He was born in
Ireland[70], during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who, being both his
uncle and his godfather, gave him his own surname.
Ireland[70], during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who, being both his
uncle and his godfather, gave him his own surname.
Samuel Johnson - Lives of the Poets - 1
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. The truth of this assertion is flatly denied by the
author of an account of Mr. John Pomfret, prefixed to his Remains; who
asserts, that the Prospect of Death was written by that person, many
years after lord Roscommon's decease; as also, that the paraphrase of the
Prayer of Jeremy was written by a gentleman of the name of Southcourt,
living in the year 1724. H. ]
[Footnote 74: This life was originally written by Dr. Johnson, in the
Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1748. It then had notes, which are now
incorporated with the text. C. ]
OTWAY.
Of Thomas Otway, one of the first names in the English drama, little is
known; nor is there any part of that little which his biographer can take
pleasure in relating.
He was born at Trottin, in Sussex, March 3, 1651, the son of Mr. Humphry
Otway, rector of Woolbeding. From Winchester school, where he was
educated, he was entered, in 1669, a commoner of Christ church; but left
the university without a degree, whether for want of money, or from
impatience of academical restraint, or mere eagerness to mingle with the
world, is not known.
It seems likely that he was in hope of being busy and conspicuous; for he
went to London, and commenced player; but found himself unable to gain
any reputation on the stage[75].
This kind of inability he shared with Shakespeare and Jonson, as he
shared likewise some of their excellencies. It seems reasonable to expect
that a great dramatick poet should, without difficulty, become a great
actor; that he who can feel, should express; that he who can excite
passion, should exhibit, with great readiness, its external modes: but
since experience has fully proved, that of those powers, whatever be
their affinity, one may be possessed in a great degree by him who has
very little of the other; it must be allowed that they depend upon
different faculties, or on different use of the same faculty; that the
actor must have a pliancy of mien, a flexibility of countenance, and a
variety of tones, which the poet may be easily supposed to want; or that
the attention of the poet and the player has been differently employed;
the one has been considering thought, and the other action; one has
watched the heart, and the other contemplated the face.
Though he could not gain much notice as a player, he felt in himself
such powers as might qualify for a dramatick author; and, in 1675, his
twenty-fifth year, produced Alcibiades, a tragedy; whether from the
Alcibiade of Palaprat, I have not means to inquire. Langbaine, the great
detecter of plagiarism, is silent.
In 1677, he published Titus and Berenice, translated from Rapin, with the
Cheats of Scapin, from Moliere; and, in 1678, Friendship in Fashion,
a comedy, which, whatever might be its first reception, was, upon its
revival at Drury lane, in 1749, hissed off the stage for immorality and
obscenity.
Want of morals, or of decency, did not, in those days, exclude any man
from the company of the wealthy and the gay, if he brought with him any
powers of entertainment; and Otway is said to have been, at this time,
a favourite companion of the dissolute wits. But, as he who desires no
virtue in his companion, has no virtue in himself, those whom Otway
frequented had no purpose of doing more for him than to pay his
reckoning. They desired only to drink and laugh: their fondness was
without benevolence, and their familiarity without friendship. "Men of
wit," says one of Otway's biographers, "received, at that time, no favour
from the great, but to share their riots; from which they were dismissed
again to their own narrow circumstances. Thus they languished in poverty,
without the support of eminence. "
Some exception, however, must be made. The earl of Plymouth, one of king
Charles's natural sons, procured for him a cornet's commission in some
troops then sent into Flanders. But Otway did not prosper in his military
character; for he soon left his commission behind him, whatever was the
reason, and came back to London in extreme indigence, which Rochester
mentions with merciless insolence, in the Session of the Poets:
Tom Otway came next, Tom Shadwell's dear zany,
And swears for heroicks he writes best of any;
Don Carlos his pockets so amply had fill'd,
That his mange was quite cur'd, and his lice were all kill'd:
But Apollo had seen his face on the stage,
And prudently did not think fit to engage
The scum of a playhouse, for the prop of an age.
Don Carlos, from which he is represented as having received so much
benefit, was played in 1675. It appears, by the lampoon, to have had
great success, and is said to have been played thirty nights together.
This, however, it is reasonable to doubt[76], as so long a continuance
of one play upon the stage is a very wide deviation from the practice
of that time; when the ardour for theatrical entertainments was not yet
diffused through the whole people, and the audience, consisting nearly of
the same persons, could be drawn together only by variety.
