No More Learning

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.

He had not been idle, though he had been silent: for he exhibited
another tragedy the same year, on the story of Humphry, duke of
Gloucester. This tragedy is only remembered by its title.

His happiest undertaking was of a paper, called the Freethinker, in
conjunction with associates, of whom one was Dr. Boulter, who, then only
minister of a parish in Southwark, was of so much consequence to the
government, that he was made, first, bishop of Bristol, and, afterwards,
primate of Ireland, where his piety and his charity will be long
honoured.

It may easily be imagined that what was printed under the direction of
Boulter would have nothing in it indecent or licentious; its title is to
be understood as implying only freedom from unreasonable prejudice. It
has been reprinted in volumes, but is little read; nor can impartial
criticism recommend it as worthy of revival.

Boulter was not well qualified to write diurnal essays; but he knew how
to practise the liberality of greatness and the fidelity of friendship.
When he was advanced to the height of ecclesiastical dignity, he did not
forget the companion of his labours. Knowing Philips to be slenderly
supported, he took him to Ireland, as partaker of his fortune; and,
making him his secretary[173], added such preferments, as enabled him to
represent the county of Armagh in the Irish parliament.

In December, 1726, he was made secretary to the lord chancellor; and in
August, 1733, became judge of the prerogative court.

After the death of his patron he continued some years in Ireland; but at
last longing, as it seems, for his native country, he returned, 1748, to
London, having, doubtless, survived most of his friends and enemies, and
among them his dreaded antagonist, Pope. He found, however, the duke of
Newcastle still living, and to him he dedicated his poems, collected
into a volume.

Having purchased an annuity of four hundred pounds, he now certainly
hoped to pass some years of life in plenty and tranquillity; but his
hope deceived him; he was struck with a palsy, and died June 18, 1749,
in his seventy-eighth year[174].

Of his personal character, all that I have heard is, that he was eminent
for bravery and skill in the sword, and that in conversation he was
solemn and pompous. He had great sensibility of censure, if judgment may
be made by a single story which I heard long ago from Mr. Ing, a
gentleman of great eminence in Staffordshire. "Philips," said he, "was
once at table, when I asked him, how came thy king of Epirus to drive
oxen, and to say 'I'm goaded on by love? ' After which question he never
spoke again[175]. "

Of the Distrest Mother, not much is pretended to be his own, and,
therefore, it is no subject of criticism: his other two tragedies, I
believe, are not below mediocrity nor above it. Among the poems
comprised in the late collection, the Letter from Denmark may be justly
praised; the Pastorals, which, by the writer of the Guardian, were
ranked as one of the four genuine productions of the rustick muse,
cannot surely be despicable. That they exhibit a mode of life which does
not exist, nor ever existed, is not to be objected: the supposition of
such a state is allowed to pastoral. In his other poems he cannot be
denied the praise of lines sometimes elegant; but he has seldom much
force, or much comprehension. The pieces that please best are those
which from Pope and Pope's adherents procured him the name of _Namby
Pamby_, the poems of short lines, by which he paid his court to all ages
and characters, from Walpole, "the steerer of the realm," to Miss
Pulteney in the nursery. The numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the
diction is seldom faulty. They are not loaded with much thought, yet, if
they had been written by Addison, they would have had admirers: little
things are not valued but when they are done by those who can do
greater.

In his translations from Pindar, he found the art of reaching all the
obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his sublimity;
he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have more smoke.

He has added nothing to English poetry, yet, at least, half his book
deserves to be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part which the
critick would reject.

-----

[Footnote 169: He took his degrees, A. B. 1696, A. M. 1700. ]

[Footnote 170: This ought to have been noticed before. It was published
in 1700, when he appears to have obtained a fellowship of St. John's. ]

[Footnote 171: Spence. ]

[Footnote 172: Ibid. ]

[Footnote 173: The archbishop's letters, published in 1760, (the
originals of which are now in Christ-church library, Oxford,) were
collected by Mr. Philips. ]

[Footnote 174: At his house in Hanover-street, and was buried in Audley
chapel. ]

[Footnote 175: Mr. Ing's eminence does not seem to have been derived
from his wit. That the _men_ who drive _oxen_ are goaded, seems to be a
custom peculiar to Staffordshire. J. B. ]




WEST.


Gilbert West is one of the writers of whom I regret my inability to give
a sufficient account; the intelligence which my inquiries have obtained
is general and scanty.

He was the son of the reverend Dr. West; perhaps[176] him who published
Pindar, at Oxford, about the beginning of this century. His mother was
sister to sir Richard Temple, afterwards lord Cobham. His father,
purposing to educate him for the church, sent him first to Eton, and
afterwards to Oxford; but he was seduced to a more airy mode of life, by
a commission in a troop of horse, procured him by his uncle.

He continued some time in the army; though it is reasonable to suppose
that he never sunk into a mere soldier, nor ever lost the love, or much
neglected the pursuit, of learning; and, afterwards, finding himself
more inclined to civil employment, he laid down his commission, and
engaged in business under the lord Townshend, then secretary of state,
with whom he attended the king to Hanover.

His adherence to lord Townshend ended in nothing but a nomination, May,
1729, to be clerk extraordinary of the privy council, which produced no
immediate profit; for it only placed him in a state of expectation and
right of succession, and it was very long before a vacancy admitted him
to profit.

