His is one of the works in which blank verse seems
properly
used.
Samuel Johnson
.
.
,"
Sir Francis Page, a judge well known in his time, conceiving that his
name was meant to fill up the blank, sent his clerk to Mr. Pope, to
complain of the insult. Pope told the young man that the blank might be
supplied by many monosyllables, other than the judge's name:--"but,
sir," said the clerk, "the judge says that no other word will make sense
of the passage. "--"So then it seems," says Pope "your master is not only
a judge but a poet; as that is the case, the odds are against me. Give
my respects to the judge, and tell him, I will not contend with one that
has the advantage of me, and he may fill up the blank as he pleases. "
H. ]
[Footnote 151: See note, by Gifford, on Johnson's criticism here in
Massinger's works. ]
[Footnote 152: Johnson, I imagine, alludes to a well-known line by
Rochester:
The best good man with the worst-natur'd muse. ]
[Footnote 153: Major Bernardi, who died in Newgate, Sept. 20, 1736. See
Gent. Mag. vol. 1. p. 125. N. ]
[Footnote 154: This was altered much for the better, as it now stands on
the monument in the abbey, erected to Rowe and his daughter. WARB. See
Bowles's edition of Pope's works, ii. 416. ]
[Footnote 155: In the north aisle of the parish church of St. Margaret,
Westminster. H. ]
[Footnote 156: The thought was, probably, borrowed from Carew's
Obsequies to the lady Anne Hay:
I heard the virgins sigh, I saw the sleek
And polish'd courtier channel his fresh cheek
_With real tears_.
J. B. ]
[Footnote 157: Her _wit_ was more than _man_, her _innocence a child_.
DRYDEN, on Mrs. Killigrew. ]
[Footnote 158: The same thought is found in George Whetstone's epitaph
on the good lord Dyer, 1582:
Et semper bonus ille bonis fuit, ergo bonorum
Sunt illi demum pectora sarcophagus.
J. B. ]
PITT.
Christopher Pitt, of whom whatever I shall relate, more than has been
already published, I owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton, was
born, in 1699, at Blandford, the son of a physician much esteemed.
He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into Winchester college, where he
was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his removal
to New college, in 1719, presented to the electors, as the product of
his private and voluntary studies, a complete version of Lucan's poem,
which he did not then know to have been translated by Rowe.
This is an instance of early diligence which well deserves to be
recorded. The suppression of such a work, recommended by such uncommon
circumstances, is to be regretted. It is, indeed, culpable to load
libraries with superfluous books; but incitements to early excellence
are never superfluous, and, from this example, the danger is not great
of many imitations.
When he had resided at his college three years, he was presented to the
rectory of Pimpern, in Dorsetshire, 1722, by his relation, Mr. Pitt, of
Stratfield Say, in Hampshire; and, resigning his fellowship, continued
at Oxford two years longer, till he became master of arts, 1724.
He probably about this time translated Vida's Art of Poetry, which
Tristram's splendid edition had then made popular. In this translation
he distinguished himself, both by its general elegance, and by the
skilful adaptation of his numbers to the images expressed; a beauty
which Vida has, with great ardour, enforced and exemplified.
He then retired to his living, a place very pleasing by its situation,
and, therefore, likely to excite the imagination of a poet; where he
passed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue, and beloved for
the softness of his temper and the easiness of his manners. Before
strangers he had something of the scholar's timidity or distrust; but
when he became familiar he was, in a very high degree, cheerful and
entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect; and he
passed a life placid and honourable, neither too great for the kindness
of the low, nor too low for the notice of the great.
At what time he composed his Miscellany, published in 1727, it is not
easy or necessary to know: those which have dates appear to have been
very early productions, and I have not observed that any rise above
mediocrity.
The success of his Vida animated him to a higher undertaking; and in his
thirtieth year he published a version of the first book of the Æneid.
This being, I suppose, commended by his friends, he, some time
afterwards, added three or four more; with an advertisement, in which he
represents himself as translating with great indifference, and with a
progress of which himself was hardly conscious. This can hardly be true,
and, if true, is nothing to the reader.
At last, without any farther contention with his modesty or any awe of
the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English Æneid, which I am
sorry not to see, joined in this publication with his other poems[159].
It would have been pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing the two
best translations that, perhaps, were ever produced by one nation of the
same author.
Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures,
and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's Iliad, he had an example
of an exact, equable and splendid versification. With these advantages
seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labour particular
passages, and escape many errours. If the two versions are compared,
perhaps the result would be that Dryden leads the reader forward by his
general vigour and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to
contemplate the excellence of a single couplet; that Dryden's faults are
forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are
neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal; that Pitt
pleases the criticks, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and
Dryden read.
He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work deservedly
conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a stone
at Blandford, on which is this inscription:
In memory of
CHR. PITT, clerk, M. A.
Very eminent
for his talents in poetry;
and yet more
for the universal candour of
his mind, and the primitive
simplicity of his manners.
He lived innocent;
and died beloved,
Apr. 13, 1748,
aged 48.
-----
[Footnote 159: It has since been added to the collection. R. ]
THOMSON.
James Thomson, the son of a minister well esteemed for his piety and
diligence, was born September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of
Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor. His mother, whose name was
Hume[160], inherited, as coheiress, a portion of a small estate. The
revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was, probably,
in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported his
family, having nine children, that Mr. Riccarton, a neighbouring
minister, discovering in James uncommon promises of future excellence,
undertook to superintend his education, and provide him books.
He was taught the common rudiments of learning at the school of Jedburg,
a place which he delights to recollect in his poem of Autumn; but was
not considered by his master as superiour to common boys, though, in
those early days, he amused his patron and his friends with poetical
compositions; with which, however, he so little pleased himself, that,
on every new-year's day, he threw into the fire all the productions of
the foregoing year.
From the school he was removed to Edinburgh, where he had not resided
two years when his father died, and left all his children to the care of
their mother, who raised, upon her little estate, what money a mortgage
could afford, and, removing with her family to Edinburgh, lived to see
her son rising into eminence.
The design of Thomson's friends was to breed him a minister. He lived at
Edinburgh, as at school, without distinction or expectation, till, at
the usual time, he performed a probationary exercise by explaining a
psalm. His diction was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the
professor of divinity, reproved him for speaking language
unintelligible to a popular audience; and he censured one of his
expressions as indecent, if not profane[161].
This rebuke is reported to have repressed his thoughts of an
ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated, with new
diligence, his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger
of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought
themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but,
finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink
into despondence.
He easily discovered, that the only stage on which a poet could appear,
with any hope of advantage, was London; a place too wide for the
operation of petty competition and private malignity, where merit might
soon become conspicuous, and would find friends as soon as it became
reputable to befriend it. A lady, who was acquainted with his mother,
advised him to the journey, and promised some countenance, or
assistance, which, at last, he never received; however, he justified his
adventure by her encouragement, and came to seek, in London, patronage
and fame.
At his arrival he found his way to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to the sons of
the duke of Montrose. He had recommendations to several persons of
consequence, which he had tied up carefully in his handkerchief; but as
he passed along the street, with the gaping curiosity of a new-comer,
his attention was upon every thing rather than his pocket, and his
magazine of credentials was stolen from him.
His first want was a pair of shoes. For the supply of all his
necessities, his whole fund was his Winter, which for a time could find
no purchaser; till, at last, Mr. Millan was persuaded to buy it at a low
price; and this low price he had, for some time, reason to regret[162];
but, by accident, Mr. Whatley, a man not wholly unknown among authors,
happening to turn his eye upon it, was so delighted that he ran from
place to place celebrating its excellence. Thomson obtained, likewise,
the notice of Aaron Hill, whom, being friendless and indigent, and glad
of kindness, he courted with every expression of servile adulation.
Winter was dedicated to sir Spencer Compton, but attracted no regard
from him to the author; till Aaron Hill awakened his attention by some
verses addressed to Thomson, and published in one of the newspapers,
which censured the great for their neglect of ingenious men. Thomson
then received a present of twenty guineas, of which he gives this
account to Mr. Hill:
"I hinted to you in my last, that on Saturday morning I was with sir
Spencer Compton. A certain gentleman, without my desire, spoke to him
concerning me; his answer was, that I had never come near him. Then the
gentleman put the question, if he desired that I should wait on him: he
returned, he did. On this, the gentleman gave me an introductory letter
to him. He received me in what they commonly call a civil manner; asked
me some commonplace questions; and made me a present of twenty guineas.
I am very ready to own that the present was larger than my performance
deserved; and shall ascribe it to his generosity, or any other cause,
rather than the merit of the address. "
The poem, which, being of a new kind[163], few would venture at first
to like, by degrees gained upon the publick; and one edition was very
speedily succeeded by another.
Thomson's credit was now high, and every day brought him new friends;
among others Dr. Rundle, a man afterwards unfortunately famous, sought
his acquaintance, and found his qualities such, that he recommended him
to the lord chancellor Talbot.
Winter was accompanied, in many editions, not only with a preface and a
dedication, but with poetical praises by Mr. Hill, Mr. Mallet, (then
Malloch,) and Mira, the fictitious name of a lady once too well known.
Why the dedications are, to Winter and the other seasons, contrarily to
custom, left out in the collected works, the reader may inquire.
The next year, 1727, he distinguished himself by three publications; of
Summer, in pursuance of his plan; of a Poem on the Death of sir Isaac
Newton, which he was enabled to perform as an exact philosopher by the
instruction of Mr. Gray; and of Britannia, a kind of poetical invective
against the ministry, whom the nation then thought not forward enough in
resenting the depredations of the Spaniards. By this piece he declared
himself an adherent to the opposition, and had, therefore, no favour to
expect from the court.
Thomson, having been some time entertained in the family of the lord
Binning, was desirous of testifying his gratitude by making him the
patron of his Summer; but the same kindness which had first disposed
lord Binning to encourage him, determined him to refuse the dedication,
which was, by his advice, addressed to Mr. Dodington, a man who had more
power to advance the reputation and fortune of a poet.
Spring was published next year, with a dedication to the countess of
Hertford; whose practice it was to invite every summer some poet into
the country, to hear her verses, and assist her studies. This honour was
one summer conferred on Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with
lord Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship's poetical
operations, and, therefore, never received another summons.
Autumn, the season to which the Spring and Summer are preparatory, still
remained unsung, and was delayed till he published, 1730, his works
collected.
He produced in 1727 the tragedy of Sophonisba, which raised such
expectation, that every rehearsal was dignified with a splendid
audience, collected to anticipate the delight that was preparing for the
publick. It was observed, however, that nobody was much affected, and
that the company rose as from a moral lecture.
It had upon the stage no unusual degree of success. Slight accidents
will operate upon the taste of pleasure. There is a feeble line in the
play:
O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!
This gave occasion to a waggish parody:
O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!
which for awhile was echoed through the town.
I have been told by Savage, that of the prologue to Sophonisba, the
first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it;
and that the concluding lines were added by Mallet.
