Page 60 of Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

  George The Fourth

  In Twiss's amusing _Life of Eldon_, we read how, on the death of the Dukeof York, the old chancellor became possessed of a lock of the defunctprince's hair; and so careful was he respecting the authenticity of therelic, that Bessy Eldon his wife sat in the room with the young man fromHamlet's, who distributed the ringlet into separate lockets, which each ofthe Eldon family afterwards wore. You know how, when George IV came toEdinburgh, a better man than he went on board the royal yacht to welcomethe king to his kingdom of Scotland, seized a goblet from which hismajesty had just drunk, vowed it should remain for ever as an heirloom inhis family, clapped the precious glass in his pocket, and sat down on itand broke it when he got home. Suppose the good sheriff's prize unbrokennow at Abbotsford, should we not smile with something like pity as webeheld it? Suppose one of those lockets of the No-Popery prince's hairoffered for sale at Christie's, _quot libras e duce summo invenies?_ howmany pounds would you find for the illustrious duke? Madame Tussaud hasgot King George's coronation robes; is there any man now alive who wouldkiss the hem of that trumpery? He sleeps since thirty years: do not any ofyou, who remember him, wonder that you once respected and huzza'd andadmired him?

  To make a portrait of him at first seemed a matter of small difficulty.There is his coat, his star, his wig, his countenance simpering under it:with a slate and a piece of chalk, I could at this very desk perform arecognizable likeness of him. And yet after reading of him in scores ofvolumes, hunting him through old magazines and newspapers, having him hereat a ball, there at a public dinner, there at races and so forth, you findyou have nothing--nothing but a coat and wig and a mask smiling belowit--nothing but a great simulacrum. His sire and grandsires were men. Oneknows what they were like: what they would do in given circumstances: thaton occasion they fought and demeaned themselves like tough good soldiers.They had friends whom they liked according to their natures; enemies whomthey hated fiercely; passions, and actions, and individualities of theirown. The sailor king who came after George was a man: the Duke of York wasa man, big, burly, loud, jolly, cursing, courageous. But this George, whatwas he? I look through all his life, and recognize but a bow and a grin. Itry and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, acoat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue ribbon, apocket-handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's best nuttybrown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black stock,under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then nothing. I know of nosentiment that he ever distinctly uttered. Documents are published underhis name, but people wrote them--private letters, but people spelt them. Heput a great "George P." or "George R." at the bottom of the page andfancied he had written the paper: some bookseller's clerk, some poorauthor, some _man_ did the work; saw to the spelling, cleaned up theslovenly sentences, and gave the lax maudlin slipslop a sort ofconsistency. He must have had an individuality: the dancing-master whom heemulated, nay, surpassed--the wig-maker who curled his toupee for him--thetailor who cut his coats, had that. But, about George, one can get atnothing actual. That outside, I am certain, is pad and tailor's work;there may be something behind, but what? We cannot get at the character;no doubt never shall. Will men of the future have nothing better to dothan to unswathe and interpret that royal old mummy? I own I once used tothink it would be good sport to pursue him, fasten on him, and pull himdown. But now I am ashamed to mount and lay good dogs on, to summon a fullfield, and then to hunt the poor game.

  On the 12th August, 1762, the forty-seventh anniversary of the accessionof the House of Brunswick to the English throne, all the bells in Londonpealed in gratulation, and announced that an heir to George III was born.Five days afterwards the king was pleased to pass letters patent under thegreat seal, creating H.R.H. the Prince of Great Britain, Electoral Princeof Brunswick-Lueneburg, Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, Earl of Carrick,Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland, Princeof Wales and Earl of Chester.

  All the people at his birth thronged to see this lovely child; and behinda gilt china-screen railing in St. James's Palace, in a cradle surmountedby the three princely ostrich feathers, the royal infant was laid todelight the eyes of the lieges. Among the earliest instances of homagepaid to him, I read that "a curious Indian bow and arrows were sent to theprince from his father's faithful subjects in New York". He was fond ofplaying with these toys: an old statesman, orator, and wit of hisgrandfather's and great-grandfather's time, never tired of his business,still eager in his old age to be well at Court, used to play with thelittle prince, and pretend to fall down dead when the prince shot at himwith his toy bow and arrows--and get up and fall down dead over and overagain--to the increased delight of the child. So that he was flattered fromhis cradle upwards; and before his little feet could walk, statesmen andcourtiers were busy kissing them.

  There is a pretty picture of the royal infant--a beautiful buxomchild--asleep in his mother's lap; who turns round and holds a finger toher lip, as if she would bid the courtiers around respect the baby'sslumbers. From that day until his decease, sixty-eight years after, Isuppose there were more pictures taken of that personage than of any otherhuman being who ever was born and died--in every kind of uniform and everypossible Court dress--in long fair hair, with powder, with and without apigtail--in every conceivable cocked-hat--in dragoon uniform--in Windsoruniform--in a field-marshal's clothes--in a Scotch kilt and tartans, withdirk and claymore (a stupendous figure)--in a frogged frock-coat with a furcollar and tight breeches and silk stockings--in wigs of every colour,fair, brown, and black--in his famous coronation robes finally, with whichperformance he was so much in love that he distributed copies of thepicture to all the Courts and British embassies in Europe, and tonumberless clubs, town-halls, and private friends. I remember as a youngman how almost every dining-room had his portrait.

 

  There is plenty of biographical tattle about the prince's boyhood. It istold with what astonishing rapidity he learned all languages, ancient andmodern; how he rode beautifully, sang charmingly, and played elegantly onthe violoncello. That he was beautiful was patent to all eyes. He had ahigh spirit: and once, when he had had a difference with his father, burstinto the royal closet and called out, "Wilkes and liberty for ever!" Hewas so clever, that he confounded his very governors in learning; and oneof them, Lord Bruce, having made a false quantity in quoting Greek, theadmirable young prince instantly corrected him. Lord Bruce could notremain a governor after this humiliation; resigned his office, and, tosoothe his feelings, was actually promoted to be an earl! It is the mostwonderful reason for promoting a man that ever I heard. Lord Bruce wasmade an earl for a blunder in prosody; and Nelson was made a baron for thevictory of the Nile.

  Lovers of long sums have added up the millions and millions which in thecourse of his brilliant existence this single prince consumed. Besides hisincome of 50,000_l._, 70,000_l._, 100,000_l._, 120,000_l._ a year, we readof three applications to Parliament: debts to the amount of 160,000_l._,of 650,000_l._; besides mysterious foreign loans, whereof he pocketed theproceeds. What did he do for all this money? Why was he to have it? If hehad been a manufacturing town, or a populous rural district, or an army offive thousand men, he would not have cost more. He, one solitary stoutman, who did not toil, nor spin, nor fight,--what had any mortal done thathe should be pampered so?

  In 1784, when he was twenty-one years of age, Carlton Palace was given tohim, and furnished by the nation with as much luxury as could be devised.His pockets were filled with money: he said it was not enough; he flung itout of window: he spent 10,000_l._ a year for the coats on his back. Thenation gave him more money, and more, and more. The sum is past counting.He was a prince, most lovely to look on, and christened Prince Florizel onhis first appearance in the world. That he was the handsomest prince inthe whole world was agreed by men, and alas! by many women.

  I suppose he must have been very graceful. There are so many testimoniesto the charm of his manner, that
we must allow him great elegance andpowers of fascination. He, and the King of France's brother, the Countd'Artois, a charming young prince who danced deliciously on thetight-rope--a poor old tottering exiled king, who asked hospitality of KingGeorge's successor, and lived awhile in the palace of Mary Stuart--dividedin their youth the title of first gentleman of Europe. We in England ofcourse gave the prize to _our_ gentleman. Until George's death thepropriety of that award was scarce questioned or the doubters voted rebelsand traitors. Only the other day I was reading in the reprint of thedelightful _Noctes_ of Christopher North. The health of THE KING is drunkin large capitals by the loyal Scotsman. You would fancy him a hero, asage, a statesman, a pattern for kings and men. It was Walter Scott whohad that accident with the broken glass I spoke of anon. He was the king'sScottish champion, rallied all Scotland to him, made loyalty the fashion,and laid about him fiercely with his claymore upon all the prince'senemies. The Brunswicks had no such defenders as those two Jacobitecommoners, old Sam Johnson the Lichfield chapman's son, and Walter Scott,the Edinburgh lawyer's.

  Nature and circumstance had done their utmost to prepare the prince forbeing spoiled: the dreadful dullness of papa's Court, its stupidamusements, its dreary occupations, the maddening humdrum, the stiflingsobriety of its routine, would have made a scapegrace of a much lesslively prince. All the big princes bolted from that castle of ennui whereold King George sat, posting up his books and droning over his Handel; andold Queen Charlotte over her snuff and her tambour-frame. Most of thesturdy, gallant sons settled down after sowing their wild oats, and becamesober subjects of their father and brother--not ill liked by the nation,which pardons youthful irregularities readily enough, for the sake ofpluck, and unaffectedness, and good humour.

  The boy is father of the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into theworld by a feat worthy of his future life. He invented a new shoebuckle.It was an inch long and five inches broad. "It covered almost the wholeinstep, reaching down to the ground on either side of the foot." A sweetinvention! lovely and useful as the prince on whose foot it sparkled. Athis first appearance at a Court ball, we read that "his coat was pinksilk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat white silk, embroidered withvarious-coloured foil, and adorned with a profusion of French paste. Andhis hat was ornamented with two rows of steel beads, five thousand innumber, with a button and loop of the same metal, and cocked in a newmilitary style". What a Florizel! Do these details seem trivial? They arethe grave incidents of his life. His biographers say that when hecommenced housekeeping in that splendid new palace of his, the Prince ofWales had some windy projects of encouraging literature, science, and thearts; of having assemblies of literary characters; and societies for theencouragement of geography, astronomy, and botany. Astronomy, geography,and botany! Fiddlesticks! French ballet-dancers, French cooks,horse-jockeys, buffoons, procurers, tailors, boxers, fencing-masters,china, jewel, and gimcrack merchants--these were his real companions. Atfirst he made a pretence of having Burke and Pitt and Sheridan for hisfriends. But how could such men be serious before such an empty scapegraceas this lad? Fox might talk dice with him, and Sheridan wine; but whatelse had these men of genius in common with their tawdry young host ofCarlton House? That ribble the leader of such men as Fox and Burke! Thatman's opinions about the constitution, the India Bill, justice to theCatholics--about any question graver than the button for a waistcoat or thesauce for a partridge--worth anything! The friendship between the princeand the Whig chiefs was impossible. They were hypocrites in pretending torespect him, and if he broke the hollow compact between them, who shallblame him? His natural companions were dandies and parasites. He couldtalk to a tailor or a cook; but, as the equal of great statesmen, to setup a creature, lazy, weak, indolent, besotted, of monstrous vanity, andlevity incurable--it is absurd. They thought to use him, and did forawhile; but they must have known how timid he was; how entirely heartlessand treacherous, and have expected his desertion. His next set of friendswere mere table companions, of whom he grew tired too; then we hear of himwith a very few select toadies, mere boys from school or the Guards, whosesprightliness tickled the fancy of the worn-out voluptuary. What matterswhat friends he had? He dropped all his friends; he never could have realfriends. An heir to the throne has flatterers, adventurers who hang abouthim, ambitious men who use him; but friendship is denied him.

  And women, I suppose, are as false and selfish in their dealings with sucha character as men. Shall we take the Leporello part, flourish a catalogueof the conquests of this royal Don Juan, and tell the names of thefavourites to whom, one after the other, George Prince flung hispocket-handkerchief? What purpose would it answer to say how Perdita waspursued, won, deserted, and by whom succeeded? What good in knowing thathe did actually marry Mrs. FitzHerbert according to the rites of the RomanCatholic Church; that her marriage settlements have been seen in London;that the names of the witnesses to her marriage are known. This sort ofvice that we are now come to presents no new or fleeting trait of manners.Debauchees, dissolute, heartless, fickle, cowardly, have been ever sincethe world began. This one had more temptations than most, and so much maybe said in extenuation for him.

  It was an unlucky thing for this doomed one, and tending to lead him yetfarther on the road to the deuce, that, besides being lovely, so thatwomen were fascinated by him; and heir apparent, so that all the worldflattered him; he should have a beautiful voice, which led him directly inthe way of drink: and thus all the pleasant devils were coaxing on poorFlorizel; desire, and idleness, and vanity, and drunkenness, all clashingtheir merry cymbals and bidding him come on.

  We first hear of his warbling sentimental ditties under the walls of KewPalace by the moonlight banks of Thames, with Lord Viscount Leporellokeeping watch lest the music should be disturbed.

  Singing after dinner and supper was the universal fashion of the day. Youmay fancy all England sounding with choruses, some ribald, some harmless,but all occasioning the consumption of a prodigious deal of fermentedliquor.

  The jolly Muse her wings to try no frolic flights need take, But round the bowl would dip and fly, like swallows round a lake,

  sang Morris in one of his gallant Anacreontics, to which the prince many atime joined in chorus, and of which the burden is,--

  And that I think's a reason fair to drink and fill again.