Soon afterwards he married, and settled himself in a very pleasant house
at Wickham, in Kent, where he devoted himself to learning and to piety.
Of his learning, the late collection exhibits evidence, which would have
been yet fuller, if the dissertations which accompany his version of
Pindar had not been improperly omitted. Of his piety, the influence has,
I hope, been extended far by his Observations on the Resurrection,
published in 1747, for which the university of Oxford created him a
doctor of laws by diploma, March 30,1748, and would, doubtless, have
reached yet further, had he lived to complete what he had for some time
meditated, the Evidences of the Truth of the New Testament. Perhaps it
may not be without effect to tell, that he read the prayers of the
publick liturgy every morning to his family, and that on Sunday evening
he called his servants into the parlour, and read to them first a
sermon, and then prayers. Crashaw is now not the only maker of verses to
whom may be given the two venerable names of poet and saint.

He was very often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were
weary of faction and debates, used at Wickham to find books and quiet, a
decent table, and literary conversation. There is at Wickham a walk made
by Pitt; and, what is of far more importance, at Wickham, Lyttelton
received that conviction which produced his Dissertation on St. Paul.

These two illustrious friends had for awhile listened to the
blandishments of infidelity; and when West's book was published, it was
bought by some who did not know his change of opinion, in expectation of
new objections against christianity; and as infidels do not want
malignity, they revenged the disappointment by calling him a methodist.

Mr. West's income was not large; and his friends endeavoured, but
without success, to obtain an augmentation. It is reported, that the
education of the young prince was offered to him, but that he required a
more extensive power of superintendence than it was thought proper to
allow him.

In time, however, his revenue was improved; he lived to have one of the
lucrative clerkships of the privy council, 1752: and Mr. Pitt at last
had it in his power to make him treasurer of Chelsea hospital.

He was now sufficiently rich; but wealth came too late to be long
enjoyed; nor could it secure him from the calamities of life: he lost,
1755, his only son; and the year after, March 26, a stroke of the palsy
brought to the grave one of the few poets to whom the grave might be
without its terrours.

Of his translations, I have only compared the first Olympick Ode with
the original, and found my expectation surpassed, both by its elegance
and its exactness. He does not confine himself to his author's train of
stanzas: for he saw that the difference of the languages required a
different mode of versification. The first strophe is eminently happy:
in the second he has a little strayed from Pindar's meaning, who says,
"if thou, my soul, wishest to speak of games, look not in the desert sky
for a planet hotter than the sun; nor shall we tell of nobler games than
those of Olympia. " He is sometimes too paraphrastical. Pindar bestows
upon Hiero an epithet, which, in one word, signifies "delighting in
horses;" a word which, in the translation, generates these lines:

Hiero's royal brows, whose care
Tends the courser's noble breed,
Pleas'd to nurse the pregnant mare,
Pleas'd to train the youthful steed.

Pindar says of Pelops, that "he came alone in the dark to the White
Sea;" and West,

Near the billow-beaten side
Of the foam-besilver'd main,
Darkling, and alone, he stood:

which, however, is less exuberant than the former passage.

A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover many
imperfections; but West's version, so far as I have considered it,
appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities.

His Institution of the Garter, 1742, is written with sufficient
knowledge of the manners that prevailed in the age to which it is
referred, and with great elegance of diction; but, for want of a process
of events, neither knowledge nor elegance preserve the reader from
weariness.

His Imitations of Spenser are very successfully performed, both with
respect to the metre, the language, and the fiction; and being engaged
at once by the excellence of the sentiments, and the artifice of the
copy, the mind has two amusements together. But such compositions are
not to be reckoned among the great achievements of intellect, because
their effect is local and temporary; they appeal not to reason or
passion, but to memory, and pre-suppose an accidental or artificial
state of mind. An imitation of Spenser is nothing to a reader, however
acute, by whom Spenser has never been perused. Works of this kind may
deserve praise, as proofs of great industry, and great nicety of
observation; but the highest praise, the praise of genius, they cannot
claim. The noblest beauties of art are those of which the effect is
coextended with rational nature, or, at least, with the whole circle of
polished life; what is less than this can be only pretty, the plaything
of fashion, and the amusement of a day.

* * * * *

There is, in the Adventurer, a paper of verses given to one of the
authors as Mr. West's, and supposed to have been written by him. It
should not be concealed, however, that it is printed with Mr. Jago's
name in Dodsley's collection, and is mentioned as his in a letter of
Shenstone's. Perhaps West gave it without naming the author; and
Hawkesworth, receiving it from him, thought it his; for his he thought
it, as he told me, and as he tells the publick.

-----

[Footnote 176: Certainly him. It was published in 1697. ]




COLLINS.


William Collins was born at Chichester, on the 25th of December, about
1720. His father was a hatter of good reputation. He was, in 1733, as
Dr. Warton has kindly informed me, admitted scholar of Winchester
college, where he was educated by Dr. Burton. His English exercises were
better than his Latin.

He first courted the notice of the publick by some verses to a Lady
Weeping, published in the Gentleman's Magazine.

In 1740, he stood first in the list of the scholars to received in
succession at New college, but unhappily there was no vacancy. This was
the original misfortune of his life. He became a commoner of Queen's
college, probably with a scanty maintenance; but was, in about half a
year, elected a demy of Magdalen college, where he continued till he had
taken a bachelor's degree, and then suddenly left the university; for
what reason I know not that he told.

He now, about 1744, came to London a literary adventurer, with many
projects in his head, and very little money in his pocket. He designed
many works; but his great fault was irresolution; or the frequent calls
of immediate necessity broke his schemes, and suffered him to pursue no
settled purpose. A man doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a
creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote
inquires. He published proposals for a History of the Revival of
Learning; and I have heard him speak with great kindness of Leo the
tenth, and with keen resentment of his tasteless successour. But
probably not a page of the history was ever written. He planned several
tragedies, but he only planned them. He wrote now and then odes and
other poems, and did something, however little.