Thomson was not long afterwards, by the influence of Dr. Rundle, sent to
travel with Mr. Charles Talbot, the eldest son of the chancellor. He was
yet young enough to receive new impressions, to have his opinions
rectified, and his views enlarged; nor can he be supposed to have wanted
that curiosity which is inseparable from an active and comprehensive
mind. He may, therefore, now be supposed to have revelled in all the
joys of intellectual luxury; he was every day feasted with instructive
novelties; he lived splendidly without expense; and might expect, when
he returned home, a certain establishment.
At this time a long course of opposition to sir Robert Walpole had
filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the
want, and with care for liberty, which was not in danger. Thomson in his
travels on the continent, found or fancied so many evils arising from
the tyranny of other governments, that he resolved to write a very long
poem, in five parts, upon liberty.
While he was busy on the first book, Mr. Talbot died; and Thomson, who
had been rewarded for his attendance by the place of secretary of the
briefs, pays in the initial lines a decent tribute to his memory.
Upon this great poem two years were spent, and the author congratulated
himself upon it as his noblest work; but an author and his reader are
not always of a mind. Liberty called in vain upon her votaries to read
her praises and reward her encomiast: her praises were condemned to
harbour spiders, and to gather dust; none of Thomson's performances were
so little regarded.
The judgment of the publick was not erroneous; the recurrence of the
same images must tire in time; an enumeration of examples to prove a
position which nobody denied, as it was from the beginning superfluous,
must quickly grow disgusting.
The poem of Liberty does not now appear in its original state; but, when
the author's works were collected after his death, was shortened by sir
George Lyttelton, with a liberty, which, as it has a manifest tendency
to lessen the confidence of society, and to confound the characters of
authors, by making one man write by the judgment of another, cannot be
justified by any supposed propriety of the alteration, or kindness of
the friend. I wish to see it exhibited as its author left it.
Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and seems, for awhile, to have
suspended his poetry; but he was soon called back to labour by the death
of the chancellor, for his place then became vacant[164]; and though the
lord Hardwicke delayed, for some time, to give it away, Thomson's
bashfulness, or pride, or some other motive, perhaps not more laudable,
withheld him from soliciting; and the new chancellor would not give him
what he would not ask.
He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the prince of Wales was at
that time struggling for popularity, and, by the influence of Mr.
Lyttelton, professed himself the patron of wit: to him Thomson was
introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of his affairs,
said, "that they were in a more poetical posture than formerly;" and had
a pension allowed him of one hundred pounds a year.
Being now obliged to write, he produced, 1738[165], the tragedy of
Agamemnon, which was much shortened in the representation. It had the
fate which most commonly attends mythological stories, and was only
endured, but not favoured. It struggled with such difficulty through the
first night, that Thomson, coming late to his friends with whom he was
to sup, excused his delay by telling them how the sweat of his distress
had so disordered his wig, that he could not come till he had been
refitted by a barber.
He so interested himself in his own drama, that, if I remember right, as
he sat in the upper gallery, he accompanied the players by audible
recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him to silence. Pope
countenanced Agamemnon, by coming to it the first night, and was
welcomed to the theatre by a general clap; he had much regard for
Thomson, and once expressed it in a poetical epistle sent to Italy, of
which, however, he abated the value, by transplanting some of the lines
into his epistle to Arbuthnot.
About this time the act was passed for licensing plays, of which the
first operation was the prohibition of Gustavus Vasa[166], a tragedy of
Mr. Brooke, whom the publick recompensed by a very liberal subscription;
the next was the refusal of Edward and Eleonora, offered by Thomson. It
is hard to discover why either play should have been obstructed.
Thomson, likewise, endeavoured to repair his loss by a subscription, of
which I cannot now tell the success.
When the publick murmured at the unkind treatment of Thomson, one of the
ministerial writers remarked, that "he had taken a _liberty_ which was
not agreeable to _Britannia_ in any _season_. "
He was soon after employed, in conjunction with Mr. Mallet, to write the
mask of Alfred, which was acted before the prince at Cliefden-house.
His next work, 1745, was Tancred and Sigismunda, the most successful of
all his tragedies; for it still keeps its turn upon the stage. It may be
doubted whether he was, either by the bent of nature or habits of study,
much qualified for tragedy. It does not appear that he had much sense of
the pathetick; and his diffusive and descriptive style produced
declamation rather than dialogue.
His friend Mr. Lyttelton was now in power, and conferred upon him the
office of surveyor-general of the Leeward Islands; from which, when his
deputy was paid, he received about three hundred pounds a year.
The last piece that he lived to publish was the Castle of Indolence,
which was many years under his hand, but was, at last, finished with
great accuracy. The first canto opens a scene of lazy luxury that fills
the imagination.
He was now at ease, but was not long to enjoy it; for, by taking cold on
the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, with
some careless exasperation, ended in a fever that put an end to his
life, August 27, 1748. He was buried in the church of Richmond, without
an inscription; but a monument has been erected to his memory in
Westminster Abbey.
Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and "more fat than bard
beseems," of a dull countenance, and a gross, unanimated, uninviting
appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among select
friends, and by his friends very tenderly and warmly beloved[167].
He left behind him the tragedy of Coriolanus, which was, by the zeal of
his patron, sir George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit
of his family, and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long
lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as showed
him "to be," on that occasion, "no actor. " The commencement of this
benevolence is very honourable to Quin; who is reported to have
delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest
by a very considerable present; and its continuance is honourable to
both; for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation. By this
tragedy a considerable sum was raised, of which part discharged his
debts, and the rest was remitted to his sisters, whom, however removed
from them by place or condition, he regarded with great tenderness, as
will appear by the following letter, which I communicate with much
pleasure, as it gives me, at once, an opportunity of recording the
fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance
of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it.
"Hagley in Worcestershire, Oct. 4th, 1747.
"MY DEAR SISTER,--I thought you had known me better than to
interpret my silence into a decay of affection, especially as
your behaviour has always been such as rather to increase than
diminish it. Don't imagine, because I am a bad correspondent,
that I can ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do
myself the justice to tell you, that my affections are naturally
very fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of complaint
against you, (of which, by the by, I have not the least shadow,)
I am conscious of so many defects in myself, as dispose me to be
not a little charitable and forgiving.
"It gives me the truest heartfelt satisfaction to hear you have
a good, kind husband, and are in easy, contented circumstances;
but were they otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten my
tenderness towards you. As our good and tender-hearted parents
did not live to receive any material testimonies of that highest
human gratitude I owed them, (than which nothing could have
given me equal pleasure,) the only return I can make them now is
by kindness to those they left behind them. Would to God poor
Lizy had lived longer, to have been a further witness of the
truth of what I say, and that I might have had the pleasure of
seeing once more a sister who so truly deserved my esteem and
love! But she is happy, while we must toil a little longer here
below: let us, however, do it cheerfully and gratefully,
supported by the pleasing hope of meeting yet again on a safer
shore, where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life
will not, perhaps, be inconsistent with that blissful state. You
did right to call your daughter by her name; for you must needs
have had a particular tender friendship for one another,
endeared as you were by nature, by having passed the
affectionate years of your youth together; and by that great
softener and engager of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in
my power to ease it a little, I account one of the most
exquisite pleasures of my life. But enough of this melancholy,
though not unpleasing strain.
"I esteem you for your sensible and disinterested advice to Mr.
Bell, as you will see by my letter to him: as I approve entirely
of his marrying again, you may readily ask me why I don't marry
at all. My circumstances have, hitherto, been so variable and
uncertain in this fluctuating world, as induce to keep me from
engaging in such a state: and now, though they are more settled,
and of late (which you will be glad to hear) considerably
improved, I begin to think myself too far advanced in life for
such youthful undertakings, not to mention some other petty
reasons that are apt to startle the delicacy of difficult old
bachelors. I am, however, not a little suspicious that, was I to
pay a visit to Scotland, (which I have some thoughts of doing
soon,) I might, possibly, be tempted to think of a thing not
easily repaired if done amiss. I have always been of opinion
that none make better wives than the ladies of Scotland; and
yet, who more forsaken than they, while the gentlemen are
continually running abroad all the world over? Some of them, it
is true, are wise enough to return for a wife. You see I am
beginning to make interest already with the Scots ladies. But no
more of this infectious subject. Pray let me hear from you now
and then; and though I am not a regular correspondent, yet,
perhaps, I may mend in that respect. Remember me kindly to your
husband, and believe me to be
"Your most affectionate brother,
"JAMES THOMSON. "
(Addressed) "To Mrs. Thomson, in Lanark. "
The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active: he would give, on
all occasions, what assistance his purse would supply; but the offices
of intervention or solicitation he could not conquer his sluggishness
sufficiently to perform. The affairs of others, however, were not more
neglected than his own. He had often felt the inconveniencies of
idleness, but he never cured it; and was so conscious of his own
character, that he talked of writing an eastern tale of the Man who
loved to be in Distress.
Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful and inarticulate manner of
propounding any lofty or solemn composition. He was once reading to
Dodington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much
provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the paper from his
hand, and told him that he did not understand his own verses.
The biographer of Thomson has remarked, that an author's life is best
read in his works: his observation was not well-timed. Savage, who lived
much with Thomson, once told me, he heard a lady remarking that she
could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was "a
great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent;" but, said
Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was, perhaps,
never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the
luxury that comes within his reach. Yet Savage always spoke with the
most eager praise of his social qualities, his warmth and constancy of
friendship, and his adherence to his first acquaintance when the
advancement of his reputation had left them behind him.
As a writer he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode
of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank
verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than
the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses,
his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without
imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man
of genius; he looks round on nature and on life with the eye which
nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every
thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can
delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the
vast, and attends to the minute. The reader of the Seasons wonders that
he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has
felt what Thomson impresses.
His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly used.
Thomson's wide expansion of general views, and his enumeration of
circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed and embarrassed by
the frequent intersection of the sense, which are the necessary effects
of rhyme.
His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring before us
the whole magnificence of nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The
gaiety of spring, the splendour of summer, the tranquillity of autumn,
and the horrour of winter, take, in their turns, possession of the mind.
The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are
successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us
so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his
imagery, and kindle with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without
his part in the entertainment; for he is assisted to recollect and to
combine, to arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his
contemplation.
The great defect of the Seasons is want of method; but for this I know
not that there was any remedy. Of many appearances subsisting all at
once, no rule can be given why one should be mentioned before another;
yet the memory wants the help of order, and the curiosity is not excited
by suspense or expectation.
His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant, such as may
be said to be to his images and thoughts, "both their lustre and their
shade:" such as invest them with splendour, through which, perhaps, they
are not always easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and sometimes may
be charged with filling the ear more than the mind.
These poems, with which I was acquainted at their first appearance, I
have since found altered and enlarged by subsequent revisals[168], as
the author supposed his judgment to grow more exact, and as books or
conversation extended his knowledge and opened his prospects. They are,
I think, improved in general; yet I know not whether they have not lost
part of what Temple calls their "race;" a word which, applied to wines,
in its primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil.