  This delightful boon companion of the prince's found "a reason fair" toforgo filling and drinking, saw the error of his ways, gave up the bowland chorus, and died retired and religious. The prince's table no doubtwas a very tempting one. The wits came and did their utmost to amuse him.It is wonderful how the spirits rise, the wit brightens, the wine has anaroma, when a great man is at the head of the table. Scott, the loyalcavalier, the king's true liegeman, the very best _raconteur_ of his time,poured out with an endless generosity his store of old-world learning,kindness, and humour. Grattan contributed to it his wondrous eloquence,fancy, feeling. Tom Moore perched upon it for awhile, and piped his mostexquisite little love-tunes on it, flying away in a twitter of indignationafterwards, and attacking the prince with bill and claw. In such society,no wonder the sitting was long, and the butler tired of drawing corks.Remember what the usages of the time were, and that William Pitt, comingto the House of Commons after having drunk a bottle of port wine at hisown house, would go into Bellamy's with Dundas, and help finish a couplemore.

  You peruse volumes after volumes about our prince, and find somehalf-dozen stock stories--indeed not many more--common to all the histories.He was good-natured; an indolent, voluptuous prince, not unkindly. Onestory, the most favourable to him of all, perhaps, is that as PrinceRegent he was eager to hear all that could be said in behalf of prisonerscondemned to death, and anxious, if possible, to remit the capitalsentence. He was kind to his servants. There is a story common to all thebiographies, of Molly the housemaid, who, when his household was to bebroken up, owing to some reforms which he tried absurdly to practise, wasdiscovered crying as she dusted the chairs because she was to
leave amaster who had a kind word for all his servants. Another tale is that of agroom of the prince's being discovered in corn and oat peculations, anddismissed by the personage at the head of the stables; the prince had wordof John's disgrace, remonstrated with him very kindly, generouslyreinstated him, and bade him promise to sin no more--a promise which Johnkept. Another story is very fondly told of the prince as a young manhearing of an officer's family in distress, and how he straightwayborrowed six or eight hundred pounds, put his long fair hair under hishat, and so disguised carried the money to the starving family. He sentmoney, too, to Sheridan on his death-bed, and would have sent more had notdeath ended the career of that man of genius. Besides these, there are afew pretty speeches, kind and graceful, to persons with whom he wasbrought in contact. But he turned upon twenty friends. He was fond andfamiliar with them one day, and he passed them on the next withoutrecognition. He used them, liked them, loved them perhaps in his way, andthen separated from them. On Monday he kissed and fondled poor Perdita,and on Tuesday he met her and did not know her. On Wednesday he was veryaffectionate with that wretched Brummell, and on Thursday forgot him;cheated him even out of a snuff-box which he owed the poor dandy; saw himyears afterwards in his downfall and poverty, when the bankrupt Beau senthim another snuff-box with some of the snuff he used to love, as a piteoustoken of remembrance and submission, and the king took the snuff, andordered his horses and drove on, and had not the grace to notice his oldcompanion, favourite, rival, enemy, superior. In _Wraxall_ there is somegossip about him. When the charming, beautiful, generous Duchess ofDevonshire died--the lovely lady whom he used to call his dearest duchessonce, and pretend to admire as all English society admired her--he said,"Then we have lost the best-bred woman in England." "Then we have lost thekindest heart in England," said noble Charles Fox. On another occasion,when three noblemen were to receive the Garter, says _Wraxall_, "a greatpersonage observed that never did three men receive the order in socharacteristic a manner. The Duke of A. advanced to the sovereign with aphlegmatic, cold, awkward air like a clown; Lord B. came forward fawningand smiling like a courtier; Lord C. presented himself easy,unembarrassed, like a gentleman!" These are the stories one has to recallabout the prince and king--kindness to a housemaid, generosity to a groom,criticism on a bow. There _are_ no better stories about him: they are meanand trivial, and they characterize him. The great war of empires andgiants goes on. Day by day victories are won and lost by the brave. Torn,smoky flags and battered eagles are wrenched from the heroic enemy andlaid at his feet; and he sits there on his throne and smiles, and givesthe guerdon of valour to the conqueror. He! Elliston the actor, when the_Coronation_ was performed, in which he took the principal part, used tofancy himself the king, burst into tears, and hiccup a blessing on thepeople. I believe it is certain about George IV, that he had heard so muchof the war, knighted so many people, and worn such a prodigious quantityof marshal's uniforms, cocked-hats, cock's feathers, scarlet and bullionin general, that he actually fancied he had been present in somecampaigns, and, under the name of General Brock, led a tremendous chargeof the German legion at Waterloo.

  He is dead but thirty years, and one asks how a great society could havetolerated him? Would we bear him now? In this quarter of a century, what asilent revolution has been working! how it has separated us from old timesand manners! How it has changed men themselves! I can see old gentlemennow among us, of perfect good breeding, of quiet lives, with venerablegrey heads, fondling their grandchildren; and look at them, and wonder atwhat they were once. That gentleman of the grand old school, when he wasin the 10th Hussars, and dined at the prince's table, would fall under itnight after night. Night after night, that gentleman sat at Brookes's orRaggett's over the dice. If, in the petulance of play or drink, thatgentleman spoke a sharp word to his neighbour, he and the other wouldinfallibly go out and try to shoot each other the next morning. Thatgentleman would drive his friend Richmond the black boxer down to Moulsey,and hold his coat, and shout and swear, and hurrah with delight, whilstthe black man was beating Dutch Sam the Jew. That gentleman would take amanly pleasure in pulling his own coat off, and thrashing a bargeman in astreet row. That gentleman has been in a watchhouse. That gentleman, soexquisitely polite with ladies in a drawing-room, so loftily courteous, ifhe talked now as he used among men in his youth, would swear so as to makeyour hair stand on end. I met lately a very old German gentleman, who hadserved in our army at the beginning of the century. Since then he haslived on his own estate, but rarely meeting with an Englishman, whoselanguage--the language of fifty years ago that is--he possesses perfectly.When this highly bred old man began to speak English to me, almost everyother word he uttered was an oath: as they used it (they swore dreadfullyin Flanders) with the Duke of York before Valenciennes, or at CarltonHouse over the supper and cards. Read Byron's letters. So accustomed isthe young man to oaths that he employs them even in writing to hisfriends, and swears by the post. Read his account of the doings of youngmen at Cambridge, of the ribald professors, one of whom "could pour outGreek like a drunken helot", and whose excesses surpassed even those ofthe young men. Read Matthews's description of the boyish lordling'shousekeeping at Newstead, the skull-cup passed round, the monks' dressesfrom the masquerade warehouse, in which the young scapegraces used to situntil daylight, chanting appropriate songs round their wine. "We come tobreakfast at two or three o'clock," Matthews says. "There are gloves andfoils for those who like to amuse themselves, or we fire pistols at a markin the hall, or we worry the wolf." A jolly life truly! The noble youngowner of the mansion writes about such affairs himself in letters to hisfriend, Mr. John Jackson, pugilist, in London.

  All the prince's time tells a similar strange story of manners andpleasure. In _Wraxall_ we find the prime minister himself, the redoubtedWilliam Pitt, engaged in high jinks with personages of no less importancethan Lord Thurlow the lord chancellor, and Mr. Dundas the treasurer of thenavy. _Wraxall_ relates how these three statesmen, returning after dinnerfrom Addiscombe, found a turnpike open and galloped through it withoutpaying the toll. The turnpike man, fancying they were highwaymen, fired ablunderbuss after them, but missed them; and the poet sang,--

  How as Pitt wandered darkling o'er the plain, His reason drown'd in Jenkinson's champagne, A rustic's hand, but righteous fate withstood, Had shed a premier's for a robber's blood.

  Here we have the treasurer of the navy, the lord high chancellor, and theprime minister, all engaged in a most undoubted lark. In Eldon's_Memoirs_, about the very same time, I read that the Bar loved wine, aswell as the woolsack. Not John Scott himself; he was a good boy always;and though he loved port wine, loved his business and his duty and hisfees a great deal better.

  He has a Northern Circuit story of those days, about a party at the houseof a certain Lawyer Fawcett, who gave a dinner every year to the counsel.

  "On one occasion," related Lord Eldon, "I heard Lee say, 'I cannot leaveFawcett's wine. Mind, Davenport, you will go home immediately afterdinner, to read the brief in that cause that we have to conductto-morrow.'

  " 'Not I,' said Davenport. 'Leave my dinner and my wine to read a brief!No, no, Lee; that won't do.'

  " 'Then,' said Lee, 'what is to be done? who else is employed?'

  "_Davenport._--'Oh! young Scott.'

  "Lee.--'Oh! he must go. Mr. Scott, you must go home immediately, and makeyourself acquainted with that cause, before our consultation thisevening.' "

  "This was very hard upon me; but I did go, and there was an attorney fromCumberland, and one from Northumberland, and I do not know how many otherpersons. Pretty late, in came Jack Lee, as drunk as he could be.

  " 'I cannot consult to-night; I must go to bed,' he exclaimed, and away hewent. Then came Sir Thomas Davenport.

  " 'We cannot have a consultation to-night, Mr. Wordsworth' (Wordsworth, Ithink, was the name; it was a Cumberland name), shouted Davenport. 'Don'tyou see how drunk Mr. Scott is? it is impossible to consult.' Poor me! whohad scarce had any di
nner, and lost all my wine--I was so drunk that Icould not consult! Well, a verdict was given against us, and it was allowing to Lawyer Fawcett's dinner. We moved for a new trial; and I mustsay, for the honour of the Bar, that those two gentlemen, Jack Lee and SirThomas Davenport, paid all the expenses between them of the first trial.It is the only instance I ever knew, but they did. We moved for a newtrial (on the ground, I suppose, of the counsel not being in theirsenses), and it was granted. When it came on, the following year, thejudge rose and said,--

  " 'Gentlemen, did any of you dine with Lawyer Fawcett yesterday? for, ifyou did, I will not hear this cause till next year.'

  "There was great laughter. We gained the cause that time."

  On another occasion, at Lancaster, where poor Bozzy must needs be goingthe Northern Circuit, "we found him," says Mr. Scott, "lying upon thepavement inebriated. We subscribed a guinea at supper for him, and ahalf-crown for his clerk"--(no doubt there was a large Bar, and thatScott's joke did not cost him much),--"and sent him, when he waked nextmorning, a brief, with instructions to move for what we denominated thewrit of _quare adhaesit pavimento?_ with observations duly calculated toinduce him to think that it required great learning to explain thenecessity of granting it, to the judge before whom he was to move."Boswell sent all round the town to attorneys for books, that might enablehim to distinguish himself--but in vain. He moved, however, for the writ,making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judgewas perfectly astonished, and the audience amazed. The judge said, "Inever heard of such a writ--what can it be that adheres _pavimento_? Areany of you gentlemen at the Bar able to explain this?"

  The Bar laughed. At last one of them said,--

  "My lord, Mr. Boswell last night _adhaesit pavimento_. There was no movinghim for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreamingabout himself and the pavement."

  The canny old gentleman relishes these jokes. When the Bishop of Lincolnwas moving from the deanery of St. Paul's, he says he asked a learnedfriend of his, by name Will Hay, how he should move some especially fineclaret, about which he was anxious.

  "Pray, my lord bishop," says Hay, "how much of the wine have you?"

  The bishop said six dozen.

  "If that is all," Hay answered, "you have but to ask me six times todinner, and I will carry it all away myself."

  There were giants in those days; but this joke about wine is not sofearful as one perpetrated by Orator Thelwall, in the heat of the FrenchRevolution, ten years later, over a frothing pot of porter. He blew thehead off, and said, "This is the way I would serve all kings."

  Now we come to yet higher personages, and find their doings recorded inthe blushing pages of timid little Miss Burney's _Memoirs_. She representsa prince of the blood in quite a royal condition. The loudness, thebigness, boisterousness, creaking boots and rattling oaths, of the youngprinces, appeared to have frightened the prim household of Windsor, andset all the tea-cups twittering on the tray. On the night of a ball andbirthday, when one of the pretty, kind princesses was to come out, it wasagreed that her brother, Prince William Henry, should dance the openingminuet with her, and he came to visit the household at their dinner.

  "At dinner, Mrs. Schwellenberg presided, attired magnificently; MissGoldsworthy, Mrs. Stanforth, Messrs. Du Luc and Stanhope, dined with us;and while we were still eating fruit, the Duke of Clarence entered.

  "He was just risen from the king's table, and waiting for his equipage togo home and prepare for the ball. To give you an idea of the energy of hisroyal highness's language, I ought to set apart an objection to writing,or rather intimating, certain forcible words, and beg leave to show you ingenuine colours a royal sailor.

  "We all rose, of course, upon his entrance, and the two gentlemen placedthemselves behind their chairs, while the footmen left the room. But heordered us all to sit down, and called the men back to hand about somewine. He was in exceeding high spirits, and in the utmost good humour. Heplaced himself at the head of the table, next Mrs. Schwellenberg, andlooked remarkably well, gay, and full of sport and mischief; yet cleverwithal, as well as comical.

  " 'Well, this is the first day I have ever dined with the king at St.James's on his birthday. Pray, have you all drunk his majesty's health?'

  " 'No, your royal highness; your royal highness might make dem do dat,'said Mrs. Schwellenberg.