About this time I fell into his company. His appearance was decent and
manly; his knowledge considerable, his views extensive, his conversation
elegant, and his disposition cheerful. By degrees I gained his
confidence; and one day was admitted to him when he was immured by a
bailiff, that was prowling in the street. On this occasion recourse was
had to the booksellers, who, on the credit of a translation of
Aristotle's Poeticks, which he engaged to write with a large commentary,
advanced as much money as enabled him to escape into the country. He
showed me the guineas safe in his hand. Soon afterwards his uncle, Mr.
Martin, a lieutenant-colonel, left him about two thousand pounds; a sum
which Collins could scarcely think exhaustible, and which he did not
live to exhaust. The guineas were then repaid, and the translation
neglected.

But man is not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he _studied to
live_, felt no evil but poverty, no sooner _lived to study_ than his
life was assailed by more dreadful calamities, disease and insanity.

Having formerly written his character[177], while, perhaps, it was yet
more distinctly impressed upon my memory, I shall insert it here.

"Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorous
faculties. He was acquainted not only with the learned tongues,
but with the Italian, French, and Spanish languages. He had
employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction, and subjects of
fancy; and, by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was
eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass
the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only
by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved
fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove
through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence
of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of elysian
gardens.

"This was, however, the character rather of his inclination than
his genius; the grandeur of wildness, and the novelty of
extravagance, were always desired by him, but not always
attained. Yet, as diligence is never wholly lost, if his efforts
sometimes caused harshness and obscurity, they likewise
produced, in happier moments, sublimity and splendour. This idea
which he had formed of excellence, led him to oriental fictions
and allegorical imagery, and, perhaps, while he was intent upon
description, he did not sufficiently cultivate sentiment. His
poems are the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor
unfurnished with knowledge either of books or life, but somewhat
obstructed in its progress by deviation in quest of mistaken
beauties.

"His morals were pure, and his opinions pious; in a long
continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation, it
cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uniform.
There is a degree of want, by which the freedom of agency is
almost destroyed; and long association with fortuitous
companions will, at last, relax the strictness of truth, and
abate the fervour of sincerity. That this man, wise and virtuous
as he was, passed always unentangled through the snares of life,
it would be prejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be said
that at least he preserved the source of action unpolluted, that
his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of right
and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing
of malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected
pressure, or casual temptation.

"The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity
and sadness. He languished some years under that depression of
mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and
leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of
pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived gathering on his
intellects, he endeavoured to disperse by travel, and passed
into France; but found himself constrained to yield to his
malady, and returned. He was, for some time, confined in a house
of lunaticks, and afterwards retired to the care of his sister
in Chichester, where death, in 1756, came to his relief[178].

"After his return from France, the writer of this character paid
him a visit at Islington, where he was waiting for his sister,
whom he had directed to meet him: there was then nothing of
disorder discernible in his mind by any but himself; but he had
withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an
English testament, such as children carry to the school: when
his friend took it into his hand, out of curiosity, to see what
companion a man of letters had chosen, 'I have but one book,'
said Collins, 'but that is the best. '"

Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse,
and whom I yet remember with tenderness.

He was visited at Chichester, in his last illness, by his learned
friends, Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he spoke with
disapprobation of his Oriental Eclogues, as not sufficiently expressive
of Asiatick manners, and called them his Irish Eclogues. He showed them,
at the same time, an ode inscribed to Mr. John Hume, on the
superstitions of the Highlands; which they thought superiour to his
other works, but which no search has yet found[179].

His disorder was not alienation of mind, but general laxity and
feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital than intellectual powers.
What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit; but a few minutes
exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till a
short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with
his former vigour.

The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel soon after his
uncle's death; and, with the usual weakness of men so diseased, eagerly
snatched that temporary relief, with which the table and the bottle
flatter and seduce.

But his health continually declined, and he grew more and more
burdensome to himself.

To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, that his
diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously
selected. He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival;
and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with
some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to
write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded
with clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot be
loved, so the poetry of Collins may, sometimes, extort praise when it
gives little pleasure.

* * * * *

Mr. Collins's first production is added here from the Poetical Calendar.

TO MISS AURELIA C----R,
ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING.

Cease, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn;
Lament not Hannah's happy state;
You may be happy in your turn,
And seize the treasure you regret.

With love united hymen stands,
And softly whispers to your charms,
"Meet but your lover in my bands,
You'll find your sister in his arms. "

-----

[Footnote 177: In the Poetical Calendar, a collection of poems by Fawkes
and Woty, in several volumes, 1763, &c. ]

[Footnote 178: A monument of exquisite workmanship, by Flaxman, is
erected in Chichester to Collins's memory. ]

[Footnote 179: It is printed in the late collection. ]




DYER.


John Dyer, of whom I have no other account to give than his own letters,
published with Hughes's correspondence, and the notes added by the
editor, have afforded me, was born in 1700, the second son of Robert
Dyer, of Aberglasney, in Caermarthenshire, a solicitor of great capacity
and note.

He passed through Westminster school under the care of Dr. Freind, and
was then called home to be instructed in his father's profession. But
his father died soon, and he took no delight in the study of the law;
but having always amused himself with drawing, resolved to turn painter,
and became pupil to Mr. Richardson, an artist then of high reputation,
but now better known by his books than by his pictures.