Liberty, when it first appeared, I tried to read, and soon desisted. I
have never tried again, and, therefore, will not hazard either praise or
censure.
The highest praise which he has received ought not to be suppressed; it
is said by lord Lyttelton, in the prologue to his posthumous play, that
his works contained
No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
-----
[Footnote 160: According to the Biographical Dictionary the name of
Thomson's mother was Beatrix Trotter. Hume was the name of his
grandmother. ED. ]
[Footnote 161: See the Life of Beattie, by sir William Forbes, for some
additional anecdotes. ED. ]
[Footnote 162: Warton was told by Millan that the book lay a long time
unsold on his stall. ED. ]
[Footnote 163: "It was at this time that the school of Pope was giving
way: addresses to the head rather than to the heart, or the fancy; moral
axioms and witty observations, expressed in harmonious numbers, and with
epigrammatick terseness; the _limae labor_, all the artifices of a
highly polished style, and the graces of finished composition, which had
long usurped the place of the more sterling beauties of the imagination
and sentiment, began first to be lessened in the public estimation by
the appearance of Thomson's Seasons, a work which constituted a new era
in our poetry. " Censura Literaria, iv. 280. ]
[Footnote 164: An interesting anecdote respecting Thomson's deportment
before a commission, instituted in 1732, for an inquiry into the state
of the public offices under the lord chancellor, is omitted by Johnson
and all the poet's biographers. We extract it from the nineteenth volume
of the Critical Review, p. 141. "Mr. Thomson's place of secretary of the
briefs fell under the cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned
to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining
the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very
concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot,
who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the
best of his poetical compositions. " The above praise is precisely such
as we might anticipate that an old lawyer would give, but it, at all
events, exempts the poet's character from the imputation of listless
indolence, advanced by Murdoch, and leaves lord Hardwicke little excuse
for _his_ conduct. ED. ]
[Footnote 165: It is not generally known that in this year an edition of
Milton's Areopagitiea was published by Millar, to which Thomson wrote a
preface. ]
[Footnote 166: See vol. v. p. 329 of this edition, and Mr. Roscoe's Life
of Pope, for some anecdotes respecting Gay's Beggars' Opera and Polly,
illustrative of the efficacy of a lord-chamberlain's interference with
the stage. ED. ]
[Footnote 167: Several anecdotes of Thomson's personal appearance and
habits are scattered over the volumes of Boswell. ED. ]
[Footnote 168: For an interesting collection of the various readings of
the successive editions of the Seasons, see vols. ii. in. and iv. of the
Censura Literaria. Thomson's own preface to the second edition of Winter
may be found in vol. ii. p. 67, of the above-quoted work. ED. ]
WATTS.
The poems of Dr. Watts were, by my recommendation, inserted in the late
collection; the readers of which are to impute to me whatever pleasure
or weariness they may find in the perusal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret,
and Yalden.
Isaac Watts was born July 17, 1674, at Southampton, where his father, of
the same name, kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen, though common
report makes him a shoemaker. He appears, from the narrative of Dr.
Gibbons, to have been neither indigent nor illiterate.
Isaac, the eldest of nine children, was given to books from his infancy;
and began, we are told, to learn Latin when he was four years old, I
suppose, at home. He was afterwards taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by
Mr. Pinhorn, a clergyman, master of the free-school at Southampton, to
whom the gratitude of his scholar afterwards inscribed a Latin ode.
His proficiency at school was so conspicuous, that a subscription was
proposed for his support at the university; but he declared his
resolution of taking his lot with the dissenters. Such he was as every
Christian church would rejoice to have adopted.
He, therefore, repaired, in 1690, to an academy taught by Mr. Rowe,
where he had for his companions and fellow-students Mr. Hughes the poet,
and Dr. Horte, afterwards archbishop of Tuam. Some Latin essays,
supposed to have been written as exercises at this academy, show a
degree of knowledge, both philosophical and theological, such as very
few attain by a much longer course of study.
He was, as he hints in his Miscellanies, a maker of verses from fifteen
to fifty, and, in his youth, appears to have paid attention to Latin
poetry. His verses to his brother, in the _glyconick_ measure, written
when he was seventeen, are remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his
other odes are deformed by the Pindarick folly then prevailing, and are
written with such neglect of all metrical rules, as is without example
among the ancients; but his diction, though, perhaps, not always exactly
pure, has such copiousness and splendour, as shows that he was but a
very little distance from excellence.
His method of study was to impress the contents of his books upon his
memory by abridging them, and by interleaving them to amplify one system
with supplements from another.
With the congregation of his tutor Mr. Rowe, who were, I believe,
independents, he communicated in his nineteenth year.
At the age of twenty he left the academy, and spent two years in study
and devotion at the house of his father, who treated him with great
tenderness; and had the happiness, indulged to few parents, of living to
see his son eminent for literature, and venerable for piety.
He was then entertained by sir John Hartopp five years, as domestick
tutor to his son: and in that time particularly devoted himself to the
study of the holy scriptures; and, being chosen assistant to Dr.
Chauncey, preached the first time on the birthday that completed his
twenty-fourth year; probably considering that as the day of a second
nativity, by which he entered on a new period of existence.
In about three years he succeeded Dr. Chauncey; but, soon after his
entrance on his charge, he was seized by a dangerous illness, which sunk
him to such weakness, that the congregation thought an assistant
necessary, and appointed Mr. Price. His health then returned gradually;
and he performed his duty till, 1712, he was seized by a fever of such
violence and continuance, that from the feebleness which it brought upon
him he never perfectly recovered.
This calamitous state made the compassion of his friends necessary, and
drew upon him the attention of sir Thomas Abney, who received him into
his house; where, with a constancy of friendship and uniformity of
conduct not often to be found, he was treated for thirty-six years with
all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the attention
that respect could dictate. Sir Thomas died about eight years
afterwards; but he continued with the lady and her daughters to the end
of his life. The lady died about a year after him.
A coalition like this, a state in which the notions of patronage and
dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits,
deserves a particular memorial; and I will not withhold from the reader
Dr. Gibbon's representation; to which regard is to be paid, as to the
narrative of one who writes what he knows, and what is known likewise to
multitudes besides.
"Our next observation shall be made upon that remarkably kind providence
which brought the doctor into sir Thomas Abney's family, and continued
him there till his death, a period of no less than thirty-six years. In
the midst of his sacred labours for the glory of God, and good of his
generation, he is seized with a most violent and threatening fever,
which leaves him oppressed with great weakness, and puts a stop, at
least, to his publick services for four years. In this distressing
season, doubly so to his active and pious spirit, he is invited to sir
Thomas Abney's family, nor ever removes from it till he had finished his
days. Here he enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of the truest
friendship. Here, without any care of his own, he had every thing which
could contribute to the enjoyment of life, and favour the unwearied
pursuits of his studies. Here he dwelt in a family, which for piety,
order, harmony, and every virtue, was an house of God. Here he had the
privilege of a country recess, the fragrant bower, the spreading lawn,
the flowery garden, and other advantages, to sooth his mind, and aid his
restoration to health; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most
grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return
to them with redoubled vigour and delight. Had it not been for this most
happy event, he might, as to outward view, have feebly, it may be
painfully, dragged on through many more years of languor, and inability
for publick service, and even for profitable study, or, perhaps, might
have sunk into his grave under the overwhelming load of infirmities in
the midst of his days; and thus the church and world would have been
deprived of those many excellent sermons and works, which he drew up and
published during his long residence in this family. In a few years after
his coming hither, sir Thomas Abney dies; but his amiable consort
survives, who shows the doctor the same respect and friendship as
before, and most happily for him and great numbers besides; for, as her
riches were great, her generosity and munificence were in full
proportion; her thread of life was drawn out to a great age, even beyond
that of the doctor's; and thus this excellent man, through her kindness,
and that of her daughter, the present Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a
like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and
felicities he experienced at his first entrance into this family, till
his days were numbered and finished; and, like a shock of corn in its
season, he ascended into the regions of perfect and immortal life and
joy. "
If this quotation has appeared long, let it be considered that it
comprises an account of six-and-thirty years, and those the years of Dr.
Watts.
From the time of his reception into this family, his life was no
otherwise diversified than by successive publications. The series of his
works I am not able to deduce; their number and their variety show the
intenseness of his industry, and the extent of his capacity.
He was one of the first authors that taught the dissenters to court
attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them
before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and
blunted by coarseness, and inelegance of style. He showed them, that
zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.
He continued to the end of his life the teacher of a congregation; and
no reader of his works can doubt his fidelity or diligence. In the
pulpit, though his low stature, which very little exceeded five feet,
graced him with no advantages of appearance, yet the gravity and
propriety of his utterance made his discourses very efficacious. I once
mentioned the reputation which Mr. Foster had gained by his proper
delivery, to my friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me, that in the art of
pronunciation he was far inferiour to Dr. Watts.
Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language,
that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory
sermons, but having adjusted the heads, and sketched out some
particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary powers.
He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence by any gesticulations; for,
as no corporeal actions have any correspondence with theological truth,
he did not see how they could enforce it.
At the conclusion of weighty sentences he gave time, by a short pause,
for the proper impression.
To stated and publick instruction he added familiar visits, and personal
application, and was careful to improve the opportunities which
conversation offered of diffusing and increasing the influence of
religion.
By his natural temper he was quick of resentment; but, by his
established and habitual practice, he was gentle, modest, and
inoffensive. His tenderness appeared in his attention to children and to
the poor. To the poor, while he lived in the family of his friend, he
allowed the third part of his annual revenue, though the whole was not a
hundred a year; and for children he condescended to lay aside the
scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to write little poems of
devotion, and systems of instruction, adapted to their wants and
capacities, from the dawn of reason, through its gradations of advance
in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common principles
of human action, will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one
time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in
their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the dignity of science is,
perhaps, the hardest lesson that humility can teach.
As his mind was capacious, his curiosity excursive, and his industry
continual, his writings are very numerous, and his subjects various.
With his theological works I am only enough acquainted to admire his
meekness of opposition, and his mildness of censure. It was not only in
his book, but in his mind, that orthodoxy was united with charity.
Of his philosophical pieces, his Logick has been received into the
universities, and, therefore, wants no private recommendation; if he
owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be considered that no man, who
undertakes merely to methodise or illustrate a system, pretends to be
its author.
In his metaphysical disquisitions, it was observed by the late learned
Mr. Dyer, that he confounded the idea of _space_ with that of _empty
space_, and did not consider, that though space might be without matter,
yet matter, being extended, could not be without space.
Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his
Improvement of the Mind, of which the radical principles may, indeed, be
found in Locke's Conduct of the Understanding; but they are so expanded
and ramified by Watts, as to confer upon him the merit of a work, in the
highest degree, useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing
others, may be charged with deficience in his duty if this book is not
recommended.