  " 'Oh, by ----, I will! Here, you' (to the footman). 'bring champagne; I'lldrink the king's health again, if I die for it. Yes, I have done it prettywell already; so has the king, I promise you! I believe his majesty wasnever taken such good care of before; we have kept his spirits up, Ipromise you; we have enabled him to go through his fatigues; and I shouldhave done more still, but for the ball and Mary;--I have promised to dancewith Mary. I must keep sober for Mary.' "

  Indefatigable Miss Burney continues for a dozen pages reporting H.R.H.'sconversation, and indicating, with a humour not unworthy of the cleverlittle author of _Evelina_, the increasing state of excitement of theyoung sailor prince, who drank more and more champagne, stopped old Mrs.Schwellenberg's remonstrances by giving the old lady a kiss, and tellingher to hold her potato-trap, and who did not "keep sober for Mary". Maryhad to find another partner that night, for the royal William Henry couldnot keep his legs.

  Will you have a picture of the amusements of another royal prince? It isthe Duke of York, the blundering general, the beloved commander-in-chiefof the army, the brother with whom George IV had had many a midnightcarouse, and who continued his habits of pleasure almost till death seizedhis stout body.

  In Pueckler Muskau's _Letters_, that German prince describes a bout withH.R.H., who in his best time was such a powerful toper that "six bottlesof claret after dinner scarce made a perceptible change in hiscountenance".

  "I remember," says Pueckler, "that one evening,--indeed, it was pastmidnight,--he took some of his guests, among whom were the Austrianambassador, Count Meervelt, Count Beroldingen, and myself, into hisbeautiful armoury. We tried to swing several Turkish sabres, but none ofus had a very firm grasp; whence it happened that the duke and Meerveltboth scratched themselves with a sort of straight Indian sword so as todraw blood. Meervelt then wished to try if the sword cut as well as aDamascus, and attempted to cut through one of the wax candles that stoodon the table. The experiment answered so ill, that both the candles,candlesticks and all, fell to the ground and were extinguished. While wewere groping in the dark and trying to find the door, the duke's aide decamp stammered out in great agitation, 'By G----, sir, I remember the swordis poisoned.!'

  "You may conceive the agreeable feelings of the wounded at thisintelligence! Happily, on further examination, it appeared that claret,and not poison, was at the bottom of the colonel's exclamation."

  And now I have one more story of the bacchanalian sort, in which Clarenceand York, and the very highest personage of the realm, the great PrinceRegent, all play parts. The feast took place at the Pavilion at Brighton,and was described to me by a gentleman who was present at the scene. InGilray's caricatures, and amongst Fox's jolly associates, there figures agreat nobleman, the Duke of Norfolk, called Jockey of Norfolk in his time,and celebrated for his table exploits. He had quarrelled with the prince,like the rest of the Whigs; but a sort of reconciliation had taken place;and now, being a very old man, the prince invited him to dine and sleep atthe Pavilion, and the old duke drove over from his castle of Arundel withhis famous equipage of grey horses, still remembered in Sussex.

  The Prince of Wales had concocted with his royal brothers a notable schemefor making the old man drunk. Every person at table was enjoined to drinkwine with the duke--a challenge which the old toper did not refuse. He soonbegan to see that there was a conspiracy against him; he drank glass forglass; he overthrew many of the brave. At last the First Gentleman ofEurope proposed bumpers of brandy. One of the royal brothers filled agreat glass for the duke. He stood up and tossed off the drink. "Now,"says he, "I will have my carriage, and go home." The prince urged upon
himhis previous promise to sleep under the roof where he had been sogenerously entertained. "No," he said, he had had enough of suchhospitality. A trap had been set for him; he would leave the place at onceand never enter its doors more.

  The carriage was called, and came; but, in the half-hour's interval, theliquor had proved too potent for the old man; his host's generous purposewas answered, and the duke's old grey head lay stupefied on the table.Nevertheless, when his post-chaise was announced, he staggered to it aswell as he could, and stumbling in, bade the postilions drive to Arundel.They drove him for half an hour round and round the Pavilion lawn; thepoor old man fancied he was going home. When he awoke that morning he wasin bed at the prince's hideous house at Brighton. You may see the placenow for sixpence: they have fiddlers there every day; and sometimesbuffoons and mountebanks hire the Riding House and do their tricks andtumbling there. The trees are still there, and the gravel walks roundwhich the poor old sinner was trotted. I can fancy the flushed faces ofthe royal princes as they support themselves at the portico pillars, andlook on at old Norfolk's disgrace; but I can't fancy how the man whoperpetrated it continued to be called a gentleman.

  From drinking, the pleased Muse now turns to gambling, of which in hisyouth our prince was a great practitioner. He was a famous pigeon for theplay-men; they lived upon him. Egalite Orleans, it was believed, punishedhim severely. A noble lord, whom we shall call the Marquis of Steyne, issaid to have mulcted him in immense sums. He frequented the clubs, whereplay was then almost universal; and, as it was known his debts of honourwere sacred, whilst he was gambling Jews waited outside to purchase hisnotes of hand. His transactions on the turf were unlucky as well asdiscreditable: though I believe he, and his jockey, and his horse Escape,were all innocent in that affair which created so much scandal.

  Arthur's, Almack's, Bootle's, and White's were the chief clubs of theyoung men of fashion. There was play at all, and decayed noblemen andbroken-down senators fleeced the unwary there. In Selwyn's _Letters_ wefind Carlisle, Devonshire, Coventry, Queensberry, all undergoing theprobation. Charles Fox, a dreadful gambler, was cheated in very latetimes--lost 200,000_l._ at play. Gibbon tells of his playing for twenty-twohours at a sitting, and losing 500_l._ an hour. That indomitable puntersaid that the greatest pleasure in life, after winning, was losing. Whathours, what nights, what health did he waste over the devil's books! I wasgoing to say what peace of mind; but he took his losses veryphilosophically. After an awful night's play, and the enjoyment of thegreatest pleasure but _one_ in life, he was found on a sofa tranquillyreading an Eclogue of Virgil.

  Play survived long after the wild prince and Fox had given up thedice-box. The dandies continued it. Byron, Brummell--how many names could Imention of men of the world who have suffered by it! In 1837 occurred afamous trial which pretty nigh put an end to gambling in England. A peerof the realm was found cheating at whist, and repeatedly seen to practisethe trick called _sauter la coupe_. His friends at the clubs saw himcheat, and went on playing with him. One greenhorn, who had discovered hisfoul play, asked an old hand what he should do. "Do!" said the Mammon ofUnrighteousness, "_back him, you fool_." The best efforts were made toscreen him. People wrote him anonymous letters and warned him; but hewould cheat, and they were obliged to find him out. Since that day, whenmy lord's shame was made public, the gaming-table has lost all itssplendour. Shabby Jews and blacklegs prowl about racecourses and tavernparlours, and now and then inveigle silly yokels with greasy packs ofcards in railroad ears; but Play is a deposed goddess, her worshippersbankrupt, and her table in rags.

  So is another famous British institution gone to decay--the Ring: the noblepractice of British boxing, which in my youth was still almostflourishing.

  The prince, in his early days, was a great patron of this national sport,as his grand-uncle Culloden Cumberland had been before him; but, beingpresent at a fight at Brighton, where one of the combatants was killed,the prince pensioned the boxer's widow, and declared he never would attendanother battle. "But, nevertheless,"--I read in the noble language ofPierce Egan (whose smaller work on Pugilism I have the honour topossess),--"he thought it a manly and decided English feature, which oughtnot to be destroyed. His majesty had a drawing of the sporting charactersin the Fives Court placed in his boudoir, to remind him of his formerattachment and support of true courage; and when any fight of noteoccurred after he was king, accounts of it were read to him by hisdesire." That gives one a fine image of a king taking his recreation;--atease in a royal dressing-gown;--too majestic to read himself, ordering theprime minister to read him accounts of battles: how Cribb punchedMolyneux's eye, or Jack Randall thrashed the Game Chicken.

  Where my prince _did_ actually distinguish himself was in driving. Hedrove once in four hours and a half from Brighton to CarltonHouse--fifty-six miles. All the young men of that day were fond of thatsport. But the fashion of rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe,trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear ofno gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst thelowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks inLondon last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was veryold; he was attired after the fashion of the year 1825. He must drive tothe banks of Styx ere long,--where the ferry-boat waits to carry him overto the defunct revellers, who boxed and gambled and drank and drove withKing George.

  The bravery of the Brunswicks, that all the family must have it, thatGeorge possessed it, are points which all English writers have agreed toadmit; and yet I cannot see how George IV should have been endowed withthis quality. Swaddled in feather-beds all his life, lazy, obese,perpetually eating and drinking, his education was quite unlike that ofhis tough old progenitors. His grandsires had confronted hardship and war,and ridden up and fired their pistols undaunted into the face of death.His father had conquered luxury, and overcome indolence. Here was one whonever resisted any temptation; never had a desire but he coddled andpampered it; if ever he had any nerve, frittered it away among cooks, andtailors, and barbers, and furniture-mongers, and opera dancers. Whatmuscle would not grow flaccid in such a life--a life that was never strungup to any action--an endless Capua without any campaign--all fiddling, andflowers, and feasting, and flattery, and folly? When George III waspressed by the Catholic question and the India Bill, he said he wouldretire to Hanover rather than yield upon either point; and he would havedone what he said. But, before yielding, he was determined to fight hisministers and Parliament; and he did, and he beat them. The time came whenGeorge IV was pressed too upon the Catholic claims: the cautious Peel hadslipped over to that side; the grim old Wellington had joined it; and Peeltells us, in his _Memoirs_, what was the conduct of the king. He at firstrefused to submit; whereupon Peel and the duke offered their resignations,which their gracious master accepted. He did these two gentlemen thehonour, Peel says, to kiss them both when they went away. (Fancy oldArthur's grim countenance and eagle beak as the monarch kisses it!) Whenthey were gone he sent after them, surrendered, and wrote to them a letterbegging them to remain in office, and allowing them to have their way.Then his Majesty had a meeting with Eldon, which is related at curiouslength in the latter's _Memoirs_. He told Eldon what was not true abouthis interview with the new Catholic converts; utterly misled the oldex-chancellor; cried, whimpered, fell on his neck, and kissed him too. Weknow old Eldon's own tears were pumped very freely. Did these twofountains gush together? I can't fancy a behaviour more unmanly, imbecile,pitiable. This a Defender of the Faith! This a chief in the crisis of agreat nation! This an inheritor of the courage of the Georges! Many of myhearers no doubt have journeyed to the pretty old town of Brunswick, incompany with that most worthy, prudent, and polite gentleman, the Earl ofMalmesbury, and fetched away Princess Caroline for her longing husband,the Prince of Wales, Old Queen Charlotte would have had her eldest sonmarry a niece of her own, that famous Louisa of Strelitz, afterwards Queenof Prussia, and who shares with Marie Antoinette in the last age the sadpre-e
minence of beauty and misfortune. But George III had a niece atBrunswick: she was a richer princess than her Serene Highness ofStrelitz:--in fine, the Princess Caroline was selected to marry the heir tothe English throne. We follow my Lord Malmesbury in quest of her; we areintroduced to her illustrious father and royal mother; we witness theballs and fetes of the old Court; we are presented to the princessherself, with her fair hair, her blue eyes, and her impertinentshoulders--a lively, bouncing, romping princess, who takes the advice ofher courtly English mentor most generously and kindly. We can be presentat her very toilette, if we like, regarding which, and for very goodreasons, the British courtier implores her to be particular. What astrange Court! What a queer privacy of morals and manners do we look into!Shall we regard it as preachers and moralists, and cry, Woe, against theopen vice and selfishness and corruption; or look at it as we do at theking in the pantomime, with his pantomime wife, and pantomime courtiers,whose big heads he knocks together, whom he pokes with his pantomimesceptre, whom he orders to prison under the guard of his pantomimebeefeaters, as he sits down to dine on his pantomime pudding? It is grave,it is sad, it is theme most curious for moral and political speculation;it is monstrous, grotesque, laughable, with its prodigious littlenesses,etiquettes, ceremonials, sham moralities; it is as serious as a sermon,and as absurd and outrageous as Punch's puppet-show.

  Malmesbury tells us of the private life of the duke, Princess Caroline'sfather, who was to die, like his warlike son, in arms against the French;presents us to his courtiers, his favourite; his duchess, George III'ssister, a grim old princess, who took the British envoy aside, and toldhim wicked old stories of wicked old dead people and times; who came toEngland afterwards when her nephew was regent, and lived in a shabbyfurnished lodging, old, and dingy, and deserted, and grotesque, butsomehow royal. And we go with him to the duke to demand the princess'shand in form, and we hear the Brunswick guns fire their adieux of salute,as H.R.H. the Princess of Wales departs in the frost and snow; and wevisit the domains of the Prince Bishop of Osnaburg--the Duke of York of ourearly time; and we dodge about from the French revolutionists, whoseragged legions are pouring over Holland and Germany, and gaily tramplingdown the old world to the tune of _Ca ira_; and we take shipping at Slade,and we land at Greenwich, where the princess's ladies and the prince'sladies are in waiting to receive her royal highness.

 

  What a history follows! Arrived in London, the bridegroom hastened eagerlyto receive his bride. When she was first presented to him, Lord Malmesburysays she very properly attempted to kneel. He raised her gracefullyenough, embraced her, and turning round to me, said,--

  "Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy."

  I said, "Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?"

  Upon which, much out of humour, he said, with an oath, "No; I will go tothe queen."