Having studied awhile under his master, he became, as he tells his
friend, an itinerant painter, and wandered about South Wales, and the
parts adjacent; but he mingled poetry with painting, and, about 1727,
printed Grongar Hill in Lewis's Miscellany.

Being, probably, unsatisfied with his own proficiency, he, like other
painters, travelled to Italy; and coming back in 1740, published the
Ruins of Rome.

If his poem was written soon after his return, he did not make much use
of his acquisitions in painting, whatever they might be; for decline of
health and love of study determined him to the church. He, therefore,
entered into orders; and, it seems, married, about the same time, a lady
of the name of "Ensor, whose grandmother," says he, "was a Shakespeare,
descended from a brother of every body's Shakespeare;" by her, in 1756,
he had a son and three daughters living.

His ecclesiastical provision was, for a long time, but slender. His
first patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp, in
Leicestershire, of eighty pounds a year, on which he lived ten years,
and then exchanged it for Belchford, in Lincolnshire, of seventy-five.
His condition now began to mend. In 1751, sir John Heathcote gave him
Coningsby, of one hundred and forty pounds a year; and, in 1755, the
chancellor added Kirkby, of one hundred and ten. He complains that the
repair of the house at Coningsby, and other expenses, took away the
profit. In 1757 he published the Fleece, his greatest poetical work; of
which I will not suppress a ludicrous story. Dodsley, the bookseller,
was one day mentioning it to a critical visiter, with more expectation
of success than the other could easily admit. In the conversation the
author's age was asked; and being represented as advanced in life, "He
will," said the critick, "be buried in woollen. "

He did not, indeed, long survive that publication, nor long enjoy the
increase of his preferments; for in 1758 (July 24th,) he died.

Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an elaborate
criticism. Grongar Hill is the happiest of his productions: it is not,
indeed, very accurately written; but the scenes which it displays are so
pleasing, the images which they raise are so welcome to the mind, and
the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or
experience of mankind, that when it is once read, it will be read again.

The idea of the Ruins of Rome strikes more but pleases less, and the
title raises greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Some
passages, however, are conceived with the mind of a poet; as when, in
the neighbourhood of dilapidating edifices, he says,

The pilgrim oft
At dead of night, mid his orison hears
Aghast the voice of time, disparting tow'rs,
Tumbling all precip'tate down, dash'd,
Rattling around, loud thund'ring to the moon.

Of the Fleece, which never became popular, and is now universally
neglected, I can say little that is likely to recall it to attention.
The woolcomber and the poet appear to me such discordant natures, that
an attempt to bring them together is to _couple the serpent with the
fowl_. When Dyer, whose mind was not unpoetical, has done his utmost, by
interesting his reader in our native commodity, by interspersing rural
imagery, and incidental digressions, by clothing small images in great
words, and by all the writer's arts of delusion, the meanness naturally
adhering, and the irreverence habitually annexed to trade and
manufacture, sink him under insuperable oppression; and the disgust
which blank verse, encumbering and encumbered, superadds to an
unpleasing subject, soon repels the reader, however willing to be
pleased.

Let me, however, honestly report whatever may counterbalance this weight
of censure. I have been told, that Akenside, who, upon a poetical
question, has a right to be heard, said, "That he would regulate his
opinion of the reigning taste by the fate of Dyer's Fleece; for if that
were ill-received, he should not think it any longer reasonable to
expect fame from excellence. "




SHENSTONE.


William Shenstone, the son of Thomas Shenstone and Anne Pen, was born in
November, 1714, at the Leasowes in Hales-Owen, one of those insulated
districts which, in the division of the kingdom, was appended, for some
reason, not now discoverable, to a distant county; and which, though
surrounded by Warwickshire and Worcestershire, belongs to Shropshire,
though, perhaps, thirty miles distant from any other part of it.

He learned to read of an old dame, whom his poem of the Schoolmistress
has delivered to posterity; and soon received such delight from books,
that he was always calling for fresh entertainment, and expected that,
when any of the family went to market, a new book should be brought him,
which, when it came, was in fondness carried to bed and laid by him. It
is said, that, when his request had been neglected, his mother wrapped
up a piece of wood of the same form, and pacified him for the night.
As he grew older, he went for awhile to the grammar-school in
Hales-Owen, and was placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an eminent
schoolmaster at Solihul, where he distinguished himself by the quickness
of his progress.

When he was young, June, 1724, he was deprived of his father, and soon
after, August, 1726, of his grandfather; and was, with his brother, who
died afterwards unmarried, left to the care of his grandmother, who
managed the estate.

From school he was sent, in 1732, to Pembroke college, in Oxford, a
society which, for half a century, has been eminent for English poetry
and elegant literature. Here it appears that he found delight and
advantage; for he continued his name in the book ten years, though he
took no degree. After the first four years he put on the civilian's
gown, but without showing any intention to engage in the profession.

About the time when he went to Oxford, the death of his grandmother
devolved his affairs to the care of the reverend Mr. Dolman, of Brome,
in Staffordshire, whose attention he always mentioned with gratitude.

At Oxford he employed himself upon English poetry; and, in 1737,
published a small miscellany, without his name.

He then for a time wandered about to acquaint himself with life, and was
sometimes at London, sometimes at Bath, or any other place of publick
resort; but he did not forget his poetry. He published, in 1741, his
Judgment of Hercules, addressed to Mr. Lyttelton, whose interest he
supported with great warmth at an election: this was next year followed
by the Schoolmistress.