The Orphan was exhibited in 1680. This is one of the few plays that keep
possession of the stage, and has pleased for almost a century, through
all the vicissitudes of dramatick fashion. Of this play nothing new can
easily be said. It is a domestick tragedy drawn from middle life. Its
whole power is upon the affections; for it is not written with much
comprehension of thought, or elegance of expression. But if the heart is
interested, many other beauties may be wanting, yet not be missed.
The same year produced the History and Fall of Caius Marius; much of
which is borrowed from the Romeo and Juliet of Shakespeare.
In 1683[77] was published the first, and next year[78] the second, parts
of the Soldier's Fortune, two comedies now forgotten; and, in 1685[79]
his last and greatest dramatick work, Venice Preserved, a tragedy,
which still continues to be one of the favourites of the publick,
notwithstanding the want of morality in the original design, and the
despicable scenes of vile comedy with which he has diversified his
tragick action[80]. By comparing this with his Orphan, it will appear
that his images were by time become stronger, and his language more
energetick. The striking passages are in every mouth; and the publick
seems to judge rightly of the faults and excellencies of this play, that
it is the work of a man not attentive to decency, nor zealous for virtue;
but of one who conceived forcibly, and drew originally, by consulting
nature in his own breast.
Together with those plays he wrote the poems which are in the present
collection, and translated from the French the History of the
Triumvirate.
All this was performed before he was thirty-four years old; for he died
April 14, 1685, in a manner which I am unwilling to mention. Having
been compelled by his necessities to contract debts, and hunted, as is
supposed, by the terriers of the law, he retired to a publick house on
Tower hill, where he is said to have died of want; or, as it is related
by one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of
bread which charity had supplied. He went out, as is reported, almost
naked, in the rage of hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neighbouring
coffee-house, asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea;
and Otway, going away, bought a roll, and was choked with the first
mouthful. All this, I hope, is not true; and there is this ground of
better hope, that Pope, who lived near enough to be well informed,
relates in Spence's Memorials, that he died of a fever, caught by
violent pursuit of a thief that had robbed one of his friends. But that
indigence, and its concomitants, sorrow and despondency, pressed hard
upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate cause might bring him
to the grave.
Of the poems which the present collection admits, the longest is the
Poet's Complaint of his Muse, part of which I do not understand; and in
that which is less obscure, I find little to commend. The language is
often gross, and the numbers are harsh. Otway had not much cultivated
versification, nor much replenished his mind with general knowledge. His
principal power was in moving the passions, to which Dryden[81], in his
latter years, left an illustrious testimony. He appears, by some of his
verses, to have been a zealous royalist, and had what was in those times
the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.
[Footnote 75: In Roscius Anglicanus, by Downes, the prompter, p. 34,
we learn, that it was the character of the king in Mrs. Behn's Forced
Marriage, or the Jealous Bridegroom, which Mr. Otway attempted to
perform, and failed in. This event appears to have happened in the year
1672. R. ]
[Footnote 76: This doubt is, indeed, very reasonable. I know not where it
is said that Don Carlos was acted thirty nights together. Wherever it is
said, it is untrue. Downes, who is perfectly good authority on this point,
informs us, that it was performed ten days successively. M. ]
[Footnote 77: 1681. ]
[Footnote 78: 1684. ]
[Footnote 79: 1682. ]
[Footnote 80: The "despicable scenes of vile comedy" can be no bar
to its being a favourite of the publick, as they are always omitted in
the representation. J. B. ]
[Footnote 81: In his preface to Fresnoy's Art of Painting. Dr. J. ]
WALLER
Edmund Waller was born on the third of March, 1605, at Coleshill in
Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, esq. of Agmondesham, in
Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Kentish
Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden in
the same county, and sister to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.
His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly income
of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value
of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to
ten thousand at the present time.
He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed
afterwards to King's college, in Cambridge. He was sent to parliament in
his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and frequented the court of
James the first, where he heard a very remarkable conversation, which the
writer of the life prefixed to his works, who seems to have been well
informed of facts, though he may sometimes err in chronology, has
delivered as indubitably certain:
"He found Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neale, bishop of
Durham, standing behind his majesty's chair; and there happened something
extraordinary," continues this writer, "in the conversation those
prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Waller did often reflect. His
majesty asked the bishops: 'My lords, cannot I take my subjects' money,
when I want it, without all this formality of parliament? ' The bishop of
Durham readily answered, 'God forbid, sir, but you should: you are the
breath of our nostrils. ' Whereupon the king turned and said to the bishop
of Winchester, 'Well, my lord, what say you? ' 'Sir,' replied the bishop,
'I have no skill to judge of parliamentary cases. ' The king answered, 'No
put-offs, my lord; answer me presently.