  What could be expected from a wedding which had such a beginning--from sucha bridegroom and such a bride? I am not going to carry you through thescandal of that story, or follow the poor princess through all hervagaries; her balls and her dances, her travels to Jerusalem and Naples,her jigs, and her junketings, and her tears. As I read her trial inhistory, I vote she is not guilty. I don't say it is an impartial verdict;but as one reads her story the heart bleeds for the kindly, generous,outraged creature. If wrong there be, let it lie at his door who wickedlythrust her from it. Spite of her follies, the great, hearty people ofEngland loved, and protected, and pitied her. "God bless you! we willbring your husband back to you," said a mechanic one day, as she told LadyCharlotte Bury with tears streaming down her cheeks. They could not bringthat husband back; they could not cleanse that selfish heart. Was hers theonly one he had wounded? Steeped in selfishness, impotent for faithfulattachment and manly enduring love,--had it not survived remorse, was itnot accustomed to desertion?

  Malmesbury gives us the beginning of the marriage story;--how the princereeled into chapel to be married; how he hiccupped out his vows offidelity--you know how he kept them; how he pursued the woman whom he hadmarried; to what a state he brought her; with what blows he struck her;with what malignity he pursued her; what his treatment of his daughterwas; and what his own life. _He_ the first gentleman of Europe! There isno stronger satire on the proud English society of that day, than thatthey admired George.

  No, thank God, we can tell of better gentlemen; and whilst our eyes turnaway, shocked, from this monstrous image of pride, vanity, weakness, theymay see in that England over which the last George pretended to reign,some who merit indeed the title of gentlemen, some who make our heartsbeat when we hear their names, and whose memory we fondly salute when thatof yonder imperial manikin is tumbled into oblivion. I will take men of myown profession of letters. I will take Walter Scott, who loved the king,and who was his sword and buckler, and championed him like that braveHighlander in his own story, who fights round his craven chief. What agood gentleman! What a friendly soul, what a generous hand, what anamiable life was that of the noble Sir Walter! I will take another man ofletters, whose life I admire even more,--an English worthy, doing his dutyfor fifty noble years of labour, day by day storing up learning, day byday working for scant wages, most charitable out of his small means,bravely faithful to the calling which he had chosen, refusing to turn fromhis path for popular praise or princes' favour;--I mean _Robert Southey_.We have left his old political landmarks miles and miles behind; weprotest against his dogmatism; nay, we begin to forget it and hispolitics: but I hope his life will not be forgotten, for it is sublime inits simplicity, its energy, its honour, its affection. In the combatbetween Time and Thalaba, I suspect the former destroyer has conquered.Kehama's curse frightens very few readers now; but Southey's privateletters are worth piles of epics, and are sure to last among us, as longas kind hearts like to sympathize with goodness and purity, and love andupright life. "If your feelings are like mine," he writes to his wife, "Iwill not go to Lisbon without you, or I will stay at home, and not partfrom you. For though not unhappy when away, still without you I am nothappy. For your sake, as well as my own and little Edith's, I will notconsent to any separation; the growth of a year's love between her and me,if it please God she should live, is a thing too delightful in itself, andtoo valuable in its consequences, to be given up for any lightinconvenience on your part or mine.... On these things we will talk atleisure; only, dear, dear Edith, _we must not part!_"

  This was a poor literary gentleman. The First Gentleman in Europe had awife and daughter too. Did he love them so? Was he faithful to them? Didhe sacrifice ease for them, or show them the sacred examples of religionand honour? Heaven gave the Great English Prodigal no such good fortune.Peel proposed to make a baronet of Southey; and to this advancement theking agreed. The poet nobly rejected the offered promotion.

  "I have," he wrote, "a pension of 200_l._ a year, conferred upon me by thegood offices of my old friend C. Wynn, and I have the laureateship. Thesalary of the latter was immediately appropriated, as far as it went, to alife insurance for 3,000_l._, which, with an earlier insurance, is thesole provision I have made for my family. All beyond must be derived frommy own industry. Writing for a livelihood, a livelihood is all that I havegained; for, having also something better in view, and never, therefore,having courted popularity, nor written for the mere sake of gain, it hasnot been possible for me to lay by anything. Last year, for the first timein my life, I was provided with a year's expenditure beforehand. Thisexposition may show how unbecoming and unwise it would be to accept therank which, so greatly to my honour, you have solicited for me."

  How noble his poverty is, compared to the wealth of his master! Hisacceptance even of a pension was made the object of his opponents' satire:but think of the merit and modesty of this state pensioner; and that otherenormous drawer of public money, who receives 100,000_l._ a year, andcomes to Parliament with a request for 650,000_l._ more!

  Another true knight of those days was Cuthbert Collingwood; and I think,sinc
e Heaven made gentlemen, there is no record of a better one than that.Of brighter deeds, I grant you, we may read performed by others; but whereof a nobler, kinder, more beautiful life of duty, of a gentler, truerheart? Beyond dazzle of success and blaze of genius, I fancy shining ahundred and a hundred times higher, the sublime purity of Collingwood'sgentle glory. His heroism stirs British hearts when we recall it. Hislove, and goodness, and piety make one thrill with happy emotion. As onereads of him and his great comrade going into the victory with which theirnames are immortally connected, how the old English word comes up, andthat old English feeling of what I should like to call Christian honour!What gentlemen they were, what great hearts they had! "We can, my dearColl," writes Nelson to him, "have no little jealousies; we have only onegreat object in view,--that of meeting the enemy, and getting a gloriouspeace for our country." At Trafalgar, when the _Royal Sovereign_ waspressing alone into the midst of the combined fleets, Lord Nelson said toCaptain Blackwood: "See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his shipinto action! How I envy him!" The very same throb and impulse of heroicgenerosity was beating in Collingwood's honest bosom. As he led into thefight, he said: "What would Nelson give to be here!"

  After the action of the 1st of June, he writes:--"We cruised for a fewdays, like disappointed people looking for what they could not find,_until the morning of little Sarah's birthday_, between eight and nineo'clock, when the French fleet, of twenty-five sail of the line, wasdiscovered to windward. We chased them, and they bore down within aboutfive miles of us. The night was spent in watching and preparation for thesucceeding day; and many a blessing did I send forth to my Sarah, lest Ishould never bless her more. At dawn, we made our approach on the enemy,then drew up, dressed our ranks, and it was about eight when the admiralmade the signal for each ship to engage her opponent, and bring her toclose action; and then down we went under a crowd of sail, and in a mannerthat would have animated the coldest heart, and struck terror into themost intrepid enemy. The ship we were to engage was two ahead of theFrench admiral, so we had to go through his fire and that of two shipsnext to him, and received all their broadsides two or three times, beforewe fired a gun. It was then near ten o'clock. I observed to the admiral,that about that time our wives were going to church, but that I thoughtthe peal we should ring about the Frenchman's ears would outdo theirparish bells."

  There are no words to tell what the heart feels in reading the simplephrases of such a hero. Here is victory and courage, but love sublimer andsuperior. Here is a Christian soldier spending the night before battle inwatching and preparing for the succeeding day, thinking of his dearesthome, and sending many blessings forth to his Sarah, "lest he should neverbless her more." Who would not say Amen to his supplication? It was abenediction to his country--the prayer of that intrepid loving heart.

  We have spoken of a good soldier and good men of letters as specimens ofEnglish gentlemen of the age just past: may we not also--many of my elderhearers, I am sure, have read, and fondly remember his delightfulstory--speak of a good divine, and mention Reginald Heber as one of thebest of English gentlemen? The charming poet, the happy possessor of allsorts of gifts and accomplishments, birth, wit, fame, high character,competence--he was the beloved parish priest in his own home of Hoderel,"counselling his people in their troubles, advising them in theirdifficulties, comforting them in distress, kneeling often at theirsick-beds at the hazard of his own life; exhorting, encouraging wherethere was need; where there was strife the peacemaker; where there waswant the free giver."

  When the Indian bishopric was offered to him he refused at first; butafter communing with himself (and committing his case to the quarterwhither such pious men are wont to carry their doubts), he withdrew hisrefusal, and prepared himself for his mission and to leave his belovedparish. "Little children, love one another, and forgive one another," werethe last sacred words he said to his weeping people. He parted with them,knowing, perhaps, he should see them no more. Like those other good men ofwhom we have just spoken, love and duty were his life's aim. Happy he,happy they who were so gloriously faithful to both! He writes to his wifethose charming lines on his journey:--

  If thou, my love, wert by my side, my babies at my knee, How gladly would our pinnace glide o'er Gunga's mimic sea!

  I miss thee at the dawning grey, when, on our deck reclined, In careless ease my limbs I lay and woo the cooler wind.

  I miss thee when by Gunga's stream my twilight steps I guide; But most beneath the lamp's pale beam I miss thee by my side.

  I spread my books, my pencil try, the lingering noon to cheer; But miss thy kind approving eye, thy meek attentive ear.

  But when of morn and eve the star beholds me on my knee, I feel, though thou art distant far, thy prayers ascend for me.

  Then on! then on! where duty leads my course be onward still,-- O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads, o'er bleak Almorah's hill.

  That course nor Delhi's kingly gates, nor wild Malwah detain, For sweet the bliss us both awaits by yonder western main.

  Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, across the dark blue sea: But ne'er were hearts so blithe and gay as there shall meet in thee!

  Is it not Collingwood and Sarah, and Southey and Edith? His affection ispart of his life. What were life without it? Without love, I can fancy nogentleman.

  How touching is a remark Heber makes in his _Travels through India_, thaton inquiring of the natives at a town, which of the governors of Indiastood highest in the opinion of the people, he found that, though LordWellesley and Warren Hastings were honoured as the two greatest men whohad ever ruled this part of the world, the people spoke with chiefaffection of Judge Cleaveland, who had died, aged twenty-nine, in 1784.The people have built a monument over him, and still hold a religiousfeast in his memory. So does his own country still tend with a heart'sregard the memory of the gentle Heber.

  And Cleaveland died in 1784, and is still loved by the heathen, is he?Why, that year 1784 was remarkable in the life of our friend the FirstGentleman of Europe. Do you not know that he was twenty-one in that year,and opened Carlton House with a grand ball to the nobility and gentry, anddoubtless wore that lovely pink coat which we have described. I was eagerto read about the ball, and looked to the old magazines for information.The entertainment took place on the 10th February. In the _EuropeanMagazine_ of March, 1784, I came straightway upon it:--

  "The alterations at Carlton House being finished, we lay before ourreaders a description of the state apartments as they appeared on the 10thinstant, when H.R.H. gave a grand ball to the principal nobility andgentry.... The entrance to the state room fills the mind with aninexpressible idea of greatness and splendour.

  "The state chair is of a gold frame, covered with crimson damask; on eachcorner of the feet is a lion's head, expressive of fortitude and strength;the feet of the chair have serpents twining round them, to denote wisdom.Facing the throne, appears the helmet of Minerva; and over the windows,glory is represented by St. George with a superb gloria.

  "But the saloon may be styled the _chef-d'oeuvre_, and in every ornamentdiscovers great invention. It is hung with a figured lemon satin. Thewindow-curtains, sofas, and chairs are of the same colour. The ceiling isornamented with emblematical paintings, representing the Graces and Muses,together with Jupiter, Mercury, Apollo, and Paris. Two ormolu chandeliersare placed here. It is impossible by expression to do justice to theextraordinary workmanship, as well as design, of the ornaments. They eachconsist of a palm, branching out in five directions for the reception oflights. A beautiful figure of a rural nymph is represented entwining thestems of the tree with wreaths of flowers. In the centre of the room is arich chandelier. To see this apartment _dans son plus beau jour_, itshould be viewed in the glass over the chimney-piece. The range ofapartments from the saloon to the ballroom, when the doors are open,formed one of the grandest spectacles that ever was beheld."

  In the _Gentleman'
s Magazine_, for the very same month and year--March,1784--is an account of another festival, in which another great gentlemanof English extraction is represented as taking a principal share:--

  "According to order, H.E. the Commander-in-Chief was admitted to a publicaudience of Congress; and, being seated, the president, after a pause,informed him that the United States assembled were ready to receive hiscommunications. Whereupon he arose, and spoke as follows:--

  " 'Mr. President,--The great events on which my resignation depended havingat length taken place, I present myself before Congress to surrender intotheir hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence ofretiring from the service of my country.

  " 'Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, I resignthe appointment I accepted with diffidence; which, however, was supersededby a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supremepower of the nation, and the patronage of Heaven. I close this last act ofmy official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country tothe protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence ofthem to His holy keeping. Having finished the work assigned me, I retirefrom the great theatre of action; and, bidding an affectionate farewell tothis august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer mycommission and take my leave of the employments of my public life.' Towhich the President replied:--

  " 'Sir, having defended the standard of liberty in the New World, havingtaught a lesson useful to those who inflict and those who feel oppression,you retire with the blessings of your fellow citizens; though the glory ofyour virtues will not terminate with your military command, but willdescend to remotest ages.' "

  Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed:--the opening feast ofPrince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is thenoble character for after-ages to admire;--yon fribble dancing in lace andspangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotlesshonour, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummatevictory? Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it to be agentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep yourhonour virgin; to have the esteem of your fellow citizens, and the love ofyour fireside; to bear good fortune meekly; to suffer evil with constancy;and through evil or good to maintain truth always? Show me the happy manwhose life exhibits these qualities, and him we will salute as gentleman,whatever his rank may be; show me the prince who possesses them, and hemay be sure of our love and loyalty. The heart of Britain still beatskindly for George III,--not because he was wise and just, but because hewas pure in life, honest in intent, and because according to his lights heworshipped Heaven. I think we acknowledge in the inheritrix of hissceptre, a wiser rule, and a life as honourable and pure; and I am surethe future painter of our manners will pay a willing allegiance to thatgood life, and be loyal to the memory of that unsullied virtue.