Mr. Dolman, to whose care he was indebted for his ease and leisure, died
in 1745, and the care of his own fortune now fell upon him. He tried to
escape it awhile, and lived at his house with his tenants, who were
distantly related; but finding that imperfect possession inconvenient,
he took the whole estate into his own hands, more to the improvement of
its beauty, than the increase of its produce.

Now was excited his delight in rural pleasures, and his ambition of
rural elegance: he began, from this time, to point his prospects, to
diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters;
which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little
domain the envy of the great, and the admiration of the skilful; a place
to be visited by travellers, and copied by designers. Whether to plant a
walk in undulating curves, and to place a bench at every turn where
there is an object to catch the view; to make water run where it will be
heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen; to leave intervals where
the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is
something to be hidden; demands any great powers of mind, I will not
inquire: perhaps a surly and sullen speculator may think such
performances rather the sport than the business of human reason. But it
must be at least confessed, that to embellish the form of nature is an
innocent amusement; and some praise must be allowed, by the most
supercilious observer, to him who does best what such multitudes are
contending to do well.

This praise was the praise of Shenstone; but, like all other modes of
felicity, it was not enjoyed without its abatements. Lyttelton was his
neighbour and his rival, whose empire, spacious and opulent, looked with
disdain on the _petty state_ that _appeared behind it_. For awhile the
inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little
fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when, by degrees,
the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the
curiosity which they could not suppress, by conducting their visitants
perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them, at the
wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone
would heavily complain. Where there is emulation there will be vanity;
and where there is vanity there will be folly[180].

The pleasure of Shenstone was all in his eye: he valued what he valued
merely for its looks; nothing raised his indignation more than to ask if
there were any fishes in his water.

His house was mean, and he did not improve it; his care was of his
grounds. When he came home from his walks, he might find his floors
flooded by a shower through the broken roof; but could spare no money
for its reparation.

In time his expenses brought clamours about him, that overpowered the
lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and his groves were haunted by
beings very different from fawns and fairies[181]. He spent his estate
in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties.
He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing[182]. It is said, that if he
had lived a little longer, he would have been assisted by a pension:
such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed; but that it
was ever asked is not certain; it is too certain that it never was
enjoyed.

He died at the Leasowes, of a putrid fever, about five on Friday
morning, February 11, 1763; and was buried by the side of his brother in
the church-yard of Hales-Owen.

He was never married, though he might have obtained the lady, whoever
she was, to whom his Pastoral Ballad was addressed. He is represented,
by his friend Dodsley, as a man of great tenderness and generosity, kind
to all that were within his influence: but, if once offended, not easily
appeased; inattentive to economy, and careless of his expenses; in his
person he was larger than the middle size, with something clumsy in his
form; very negligent of his clothes, and remarkable for wearing his grey
hair in a particular manner; for he held that the fashion was no rule of
dress, and that every man was to suit his appearance to his natural
form[183].

His mind was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active; he had no
value for those parts of knowledge which he had not himself cultivated.

His life was unstained by any crime; the Elegy on Jesse, which has been
supposed to relate an unfortunate and criminal amour of his own, was
known by his friends to have been suggested by the story of Miss
Godfrey, in Richardson's Pamela.

What Gray thought of his character, from the perusal of his letters, was
this:

"I have read, too, an octavo volume of Shenstone's letters. Poor man! he
was always wishing for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his
whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, and
in a place which his taste had adorned, but which he only enjoyed when
people of note came to see and commend it; his correspondence is about
nothing else but this place and his own writings, with two or three
neighbouring clergymen, who wrote verses too. "

His poems consist of elegies, odes, and ballads, humorous sallies, and
moral pieces.

His conception of an elegy he has in his preface very judiciously and
discriminately explained. It is, according to his account, the effusion
of a contemplative mind, sometimes plaintive, and always serious, and,
therefore, superiour to the glitter of slight ornaments. His
compositions suit not ill to this description. His topicks of praise are
the domestick virtues, and his thoughts are pure and simple; but,
wanting combination, they want variety. The peace of solitude, the
innocence of inactivity, and the unenvied security of an humble station,
can fill but a few pages. That of which the essence is uniformity will
be soon described. His elegies have, therefore, too much resemblance of
each other.

The lines are, sometimes, such as elegy requires, smooth and easy; but
to this praise his claim is not constant; his diction is often harsh,
improper, and affected: his words ill-coined, or ill-chosen; and his
phrase unskilfully inverted.

The lyrick poems are almost all of the light and airy kind, such as trip
lightly and nimbly along, without the load of any weighty meaning. From
these, however, Rural Elegance has some right to be excepted. I once
heard it praised by a very learned lady; and, though the lines are
irregular, and the thoughts diffused with too much verbosity, yet it
cannot be denied to contain both philosophical argument and poetical
spirit.

Of the rest I cannot think any excellent: the Skylark pleases me best,
which has, however, more of the epigram than of the ode.

But the four parts of his Pastoral Ballad demand particular notice. I
cannot but regret that it is pastoral: an intelligent reader, acquainted
with the scenes of real life, sickens at the mention of the _crook_, the
_pipe_, the _sheep_, and the _kids_, which it is not necessary to bring
forward to notice, for the poet's art is selection, and he ought to show
the beauties without the grossness of the country life. His stanza seems
to have been chosen in imitation of Rowe's Despairing Shepherd.

In the first part are two passages, to which if any mind denies its
sympathy, it has no acquaintance with love or nature:

I priz'd ev'ry hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleas'd me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh,
And I grieve that I priz'd them no more.

When forc'd the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt in my heart!
Yet I thought (but it might not be so)
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.

She gaz'd, as I slowly withdrew;
My path I could hardly discern;
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.