I have mentioned his treatises of theology as distinct from his other
productions; but the truth is, that whatever he took in hand was, by his
incessant solicitude for souls, converted to theology. As piety
predominated in his mind, it is diffused over his works: under his
direction it may be truly said, "theologiae philosophia ancillatur,"
philosophy is subservient to evangelical instruction: it is difficult to
read a page without learning, or at least wishing, to be better. The
attention is caught by indirect instruction, and he that sat down only
to reason is, on a sudden, compelled to pray.
It was, therefore, with great propriety that, in 1728, he received from
Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unsolicited diploma, by which he became a
doctor of divinity. Academical honours would have more value, if they
were always bestowed with equal judgment.
He continued many years to study and to preach, and to do good by his
instruction and example: till at last the infirmities of age disabled
him from the more laborious part of his ministerial functions, and,
being no longer capable of publick duty, he offered to remit the salary
appendant to it; but his congregation would not accept the resignation.
By degrees his weakness increased, and at last confined him to his
chamber and his bed; where he was worn gradually away without pain, till
he expired, Nov. 25, 1748, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
Few men have left behind such purity of character, or such monuments of
laborious piety. He has provided instruction for all ages, from those
who are lisping their first lessons, to the enlightened readers of
Malbranche and Locke; he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature
unexamined; he has taught the art of reasoning, and the science of the
stars.
His character, therefore, must be formed from the multiplicity and
diversity of his attainments, rather than from any single performance;
for it would not be safe to claim for him the highest rank in any single
denomination of literary dignity; yet, perhaps, there was nothing in
which he would not have excelled, if he had not divided his powers to
different pursuits.
As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would probably have stood high
among the authors with whom he is now associated. For his judgment was
exact, and he noted beauties and faults with very nice discernment; his
imagination, as the Dacian Battle proves, was vigorous and active, and
the stores of knowledge were large by which his fancy was to be
supplied. His ear was well-tuned, and his diction was elegant and
copious. But his devotional poetry is, like that of others,
unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topicks enforces perpetual
repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of
figurative diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than
others what no man has done well.
His poems on other subjects seldom rise higher than might be expected
from the amusements of a man of letters, and have different degrees of
value as they are more or less laboured, or as the occasion was more or
less favourable to invention.
He writes too often without regular measures, and too often in blank
verse; the rhymes are not always sufficiently correspondent. He is
particularly unhappy in coining names expressive of characters. His
lines are commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously
pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does not
wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour? He is, at least,
one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely
pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his
verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his nonconformity, to
copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God.
A. PHILIPS.
Of the birth, or early part of the life, of Ambrose Philips, I have not
been able to find any account. His academical education he received at
St. John's college, in Cambridge[169], where he first solicited the
notice of the world by some English verses, in the collection, published
by the university, on the death of queen Mary.
From this time, how he was employed, or in what station he passed his
life, is not yet discovered. He must have published his Pastorals before
the year 1708, because they are, evidently, prior to those of Pope.
He afterwards, 1709, addressed to the universal patron, the duke of
Dorset, a poetical Letter from Copenhagen, which was published in the
Tatler, and is, by Pope, in one of his first letters, mentioned with
high praise, as the production of a man "who could write very nobly. "
Philips was a zealous whig, and, therefore, easily found access to
Addison and Steele; but his ardour seems not to have procured him any
thing more than kind words; since he was reduced to translate the
Persian Tales for Tonson, for which he was afterwards reproached, with
this addition of contempt, that he worked for half-a-crown. The book is
divided into many sections, for each of which, if he received
half-a-crown, his reward, as writers then were paid, was very liberal;
but half-a-crown had a mean sound.
He was employed in promoting the principles of his party, by epitomising
Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams. The original book is written with
such depravity of genius, such mixture of the fop and pedant, as has not
often appeared. The epitome is free enough from affectation, but has
little spirit or vigour[170].
In 1712, he brought upon the stage the Distrest Mother, almost a
translation of Racine's Andromaque. Such a work requires no uncommon
powers; but the friends of Philips exerted every art to promote his
interest. Before the appearance of the play, a whole Spectator, none,
indeed, of the best, was devoted to its praise; while it yet continued
to be acted, another Spectator was written, to tell what impression it
made upon sir Roger; and, on the first night, a select audience, says
Pope[171], was called together to applaud it.
It was concluded with the most successful epilogue that was ever yet
spoken on the English theatre. The three first nights it was recited
twice; and not only continued to be demanded through the run, as it is
termed, of the play, but, whenever it is recalled to the stage, where,
by peculiar fortune, though a copy from the French, it yet keeps its
place, the epilogue is still expected, and is still spoken.
The propriety of epilogues in general, and, consequently, of this, was
questioned by a correspondent of the Spectator, whose letter was
undoubtedly admitted for the sake of the answer, which soon followed,
written with much zeal and acrimony. The attack and the defence equally
contributed to stimulate curiosity and continue attention. It may be
discovered, in the defence, that Prior's epilogue to Phædra had a little
excited jealousy; and something of Prior's plan may be discovered in the
performance of his rival. Of this distinguished epilogue the reputed
author was the wretched Budgel, whom Addison used to denominate[172]
"the man who calls me cousin;" and when he was asked, how such a silly
fellow could write so well, replied, "the epilogue was quite another
thing when I saw it first. " It was known in Tonson's family, and told to
Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of it, and that, when it
had been at first printed with his name, he came early in the morning,
before the copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to
Budgel, that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then
making for a place.
Philips was now high in the ranks of literature. His play was applauded;
his translations from Sappho had been published in the Spectator; he was
an important and distinguished associate of clubs, witty and political;
and nothing was wanting to his happiness, but that he should be sure of
its continuance.
The work which had procured him the first notice from the publick, was
his Six Pastorals, which, flattering the imagination with Arcadian
scenes, probably found many readers, and might have long passed as a
pleasing amusement, had they not been, unhappily, too much commended.
The rustick poems of Theocritus were so highly valued by the Greeks and
Romans, that they attracted the imitation of Virgil, whose eclogues seem
to have been considered as precluding all attempts of the same kind;
for, no shepherds were taught to sing by any succeeding poet, till
Nemesian and Calphurnius ventured their feeble efforts in the lower age
of Latin literature.
At the revival of learning in Italy, it was soon discovered, that a
dialogue of imaginary swains might be composed with little difficulty;
because the conversation of shepherds excludes profound or refined
sentiment; and, for images and descriptions, satyrs and fawns, and
naiads and dryads, were always within call; and woods and meadows, and
hills and rivers, supplied variety of matter, which; having a natural
power to sooth the mind, did not quickly cloy it.
Petrarch entertained the learned men of his age with the novelty of
modern pastorals in Latin. Being not ignorant of Greek, and finding
nothing in the word _eclogue_, of rural meaning, he supposed it to be
corrupted by the copiers, and, therefore, called his own productions
_oeglogues_, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, though
it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by
subsequent writers, and, amongst others, by our Spenser.
More than a century afterwards, 1498, Mantuan published his Bucolicks
with such success, that they were soon dignified by Badius with a
comment, and, as Scaliger complained, received into schools, and taught
as classical; his complaint was vain, and the practice, however
injudicious, spread far, and continued long. Mantuan was read, at least
in some of the inferiour schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of
the present century. The speakers of Mantuan carried their disquisitions
beyond the country, to censure the corruptions of the church; and from
him Spenser learned to employ his swains on topicks of controversy.
The Italians soon transferred pastoral poetry into their own language:
Sannazaro wrote Arcadia in prose and verse: Tasso and Guarini wrote
Favole Boschareccie, or sylvan dramas; and all nations of Europe filled
volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and Thestylis and Phyllis.
Philips thinks it somewhat strange to conceive "how, in an age so
addicted to the muses, pastoral poetry never comes to be so much as
thought upon. " His wonder seems very unseasonable; there had never, from
the time of Spenser, wanted writers to talk occasionally of Arcadia and
Strephon; and half the book, in which he first tried his powers,
consists of dialogues on queen Mary's death, between Tityrus and
Corydon, or Mopsus and Menalcas. A series or book of pastorals, however,
I know not that any one had then lately published.
Not long afterwards, Pope made the first display of his powers in four
pastorals, written in a very different form. Philips had taken Spenser,
and Pope took Virgil for his pattern. Philips endeavoured to be natural,
Pope laboured to be elegant.
Philips was now favoured by Addison, and by Addison's companions, who
were very willing to push him into reputation. The Guardian gave an
account of pastoral, partly critical, and partly historical; in which,
when the merit of the moderns is compared, Tasso and Guarini are
censured for remote thoughts and unnatural refinements; and, upon the
whole, the Italians and French are all excluded from rural poetry; and
the pipe of the pastoral muse is transmitted, by lawful inheritance,
from Theocritus to Virgil, from Virgil to Spenser, and from Spenser to
Philips.
With this inauguration of Philips, his rival Pope was not much
delighted; he, therefore, drew a comparison of Philips's performance
with his own, in which, with an unexampled and unequalled artifice of
irony, though he has himself always the advantage, he gives the
preference to Philips. The design of aggrandizing himself he disguised
with such dexterity, that, though Addison discovered it, Steele was
deceived, and was afraid of displeasing Pope by publishing his paper.
Published, however, it was, (Guardian, 40,) and from that time Pope and
Philips lived in a perpetual reciprocation of malevolence.
In poetical powers, of either praise or satire, there was no proportion
between the combatants; but Philips, though he could not prevail by wit,
hoped to hurt Pope with another weapon, and charged him, as Pope
thought, with Addison's approbation, as disaffected to the government.
Even with this he was not satisfied; for, indeed, there is no appearance
that any regard was paid to his clamours. He proceeded to grosser
insults, and hung up a rod at Button's, with which he threatened to
chastise Pope, who appears to have been extremely exasperated; for, in
the first edition of his letters, he calls Philips "rascal," and in the
last still charges him with detaining, in his hands, the subscriptions
for Homer, delivered to him by the Hanover club.
I suppose it was never suspected that he meant to appropriate the money;
he only delayed, and with sufficient meanness, the gratification of him
by whose prosperity he was pained.
Men sometimes suffer by injudicious kindness; Philips became ridiculous,
without his own fault, by the absurd admiration of his friends, who
decorated him with honorary garlands, which the first breath of
contradiction blasted.
When upon the succession of the house of Hanover every whig expected to
be happy, Philips seems to have obtained too little notice; he caught
few drops of the golden shower, though he did not omit what flattery
could perform. He was only made a commissioner of the lottery, 1717,
and, what did not much elevate his character, a justice of the peace.
The success of his first play must naturally dispose him to turn his
hopes towards the stage: he did not, however, soon commit himself to the
mercy of an audience, but contented himself with the fame already
acquired, till after nine years he produced, 1722, the Briton, a tragedy
which, whatever was its reception, is now neglected; though one of the
scenes, between Vanoc, the British prince, and Valens, the Roman
general, is confessed to be written with great dramatick skill, animated
by spirit truly poetical.