  FOOTNOTES

  1 The influence of Scott on Thackeray is undoubted and freely confessed. But I cannot fall in with "certain persons of distinction" in making _Esmond_ very specially indebted to _Woodstock_. _Woodstock_ is a very great book in itself and amazing when one knows its circumstances: but it is, even for Scott, very specially and exclusively _objective_. _Esmond_ is subjective also in the highest degree.

  2 This form, which he used elsewhere than in the _Biographia Literaria_, is better than _esemplastic_ which he employed there.

  3 The justice or accuracy of his individual presentments and even of his general view of the time is quite another matter. We may touch on part of it presently. But the real point is that the whole is of a piece at least _in potentia_: that it gives a world that might have existed.

  4 The lectures on the _Humourists_ were, of course, delivered before _Esmond_ was published; but, in another sense, they are only aftercrops or by-products. The notes, sometimes very interesting, are James Hannay's.

  5 As might perhaps have been expected from its original appearance, not piecemeal but in the regular three-volume form, _Esmond_ was not very much altered by its author in later issues. There was, indeed, a "revised" edition in 1858, in which a considerable number of minor changes, nearly all for the better, were made. These have been carefully considered, but in practically every case there was really nothing to do but to follow them silently. For it would be absurd, in the present edition, to chronicle solemnly the rectification of mere misprints like "H_o_xton" for "H_e_xton", or the change from "was never" to "never was". In some points of orthography "Chelse_a_" and "Chelse_y_", for instance, Thackeray never reached full consistency, and he has sometimes been caught in the intricacies of the Castlewood relations and nomenclature, &c. So, too, Walcote, which is near _Wells_ at first, moves to the neighbourhood of _Winchester_ later; and there are other characteristic oversights. But, on the whole, there is little need of comment, and none of variants, save in a very few instances, where the "revised" edition seems to have been altered for the worse.

  On the other hand, in recent editions of Thackeray, published by his representatives, considerable alterations to _The English Humourists_, &c., in text and notes have been introduced, dates being changed in accordance with later researches, quotations (in which Thackeray was pretty lax) adjusted to their originals, and so forth. As the chief authorities consulted in making these alterations were the late Sir Leslie Stephen, Mr. Austin Dobson, and Mr. Sidney Lee, there need not be much question as to their accuracy: and it perhaps shows undue hardihood in the present editor not to adopt them. But it seems to him that Thackeray's books are not so much text-books of history, literary and other, where accuracy is the first point, as literature, where it is not. Such corrections could be most properly introduced in the notes of a fuller commentated edition: less so, it may seem, in an almost unannotated text. In particular, Thackeray's _mis_quotations (they are not seldom distinct improvements) sometimes directly form the basis of his own remarks, which become less apposite if the citations are corrected.

  As the text of this volume has few original illustrations some miscellaneous sketches are added to it.

  6 Lionel Tipton, created Baron Bergamot, ann. 1686, Gentleman Usher of the Back Stairs, and afterwards appointed Warden of the Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset (on the decease of George, second Viscount Castlewood), accompanied his Majesty to St. Germains, where he died without issue. No Groom of the Posset was appointed by the Prince of Orange, nor hath there been such an officer in any succeeding reign.

  7 To have this rank of marquis restored in the family had always been my lady viscountess's ambition; and her old maiden aunt, Barbara Topham, the goldsmith's daughter, dying about this time, and leaving all her property to Lady Castlewood, I have heard that her ladyship sent almost the whole of the money to King James, a proceeding which so irritated my Lord Castlewood that he actually went to the parish church, and was only appeased by the marquis's title which his exiled majesty sent to him in return for the 15,000_l._ his faithful subject lent him.

  8 {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GRE
EK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}; {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}.

  9 My mistress before I went this campaign sent me John Lockwood out of Walcote, who hath ever since remained with me.--H. E.

  10 This passage in the memoirs of Esmond is written on a leaf inserted into the MS. book, and dated 1744, probably after he had heard of the duchess's death.

  11 Our grandfather's hatred of the Duke of Marlborough appears all through his account of these campaigns. He always persisted that the duke was the greatest traitor and soldier history ever told of: and declared that he took bribes on all hands during the war. My lord marquis (for so we may call him here, though he never went by any other name than Colonel Esmond) was in the habit of telling many stories which he did not set down in his memoirs, and which he had from his friend the Jesuit, who was not always correctly informed, and who persisted that Marlborough was looking for a bribe of two millions of crowns before the campaign of Ramillies.

  And our grandmother used to tell us children, that on his first presentation to my lord duke, the duke turned his back upon my grandfather; and said to the duchess, who told my lady dowager at Chelsea, who afterwards told Colonel Esmond--"Tom Esmond's bastard has been to my levee: he has the hang-dog look of his rogue of a father"--an expression which my grandfather never forgave. He was as constant in his dislikes as in his attachments; and exceedingly partial to Webb, whose side he took against the more celebrated general. We have General Webb's portrait now at Castlewood, Va.

  12 'Tis not thus _woman loves_: Col. E. hath owned to this folly for a _score of women_ besides.--R.

  13 And, indeed, so was his to them, a thousand, thousand times more charming, for where was his equal?--R.

  14 See Appendix, p. 464.

  15 What indeed? Ps. xci. 2. 3, 7.--R. E.

  16 The managers were the bishop, who cannot be hurt by having his name mentioned, a very active and loyal Nonconformist divine, a lady in the highest favour at Court, with whom Beatrix Esmond had communication, and two noblemen of the greatest rank, and a Member of the House of Commons, who was implicated in more transactions than one in behalf of the Stuart family.

  17 There can be very little doubt that the doctor, mentioned by my dear father, was the famous Dr. Arbuthnot.--R. E. W.

  18 My dear father saith quite truly, that his manner towards our sex was uniformly courteous. From my infancy upwards, he treated me with an extreme gentleness, as though I was a little lady. I can scarce remember (though I tried him often) ever hearing a rough word from him, nor was he less grave and kind in his manner to the humblest negresses on his estate. He was familiar with no one except my mother, and it was delightful to witness up to the very last days the confidence between them. He was obeyed eagerly by all under him; and my mother and all her household lived in a constant emulation to please him, and quite a terror lest in any way they should offend him. He was the humblest man, with all this; the least exacting, the most easily contented; and Mr. Benson, our minister at Castlewood, who attended him at the last, ever said--"I know not what Colonel Esmond's doctrine was, but his life and death were those of a devout Christian."--R. E. W.

  19 This remark shows how unjustly and contemptuously even the best of men will sometimes judge of our sex. Lady Esmond had no intention of triumphing over her daughter; but from a sense of duty alone pointed out her deplorable wrong.--R. E.

  20 In London we addressed the prince as royal highness invariably; though the women persisted in giving him the title of king.

  21 The anecdote is frequently told of our performer, Rich.

  22 He was from a younger branch of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, Vicar of Goodrich, in Herefordshire, suffered for his loyalty in Charles I's time. That gentleman married Elizabeth Dryden, a member of the family of the poet. Sir Walter Scott gives, with his characteristic minuteness in such points, the exact relationship between these famous men. Swift was "the son of Dryden's second cousin". Swift, too, was the enemy of Dryden's reputation. Witness the _Battle of the Books_:--"The difference was greatest among the horse" says he of the moderns, "where every private trooper pretended to the command, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Withers." And in _Poetry, a Rhapsody_, he advises the poetaster to--

  Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, For these our critics much confide in, Though merely writ, at first, for filling, To raise the volume's price a shilling.

  "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet," was the phrase of Dryden to his kinsman, which remained alive in a memory tenacious of such matters.

  23 "Miss Hetty" she was called in the family--where her face, and her dress, and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the real fact about her birth plain enough. Sir William left her a thousand pounds.

  24 Sometimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking about the house for many consecutive hours; sometimes he remained in a kind of torpor. At times, he would seem to struggle to bring into distinct consciousness, and shape into expression, the intellect that lay smothering under gloomy obstruction in him. A pier-glass falling by accident, nearly fell on him. He said, he wished it had! He once repeated, slowly, several times, "I am what I am." The last thing he wrote was an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms and stores, which was pointed out to hi
m as he went abroad during his mental disease:--

  Behold a proof of Irish sense: Here Irish wit is seen; When nothing's left that's worth defence, They build a magazine!

  25 Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there is a copious _Life_ by Thomas Sheridan (Dr. Johnson's "Sherry"), father of Richard Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever, Irish Doctor, Thomas Sheridan, Swift's intimate, who lost his chaplaincy by so unluckily choosing for a text on the king's birthday, "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!" Not to mention less important works, there is also the _Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift_, by that polite and dignified writer, the Earl of Orrery. His lordship is said to have striven for literary renown, chiefly that he might make up for the slight passed on him by his father, who left his library away from him. It is to be feared that the ink he used to wash out that stain only made it look bigger. He had, however, known Swift, and corresponded with people who knew him. His work (which appeared in 1751) provoked a good deal of controversy, calling out, among other brochures, the interesting _Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks_, &c., of Dr. Delany.

  26 Dr. Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift and Stella being brought to the light of day--a thing which happened in 1835, when certain works going on in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their being examined. One hears with surprise of these skulls "going the rounds" of houses, and being made the objects of _dilettante_ curiosity. The larynx of Swift was actually carried off! Phrenologists had a low opinion of his intellect, from the observations they took.

  Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in his writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the skull gave evidence of "diseased action" of the brain during life--such as would be produced by an increasing tendency to "cerebral congestion".

  27 "He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had personally offended him, and he told me he had not."--BOSWELL'S _Tour to the Hebrides_.

  28 Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success was encouraging. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean, whether his uncle Godwin had not given him his education. Swift, who hated _that_ subject cordially, and, indeed, cared little for his kindred, said, sternly, "Yes; he gave me the education of a dog." "Then, sir," cried the other, striking his fist on the table, "you have not the gratitude of a dog!"

  Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean pause, even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he brought himself into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the amusing circumstances may be once more repeated here. He had unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant Bettesworth--

  So, at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, Though half a crown out-pays his sweat's worth, Who knows in law nor text nor margent, Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant!

  The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented himself at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. "Sir, I am Serjeant Bett-es-worth."

  "_In what regiment, pray?_" asked Swift.

  A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this time.

  29 "But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments from you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend Swift might occasion his English friends to wish him happily and properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, for I would give it the proper name, was ever untractable. The motions of his genius were often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron than of a friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise."--ORRERY.

  30 "An anecdote which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine with the Earl of Burlington, who was but newly married. The earl, it is supposed, being willing to have a little diversion, did not introduce him to his lady nor mention his name. After dinner said the Dean, 'Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing; sing me a song.' The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favour with distaste, and positively refused. He said, 'She should sing, or he would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your poor English hedge-parsons; sing when I bid you.' As the earl did nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that she burst into tears and retired. His first compliment to her when he saw her again was, 'Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last?' To which she answered with great good humour, 'No, Mr. Dean; I'll sing for you if you please.' From which time he conceived a great esteem for her."--SCOTT'S _Life_. "He had not the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was, perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When he was polite, it was in a manner entirely his own. In his friendships he was constant and undisguised. He was the same in his enmities."--ORRERY.

  31 "I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the meanest of my acquaintances."--_Journal to Stella._

  "I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their books and poems, the vilest I ever saw; but I have given their names to my man, never to let them see me."--_Journal to Stella._

  The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier:--

  "Did I ever tell you that the lord treasurer hears ill with the left ear just as I do?... I dare not tell him that I am so, sir; _for fear he should think that I counterfeited to make my court!_"--_Journal to Stella._

  32 The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the other; and the Whig attacks made the ministry Swift served very sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition pamphleteers, and bewails their "factitiousness" in the following letter:--

  "BOLINGBROKE TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

  "Whitehall, July 23rd, 1712.

  "It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are too weak to punish effectually those factitious scribblers, who presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even scurrilous language to those who are in the first degrees of honour. This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condition of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake licentiousness for liberty. All I could do was to take up Hart, the printer, to send him to Newgate, and to bind him over upon bail to be prosecuted; this I have done; and if I can arrive at legal proof against the author Ridpath, he shall have the same treatment."

  Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous indignation. In the history of the four last years of the queen, the Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentiousness of the press and the abusive language of the other party:

  "It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have been such as to deserve the severest animadversion from the public.... The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their fall, and unanimous in their cause, employ a set of writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of their readers.... However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant to be cured by such a remedy as a tax upon small papers, and a bill for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought into the House of Commons, but so late in the session that there was no time to pass it, for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp overmuch the liberty of the press."

  But to a clause in the proposed bill, t
hat the names of authors should be set to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper, his reverence objects altogether, for, says he, "beside the objection to this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in publishing excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, _out of an humble Christian spirit, to conceal their names_, it is certain that all persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible modesty and suspicion of themselves upon first sending their thoughts into the world."

  This "invincible modesty" was no doubt the sole reason which induced the Dean to keep the secret of the _Drapier's Letters_ and a hundred humble Christian works of which he was the author. As for the Opposition, the Doctor was for dealing severely with them: he writes to Stella:--

  Journal. Letter XIX

  "London, March 25th, 1710-11.