In the second, this passage has its prettiness, though it be not equal
to the former:

I have found out a gift for my fair;
I have found where the woodpigeons breed;
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say 'twas a barbarous deed:

For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young;
And I lov'd her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

In the third, he mentions the commonplaces of amorous poetry with some
address:

'Tis his with mock passion to glow!
'Tis his in smooth tales to unfold,
How her face is as bright as the snow,
And her bosom, be sure, is as cold;

How the nightingales labour the strain.
With the notes of his charmer to vie;
How they vary their accents in vain,
Repine at her triumphs and die.

In the fourth, I find nothing better than this natural strain of hope:

Alas! from the day that we met,
What hope of an end to my woes,
When I cannot endure to forget
The glance that undid my repose?

Yet time may diminish the pain:
The flow'r, and the shrub, and the tree,
Which I rear'd for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.

His Levities are, by their title, exempted from the severities of
criticism; yet it may be remarked, in a few words, that his humour is
sometimes gross, and seldom sprightly.

Of the moral poems, the first is the Choice of Hercules, from Xenophon.
The numbers are smooth, the diction elegant, and the thoughts just; but
something of vigour is still to be wished, which it might have had by
brevity and compression. His Fate of Delicacy has an air of gaiety, but
not a very pointed general moral. His blank verses, those that can read
them may, probably, find to be like the blank verses of his neighbours.
Love and Honour is derived from the old ballad, "Did you not hear of a
Spanish Lady? "--I wish it well enough to wish it were in rhyme.

The Schoolmistress, of which I know not what claim it has to stand among
the moral works, is surely the most pleasing of Shenstone's
performances. The adoption of a particular style, in light and short
compositions, contributes much to the increase of pleasure: we are
entertained at once with two imitations, of nature in the sentiments, of
the original author in the style, and between them the mind is kept in
perpetual employment.

The general recommendation of Shenstone is easiness and simplicity; his
general defect is want of comprehension and variety. Had his mind been
better stored with knowledge, whether he could have been great, I know
not; he could certainly have been agreeable[184].

-----

[Footnote 180: This charge against the Lyttelton family has been denied,
with some degree of warmth, by Mr. Potter, and since by Mr. Graves. The
latter says, "The truth of the case, I believe, was, that the Lyttelton
family went so frequently with their family to the Leasowes, that they
were unwilling to break in upon Mr. Shenstone's retirement on every
occasion, and, therefore, often went to the principal points of view
without waiting for any one to conduct them regularly through the whole
walks. Of this Mr. Shenstone would sometimes peevishly complain; though,
I am persuaded, he never really suspected any ill-natured intention in
his worthy and much-valued neighbours. " R. ]

[Footnote 181: Mr. Graves, however, expresses his belief that this is a
groundless surmise. "Mr. Shenstone," he adds, "was too much respected in
the neighbourhood to be treated with rudeness; and though his works,
(frugally as they were managed) added to his manner of living, must
necessarily have made him exceed his income, and, of course, he might
sometimes be distressed for money, yet he had too much spirit to expose
himself to insults from trifling sums, and guarded against any great
distress, by anticipating a few hundreds; which his estate could very
well bear, as appeared by what remained to his executors after the
payment of his debts, and his legacies to his friends, and annuities of
thirty pounds a year to one servant, and six pounds to another, for his
will was dictated with equal justice and generosity. " R. ]

[Footnote 182: We may, however, say with the Grecian orator, [Greek:
hoti apollymeyos euphrainei], he gives forth a fragrance as he wastes
away. ED. ]

[Footnote 183: "These," says Mr. Graves, "were not precisely his
sentiments, though he thought, right enough, that every one should, in
some degree, consult his particular shape and complexion in adjusting
his dress; and that no fashion ought to sanctify what was ungraceful,
absurd, or really deformed. "]

[Footnote 184: Mr. D'Israeli's remarks on Shenstone and his writings,
may be profitably compared with Johnson's life. See last edition of the
Curiosities of Literature. ED. ]




YOUNG.


The following life was written, at my request, by a gentleman who had
better information than I could easily have obtained; and the publick
will, perhaps, wish that I had solicited and obtained more such favours
from him[185].

"DEAR SIR,--In consequence of our different conversations about
authentick materials for the life of Young, I send you the
following detail.

"Of great men, something must always be said to gratify curiosity.
Of the illustrious author of the Night Thoughts much has been told
of which there never could have been proofs; and little care
appears to have been taken to tell that, of which proofs, with
little trouble, might have been procured. "

Edward Young was born at Upham, near Winchester, in June, 1681. He was
the son of Edward Young, at that time fellow of Winchester college, and
rector of Upham; who was the son of Jo. Young, of Woodhay, in Berkshire,
styled by Wood, _gentleman_. In September, 1682, the poet's father was
collated to the prebend of Gillingham Minor, in the church of Sarum, by
bishop Ward. When Ward's faculties were impaired through age, his duties
were necessarily performed by others. We learn from Wood, that at a
visitation of Sprat's, July the 12th, 1686, the prebendary preached a
Latin sermon, afterwards published, with which the bishop was so
pleased, that he told the chapter he was concerned to find the preacher
had one of the worst prebends in their church. Some time after this, in
consequence of his merit and reputation, or of the interest of lord
Bradford, to whom, in 1702, he dedicated two volumes of sermons, he was
appointed chaplain to king William and queen Mary, and preferred to the
deanery of Sarum. Jacob, who wrote in 1720, says, "He was chaplain and
clerk of the closet to the late queen, who honoured him by standing
godmother to the poet. " His fellowship of Winchester he resigned in
favour of a gentleman of the name of Harris, who married his only
daughter. The dean died at Sarum, after a short illness, in 1705, in the
sixty-third year of his age. On the Sunday after his decease, bishop
Burnet preached at the cathedral, and began his sermon with saying,
"Death has been of late walking round us, and making breach upon breach
upon us, and has now carried away the head of this body with a stroke;
so that he, whom you saw a week ago distributing the holy mysteries, is
now laid in the dust. But he still lives in the many excellent
directions he has left us, both how to live and how to die. "