Sir Francis Page, a judge well known in his time, conceiving that his
name was meant to fill up the blank, sent his clerk to Mr. Pope, to
complain of the insult. Pope told the young man that the blank might be
supplied by many monosyllables, other than the judge's name:--"but,
sir," said the clerk, "the judge says that no other word will make sense
of the passage. "--"So then it seems," says Pope "your master is not only
a judge but a poet; as that is the case, the odds are against me. Give
my respects to the judge, and tell him, I will not contend with one that
has the advantage of me, and he may fill up the blank as he pleases. "
H. ]
[Footnote 151: See note, by Gifford, on Johnson's criticism here in
Massinger's works. ]
[Footnote 152: Johnson, I imagine, alludes to a well-known line by
Rochester:
The best good man with the worst-natur'd muse. ]
[Footnote 153: Major Bernardi, who died in Newgate, Sept. 20, 1736. See
Gent. Mag. vol. 1. p. 125. N. ]
[Footnote 154: This was altered much for the better, as it now stands on
the monument in the abbey, erected to Rowe and his daughter. WARB. See
Bowles's edition of Pope's works, ii. 416. ]
[Footnote 155: In the north aisle of the parish church of St. Margaret,
Westminster. H. ]
[Footnote 156: The thought was, probably, borrowed from Carew's
Obsequies to the lady Anne Hay:
I heard the virgins sigh, I saw the sleek
And polish'd courtier channel his fresh cheek
_With real tears_.
J. B. ]
[Footnote 157: Her _wit_ was more than _man_, her _innocence a child_.
DRYDEN, on Mrs. Killigrew. ]
[Footnote 158: The same thought is found in George Whetstone's epitaph
on the good lord Dyer, 1582:
Et semper bonus ille bonis fuit, ergo bonorum
Sunt illi demum pectora sarcophagus.
J. B. ]
PITT.
Christopher Pitt, of whom whatever I shall relate, more than has been
already published, I owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton, was
born, in 1699, at Blandford, the son of a physician much esteemed.
He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into Winchester college, where he
was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his removal
to New college, in 1719, presented to the electors, as the product of
his private and voluntary studies, a complete version of Lucan's poem,
which he did not then know to have been translated by Rowe.
This is an instance of early diligence which well deserves to be
recorded. The suppression of such a work, recommended by such uncommon
circumstances, is to be regretted. It is, indeed, culpable to load
libraries with superfluous books; but incitements to early excellence
are never superfluous, and, from this example, the danger is not great
of many imitations.
When he had resided at his college three years, he was presented to the
rectory of Pimpern, in Dorsetshire, 1722, by his relation, Mr. Pitt, of
Stratfield Say, in Hampshire; and, resigning his fellowship, continued
at Oxford two years longer, till he became master of arts, 1724.
He probably about this time translated Vida's Art of Poetry, which
Tristram's splendid edition had then made popular. In this translation
he distinguished himself, both by its general elegance, and by the
skilful adaptation of his numbers to the images expressed; a beauty
which Vida has, with great ardour, enforced and exemplified.
He then retired to his living, a place very pleasing by its situation,
and, therefore, likely to excite the imagination of a poet; where he
passed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue, and beloved for
the softness of his temper and the easiness of his manners. Before
strangers he had something of the scholar's timidity or distrust; but
when he became familiar he was, in a very high degree, cheerful and
entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect; and he
passed a life placid and honourable, neither too great for the kindness
of the low, nor too low for the notice of the great.
At what time he composed his Miscellany, published in 1727, it is not
easy or necessary to know: those which have dates appear to have been
very early productions, and I have not observed that any rise above
mediocrity.
The success of his Vida animated him to a higher undertaking; and in his
thirtieth year he published a version of the first book of the Æneid.
This being, I suppose, commended by his friends, he, some time
afterwards, added three or four more; with an advertisement, in which he
represents himself as translating with great indifference, and with a
progress of which himself was hardly conscious. This can hardly be true,
and, if true, is nothing to the reader.
At last, without any farther contention with his modesty or any awe of
the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English Æneid, which I am
sorry not to see, joined in this publication with his other poems[159].
It would have been pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing the two
best translations that, perhaps, were ever produced by one nation of the
same author.
Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures,
and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's Iliad, he had an example
of an exact, equable and splendid versification. With these advantages
seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labour particular
passages, and escape many errours. If the two versions are compared,
perhaps the result would be that Dryden leads the reader forward by his
general vigour and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to
contemplate the excellence of a single couplet; that Dryden's faults are
forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are
neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal; that Pitt
pleases the criticks, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and
Dryden read.
He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work deservedly
conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a stone
at Blandford, on which is this inscription:
In memory of
CHR. PITT, clerk, M. A.
Very eminent
for his talents in poetry;
and yet more
for the universal candour of
his mind, and the primitive
simplicity of his manners.
He lived innocent;
and died beloved,
Apr. 13, 1748,
aged 48.
-----
[Footnote 159: It has since been added to the collection. R. ]
THOMSON.
James Thomson, the son of a minister well esteemed for his piety and
diligence, was born September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of
Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor. His mother, whose name was
Hume[160], inherited, as coheiress, a portion of a small estate. The
revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was, probably,
in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported his
family, having nine children, that Mr. Riccarton, a neighbouring
minister, discovering in James uncommon promises of future excellence,
undertook to superintend his education, and provide him books.
He was taught the common rudiments of learning at the school of Jedburg,
a place which he delights to recollect in his poem of Autumn; but was
not considered by his master as superiour to common boys, though, in
those early days, he amused his patron and his friends with poetical
compositions; with which, however, he so little pleased himself, that,
on every new-year's day, he threw into the fire all the productions of
the foregoing year.
From the school he was removed to Edinburgh, where he had not resided
two years when his father died, and left all his children to the care of
their mother, who raised, upon her little estate, what money a mortgage
could afford, and, removing with her family to Edinburgh, lived to see
her son rising into eminence.
The design of Thomson's friends was to breed him a minister. He lived at
Edinburgh, as at school, without distinction or expectation, till, at
the usual time, he performed a probationary exercise by explaining a
psalm. His diction was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the
professor of divinity, reproved him for speaking language
unintelligible to a popular audience; and he censured one of his
expressions as indecent, if not profane[161].
This rebuke is reported to have repressed his thoughts of an
ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated, with new
diligence, his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger
of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought
themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but,
finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink
into despondence.
He easily discovered, that the only stage on which a poet could appear,
with any hope of advantage, was London; a place too wide for the
operation of petty competition and private malignity, where merit might
soon become conspicuous, and would find friends as soon as it became
reputable to befriend it. A lady, who was acquainted with his mother,
advised him to the journey, and promised some countenance, or
assistance, which, at last, he never received; however, he justified his
adventure by her encouragement, and came to seek, in London, patronage
and fame.
At his arrival he found his way to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to the sons of
the duke of Montrose. He had recommendations to several persons of
consequence, which he had tied up carefully in his handkerchief; but as
he passed along the street, with the gaping curiosity of a new-comer,
his attention was upon every thing rather than his pocket, and his
magazine of credentials was stolen from him.
His first want was a pair of shoes. For the supply of all his
necessities, his whole fund was his Winter, which for a time could find
no purchaser; till, at last, Mr. Millan was persuaded to buy it at a low
price; and this low price he had, for some time, reason to regret[162];
but, by accident, Mr. Whatley, a man not wholly unknown among authors,
happening to turn his eye upon it, was so delighted that he ran from
place to place celebrating its excellence. Thomson obtained, likewise,
the notice of Aaron Hill, whom, being friendless and indigent, and glad
of kindness, he courted with every expression of servile adulation.
Winter was dedicated to sir Spencer Compton, but attracted no regard
from him to the author; till Aaron Hill awakened his attention by some
verses addressed to Thomson, and published in one of the newspapers,
which censured the great for their neglect of ingenious men. Thomson
then received a present of twenty guineas, of which he gives this
account to Mr. Hill:
"I hinted to you in my last, that on Saturday morning I was with sir
Spencer Compton. A certain gentleman, without my desire, spoke to him
concerning me; his answer was, that I had never come near him. Then the
gentleman put the question, if he desired that I should wait on him: he
returned, he did. On this, the gentleman gave me an introductory letter
to him. He received me in what they commonly call a civil manner; asked
me some commonplace questions; and made me a present of twenty guineas.
I am very ready to own that the present was larger than my performance
deserved; and shall ascribe it to his generosity, or any other cause,
rather than the merit of the address. "
The poem, which, being of a new kind[163], few would venture at first
to like, by degrees gained upon the publick; and one edition was very
speedily succeeded by another.
Thomson's credit was now high, and every day brought him new friends;
among others Dr. Rundle, a man afterwards unfortunately famous, sought
his acquaintance, and found his qualities such, that he recommended him
to the lord chancellor Talbot.
Winter was accompanied, in many editions, not only with a preface and a
dedication, but with poetical praises by Mr. Hill, Mr. Mallet, (then
Malloch,) and Mira, the fictitious name of a lady once too well known.
Why the dedications are, to Winter and the other seasons, contrarily to
custom, left out in the collected works, the reader may inquire.
The next year, 1727, he distinguished himself by three publications; of
Summer, in pursuance of his plan; of a Poem on the Death of sir Isaac
Newton, which he was enabled to perform as an exact philosopher by the
instruction of Mr. Gray; and of Britannia, a kind of poetical invective
against the ministry, whom the nation then thought not forward enough in
resenting the depredations of the Spaniards. By this piece he declared
himself an adherent to the opposition, and had, therefore, no favour to
expect from the court.
Thomson, having been some time entertained in the family of the lord
Binning, was desirous of testifying his gratitude by making him the
patron of his Summer; but the same kindness which had first disposed
lord Binning to encourage him, determined him to refuse the dedication,
which was, by his advice, addressed to Mr. Dodington, a man who had more
power to advance the reputation and fortune of a poet.
Spring was published next year, with a dedication to the countess of
Hertford; whose practice it was to invite every summer some poet into
the country, to hear her verses, and assist her studies. This honour was
one summer conferred on Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with
lord Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship's poetical
operations, and, therefore, never received another summons.
Autumn, the season to which the Spring and Summer are preparatory, still
remained unsung, and was delayed till he published, 1730, his works
collected.
He produced in 1727 the tragedy of Sophonisba, which raised such
expectation, that every rehearsal was dignified with a splendid
audience, collected to anticipate the delight that was preparing for the
publick. It was observed, however, that nobody was much affected, and
that the company rose as from a moral lecture.
It had upon the stage no unusual degree of success. Slight accidents
will operate upon the taste of pleasure. There is a feeble line in the
play:
O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!
This gave occasion to a waggish parody:
O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!
which for awhile was echoed through the town.
I have been told by Savage, that of the prologue to Sophonisba, the
first part was written by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish it;
and that the concluding lines were added by Mallet.