  "... We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece; and the fellow that showed would point to his body and say, 'See, gentlemen, this is the wound that was given him by his grace the Duke of Ormond;' and, 'This is the wound,' &c.; and then the show was over, and another set of rabble came in. 'Tis hard that our laws would not suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and in the eye of the law every man is innocent till then."

  Journal. Letter XXVII

  "London, July 25th, 1711.

  "I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The under-secretary was willing to save him; but I told the secretary he could not pardon him without a favourable report from the judge; besides he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved hanging for something else, and so he shall swing."

  33 It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of mourning.

  34 "These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the _Flying Post_ and _Medley_ in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog under prosecution, but Bolingbroke is not active enough; but I hope to swinge him. He is a Scotch rogue, one Ridpath. They get out upon bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh bail; so it goes round."--_Journal to Stella._

  35 Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations; and his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. xix, p. 97), he says:--

  "We have had your volume of letters.... Some of those who highly value you, and a few who knew you personally, are grieved to find you make no distinction between the English gentry of this kingdom, and the savage old Irish (who are only the vulgar, and some gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom); but the English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more civilized than many counties in England, and speak better English, and are much better bred."

  And again, in the fourth Drapier's Letter, we have the following:--

  "A short paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. Wood to say 'that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the Irish, in refusing his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked."--SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. iv, p. 143.

  He goes further, in a good-humoured satirical paper, _On Barbarous Denominations in Ireland_, where (after abusing, as he was wont, the Scotch cadence, as well as expression), he advances to the "_Irish brogue_", and speaking of the "censure" which it brings down, says:--

  "And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad consequence of this opinion affects those among us who are not the least liable to such reproaches farther than the misfortune of being born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose education has been chiefly in that kingdom."--Ibid. vol. vii, p. 149.

  But, indeed, if we are to make _anything_ of Race at all, we must call that man an Englishman whose father comes from an old Yorkshire family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one!

  36 "The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a sheriff's feast, who amongst other toasts called out to him, 'Mr. Dean. The trade of Ireland!' he answered quick: 'Sir, I drink no memories!'

  "Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided himself on saying pert things ... and who cried out, 'You must know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit?' 'Do you so?' says the Dean. 'Take my advice, and sit down again!'

  "At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle and broke it; Swift cried out--

  Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae!"

  --DR. DELANY, _Observations upon Lord Orrery's __"__Remarks, &c. of Swift__"_. London, 1754.

  37 "Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir William Temple would look cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons? I have plucked up my spirits since then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentleman."--_Journal to Stella._

  38 "The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man's happiness in the tranquillity of his mind and indolence of body; for while we are composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages say the same things in very different words, so in several ages, countries, constitutions of laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very different expressions; what is called by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion; by the sceptics, indisturbance; by the Molinists, quietism; by common men, peace of conscience,--seems all to mean but great tranquillity of mind.... For this reason Epicurus passed his life wholly in his garden: there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking, but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind.... Where Paradise was has been much debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries. Strabo describing Jericho: 'Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt etiam ahae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum centum, totus irriguus: ibi est Regis Balsami paradisus.' "--_Essay on Gardens._

  In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose conduct and prudence he characteristically admires.

  "I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of plums; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon peaches and grapes; and _a good plum is certainly better than an ill peach_."

  39 SWIFT'S THOUGHTS ON HANGING.

  (_Directions to Servants._)

  "To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all ind
ignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes of place at Court, a command in the army, a succession to the stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you cannot obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your master's niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon the road, which is the only post of honour left you: there you will meet many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one, and making a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some instructions.

  "The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when you are going to be hanged; which, either for robbing your master, for housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel by killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and is owing to one of these three qualities: either a love of good fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits. Your good behaviour on this article will concern your whole community; deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations: a hundred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about the bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the Court; let nothing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a pardon for discovering your comrades: but I suppose all this to be in vain; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate: some of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt and white cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon: take leave cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate: mount the cart with courage; fall on your knees; lift up your eyes; hold a book in your hands, although you cannot read a word; deny the fact at the gallows; kiss and forgive the hangman; and so farewell; you shall be buried in pomp at the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of you; and your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown succeeds in your place...."

  40 "He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great man."--_Anecdotes of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN.

  "It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to himself."--Preface to _Temple's Works_.

  On all _public_ occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the subjoined extracts from the _Journal to Stella_:--

  "I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d---- ailed him on Sunday: I made him a very proper speech; told him I observed he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; and one thing I warned him of--never to appear cold to me, for I would not be treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my life already" [_meaning Sir William Temple_] &c. &c.--_Journal to Stella._

  "I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty; and here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment."--_Ibid._

  "The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being Secretary of State."--_Ibid._

  "Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now quite well. I was playing at _one-and-thirty_ with him and his family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence a piece to begin with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple."--_Ibid._

  "I thought I saw Jack Temple [_nephew to Sir William_] and his wife pass by me to-day in their coach; but I took no notice of them. I am glad I have wholly shaken off that family."--_S. to S. Sept., 1710._

  41 "Swift must be allowed," says Dr. Johnson, "for a time, to have dictated the political opinions of the English nation."

  A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doctor's liveliest sallies. "One, in particular, praised his _Conduct of the Allies_.--Johnson: 'Sir, his _Conduct of the Allies_ is a performance of very little ability.... Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written the _Conduct of the Allies_!' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_.

  42 "Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time, it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. If this were well taken, and answered with good humour, he afterwards made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean having decanted a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass, and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. 'For,' said he, 'I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul wine for me.' Mr. Pilkington, entering into his humour, thanked him, and told him 'he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a glass at any rate.' 'Why then,' said the Dean, 'you shan't, for I'll drink it myself. Why, ---- take you, you are wiser than a paltry curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago; for upon my making the same speech to him, he said, he did not understand such usage, and so walked off without his dinner. By the same token, I told the gentleman who recommended him to me, that the fellow was a blockhead, and I had done with him.' "--SHERIDAN'S _Life of Swift_.

  43 FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHELL.

  "Cashell, May 31st, 1735

  "DEAR SIR,--

  "I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to be overmatched; and as I have some reason to hope what is past will be forgotten, I confess I did endeavour in my last to put the best colour I could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends judge right of my idleness; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one troublesome affair now upon my hands, which, by the help of the prime serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of; and then you shall see me a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has made a very useful collection of the memorable actions of my predecessors. He tells me, they were born in such a town of England or Ireland; were consecrated such a year; and, if not translated, were buried in the Cathedral church, either on the north or south side. Whence I conclude, that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat, drink, grow fat, rich, and die; which laudable example I propose for the remainder of my life to follow; for to tell you the truth, I have for these four or five years past met with so much treachery, baseness, and ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it incumbent on any man to endeavour to do good to so perverse a generation.

  "I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your health. Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can take to recover your flesh; and I do not know, except in one stage, where you can choose a road so suited to your circumstances, as from Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike and good inns, at every ten or twelve miles' end. From Kilkenny hither is twenty long miles, bad road, and no inns at all: but I have an expedient for you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, there lives in a neat thatched cabin, a parson, who is not poor; his wife is allowed to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key, where he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans, and pulls out the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet you with a c
oach; if you be tired, you shall stay all night; if not, after dinner we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine; and by going through fields and by-ways, which the parson will show us, we shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between this place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope you will be so kind as to let me know a post or two before you set out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things prepared for you. It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come: he will do nothing for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add no more arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth, your most faithful and obedient servant,

  "THEO. CASHELL."

  44 "Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir William Temple] some time, but resolving to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined to take orders. However, although his fortune was very small, he had a scruple of entering into the Church merely for support."--_Anecdotes of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN.

  45 "Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles could never soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene; but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is scarce possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them more terror and austerity."--ORRERY.

  46 "London, April 10th, 1713.

  "Lady Masham's eldest boy is very ill: I doubt he will not live; and she stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all. She is so excessively fond, it makes me mad. She should never leave the queen, but leave everything, to stick to what is so much the interest of the public, as well as her own...."--_Journal._

  47 "My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head and an aching heart."--_In May, 1719._

  48 Perhaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the dreadful book, is the description of the very old people in the Voyage to Laputa. At Lugnag, Gulliver hears of some persons who never die, called the Struldbrugs, and expressing a wish to become acquainted with men who must have so much learning and experience, his colloquist describes the Struldbrugs to him.

  "He said, They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession: for otherwise there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more, which arose from the prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament, and repent that others are gone to a harbour of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very imperfect. And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.

  "If a Struldbrug happened to marry one of his own kind, the marriage is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as the younger of the two comes to be fourscore. For the law thinks it to be a reasonable indulgence that those who are condemned, without any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the world, should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife.

  "As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates, only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit, they cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers and bounds.

  "At ninety they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.

  "The language of this country being always on the flux, the Struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another; neither are they able, after two hundred years, to hold any conversation (further than by a few general words) with their neighbours, the mortals; and thus they lie under the disadvantage of living like foreigners in their own country.

  "This was the account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the youngest not above two hundred years old, who were brought to me several times by some of my friends; but although they were told 'that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world', they had not the least curiosity to ask me a single question; only desired I would give them slumskudask, or a token of remembrance; which is a modest way of begging, to avoid the law that strictly forbids it, because they are provided for by the public, although indeed with a very scanty allowance.

  "They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very particularly; so that you may know their age by consulting the register, which, however, has not been kept above a thousand years past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public disturbances. But the usual way of computing how old they are, is, by asking them what kings or great persons they can remember, and then consulting history; for infallibly the last prince in their mind did not begin his reign after they were fourscore years old.

  "They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women more horrible than the men; besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not above a century or two between them."--_Gulliver's Travels._

  49 The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by those of the famous Stella and Vanessa; but she had a story of her own to tell about the blue eyes of young Jonathan. One may say that the book of Swift's life opens at places kept by these blighted flowers! Varina must have a paragraph.

  She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In 1696, when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing a love-letter to her, beginning, "Impatience is the most inseparable quality of a lover." But absence made a great difference in his feelings; so, four years afterwards, the tone is changed. He writes again, a very curious letter, offering to marry her, and putting the
offer in such a way that nobody could possibly accept it.

  After dwelling on his poverty, &c., he says, conditionally, "I shall be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your person be beautiful, or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the first, and competency in the second, is all I ask for!"

  The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in life. One would be glad to know that she met with some worthy partner, and lived long enough to see her little boys laughing over Lilliput, without any _arriere pensee_ of a sad character about the great Dean!

  50 A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for his art, in expounding the symbols of the "Little Language". Usually, Stella is "M.D.," but sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingley, is included in it. Swift is "Presto"; also P.D.F.R. We have "Goodnight, M.D.; Night, M.D.; Little M.D.; Stellakins; Pretty Stella; Dear, roguish, impudent, pretty M.D.!" Every now and then he breaks into rhyme, as--

  I wish you both a merry new year, Roast beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer, And me a share of your good cheer. That I was there, as you were here, And you are a little saucy dear.

  51 The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the evening of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-8:

  "She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen; but then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London--only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection.

  "... Properly speaking"--he goes on with a calmness which, under the circumstances, is terrible--"she has been dying six months!..."

  "Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who more improved them by reading and conversation.... All of us who had the happiness of her friendship agreed unanimously, that in an afternoon's or evening's conversation she never failed before we parted of delivering the best thing that was said in the company. Some of us have written down several of her sayings, or what the French call _bons mots_, wherein she excelled beyond belief."

  The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper called _Bons Mots de Stella_, scarcely bear out this last part of the panegyric. But the following prove her wit:

  "A gentleman, who had been very silly and pert in her company, at last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead. A bishop sitting by comforted him--that he should be easy, because 'the child was gone to heaven'. 'No, my lord,' said she; 'that is it which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see his child there.'

  "When she was extremely ill, her physician said, 'Madam, you are near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavour to get you up again.' She answered, 'Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to the top.'

  "A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected smartness and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came to be so dirty. He was at a loss; but she solved the difficulty, by saying, 'the doctor's nails grew dirty by scratching himself.'

  "A quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad brim, and a label of paper about its neck. 'What is that?'--said she--'my apothecary's son!' The ridiculous resemblance, and the suddenness of the question, set us all a-laughing."--_Swift's Works_, SCOTT'S ed., vol. ix, 295-6.

  52 "I am so hot and lazy after my morning's walk, that I loitered at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, where my best gown and periwig was, and _out of mere listlessness dine there, very often_; so I did to-day."--_Journal to Stella._ Mrs. Vanhomrigh, Vanessa's mother, was the widow of a Dutch merchant who held lucrative appointments in King William's time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a house in Bury Street, St. James's--a street made notable by such residents us Swift and Steele; and, in our own time, Moore and Crabbe.

  53 "Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress; impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful or genteel;... happy in the thoughts of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intending to be his wife."--LORD ORRERY.

  54 "You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You had better have said, as often as you can get the better of your inclinations so much; or as often as you remember there was such a one in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will not be made uneasy by me long. It is impossible to describe what I have suffered since I saw you last: I am sure I could have borne the rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more;, but those resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long; for there is something in human nature that prompts one so to find relief in this world I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak kindly to me; for I am sure you'd not condemn any one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write to you is, because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you; for when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your looks so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may have but so much regard for me left that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can; did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me; and believe I cannot help telling you this and live."--VANESSA. (M. 1714.)

  55 "If we consider Swift's behaviour, so far only as it relates to women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than as whole figures."--ORRERY.