The dean placed his son upon the foundation at Winchester college, where
he had himself been educated. At this school Edward Young remained till
the election after his eighteenth birthday, the period at which those
upon the foundation are superannuated. Whether he did not betray his
abilities early in life, or his masters had not skill enough to discover
in their pupil any marks of genius for which he merited reward, or no
vacancy at Oxford afforded them an opportunity to bestow upon him the
reward provided for merit by William of Wykeham; certain it is, that to
an Oxford fellowship our poet did not succeed. By chance, or by choice,
New college cannot claim the honour of numbering among its fellows him
who wrote the Night Thoughts.

On the 13th of October, 1703, he was entered an independent member of
New college, that he might live at little expense in the warden's
lodgings, who was a particular friend of his father, till he should be
qualified to stand for a fellowship at All Souls. In a few months the
warden of New college died. He then removed to Corpus college. The
president of this society, from regard also for his father, invited him
thither, in order to lessen his academical expenses. In 1708, he was
nominated to a law-fellowship at All Souls by archbishop Tenison, into
whose hands it came by devolution. Such repeated patronage, while it
justifies Burnet's praise of the father, reflects credit on the conduct
of the son. The manner in which it was exerted, seems to prove that the
father did not leave behind him much wealth.

On the 23rd of April, 1714, Young took his degree of bachelor of civil
laws, and his doctor's degree on the 10th of June, 1719.

Soon after he went to Oxford, he discovered, it is said, an inclination
for pupils. Whether he ever commented tutor is not known. None has
hitherto boasted to have received his academical instruction from the
author of the Night Thoughts.

It is probable that his college was proud of him no less as a scholar
than as a poet; for in 1716, when the foundation of the Codrington
library was laid, two years after he had taken his bachelor's degree,
Young was appointed to speak the Latin oration. This is, at least,
particular for being dedicated in English, "To the ladies of the
Codrington family. " To these ladies he says, "that he was unavoidably
flung into a singularity, by being obliged to write an epistle
dedicatory void of commonplace, and such a one as was never published
before by any author whatever; that this practice absolved them from any
obligation of reading what was presented to them, and that the
bookseller approved of it, because it would make people stare, was
absurd enough, and perfectly right. "

Of this oration there is no appearance in his own edition of his works;
and prefixed to an edition by Curll and Tonson, 1741, is a letter from
Young to Curll, if we may credit Curll, dated December the 9th, 1739,
wherein he says, that he has not leisure to review what he formerly
wrote, and adds, "I have not the Epistle to lord Lansdowne. If you will
take my advice, I would have you omit that, and the oration on
Codrington. I think the collection will sell better without them. "

There are who relate, that, when first Young found himself independent,
and his own master at All Souls, he was not the ornament to religion and
morality which he afterwards became.

The authority of his father, indeed, had ceased, some time before, by
his death; and Young was certainly not ashamed to be patronised by the
infamous Wharton. But Wharton befriended in Young, perhaps, the poet,
and particularly the tragedian. If virtuous authors must be patronised
only by virtuous peers, who shall point them out?

Yet Pope is said, by Ruffhead, to have told Warburton, that "Young had
much of a sublime genius, though without common sense; so that his
genius, having no guide, was perpetually liable to degenerate into
bombast. This made him pass a _foolish youth_, the sport of peers and
poets: but his having a very good heart enabled him to support the
clerical character when he assumed it, first with decency, and
afterwards with honour. "

They who think ill of Young's morality in the early part of his life
may, perhaps, be wrong; but Tindal could not err in his opinion of
Young's warmth and ability in the cause of religion. Tindal used to
spend much of his time at All Souls. "The other boys," said the atheist,
"I can always answer, because I always know whence they have their
arguments, which I have read a hundred times; but that fellow Young is
continually pestering me with something of his own. "[186]

After all, Tindal and the censurers of Young may be reconcilable. Young
might, for two or three years, have tried that kind of life, in which
his natural principles would not suffer him to wallow long. If this were
so, he has left behind him not only his evidence in favour of virtue,
but the potent testimony of experience against vice.

We shall soon see that one of his earliest productions was more serious
than what comes from the generality of unfledged poets.

Young, perhaps, ascribed the good fortune of Addison to the Poem to His
Majesty, presented, with a copy of verses, to Somers; and hoped that he
also might soar to wealth and honour on wings of the same kind. His
first poetical flight was when queen Anne called up to the house of
lords the sons of the earls of Northampton and Aylesbury, and added, in
one day, ten others to the number of peers. In order to reconcile the
people to one, at least, of the new lords, he published, in 1712, an
Epistle to the right honourable George lord Lansdowne. In this
composition the poet pours out his panegyrick with the extravagance of a
young man, who thinks his present stock of wealth will never be
exhausted.