Thomson was not long afterwards, by the influence of Dr. Rundle, sent to
travel with Mr. Charles Talbot, the eldest son of the chancellor. He was
yet young enough to receive new impressions, to have his opinions
rectified, and his views enlarged; nor can he be supposed to have wanted
that curiosity which is inseparable from an active and comprehensive
mind. He may, therefore, now be supposed to have revelled in all the
joys of intellectual luxury; he was every day feasted with instructive
novelties; he lived splendidly without expense; and might expect, when
he returned home, a certain establishment.
At this time a long course of opposition to sir Robert Walpole had
filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the
want, and with care for liberty, which was not in danger. Thomson in his
travels on the continent, found or fancied so many evils arising from
the tyranny of other governments, that he resolved to write a very long
poem, in five parts, upon liberty.
While he was busy on the first book, Mr. Talbot died; and Thomson, who
had been rewarded for his attendance by the place of secretary of the
briefs, pays in the initial lines a decent tribute to his memory.
Upon this great poem two years were spent, and the author congratulated
himself upon it as his noblest work; but an author and his reader are
not always of a mind. Liberty called in vain upon her votaries to read
her praises and reward her encomiast: her praises were condemned to
harbour spiders, and to gather dust; none of Thomson's performances were
so little regarded.
The judgment of the publick was not erroneous; the recurrence of the
same images must tire in time; an enumeration of examples to prove a
position which nobody denied, as it was from the beginning superfluous,
must quickly grow disgusting.
The poem of Liberty does not now appear in its original state; but, when
the author's works were collected after his death, was shortened by sir
George Lyttelton, with a liberty, which, as it has a manifest tendency
to lessen the confidence of society, and to confound the characters of
authors, by making one man write by the judgment of another, cannot be
justified by any supposed propriety of the alteration, or kindness of
the friend. I wish to see it exhibited as its author left it.
Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and seems, for awhile, to have
suspended his poetry; but he was soon called back to labour by the death
of the chancellor, for his place then became vacant[164]; and though the
lord Hardwicke delayed, for some time, to give it away, Thomson's
bashfulness, or pride, or some other motive, perhaps not more laudable,
withheld him from soliciting; and the new chancellor would not give him
what he would not ask.
He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the prince of Wales was at
that time struggling for popularity, and, by the influence of Mr.
Lyttelton, professed himself the patron of wit: to him Thomson was
introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of his affairs,
said, "that they were in a more poetical posture than formerly;" and had
a pension allowed him of one hundred pounds a year.
Being now obliged to write, he produced, 1738[165], the tragedy of
Agamemnon, which was much shortened in the representation. It had the
fate which most commonly attends mythological stories, and was only
endured, but not favoured. It struggled with such difficulty through the
first night, that Thomson, coming late to his friends with whom he was
to sup, excused his delay by telling them how the sweat of his distress
had so disordered his wig, that he could not come till he had been
refitted by a barber.
He so interested himself in his own drama, that, if I remember right, as
he sat in the upper gallery, he accompanied the players by audible
recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him to silence. Pope
countenanced Agamemnon, by coming to it the first night, and was
welcomed to the theatre by a general clap; he had much regard for
Thomson, and once expressed it in a poetical epistle sent to Italy, of
which, however, he abated the value, by transplanting some of the lines
into his epistle to Arbuthnot.
About this time the act was passed for licensing plays, of which the
first operation was the prohibition of Gustavus Vasa[166], a tragedy of
Mr. Brooke, whom the publick recompensed by a very liberal subscription;
the next was the refusal of Edward and Eleonora, offered by Thomson. It
is hard to discover why either play should have been obstructed.
Thomson, likewise, endeavoured to repair his loss by a subscription, of
which I cannot now tell the success.
When the publick murmured at the unkind treatment of Thomson, one of the
ministerial writers remarked, that "he had taken a _liberty_ which was
not agreeable to _Britannia_ in any _season_. "
He was soon after employed, in conjunction with Mr. Mallet, to write the
mask of Alfred, which was acted before the prince at Cliefden-house.
His next work, 1745, was Tancred and Sigismunda, the most successful of
all his tragedies; for it still keeps its turn upon the stage. It may be
doubted whether he was, either by the bent of nature or habits of study,
much qualified for tragedy. It does not appear that he had much sense of
the pathetick; and his diffusive and descriptive style produced
declamation rather than dialogue.
His friend Mr. Lyttelton was now in power, and conferred upon him the
office of surveyor-general of the Leeward Islands; from which, when his
deputy was paid, he received about three hundred pounds a year.
The last piece that he lived to publish was the Castle of Indolence,
which was many years under his hand, but was, at last, finished with
great accuracy. The first canto opens a scene of lazy luxury that fills
the imagination.
He was now at ease, but was not long to enjoy it; for, by taking cold on
the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, with
some careless exasperation, ended in a fever that put an end to his
life, August 27, 1748. He was buried in the church of Richmond, without
an inscription; but a monument has been erected to his memory in
Westminster Abbey.
Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and "more fat than bard
beseems," of a dull countenance, and a gross, unanimated, uninviting
appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among select
friends, and by his friends very tenderly and warmly beloved[167].
He left behind him the tragedy of Coriolanus, which was, by the zeal of
his patron, sir George Lyttelton, brought upon the stage for the benefit
of his family, and recommended by a prologue, which Quin, who had long
lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as showed
him "to be," on that occasion, "no actor. " The commencement of this
benevolence is very honourable to Quin; who is reported to have
delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest
by a very considerable present; and its continuance is honourable to
both; for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation. By this
tragedy a considerable sum was raised, of which part discharged his
debts, and the rest was remitted to his sisters, whom, however removed
from them by place or condition, he regarded with great tenderness, as
will appear by the following letter, which I communicate with much
pleasure, as it gives me, at once, an opportunity of recording the
fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance
of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it.
"Hagley in Worcestershire, Oct. 4th, 1747.
"MY DEAR SISTER,--I thought you had known me better than to
interpret my silence into a decay of affection, especially as
your behaviour has always been such as rather to increase than
diminish it. Don't imagine, because I am a bad correspondent,
that I can ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do
myself the justice to tell you, that my affections are naturally
very fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of complaint
against you, (of which, by the by, I have not the least shadow,)
I am conscious of so many defects in myself, as dispose me to be
not a little charitable and forgiving.
"It gives me the truest heartfelt satisfaction to hear you have
a good, kind husband, and are in easy, contented circumstances;
but were they otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten my
tenderness towards you. As our good and tender-hearted parents
did not live to receive any material testimonies of that highest
human gratitude I owed them, (than which nothing could have
given me equal pleasure,) the only return I can make them now is
by kindness to those they left behind them. Would to God poor
Lizy had lived longer, to have been a further witness of the
truth of what I say, and that I might have had the pleasure of
seeing once more a sister who so truly deserved my esteem and
love! But she is happy, while we must toil a little longer here
below: let us, however, do it cheerfully and gratefully,
supported by the pleasing hope of meeting yet again on a safer
shore, where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life
will not, perhaps, be inconsistent with that blissful state. You
did right to call your daughter by her name; for you must needs
have had a particular tender friendship for one another,
endeared as you were by nature, by having passed the
affectionate years of your youth together; and by that great
softener and engager of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in
my power to ease it a little, I account one of the most
exquisite pleasures of my life. But enough of this melancholy,
though not unpleasing strain.
"I esteem you for your sensible and disinterested advice to Mr.
Bell, as you will see by my letter to him: as I approve entirely
of his marrying again, you may readily ask me why I don't marry
at all. My circumstances have, hitherto, been so variable and
uncertain in this fluctuating world, as induce to keep me from
engaging in such a state: and now, though they are more settled,
and of late (which you will be glad to hear) considerably
improved, I begin to think myself too far advanced in life for
such youthful undertakings, not to mention some other petty
reasons that are apt to startle the delicacy of difficult old
bachelors. I am, however, not a little suspicious that, was I to
pay a visit to Scotland, (which I have some thoughts of doing
soon,) I might, possibly, be tempted to think of a thing not
easily repaired if done amiss. I have always been of opinion
that none make better wives than the ladies of Scotland; and
yet, who more forsaken than they, while the gentlemen are
continually running abroad all the world over? Some of them, it
is true, are wise enough to return for a wife. You see I am
beginning to make interest already with the Scots ladies. But no
more of this infectious subject. Pray let me hear from you now
and then; and though I am not a regular correspondent, yet,
perhaps, I may mend in that respect. Remember me kindly to your
husband, and believe me to be
"Your most affectionate brother,
"JAMES THOMSON. "
(Addressed) "To Mrs. Thomson, in Lanark. "
The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active: he would give, on
all occasions, what assistance his purse would supply; but the offices
of intervention or solicitation he could not conquer his sluggishness
sufficiently to perform. The affairs of others, however, were not more
neglected than his own. He had often felt the inconveniencies of
idleness, but he never cured it; and was so conscious of his own
character, that he talked of writing an eastern tale of the Man who
loved to be in Distress.
Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful and inarticulate manner of
propounding any lofty or solemn composition. He was once reading to
Dodington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much
provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the paper from his
hand, and told him that he did not understand his own verses.
The biographer of Thomson has remarked, that an author's life is best
read in his works: his observation was not well-timed. Savage, who lived
much with Thomson, once told me, he heard a lady remarking that she
could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was "a
great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent;" but, said
Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was, perhaps,
never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the
luxury that comes within his reach. Yet Savage always spoke with the
most eager praise of his social qualities, his warmth and constancy of
friendship, and his adherence to his first acquaintance when the
advancement of his reputation had left them behind him.
As a writer he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode
of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank
verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than
the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses,
his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without
imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man
of genius; he looks round on nature and on life with the eye which
nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every
thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can
delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the
vast, and attends to the minute. The reader of the Seasons wonders that
he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has
felt what Thomson impresses.
His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly used.
Thomson's wide expansion of general views, and his enumeration of
circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed and embarrassed by
the frequent intersection of the sense, which are the necessary effects
of rhyme.
His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring before us
the whole magnificence of nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The
gaiety of spring, the splendour of summer, the tranquillity of autumn,
and the horrour of winter, take, in their turns, possession of the mind.
The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are
successively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us
so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his
imagery, and kindle with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without
his part in the entertainment; for he is assisted to recollect and to
combine, to arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his
contemplation.
The great defect of the Seasons is want of method; but for this I know
not that there was any remedy. Of many appearances subsisting all at
once, no rule can be given why one should be mentioned before another;
yet the memory wants the help of order, and the curiosity is not excited
by suspense or expectation.
His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant, such as may
be said to be to his images and thoughts, "both their lustre and their
shade:" such as invest them with splendour, through which, perhaps, they
are not always easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and sometimes may
be charged with filling the ear more than the mind.
These poems, with which I was acquainted at their first appearance, I
have since found altered and enlarged by subsequent revisals[168], as
the author supposed his judgment to grow more exact, and as books or
conversation extended his knowledge and opened his prospects. They are,
I think, improved in general; yet I know not whether they have not lost
part of what Temple calls their "race;" a word which, applied to wines,
in its primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil.