  "You must have smiled to have found his house a constant seraglio of very virtuous women, who attended him from morning to night."--ORRERY.

  A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott's furnished him with the materials on which to found the following interesting passage about Vanessa--after she had retired to cherish her passion in retreat:--

  "Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its external appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own account), showed the grounds to my correspondent. He was the son of Mrs. Vanhomrigh's gardener, and used to work with his father in the garden while a boy. He remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well; and his account of her corresponded with the usual description of her person, especially as to her _embonpoint_. He said she went seldom abroad, and saw little company; her constant amusement was reading, or walking in the garden.... She avoided company, and was always melancholy, save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with laurels. The old man said that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected the Dean she always planted with her own hand a laurel or two against his arrival. He showed her favourite seat, still called 'Vanessa's bower'. Three or four trees and some laurels indicate the spot.... There were two seats and a rude table within the bower, the opening of which commanded a view of the Liffey.... In this sequestered spot, according to the old gardener's account, the Dean and Vanessa used often to sit, with books and writing materials on the table before them."--SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. i, pp. 246-7. "... But Miss Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which she found herself, determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union with the object of her affections--to the hope of which she had clung amid every vicissitude of his conduct towards her. The most probable
bar was his undefined connexion with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must have been perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long elicited her secret jealousy, although only a single hint to that purpose is to be found in their correspondence, and that so early as 1713, when she writes to him--then in Ireland--'If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to tell me so, _except 'tis what is inconsistent with mine_.' Her silence and patience under this state of uncertainty for no less than eight years, must have been partly owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak state of her rival's health, which, from year to year, seemed to announce speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa's impatience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connexion. Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the Dean; and full of the highest resentment against Swift for having given another female such a right in him as Miss Vanhomrigh's inquiries implied, she sent to him her rival's letter of interrogatories, and, without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows the consequence. Swift, in one of those paroxysms of fury to which he was liable, both from temper and disease, rode instantly to Marley Abbey. As he entered the apartment, the sternness of his countenance, which was peculiarly formed to express the fiercer passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table, and, instantly leaving the house, remounted his horse, and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed, yet cherished, hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived the last interview is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks."--SCOTT.

  56 "M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne compagnie. Il n'a pas, a la verite, la gaite du premier, mais il a toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon gout qui manquent a notre cure de Meudon. Ses vers sont d'un gout singulier, et presque inimitable; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers et en prose; mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans son pays."--VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 22.

  57 The following is a _conspectus_ of them:--

  ADDISON.--Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Keeper of the Records in Ireland; Lord of Trade; and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, successively.

  STEELE.--Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court; and Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians; Commissioner of "Forfeited Estates in Scotland".

  PRIOR.--Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague; Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King William; Secretary to the Embassy in France; Under Secretary of State; Ambassador to France.

  TICKELL.--Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland.

  CONGREVE.--Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches; Commissioner for Wine Licences; place in the Pipe-office; post in the Custom-house; Secretary of Jamaica.

  GAY.--Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to Hanover.)

  JOHN DENNIS.--A place in the Custom-house. "En Angleterre ... les lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici."--

  VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 20.

  58 He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Richard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire--a very ancient family.

  59 "PIPE.--_Pipe_, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the _great roll_.

  "PIPE-_Office_ is an office in which a person called the _Clerk of the Pipe_ makes out leases of crown lands, by warrant, from the Lord-Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  "Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c."--REES, _Cyclopaed._ Art. PIPE.

  "PIPE-_Office_.--Spelman thinks so called because the papers were kept in a large _pipe_ or cask.

  "These be at last brought into that office of Her Majesty's Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the _pipe_ ... because the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means of divers small _pipes_ or quills."--BACON, _The Office of Alienations_.

  [We are indebted to Richardson's _Dictionary_ for this fragment of erudition. But a modern man of letters can know little on these points--by experience.]

  60 "It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him in the least, nor was he ever removed from any post that was given to him, except to a better. His place in the Custom-house, and his office of Secretary in Jamaica, are said to have brought him in upwards of twelve hundred a year."--_Biog. Brit._, Art. CONGREVE.

  61 Dryden addressed his "twelfth epistle" to "My dear friend Mr. Congreve," on his comedy called _The Double Dealer_, in which he says--

  Great Jonson did by strength of judgement please; Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his case. In differing talents both adorn'd their age: One for the study, t'other for the stage. But both to Congreve justly shall submit, One match'd in judgement, both o'ermatched in wit. In him all beauties of this age we see, &c. &c.

  The _Double Dealer_, however, was not so palpable a hit as the _Old Bachelor_, but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having fallen foul of it, our "swell" applied the scourge to that presumptuous body, in the _Epistle Dedicatory_ to the "Right Honourable Charles Montague."

  "I was conscious," said he, "where a true critic might have put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, ... but I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer." He goes on--

  "But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the false criticisms that are made upon me; and that is, some of the ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it; for I declare, I would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women vicious and affected. How can I help it? It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.... I should be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliments to those ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it in a comedy, than _to be tickled by a surgeon when he is letting their blood_."

  62 "Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me leave behind me a memorial of my friendship, with one of the most valuable men as well as finest writers of my age and country--one who has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer--and one who, I am sure, seriously rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of placing together in this manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of--A. POPE."--_Postscript to Translation of the Iliad of Homer._ Mar. 25, 1720.

  63 "When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he said, he had much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a particular friendship for our author, and generally took him under his protection in his high authoritative manner."--THOS. DAVIES, _Dramatic Miscellanies_.

  64 "Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The
Duchess showed us a diamond necklace (which Lady Di. used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle."--DR. YOUNG (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  65 "A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to it."--THOS. DAVIES, _Dramatic Miscellanies_.

  66 The sum Congreve left her was 200_l._, as is said in the _Dramatic Miscellanies_ of Tom Davies; where are some particulars about this charming actress and beautiful woman.

  She had a "lively aspect", says Tom, on the authority of Cibber, and "such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as inspired everybody with desire". "Scarce an audience saw her that were not half of them her lovers."

  Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. "In _Tamerlane_, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla....; Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica, in his _Love for Love_; in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the _Mourning Bride_; and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the _Way of the World_. Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I believe, not very distant from the real character of Congreve."--_Dramatic Miscellanies_, vol. iii, 1784.

  She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age.

  67 Johnson calls his legacy the "accumulation of attentive parsimony, which," he continues, "though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress."--_Lives of the Poets._

  68 He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called "Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations," &c. A specimen or two are subjoined:--

  "The greater part of these examples which he has produced, are only demonstrations of his own impurity: they only savour of his utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath.

  "Where the expression is unblameable in its own pure and genuine signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own blasphemies.

  "If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is because I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures.... I will only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I think he shall deserve it.

  "The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour critic."

  "Congreve," says Dr. Johnson, "a very young man, elated with success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security.... The dispute was protracted through two years; but at last Comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of his labours in the reformation of the theatre."--_Life of Congreve._

  69 The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in _Love for Love_ is a splendid specimen of Congreve's daring manner:--

  _Scandal._--And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him?

  _Jeremy._--Yes, Sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her for _Angelica_.

  _Scandal._--It may make us sport.

  _Foresight._--Mercy on us!

  _Valentine._--Husht--interrupt me not--I'll whisper predictions to thee, and thou shalt prophesie;--I am truth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick,--I have told thee what's passed--now I'll tell what's to come:--Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow? Answer me not--for I will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive thro' craft, and fools thro' fortune; and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning tomorrow.

  _Scandal._--Ask him, _Mr. Foresight_.

  _Foresight._--Pray what will be done at Court?

  _Valentine._--_Scandal_ will tell you;--I am truth, I never come there.

  _Foresight._--In the city?

  _Valentine._--Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters, as if religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go methodically in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horn'd herd buzz in the Exchange at two. Husbands and wives will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the cropt prentice that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, may, ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things, that you will see very strange; which are, wanton wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But hold, I must examine you before I go further; you look suspiciously. Are you a husband?

  _Foresight._--I am married.

  _Valentine._--Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden _Parish_?

  _Foresight._--No; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

  _Valentine._--Alas, poor man! his eyes are sunk, and his hands shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray, for a metamorphosis--change thy shape, and shake off age; get the _Medea's_ kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab'ring callous hands, and chine of steel, and _Atlas'_ shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make the pedestals to stand erect upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man should have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pidgeons ought rather to be laid to his feet! ha, ha, ha!

  _Foresight._--His frenzy is very high now, _Mr. Scandal_.

  _Scandal._--I believe it is a spring-tide.

  _Foresight._--Very likely--truly; you understand these matters. _Mr. Scandal_, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical.

  _Valentine._--Oh! why would _Angelica_ be absent from my eyes so long?

  _Jeremy._--She's here, Sir.

  _Mrs. Foresight._--Now, Sister!

  _Mrs. Frail._--O Lord! what must I say?

  _Scandal._--Humour him, Madam, by all means.

  _Valentine._--Where is she? Oh! I see her; she comes, like Riches, Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. Oh--welcome, welcome!

  _Mrs. Frail._--How d'ye, Sir? Can I serve you?

  _Valentine._--Hark'ee--I have a secret to tell you. _Endymion_ and the moon shall meet us on _Mount Latmos_, and we'll be married in the dead of night. But say not a word. _Hymen_ shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail; and Argus's hundred eyes be shut--ha! Nobody shall know, but _Jeremy._

  _Mrs. Frail._--No, no; we'll keep it secret; it shall be done presently.

  _Valentine._--The sooner the better. _Jeremy_, come hither--closer--that none may overhear us. _Jeremy_, I can tell you news; _Angelica_ is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play my part; for she'll meet me two hours hence in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won't see one another's faces 'till we have done something to be ashamed of, and then we'll blush once for all....

  _Enter_ TATTLE.

  _Tattle._--Do you know me, _Valentine_?

  _Valentine._--You!--who are you? No, I hope not.

  _Tattle._--I am _Jack Tattle_, your friend.

  _Valentine._--My friend! What to do? I am no married man, and thou
canst not lye with my wife; I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend?

  _Tattle._--Hah! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret.

  _Angelica._--Do you know me, _Valentine_?

  _Valentine._--Oh, very well.

  _Angelica._--Who am I?

  _Valentine._--You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it grafted roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white--a sheet of spotless paper--when you first are born; but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you; for I loved a woman, and loved her so long that I found out a strange thing: I found out what a woman was good for.

  _Tattle._--Ay! pr'ythee, what's that?

  _Valentine._--Why, to keep a secret.

  _Tattle._--O Lord!

  _Valentine._--Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she should tell, yet she is not to be believed.

  _Tattle._--Hah! Good again, faith.

  _Valentine._--I would have musick. Sing me the song that I like.--CONGREVE, _Love for Love_.

  There is a _Mrs. Nickleby_, of the year 1700, in Congreve's comedy of _The Double Dealer_, in whose character the author introduces some wonderful traits of roguish satire. She is practised on by the gallants of the play, and no more knows how to resist them than any of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve.

  _Lady Plyant._--Oh, reflect upon the honour of your conduct! Offering to pervert me [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady for her daughter's hand, not for her own]--perverting me from the road of virtue, in which I have trod thus long, and never made one trip--not one _faux pas_. Oh, consider it; what would you have to answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty! Alas! humanity is feeble, Heaven knows! Very feeble, and unable to support itself.

  _Mellefont._--Where am I? Is it day? and am I awake? Madam--

  _Lady Plyant._--O Lord, ask me the question! I'll swear I'll deny it--therefore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock; O fie, cousin Mellefont!

  _Mellefont._--Nay, madam, hear me; I mean----

  _Lady Plyant._--Hear you? No, no; I'll deny you first, and hear you afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon hearing--hearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are fallible. I won't trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is infallible and uncomatable.

  _Mellefont._--For heaven's sake, madam----

  _Lady Plyant._--Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of Heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart? May be, you don't think it a sin. They say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin; but still, my honour, if it were no sin ----. But, then, to marry my daughter for the convenience of frequent opportunities--I'll never consent to that: as sure as can be, I'll break the match.

  _Mellefont._--Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees----

  _Lady Plyant._--Nay, nay, rise up; come, you shall see my good nature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault; nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a captive? I swear it is pity it should be a fault; but, my honour. Well, but your honour, too--but the sin! Well, but the necessity. O Lord, here's somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime; and strive as much as can be against it--strive, be sure; but don't be melancholick--don't despair; but never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no: but be sure you lay all thoughts aside of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion to me; yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, I can't be jealous; for I must not love you; therefore don't hope; but don't despair neither. They're coming; I _must_ fly.--_The Double Dealer_, act II, scene v, page 156.

  70 "There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. _The Old Bachelor_ was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue, and incessant ambition of wit."--JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

  71 "Among those by whom it ('Will's') was frequented, Southerne and Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship.... But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated _Old Bachelor_ being put into the poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and just commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever seen."--SCOTT'S _Dryden_, vol. i, p. 370.

  72 It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life.

  The anecdote in the text, relating to his saying that he wished "to be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity", is common to all writers on the subject of Congreve, and appears in the English version of Voltaire's _Letters concerning the English Nation_, published in London, 1733, as also in Goldsmith's _Memoir of Voltaire_. But it is worthy of remark, that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's _OEuvres Completes_ in the _Pantheon Litteraire_, Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.)

  "Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porte le plus loin la gloire du theatre comique est feu M. Congreve. Il n'a fait que peu de pieces, mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre.... Vous y voyez partout le langage des honnetes gens avec des actions de fripon; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et qu'il vivait dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie."--VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 19.