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. The truth of this assertion is flatly denied by the
author of an account of Mr. John Pomfret, prefixed to his Remains; who
asserts, that the Prospect of Death was written by that person, many
years after lord Roscommon's decease; as also, that the paraphrase of the
Prayer of Jeremy was written by a gentleman of the name of Southcourt,
living in the year 1724. H. ]
[Footnote 74: This life was originally written by Dr. Johnson, in the
Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1748. It then had notes, which are now
incorporated with the text. C. ]
OTWAY.
Of Thomas Otway, one of the first names in the English drama, little is
known; nor is there any part of that little which his biographer can take
pleasure in relating.
He was born at Trottin, in Sussex, March 3, 1651, the son of Mr. Humphry
Otway, rector of Woolbeding. From Winchester school, where he was
educated, he was entered, in 1669, a commoner of Christ church; but left
the university without a degree, whether for want of money, or from
impatience of academical restraint, or mere eagerness to mingle with the
world, is not known.
It seems likely that he was in hope of being busy and conspicuous; for he
went to London, and commenced player; but found himself unable to gain
any reputation on the stage[75].
This kind of inability he shared with Shakespeare and Jonson, as he
shared likewise some of their excellencies. It seems reasonable to expect
that a great dramatick poet should, without difficulty, become a great
actor; that he who can feel, should express; that he who can excite
passion, should exhibit, with great readiness, its external modes: but
since experience has fully proved, that of those powers, whatever be
their affinity, one may be possessed in a great degree by him who has
very little of the other; it must be allowed that they depend upon
different faculties, or on different use of the same faculty; that the
actor must have a pliancy of mien, a flexibility of countenance, and a
variety of tones, which the poet may be easily supposed to want; or that
the attention of the poet and the player has been differently employed;
the one has been considering thought, and the other action; one has
watched the heart, and the other contemplated the face.
Though he could not gain much notice as a player, he felt in himself
such powers as might qualify for a dramatick author; and, in 1675, his
twenty-fifth year, produced Alcibiades, a tragedy; whether from the
Alcibiade of Palaprat, I have not means to inquire. Langbaine, the great
detecter of plagiarism, is silent.
In 1677, he published Titus and Berenice, translated from Rapin, with the
Cheats of Scapin, from Moliere; and, in 1678, Friendship in Fashion,
a comedy, which, whatever might be its first reception, was, upon its
revival at Drury lane, in 1749, hissed off the stage for immorality and
obscenity.
Want of morals, or of decency, did not, in those days, exclude any man
from the company of the wealthy and the gay, if he brought with him any
powers of entertainment; and Otway is said to have been, at this time,
a favourite companion of the dissolute wits. But, as he who desires no
virtue in his companion, has no virtue in himself, those whom Otway
frequented had no purpose of doing more for him than to pay his
reckoning. They desired only to drink and laugh: their fondness was
without benevolence, and their familiarity without friendship. "Men of
wit," says one of Otway's biographers, "received, at that time, no favour
from the great, but to share their riots; from which they were dismissed
again to their own narrow circumstances. Thus they languished in poverty,
without the support of eminence. "
Some exception, however, must be made. The earl of Plymouth, one of king
Charles's natural sons, procured for him a cornet's commission in some
troops then sent into Flanders. But Otway did not prosper in his military
character; for he soon left his commission behind him, whatever was the
reason, and came back to London in extreme indigence, which Rochester
mentions with merciless insolence, in the Session of the Poets:
Tom Otway came next, Tom Shadwell's dear zany,
And swears for heroicks he writes best of any;
Don Carlos his pockets so amply had fill'd,
That his mange was quite cur'd, and his lice were all kill'd:
But Apollo had seen his face on the stage,
And prudently did not think fit to engage
The scum of a playhouse, for the prop of an age.
Don Carlos, from which he is represented as having received so much
benefit, was played in 1675. It appears, by the lampoon, to have had
great success, and is said to have been played thirty nights together.
This, however, it is reasonable to doubt[76], as so long a continuance
of one play upon the stage is a very wide deviation from the practice
of that time; when the ardour for theatrical entertainments was not yet
diffused through the whole people, and the audience, consisting nearly of
the same persons, could be drawn together only by variety.