Liberty, when it first appeared, I tried to read, and soon desisted. I
have never tried again, and, therefore, will not hazard either praise or
censure.
The highest praise which he has received ought not to be suppressed; it
is said by lord Lyttelton, in the prologue to his posthumous play, that
his works contained
No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
-----
[Footnote 160: According to the Biographical Dictionary the name of
Thomson's mother was Beatrix Trotter. Hume was the name of his
grandmother. ED. ]
[Footnote 161: See the Life of Beattie, by sir William Forbes, for some
additional anecdotes. ED. ]
[Footnote 162: Warton was told by Millan that the book lay a long time
unsold on his stall. ED. ]
[Footnote 163: "It was at this time that the school of Pope was giving
way: addresses to the head rather than to the heart, or the fancy; moral
axioms and witty observations, expressed in harmonious numbers, and with
epigrammatick terseness; the _limae labor_, all the artifices of a
highly polished style, and the graces of finished composition, which had
long usurped the place of the more sterling beauties of the imagination
and sentiment, began first to be lessened in the public estimation by
the appearance of Thomson's Seasons, a work which constituted a new era
in our poetry. " Censura Literaria, iv. 280. ]
[Footnote 164: An interesting anecdote respecting Thomson's deportment
before a commission, instituted in 1732, for an inquiry into the state
of the public offices under the lord chancellor, is omitted by Johnson
and all the poet's biographers. We extract it from the nineteenth volume
of the Critical Review, p. 141. "Mr. Thomson's place of secretary of the
briefs fell under the cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned
to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining
the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very
concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot,
who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the
best of his poetical compositions. " The above praise is precisely such
as we might anticipate that an old lawyer would give, but it, at all
events, exempts the poet's character from the imputation of listless
indolence, advanced by Murdoch, and leaves lord Hardwicke little excuse
for _his_ conduct. ED. ]
[Footnote 165: It is not generally known that in this year an edition of
Milton's Areopagitiea was published by Millar, to which Thomson wrote a
preface. ]
[Footnote 166: See vol. v. p. 329 of this edition, and Mr. Roscoe's Life
of Pope, for some anecdotes respecting Gay's Beggars' Opera and Polly,
illustrative of the efficacy of a lord-chamberlain's interference with
the stage. ED. ]
[Footnote 167: Several anecdotes of Thomson's personal appearance and
habits are scattered over the volumes of Boswell. ED. ]
[Footnote 168: For an interesting collection of the various readings of
the successive editions of the Seasons, see vols. ii. in. and iv. of the
Censura Literaria. Thomson's own preface to the second edition of Winter
may be found in vol. ii. p. 67, of the above-quoted work. ED. ]
WATTS.
The poems of Dr. Watts were, by my recommendation, inserted in the late
collection; the readers of which are to impute to me whatever pleasure
or weariness they may find in the perusal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret,
and Yalden.
Isaac Watts was born July 17, 1674, at Southampton, where his father, of
the same name, kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen, though common
report makes him a shoemaker. He appears, from the narrative of Dr.
Gibbons, to have been neither indigent nor illiterate.
Isaac, the eldest of nine children, was given to books from his infancy;
and began, we are told, to learn Latin when he was four years old, I
suppose, at home. He was afterwards taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by
Mr. Pinhorn, a clergyman, master of the free-school at Southampton, to
whom the gratitude of his scholar afterwards inscribed a Latin ode.
His proficiency at school was so conspicuous, that a subscription was
proposed for his support at the university; but he declared his
resolution of taking his lot with the dissenters. Such he was as every
Christian church would rejoice to have adopted.
He, therefore, repaired, in 1690, to an academy taught by Mr. Rowe,
where he had for his companions and fellow-students Mr. Hughes the poet,
and Dr. Horte, afterwards archbishop of Tuam. Some Latin essays,
supposed to have been written as exercises at this academy, show a
degree of knowledge, both philosophical and theological, such as very
few attain by a much longer course of study.
He was, as he hints in his Miscellanies, a maker of verses from fifteen
to fifty, and, in his youth, appears to have paid attention to Latin
poetry. His verses to his brother, in the _glyconick_ measure, written
when he was seventeen, are remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his
other odes are deformed by the Pindarick folly then prevailing, and are
written with such neglect of all metrical rules, as is without example
among the ancients; but his diction, though, perhaps, not always exactly
pure, has such copiousness and splendour, as shows that he was but a
very little distance from excellence.
His method of study was to impress the contents of his books upon his
memory by abridging them, and by interleaving them to amplify one system
with supplements from another.
With the congregation of his tutor Mr. Rowe, who were, I believe,
independents, he communicated in his nineteenth year.
At the age of twenty he left the academy, and spent two years in study
and devotion at the house of his father, who treated him with great
tenderness; and had the happiness, indulged to few parents, of living to
see his son eminent for literature, and venerable for piety.
He was then entertained by sir John Hartopp five years, as domestick
tutor to his son: and in that time particularly devoted himself to the
study of the holy scriptures; and, being chosen assistant to Dr.
Chauncey, preached the first time on the birthday that completed his
twenty-fourth year; probably considering that as the day of a second
nativity, by which he entered on a new period of existence.
In about three years he succeeded Dr. Chauncey; but, soon after his
entrance on his charge, he was seized by a dangerous illness, which sunk
him to such weakness, that the congregation thought an assistant
necessary, and appointed Mr. Price. His health then returned gradually;
and he performed his duty till, 1712, he was seized by a fever of such
violence and continuance, that from the feebleness which it brought upon
him he never perfectly recovered.
This calamitous state made the compassion of his friends necessary, and
drew upon him the attention of sir Thomas Abney, who received him into
his house; where, with a constancy of friendship and uniformity of
conduct not often to be found, he was treated for thirty-six years with
all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the attention
that respect could dictate. Sir Thomas died about eight years
afterwards; but he continued with the lady and her daughters to the end
of his life. The lady died about a year after him.
A coalition like this, a state in which the notions of patronage and
dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits,
deserves a particular memorial; and I will not withhold from the reader
Dr. Gibbon's representation; to which regard is to be paid, as to the
narrative of one who writes what he knows, and what is known likewise to
multitudes besides.
"Our next observation shall be made upon that remarkably kind providence
which brought the doctor into sir Thomas Abney's family, and continued
him there till his death, a period of no less than thirty-six years. In
the midst of his sacred labours for the glory of God, and good of his
generation, he is seized with a most violent and threatening fever,
which leaves him oppressed with great weakness, and puts a stop, at
least, to his publick services for four years. In this distressing
season, doubly so to his active and pious spirit, he is invited to sir
Thomas Abney's family, nor ever removes from it till he had finished his
days. Here he enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of the truest
friendship. Here, without any care of his own, he had every thing which
could contribute to the enjoyment of life, and favour the unwearied
pursuits of his studies. Here he dwelt in a family, which for piety,
order, harmony, and every virtue, was an house of God. Here he had the
privilege of a country recess, the fragrant bower, the spreading lawn,
the flowery garden, and other advantages, to sooth his mind, and aid his
restoration to health; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most
grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return
to them with redoubled vigour and delight. Had it not been for this most
happy event, he might, as to outward view, have feebly, it may be
painfully, dragged on through many more years of languor, and inability
for publick service, and even for profitable study, or, perhaps, might
have sunk into his grave under the overwhelming load of infirmities in
the midst of his days; and thus the church and world would have been
deprived of those many excellent sermons and works, which he drew up and
published during his long residence in this family. In a few years after
his coming hither, sir Thomas Abney dies; but his amiable consort
survives, who shows the doctor the same respect and friendship as
before, and most happily for him and great numbers besides; for, as her
riches were great, her generosity and munificence were in full
proportion; her thread of life was drawn out to a great age, even beyond
that of the doctor's; and thus this excellent man, through her kindness,
and that of her daughter, the present Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a
like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and
felicities he experienced at his first entrance into this family, till
his days were numbered and finished; and, like a shock of corn in its
season, he ascended into the regions of perfect and immortal life and
joy. "
If this quotation has appeared long, let it be considered that it
comprises an account of six-and-thirty years, and those the years of Dr.
Watts.
From the time of his reception into this family, his life was no
otherwise diversified than by successive publications. The series of his
works I am not able to deduce; their number and their variety show the
intenseness of his industry, and the extent of his capacity.
He was one of the first authors that taught the dissenters to court
attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them
before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and
blunted by coarseness, and inelegance of style. He showed them, that
zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.
He continued to the end of his life the teacher of a congregation; and
no reader of his works can doubt his fidelity or diligence. In the
pulpit, though his low stature, which very little exceeded five feet,
graced him with no advantages of appearance, yet the gravity and
propriety of his utterance made his discourses very efficacious. I once
mentioned the reputation which Mr. Foster had gained by his proper
delivery, to my friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me, that in the art of
pronunciation he was far inferiour to Dr. Watts.
Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language,
that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory
sermons, but having adjusted the heads, and sketched out some
particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary powers.
He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence by any gesticulations; for,
as no corporeal actions have any correspondence with theological truth,
he did not see how they could enforce it.
At the conclusion of weighty sentences he gave time, by a short pause,
for the proper impression.
To stated and publick instruction he added familiar visits, and personal
application, and was careful to improve the opportunities which
conversation offered of diffusing and increasing the influence of
religion.
By his natural temper he was quick of resentment; but, by his
established and habitual practice, he was gentle, modest, and
inoffensive. His tenderness appeared in his attention to children and to
the poor. To the poor, while he lived in the family of his friend, he
allowed the third part of his annual revenue, though the whole was not a
hundred a year; and for children he condescended to lay aside the
scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to write little poems of
devotion, and systems of instruction, adapted to their wants and
capacities, from the dawn of reason, through its gradations of advance
in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common principles
of human action, will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one
time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in
their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the dignity of science is,
perhaps, the hardest lesson that humility can teach.
As his mind was capacious, his curiosity excursive, and his industry
continual, his writings are very numerous, and his subjects various.
With his theological works I am only enough acquainted to admire his
meekness of opposition, and his mildness of censure. It was not only in
his book, but in his mind, that orthodoxy was united with charity.
Of his philosophical pieces, his Logick has been received into the
universities, and, therefore, wants no private recommendation; if he
owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be considered that no man, who
undertakes merely to methodise or illustrate a system, pretends to be
its author.
In his metaphysical disquisitions, it was observed by the late learned
Mr. Dyer, that he confounded the idea of _space_ with that of _empty
space_, and did not consider, that though space might be without matter,
yet matter, being extended, could not be without space.
Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his
Improvement of the Mind, of which the radical principles may, indeed, be
found in Locke's Conduct of the Understanding; but they are so expanded
and ramified by Watts, as to confer upon him the merit of a work, in the
highest degree, useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing
others, may be charged with deficience in his duty if this book is not
recommended.