The poem seems intended also to reconcile the publick to the late peace.
This is endeavoured to be done by showing that men are slain in war, and
that in peace "harvests wave, and commerce swells her sail. " If this be
humanity, for which he meant it; is it politicks? Another purpose of
this epistle appears to have been, to prepare the publick for the
reception of some tragedy he might have in hand. His lordship's
patronage, he says, will not let him "repent his passion for the stage;"
and the particular praise bestowed on Othello and Oroonoko looks as if
some such character as Zanga was even then in contemplation. The
affectionate mention of the death of his friend Harrison, of New
college, at the close of this poem, is an instance of Young's art, which
displayed itself so wonderfully, some time afterwards, in the Night
Thoughts, of making the publick a party in his private sorrow.

Should justice call upon you to censure this poem, it ought, at least,
to be remembered, that he did not insert it in his works; and that in
the letter to Curll, as we have seen, he advises its omission. The
booksellers, in the late body of English poetry, should have
distinguished what was deliberately rejected by the respective
authors[187]. This I shall be careful to do with regard to Young. "I
think," says he, "the following pieces in _four_ volumes to be the most
excusable of all that I have written; and I wish _less apology_ was
needful for these. As there is no recalling what is got abroad, the
pieces here republished I have revised and corrected, and rendered them
as _pardonable_ as it was in my power to do. "

Shall the gates of repentance be shut only against literary sinners?

When Addison published Cato, in 1713, Young had the honour of prefixing
to it a recommendatory copy of verses. This is one of the pieces which
the author of the Night Thoughts did not republish.

On the appearance of his Poem on the Last Day, Addison did not return
Young's compliment; but the Englishman of October 29, 1713, which was
probably written by Addison, speaks handsomely of this poem. The Last
Day was published soon after the peace. The vicechancellor's
_imprimatur_, for it was printed at Oxford, is dated May the 19th, 1713.
From the exordium, Young appears to have spent some time on the
composition of it. While other bards "with Britain's hero set their
souls on fire," he draws, he says, a deeper scene. Marlborough _had
been_ considered by Britain as her hero; but, when the Last Day was
published, female cabal had blasted, for a time, the laurels of
Blenheim. This serious poem was finished by Young as early as 1710,
before he was thirty; for part of it is printed in the Tatler[188] It
was inscribed to the queen, in a dedication, which, for some reason, he
did not admit into his works. It tells her, that his only title to the
great honour he now does himself, is the obligation which he formerly
received from her royal indulgence.

Of this obligation nothing is now known, unless he alluded to her being
his godmother. He is said, indeed, to have been engaged at a settled
stipend as a writer for the court. In Swift's Rhapsody on Poetry are
these lines, speaking of the court:

Whence Gay was banish'd in disgrace,
Where Pope will never show his face,
Where Y---- must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

That Y---- means Young seems clear from four other lines in the same
poem:

Attend, ye Popes and Youngs and Gays,
And tune your harps and strew your bays;
Your panegyricks here provide;
You cannot err on flatt'ry's side.

Yet who shall say, with certainty, that Young was a pensioner? In all
modern periods of this country, have not the writers on one side been
regularly called hirelings, and on the other patriots?

Of the dedication, the complexion is clearly political. It speaks in the
highest terms of the late peace; it gives her majesty praise, indeed,
for her victories, but says, that the author is more pleased to see her
rise from this lower world, soaring above the clouds, passing the first
and second heavens, and leaving the fixed stars behind her; nor will he
lose her there, he says, but keep her still in view through the
boundless spaces on the other side of creation, in her journey towards
eternal bliss, till he behold the heaven of heavens open, and angels
receiving and conveying her still onward from the stretch of his
imagination, which tires in her pursuit, and falls back again to earth.

The queen was soon called away from this lower world, to a place where
human praise or human flattery, even less general than this, are of
little consequence. If Young thought the dedication contained only the
praise of truth, he should not have omitted it in his works. Was he
conscious of the exaggeration of party? Then he should not have written
it. The poem itself is not without a glance towards politicks,
notwithstanding the subject. The cry that the church was in danger, had
not yet subsided. The Last Day, written by a layman, was much approved
by the ministry, and their friends.

Before the queen's death, the Force of Religion, or Vanquished Love, was
sent into the world. This poem is founded on the execution of lady Jane
Grey, and her husband lord Guildford, 1554, a story, chosen for the
subject of a tragedy by Edmund Smith, and wrought into a tragedy by
Rowe. The dedication of it to the countess of Salisbury does not appear
in his own edition. He hopes it may be some excuse for his presumption,
that the story could not have been read without thoughts of the countess
of Salisbury, though it had been dedicated to another. "To behold," he
proceeds, "a person _only_ virtuous, stirs in us a prudent regret; to
behold a person _only_ amiable to the sight, warms us with a religious
indignation; but to turn our eyes on a countess of Salisbury gives us
pleasure and improvement; it works a sort of miracle, occasions the bias
of our nature to fall off from sin, and makes our very senses and
affections converts to our religion, and promoters of our duty. " His
flattery was as ready for the other sex as for ours, and was, at least,
as well adapted.

August the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his friend Jervas that he is just
arrived from Oxford; that every one is much concerned for the queen's
death, but that no panegyricks are ready yet for the king. Nothing like
friendship had yet taken place between Pope and Young; for, soon after
the event which Pope mentions, Young published a poem on the queen's
death, and his majesty's accession to the throne. It is inscribed to
Addison, then secretary to the lords justices. Whatever were the
obligations, which he had formerly received from Anne, the poet appears
to aim at something of the same sort from George. Of the poem, the
intention seems to have been to show, that he had the same extravagant
strain of praise for a king as for a queen. To discover, at the very
outset of a foreigner's reign, that the gods bless his new subjects in
such a king, is something more than praise. Neither was this deemed one
of his _excusable pieces_.