The Orphan was exhibited in 1680. This is one of the few plays that keep
possession of the stage, and has pleased for almost a century, through
all the vicissitudes of dramatick fashion. Of this play nothing new can
easily be said. It is a domestick tragedy drawn from middle life. Its
whole power is upon the affections; for it is not written with much
comprehension of thought, or elegance of expression. But if the heart is
interested, many other beauties may be wanting, yet not be missed.
The same year produced the History and Fall of Caius Marius; much of
which is borrowed from the Romeo and Juliet of Shakespeare.
In 1683[77] was published the first, and next year[78] the second, parts
of the Soldier's Fortune, two comedies now forgotten; and, in 1685[79]
his last and greatest dramatick work, Venice Preserved, a tragedy,
which still continues to be one of the favourites of the publick,
notwithstanding the want of morality in the original design, and the
despicable scenes of vile comedy with which he has diversified his
tragick action[80]. By comparing this with his Orphan, it will appear
that his images were by time become stronger, and his language more
energetick. The striking passages are in every mouth; and the publick
seems to judge rightly of the faults and excellencies of this play, that
it is the work of a man not attentive to decency, nor zealous for virtue;
but of one who conceived forcibly, and drew originally, by consulting
nature in his own breast.
Together with those plays he wrote the poems which are in the present
collection, and translated from the French the History of the
Triumvirate.
All this was performed before he was thirty-four years old; for he died
April 14, 1685, in a manner which I am unwilling to mention. Having
been compelled by his necessities to contract debts, and hunted, as is
supposed, by the terriers of the law, he retired to a publick house on
Tower hill, where he is said to have died of want; or, as it is related
by one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of
bread which charity had supplied. He went out, as is reported, almost
naked, in the rage of hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neighbouring
coffee-house, asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea;
and Otway, going away, bought a roll, and was choked with the first
mouthful. All this, I hope, is not true; and there is this ground of
better hope, that Pope, who lived near enough to be well informed,
relates in Spence's Memorials, that he died of a fever, caught by
violent pursuit of a thief that had robbed one of his friends. But that
indigence, and its concomitants, sorrow and despondency, pressed hard
upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate cause might bring him
to the grave.
Of the poems which the present collection admits, the longest is the
Poet's Complaint of his Muse, part of which I do not understand; and in
that which is less obscure, I find little to commend. The language is
often gross, and the numbers are harsh. Otway had not much cultivated
versification, nor much replenished his mind with general knowledge. His
principal power was in moving the passions, to which Dryden[81], in his
latter years, left an illustrious testimony. He appears, by some of his
verses, to have been a zealous royalist, and had what was in those times
the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.
[Footnote 75: In Roscius Anglicanus, by Downes, the prompter, p. 34,
we learn, that it was the character of the king in Mrs. Behn's Forced
Marriage, or the Jealous Bridegroom, which Mr. Otway attempted to
perform, and failed in. This event appears to have happened in the year
1672. R. ]
[Footnote 76: This doubt is, indeed, very reasonable. I know not where it
is said that Don Carlos was acted thirty nights together. Wherever it is
said, it is untrue. Downes, who is perfectly good authority on this point,
informs us, that it was performed ten days successively. M. ]
[Footnote 77: 1681. ]
[Footnote 78: 1684. ]
[Footnote 79: 1682. ]
[Footnote 80: The "despicable scenes of vile comedy" can be no bar
to its being a favourite of the publick, as they are always omitted in
the representation. J. B. ]
[Footnote 81: In his preface to Fresnoy's Art of Painting. Dr. J. ]
WALLER
Edmund Waller was born on the third of March, 1605, at Coleshill in
Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, esq. of Agmondesham, in
Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Kentish
Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden in
the same county, and sister to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.
His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly income
of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value
of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to
ten thousand at the present time.
He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed
afterwards to King's college, in Cambridge. He was sent to parliament in
his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and frequented the court of
James the first, where he heard a very remarkable conversation, which the
writer of the life prefixed to his works, who seems to have been well
informed of facts, though he may sometimes err in chronology, has
delivered as indubitably certain:
"He found Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neale, bishop of
Durham, standing behind his majesty's chair; and there happened something
extraordinary," continues this writer, "in the conversation those
prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Waller did often reflect. His
majesty asked the bishops: 'My lords, cannot I take my subjects' money,
when I want it, without all this formality of parliament? ' The bishop of
Durham readily answered, 'God forbid, sir, but you should: you are the
breath of our nostrils. ' Whereupon the king turned and said to the bishop
of Winchester, 'Well, my lord, what say you? ' 'Sir,' replied the bishop,
'I have no skill to judge of parliamentary cases. ' The king answered, 'No
put-offs, my lord; answer me presently.