I have mentioned his treatises of theology as distinct from his other
productions; but the truth is, that whatever he took in hand was, by his
incessant solicitude for souls, converted to theology. As piety
predominated in his mind, it is diffused over his works: under his
direction it may be truly said, "theologiae philosophia ancillatur,"
philosophy is subservient to evangelical instruction: it is difficult to
read a page without learning, or at least wishing, to be better. The
attention is caught by indirect instruction, and he that sat down only
to reason is, on a sudden, compelled to pray.
It was, therefore, with great propriety that, in 1728, he received from
Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unsolicited diploma, by which he became a
doctor of divinity. Academical honours would have more value, if they
were always bestowed with equal judgment.
He continued many years to study and to preach, and to do good by his
instruction and example: till at last the infirmities of age disabled
him from the more laborious part of his ministerial functions, and,
being no longer capable of publick duty, he offered to remit the salary
appendant to it; but his congregation would not accept the resignation.
By degrees his weakness increased, and at last confined him to his
chamber and his bed; where he was worn gradually away without pain, till
he expired, Nov. 25, 1748, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
Few men have left behind such purity of character, or such monuments of
laborious piety. He has provided instruction for all ages, from those
who are lisping their first lessons, to the enlightened readers of
Malbranche and Locke; he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature
unexamined; he has taught the art of reasoning, and the science of the
stars.
His character, therefore, must be formed from the multiplicity and
diversity of his attainments, rather than from any single performance;
for it would not be safe to claim for him the highest rank in any single
denomination of literary dignity; yet, perhaps, there was nothing in
which he would not have excelled, if he had not divided his powers to
different pursuits.
As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would probably have stood high
among the authors with whom he is now associated. For his judgment was
exact, and he noted beauties and faults with very nice discernment; his
imagination, as the Dacian Battle proves, was vigorous and active, and
the stores of knowledge were large by which his fancy was to be
supplied. His ear was well-tuned, and his diction was elegant and
copious. But his devotional poetry is, like that of others,
unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topicks enforces perpetual
repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of
figurative diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than
others what no man has done well.
His poems on other subjects seldom rise higher than might be expected
from the amusements of a man of letters, and have different degrees of
value as they are more or less laboured, or as the occasion was more or
less favourable to invention.
He writes too often without regular measures, and too often in blank
verse; the rhymes are not always sufficiently correspondent. He is
particularly unhappy in coining names expressive of characters. His
lines are commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously
pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does not
wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour? He is, at least,
one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely
pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his
verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his nonconformity, to
copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God.
A. PHILIPS.
Of the birth, or early part of the life, of Ambrose Philips, I have not
been able to find any account. His academical education he received at
St. John's college, in Cambridge[169], where he first solicited the
notice of the world by some English verses, in the collection, published
by the university, on the death of queen Mary.
From this time, how he was employed, or in what station he passed his
life, is not yet discovered. He must have published his Pastorals before
the year 1708, because they are, evidently, prior to those of Pope.
He afterwards, 1709, addressed to the universal patron, the duke of
Dorset, a poetical Letter from Copenhagen, which was published in the
Tatler, and is, by Pope, in one of his first letters, mentioned with
high praise, as the production of a man "who could write very nobly. "
Philips was a zealous whig, and, therefore, easily found access to
Addison and Steele; but his ardour seems not to have procured him any
thing more than kind words; since he was reduced to translate the
Persian Tales for Tonson, for which he was afterwards reproached, with
this addition of contempt, that he worked for half-a-crown. The book is
divided into many sections, for each of which, if he received
half-a-crown, his reward, as writers then were paid, was very liberal;
but half-a-crown had a mean sound.
He was employed in promoting the principles of his party, by epitomising
Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams. The original book is written with
such depravity of genius, such mixture of the fop and pedant, as has not
often appeared. The epitome is free enough from affectation, but has
little spirit or vigour[170].
In 1712, he brought upon the stage the Distrest Mother, almost a
translation of Racine's Andromaque. Such a work requires no uncommon
powers; but the friends of Philips exerted every art to promote his
interest. Before the appearance of the play, a whole Spectator, none,
indeed, of the best, was devoted to its praise; while it yet continued
to be acted, another Spectator was written, to tell what impression it
made upon sir Roger; and, on the first night, a select audience, says
Pope[171], was called together to applaud it.
It was concluded with the most successful epilogue that was ever yet
spoken on the English theatre. The three first nights it was recited
twice; and not only continued to be demanded through the run, as it is
termed, of the play, but, whenever it is recalled to the stage, where,
by peculiar fortune, though a copy from the French, it yet keeps its
place, the epilogue is still expected, and is still spoken.
The propriety of epilogues in general, and, consequently, of this, was
questioned by a correspondent of the Spectator, whose letter was
undoubtedly admitted for the sake of the answer, which soon followed,
written with much zeal and acrimony. The attack and the defence equally
contributed to stimulate curiosity and continue attention. It may be
discovered, in the defence, that Prior's epilogue to Phædra had a little
excited jealousy; and something of Prior's plan may be discovered in the
performance of his rival. Of this distinguished epilogue the reputed
author was the wretched Budgel, whom Addison used to denominate[172]
"the man who calls me cousin;" and when he was asked, how such a silly
fellow could write so well, replied, "the epilogue was quite another
thing when I saw it first. " It was known in Tonson's family, and told to
Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of it, and that, when it
had been at first printed with his name, he came early in the morning,
before the copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to
Budgel, that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then
making for a place.
Philips was now high in the ranks of literature. His play was applauded;
his translations from Sappho had been published in the Spectator; he was
an important and distinguished associate of clubs, witty and political;
and nothing was wanting to his happiness, but that he should be sure of
its continuance.
The work which had procured him the first notice from the publick, was
his Six Pastorals, which, flattering the imagination with Arcadian
scenes, probably found many readers, and might have long passed as a
pleasing amusement, had they not been, unhappily, too much commended.
The rustick poems of Theocritus were so highly valued by the Greeks and
Romans, that they attracted the imitation of Virgil, whose eclogues seem
to have been considered as precluding all attempts of the same kind;
for, no shepherds were taught to sing by any succeeding poet, till
Nemesian and Calphurnius ventured their feeble efforts in the lower age
of Latin literature.
At the revival of learning in Italy, it was soon discovered, that a
dialogue of imaginary swains might be composed with little difficulty;
because the conversation of shepherds excludes profound or refined
sentiment; and, for images and descriptions, satyrs and fawns, and
naiads and dryads, were always within call; and woods and meadows, and
hills and rivers, supplied variety of matter, which; having a natural
power to sooth the mind, did not quickly cloy it.
Petrarch entertained the learned men of his age with the novelty of
modern pastorals in Latin. Being not ignorant of Greek, and finding
nothing in the word _eclogue_, of rural meaning, he supposed it to be
corrupted by the copiers, and, therefore, called his own productions
_oeglogues_, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, though
it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by
subsequent writers, and, amongst others, by our Spenser.
More than a century afterwards, 1498, Mantuan published his Bucolicks
with such success, that they were soon dignified by Badius with a
comment, and, as Scaliger complained, received into schools, and taught
as classical; his complaint was vain, and the practice, however
injudicious, spread far, and continued long. Mantuan was read, at least
in some of the inferiour schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of
the present century. The speakers of Mantuan carried their disquisitions
beyond the country, to censure the corruptions of the church; and from
him Spenser learned to employ his swains on topicks of controversy.
The Italians soon transferred pastoral poetry into their own language:
Sannazaro wrote Arcadia in prose and verse: Tasso and Guarini wrote
Favole Boschareccie, or sylvan dramas; and all nations of Europe filled
volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and Thestylis and Phyllis.
Philips thinks it somewhat strange to conceive "how, in an age so
addicted to the muses, pastoral poetry never comes to be so much as
thought upon. " His wonder seems very unseasonable; there had never, from
the time of Spenser, wanted writers to talk occasionally of Arcadia and
Strephon; and half the book, in which he first tried his powers,
consists of dialogues on queen Mary's death, between Tityrus and
Corydon, or Mopsus and Menalcas. A series or book of pastorals, however,
I know not that any one had then lately published.
Not long afterwards, Pope made the first display of his powers in four
pastorals, written in a very different form. Philips had taken Spenser,
and Pope took Virgil for his pattern. Philips endeavoured to be natural,
Pope laboured to be elegant.
Philips was now favoured by Addison, and by Addison's companions, who
were very willing to push him into reputation. The Guardian gave an
account of pastoral, partly critical, and partly historical; in which,
when the merit of the moderns is compared, Tasso and Guarini are
censured for remote thoughts and unnatural refinements; and, upon the
whole, the Italians and French are all excluded from rural poetry; and
the pipe of the pastoral muse is transmitted, by lawful inheritance,
from Theocritus to Virgil, from Virgil to Spenser, and from Spenser to
Philips.
With this inauguration of Philips, his rival Pope was not much
delighted; he, therefore, drew a comparison of Philips's performance
with his own, in which, with an unexampled and unequalled artifice of
irony, though he has himself always the advantage, he gives the
preference to Philips. The design of aggrandizing himself he disguised
with such dexterity, that, though Addison discovered it, Steele was
deceived, and was afraid of displeasing Pope by publishing his paper.
Published, however, it was, (Guardian, 40,) and from that time Pope and
Philips lived in a perpetual reciprocation of malevolence.
In poetical powers, of either praise or satire, there was no proportion
between the combatants; but Philips, though he could not prevail by wit,
hoped to hurt Pope with another weapon, and charged him, as Pope
thought, with Addison's approbation, as disaffected to the government.
Even with this he was not satisfied; for, indeed, there is no appearance
that any regard was paid to his clamours. He proceeded to grosser
insults, and hung up a rod at Button's, with which he threatened to
chastise Pope, who appears to have been extremely exasperated; for, in
the first edition of his letters, he calls Philips "rascal," and in the
last still charges him with detaining, in his hands, the subscriptions
for Homer, delivered to him by the Hanover club.
I suppose it was never suspected that he meant to appropriate the money;
he only delayed, and with sufficient meanness, the gratification of him
by whose prosperity he was pained.
Men sometimes suffer by injudicious kindness; Philips became ridiculous,
without his own fault, by the absurd admiration of his friends, who
decorated him with honorary garlands, which the first breath of
contradiction blasted.
When upon the succession of the house of Hanover every whig expected to
be happy, Philips seems to have obtained too little notice; he caught
few drops of the golden shower, though he did not omit what flattery
could perform. He was only made a commissioner of the lottery, 1717,
and, what did not much elevate his character, a justice of the peace.
The success of his first play must naturally dispose him to turn his
hopes towards the stage: he did not, however, soon commit himself to the
mercy of an audience, but contented himself with the fame already
acquired, till after nine years he produced, 1722, the Briton, a tragedy
which, whatever was its reception, is now neglected; though one of the
scenes, between Vanoc, the British prince, and Valens, the Roman
general, is confessed to be written with great dramatick skill, animated
by spirit truly poetical.
