duke of Ormond, captain of the guards,
and met with an adventure thus related by Fenton:
"He was at Dublin, as much as ever, distempered with the same fatal
affection for play, which engaged him in one adventure, that well
deserves to be related. As he returned to his lodgings from a
gaming-table, he was attacked, in the dark, by three ruffians, who were
employed to assassinate him. The earl defended himself with so much
resolution, that he despatched one of the aggressors; whilst a gentleman,
accidentally passing that way, interposed, and disarmed another; the
third secured himself by flight. This generous assistant was a disbanded
officer, of a good family and fair reputation; who, by what we call the
partiality of fortune, to avoid censuring the iniquities of the times,
wanted even a plain suit of clothes to make a decent appearance at the
castle. But his lordship, on this occasion, presenting him to the duke of
Ormond, with great importunity prevailed with his grace, that he might
resign his post of captain of the guards to his friend; which, for
about three years, the gentleman enjoyed, and, upon his death, the duke
returned the commission to his generous benefactor. "
When he had finished his business, he returned to London; was made master
of the horse to the dutchess of York; and married the lady Frances,
daughter of the earl of Burlington, and widow of colonel Courteney[72].
He now busied his mind with literary projects, and formed the plan of a
society for refining our language and fixing its standard;
"in imitation," says Fenton, "of those learned and polite societies with
which he had been acquainted abroad. " In this design his friend Dryden is
said to have assisted him.
The same design, it is well known, was revived by Dr. Swift, in the
ministry of Oxford; but it has never since been publickly mentioned,
though, at that time, great expectations were formed, by some, of its
establishment and its effects. Such a society might, perhaps, without
much difficulty, be collected; but that it would produce what is expected
from it, may be doubted.
The Italian academy seems to have obtained its end. The language was
refined, and so fixed that it has changed but little. The French academy
thought they had refined their language, and, doubtless, thought rightly;
but the event has not shown that they fixed it; for the French of the
present time is very different from that of the last century.
In this country an academy could be expected to do but little. If an
academician's place were profitable, it would be given by interest; if
attendance were gratuitous, it would be rarely paid, and no man would
endure the least disgust. Unanimity is impossible, and debate would
separate the assembly.
But suppose the philological decree made and promulgated, what would be
its authority? In absolute governments, there is, sometimes, a general
reverence paid to all that has the sanction of power, and the countenance
of greatness. How little this is the state of our country needs not to be
told. We live in an age in which it is a kind of publick sport to refuse
all respect that cannot be enforced. The edicts of an English academy
would, probably, be read by many, only that they might be sure to disobey
them.
That our language is in perpetual danger of corruption cannot be denied;
but what prevention can be found? The present manners of the nation would
deride authority; and, therefore, nothing is left but that every writer
should criticise himself. All hopes of new literary institutions were
quickly suppressed by the contentious turbulence of king James's reign;
and Roscommon, foreseeing that some violent concussion of the state was
at hand, purposed to retire to Rome, alleging, that "it was best to sit
near the chimney when the chamber smoked;" a sentence, of which the
application seems not very clear.
His departure was delayed by the gout; and he was so impatient either of
hinderance or of pain, that he submitted himself to a French empirick,
who is said to have repelled the disease into his bowels.
At the moment in which he expired, he uttered, with an energy of voice,
that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of
Dies Irae:
My God, my father, and my friend,
Do not forsake me in my end.
He died in 1684; and was buried, with great pomp, in Westminster Abbey.
His poetical character is given by Mr. Fenton:
"In his writings," says Fenton, "we view the image of a mind which was
naturally serious and solid; richly furnished and adorned with all the
ornaments of learning, unaffectedly disposed in the most regular and
elegant order. His imagination might have probably been more fruitful
and sprightly, if his judgment had been less severe. But that severity,
delivered in a masculine, clear, succinct style, contributed to make
him so eminent in the didactical manner, that no man, with justice, can
affirm, he was ever equalled by any of our nation, without confessing,
at the same time, that he is inferiour to none. In some other kinds of
writing his genius seems to have wanted fire to attain the point of
perfection; but who can attain it? "
From this account of the riches of his mind, who would not imagine that
they had been displayed in large volumes and numerous performances? Who
would not, after the perusal of this character, be surprised to find
that all the proofs of this genius, and knowledge, and judgment, are
not sufficient to form a single book, or to appear otherwise than in
conjunction with the works of some other writer of the same petty
size[73]? But thus it is that characters are written: we know somewhat,
and we imagine the rest. The observation, that his imagination would,
probably, have been more fruitful and sprightly, if his judgment had been
less severe, may be answered, by a remarker somewhat inclined to cavil,
by a contrary supposition, that his judgment would, probably, have been
less severe, if his imagination had been more fruitful. It is ridiculous
to oppose judgment to imagination; for it does not appear that men have
necessarily less of one, as they have more of the other.
We must allow of Roscommon, what Fenton has not mentioned so distinctly
as he ought, and what is yet very much to his honour, that he is,
perhaps, the only correct writer in verse, before Addison; and that, if
there are not so many or so great beauties in his compositions as in
those of some contemporaries, there are, at least, fewer faults. Nor is
this his highest praise; for Mr. Pope has celebrated him, as the only
moral writer of king Charles's reign:
Unhappy Dryden! in all Charles's days,
Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays.
His great work is his Essay on Translated Verse; of which Dryden writes
thus, in the preface to his Miscellanies:
"It was my lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse," says Dryden,
"which made me uneasy, till I tried whether or no I was capable of
following his rules, and of reducing the speculation into practice. For
many a fair precept in poetry is like a seeming demonstration in
mathematicks, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanick
operation. I think I have generally observed his instructions: I am sure
my reason is sufficiently convinced both of their truth and usefulness;
which, in other words, is to confess no less a vanity than to pretend
that I have, at least, in some places, made examples to his rules. "
This declaration of Dryden will, I am afraid, be found little more than
one of those cursory civilities which one author pays to another; for
when the sum of lord Roscommon's precepts is collected, it will not
be easy to discover how they can qualify their reader for a better
performance of translation than might have been attained by his own
reflections.
He that can abstract his mind from the elegance of the poetry, and
confine it to the sense of the precepts, will find no other direction
than that the author should be suitable to the translator's genius; that
he should be such as may deserve a translation; that he who intends to
translate him should endeavour to understand him; that perspicuity should
be studied, and unusual and uncouth names sparingly inserted; and
that the style of the original should be copied in its elevation and
depression. These are the rules that are celebrated as so definite and
important; and for the delivery of which to mankind so much honour has
been paid. Roscommon has, indeed, deserved his praises, had they been
given with discernment, and bestowed not on the rules themselves, but the
art with which they are introduced, and the decorations with which they
are adorned.
The essay, though generally excellent, is not without its faults. The
story of the quack, borrowed from Boileau, was not worth the importation;
he has confounded the British and Saxon mythology:
I grant that from some mossy idol oak,
In double rhymes, our Thor and Woden spoke.
The oak, as, I think, Gildon has observed, belonged to the British
druids, and Thor and Woden were Saxon deities. Of the "double rhymes,"
which he so liberally supposes, he certainly had no knowledge.
His interposition of a long paragraph of blank verses is unwarrantably
licentious. Latin poets might as well have introduced a series of
iambicks among their heroicks.
His next work is the translation of the Art of Poetry; which has
received, in my opinion, not less praise than it deserves. Blank verse,
left merely to its numbers, has little operation either on the ear or
mind: it can hardly support itself without bold figures and striking
images. A poem, frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is so near to prose,
that the reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.
Having disentangled himself from the difficulties of rhyme, he may justly
be expected to give the sense of Horace with great exactness, and to
suppress no subtilty of sentiment, for the difficulty of expressing it.
This demand, however, his translation will not satisfy; what he found
obscure, I do not know that he has ever cleared.
Among his smaller works, the eclogue of Virgil and the Dies Irae are
well translated; though the best line in the Dies Irae is borrowed from
Dryden. In return, succeeding poets have borrowed from Roscommon.
In the verses on the Lap-dog, the pronouns _thou_ and _you_ are
offensively confounded; and the turn at the end is from Waller.
His versions of the two odes of Horace are made with great liberty, which
is not recompensed by much elegance or vigour.
His political verses are sprightly, and, when they were written, must
have been very popular.
Of the scene of Guarini, and the prologue to Pompey, Mrs. Phillips, in
her letters to sir Charles Cotterel, has given the history.
"Lord Roscommon," says she, "is certainly one of the most promising young
noblemen in Ireland. He has paraphrased a psalm admirably; and a scene
of Pastor Fido, very finely, in some places much better than sir Richard
Fanshaw. This was undertaken merely in compliment to me, who happened to
say, that it was the best scene in Italian, and the worst in English. He
was only two hours about it. " It begins thus:
Dear happy groves, and you, the dark retreat
Of silent horrour, Rest's eternal seat.
From these lines, which are since somewhat mended, it appears that he did
not think a work of two hours fit to endure the eye of criticism, without
revisal.
When Mrs. Phillips was in Ireland, some ladies that had seen her
translation of Pompey, resolved to bring it on the stage at Dublin; and,
to promote their design, lord Roscommon gave them a prologue, and
sir Edward Deering, an epilogue; "which," says she, "are the best
performances of those kinds I ever saw. " If this is not criticism, it
is, at least, gratitude. The thought of bringing Caesar and Pompey into
Ireland, the only country over which Caesar never had any power, is
lucky.
Of Roscommon's works, the judgment of the publick seems to be right. He
is elegant, but not great; he never labours after exquisite beauties,
and he seldom falls into gross faults. His versification is smooth, but
rarely vigorous; and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He improved
taste, if he did not enlarge knowledge, and may be numbered among the
benefactors to English literature[74].
[Footnote 70: The Biographia Britannica says, probably about the year
1632; but this is inconsistent with the date of Stratford's viceroyalty
in the following page. C. ]
[Footnote 71: It was his grandfather, sir Robert Dillon, second earl of
Roscommon, who was converted from popery; and his conversion is recited
in the patent of sir James, the first earl of Roscommon, as one of the
grounds of his creation. M. ]
[Footnote 72: He was married to lady Frances Boyle in April, 1662. By
this lady he had no issue. He married secondly, 10th November, 1674,
Isabella, daughter of Matthew Boynton, of Barmston, in Yorkshire. M. ]
[Footnote 73: They were published, together with those of Duke, in an
octavo volume, in 1717. The editor, whoever he was, professes to have
taken great care to procure and insert all of his lordship's poems that
are truly genuine.