  73 On the death of Queen Mary, he published a Pastoral--"The Mourning Muse of Alexis." Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the orthodox way. The Queen is called PASTORA.

  "I mourn PASTORA dead, let Albion mourn, And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn,"

  says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that--

  With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound, And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground,--

  (a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that period.... It continues--)

  Lord of these woods and wide extended plains, Stretch'd on the ground and close to earth his face, Scalding with tears the already faded grass.

  To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come? And must Pastora moulder in the tomb? Ah Death! more fierce and unrelenting far, Than wildest wolves and savage tigers are; With lambs and sheep their hunger is appeased, But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized.

  This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a shepherdess; that figure of the "Great Shepherd", lying speechless on his stomach, in a state of despair which neither winds nor floods nor air can exhibit, are to be remembered in poetry surely, and this style was admired in its time by the admirers of the great Congreve!

  In the "Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas" (the young Lord Blandford, the great Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis represents Sarah Duchess!

  The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come into work here again. At the sight of her grief--

  Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forgo, And dumb distress and new compassion show, Natur
e herself attentive silence kept, _And motion seemed suspended while she wept_!

  And Pope dedicated the _Iliad_ to the author of these lines--and Dryden wrote to him in his great hand:

  Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, But Genius must be born and never can be taught. This is your portion, this your native store; Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, To SHAKESPEARE gave as much, she could not give him more. Maintain your Post: that's all the fame you need, For 'tis impossible you should proceed; Already I am worn with cares and age, And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage: Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence, I live a Rent-charge upon Providence: But you whom every Muse and Grace adorn, Whom I foresee to better fortune born, Be kind to my remains, and oh defend Against your Judgement your departed Friend! Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue; But shade those Lawrels which descend to You: And take for Tribute what these Lines express; You merit more, nor could my Love do less.

  This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, Jack, I must buss thee"; or, "'Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee, lad". And in a similar manner the poets saluted their brethren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss now; I wonder if they love each other better.

  Steele calls Congreve "Great Sir" and "Great Author"; says "Well-dressed barbarians knew his awful name", and addresses him as if he were a prince; and speaks of _Pastora_ as one of the most famous tragic compositions.

  74 "To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey.... After full inquiry and impartial reflection we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can justly be claimed by any of our infirm and erring race."--MACAULAY.

  "Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable to believe that Addison's profession and practice were at no great variance; since, amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life was passed, though his station made him conspicuous, and his activity made him formidable, the character given him by his friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those with whom interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem but the kindness; and of others, whom the violence of opposition drove against him, though he might lose the love, he retained the reverence."--JOHNSON.

  75 "Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had something more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man; but with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, he seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of silence."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  76 "Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the modern, who rival him in every other part of poetry; but in the greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, both modern and ancient, Homer alone excepted. It is impossible for the imagination of man to disturb itself with greater ideas than those which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth books."--_Spectator_, No. 279.

  "If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for one."--Ibid., No. 417.

  These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's _Spectator_, from January 19 to May 3, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, we may place those he did to Sacred Music.

  77 "Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy afterwards."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  " 'Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking of Pope; 'he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appetite to satire.' "--LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  78 Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield and Archdeacon of Coventry.

  79 "The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his company, declared that he was 'a parson in a tye-wig', can detract little from his character. He was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of Mandeville."--JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

  "Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison: he had a quarrel with him, and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently to say of him--'One day or other you'll see that man a bishop--I'm sure he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest in his heart.' "--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  "Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as between two and three in the height of summer, and lie abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful: sometimes so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes there before he has known anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper with him; kept very little company beside; and had no amour that I know of; and I think I should have known it, if he had had any."--ABBE PHILIPPEAUX of Blois (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  80 "His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound."--MACAULAY.

  81 "Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing the present he made him of the _Musae Anglicanae_."--TICKELL (Preface to _Addison's Works_).

  82 "It was my fate to be much with the wits; my father was acquainted with all of them. _Addison was the best company in the world._ I never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve."--LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  83 Mr. Addison To Mr. Wyche.

  "DEAR SIR,

  "My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so the properest use I can put it to is to thank ye honest gentleman that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly have done could I have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have escaped for ye present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at Crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I write to you, it will be impossible for me to express ye deep sense I have of ye many favours you have lately shown me. I shall only tell you that Hambourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met with in my travails. If any of my friends wonder at me for living so long in that place, I dare say it will be thought a very good excuse when I tell him Mr. Wyche was there. As your company made our stay at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has given us all ye satisfaction that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking your health will do you any good, you may expect to be as long lived as Methusaleh, or, to use a more familiar instance, as ye oldest hoc in ye cellar. I hope ye two pair of legs that was left a swelling behind us are by this time come to their shapes again. I can't forbear troubling you with my hearty respects to ye owners of them, and desiring you to believe me always,

  "Dear Sir,

  "To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, "May, 1703."

  --From the _Life of Addison_, by Miss Aikin, vol. i, p. 146.

  84 It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and Addison was, on the whole, satisfactory, from first to last. The value of Swift's testimony, when nothing personal inflamed his vision or warped his judgement, can be
doubted by nobody.

  "Sept. 10, 1710.--I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and Steele.

  "11.--Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat with him part of this evening.

  "18.--To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's retirement near Chelsea.... I will get what good offices I can from Mr. Addison.

  "27.--To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, with Steele and Addison, too.

  "29.--I dined with Mr. Addison," &c.--_Journal to Stella._

  Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his _Travels_ "To Dr. Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age."--SCOTT. From the information of Mr. Theophilus Swift.

  "Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent person; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my credit to set him right in his notions of persons and things."--_Letters._

  "I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write to you now, besides that great love and esteem I have always had for you. I have nothing to ask you either for my friend or for myself."--Swift to Addison (1717), SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. xix, p. 274.

  Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly communications. Time renewed them; and Tickell enjoyed Swift's friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so honourably connected.

  85 "Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party at Button's; dined there, and stayed five or six hours, and sometimes far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  86 "When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind."--JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

  87 "Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was sometimes very slow and scrupulous in correcting. He would show his verses to several friends; and would alter almost everything that any of them hinted at as wrong. He seemed to be too diffident of himself; and too much concerned about his character as a poet; or (as he worded it) too solicitous for that kind of praise, which, God knows, is but a very little matter after all!"--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  88 "As to poetical affairs," says Pope, in 1713, "I am content at present to be a bare looker-on.... Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly in the world be applied to him on this occasion:--

  "Envy itself is dumb--in wonder lost; And factions strive who shall applaud him most.

  "The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hands than the head.... I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, and presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledgement (as he expressed it) for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator"--POPE'S "Letter to SIR W. TRUMBULL".

  _Cato_ ran for thirty-five nights without interruption. Pope wrote the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue.

  It is worth noticing how many things in _Cato_ keep their ground as habitual quotations, e.g.:--

  " ... big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome." "'Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." "Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury." "I think the Romans call it Stoicism." "My voice is still for war." "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour is a private station."

  Not to mention:--

  "The woman who deliberates is lost,"

  And the eternal:--

  "Plato, thou reasonest well,"

  which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play!

  89 "The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused--to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, 'Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them, equal.... Rowe's ballad of _The Despairing Shepherd_ is said to have been written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable pair."--DR. JOHNSON.

  "I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both."--LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU to POPE. _Works_, Lord Wharncliffe's ed., vol. ii, p. 111.

  The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, which her father had purchased, and died, unmarried, at an advanced age. She was of weak intellect.

  Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship, for his Collection contains "Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr. Addison's going to Ireland", in which her ladyship is called "Chloe", and Joseph Addison, "Lycidas"; besides the ballad mentioned by the doctor, and which is entitled "Colin's Complaint". But not even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the reader to peruse this composition, though one stanza may serve as a specimen:--

  What though I have skill to complain-- Though the Muses my temples have crowned; What though, when they hear my sweet strain, The Muses sit weeping around.

  Ah, Colin! thy hopes are in vain; Thy pipe and thy laurel resign; Thy false one inclines to a swain Whose music is sweeter than thine.

  90 One of the most humourous of these is the paper on Hoops, which, the _Spectator_ tells us, particularly pleased his friend SIR ROGER:

  "MR. SPECTATOR--

  "You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the expense of the country; it is now high time that you should give the country their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagances. Their petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more; in short, sir, since our women knew themselves to be out of the eye of the SPECTATOR, they will be kept within no compass. You praised them a little too soon, for the modesty of their headdresses; for as the humour of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into another, their superfluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely banished, seems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the superstructure.

  "The women give out, in defence of these wide bottoms, that they are very airy and very proper for the season; but this I look upon to be only a pretence and a piece of art, for it is well known we have not had a more moderate summer these many years, so that it is certain the heat they complain of cannot be in the weather; besides, I would fain
ask these tender-constitutioned ladies, why they should require more cooling than their mothers before them?

  "I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks and lines of circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etheridge's way of making love in a tub as in the midst of so many hoops.

  "Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious tempers who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfall of the _French_ king, and observe, that the farthingale appeared in _England_ a little before the ruin of the _Spanish_ monarchy. Others are of opinion that it foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the toil of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think that it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than going out of it," &c. &c.--_Spectator_, No. 127.

  91 "Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear of, and must even be reduced, like a poorer and a better poet, Spenser, to make his own."--POPE'S _Letters_.

  92 "I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or a choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; with other particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings; and shall give some account in them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own history.... There runs a story in the family, that when my mother was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might proceed from a lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very first appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral till they had taken away the bells from it.

  "As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during my nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always the favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that _my parts were solid and would wear well_. I had not been long at the university before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words; and, indeed, I do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life....

  "I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not more than half a dozen of my select friends that know me.... There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in these little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the _Postman_, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Tuesday night at St. James's Coffee-house; and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the 'Cocoa-Tree', and in the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these two years; and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club.

  "Thus I live in the world rather as a '_Spectator_' of mankind than as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without ever meddling in any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who are engaged in them--as standers-by discover blots which are apt to escape those who are in the game.... In short, I have acted, in all the parts of my life, as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper."--_Spectator_, No. 1.

  93 "So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open violation of decency has always been considered, amongst us, the sure mark of a fool."--MACAULAY.

  94 "The Court was sat before Sir Roger came; but, notwithstanding all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old knight at the head of them; who for his reputation in the country took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear that _he was glad his lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit_. I was listening to the proceedings of the Court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with that great appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our laws; when, after about an hour's sitting, I observed to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity.

  "Upon his first rising; the Court was hushed, and a general whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger _was up_. The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it, and I believe was not so much designed by the knight himself to inform the Court, as to give him a figure in my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the country."--_Spectator_, No. 122.

  95 "Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his death-bed, to ask him whether the Christian religion was true."--DR. YOUNG (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  "I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depression of melancholy: on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents it from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity."--ADDISON, _Spectator_, p. 381.

  96 The husband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, and the father of the young earl, who was brought to his stepfather's bed to see "how a Christian could die". He was amongst the wildest of the nobility of that day; and in the curious collection of Chap-Books at the British Museum, I have seen more than one anecdote of the freaks of the gay lord. He was popular in London, as such daring spirits have been in our time. The anecdotists speak very kindly of his
practical jokes. Mohun was scarcely out of prison for his second homicide, when he went on Lord Macclesfield's embassy to the Elector of Hanover, when Queen Anne sent the garter to H. E. Highness. The chronicler of the expedition speaks of his lordship as an amiable young man, who had been in bad company, but was quite repentant and reformed. He and Macartney afterwards murdered the Duke of Hamilton between them, in which act Lord Mohun died. This amiable baron's name was Charles, and not Henry, as a recent novelist has christened him.

  97 "Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to show it, in all companies, in a particular manner. Addison, now and then, used to play a little upon them; but he always took it well."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  "Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world: even in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to please and be pleased."--DR. YOUNG (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  98 The gaiety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene between two brilliant sisters, from his comedy, _The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode_. Dick wrote this, he said, from "a necessity of enlivening his character", which, it seemed, the _Christian Hero_ had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the eyes of readers of that pious piece.

  [_Scene draws, and discovers_ LADY CHARLOTTE, _reading at a table,_--LADY HARRIET, _playing at a glass, to and fro, and viewing herself._]

  _L. Ha._--Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me [_looking at herself as she speaks_] as you sit staring at a book which I know you can't attend.--Good Dr. Lucas may have writ there what he pleases, but there's no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, now Earl of Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent from your eyes. Do but look on me, now, and deny it if you can.

  _L. Ch._--You are the maddest girl [_smiling_].

  _L. Ha._--Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear laughing [_looking over Charlotte_].--Oh! I see his name as plain as you do--F--r--a--n Fran,--c--i--s, cis, Francis, 'tis in every line of the book.

  _L. Ch._ [_rising_]--It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such impertinent company--but granting 'twere as you say, as to my Lord Hardy--'tis more excusable to admire another than oneself.

  _L. Ha._--No, I think not,--yes, I grant you, than really to be vain of one's person, but I don't admire myself--Pish! I don't believe my eyes to have that softness. [_Looking in the glass._] They an't so piercing: no, 'tis only stuff, the men will be talking.--Some people are such admirers of teeth--Lord, what signifies teeth! [_Showing her teeth._] A very black-a-moor has as white a set of teeth as I.--No, sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of contradiction in me: I don't know I'm in love with myself, only to rival the men.

  _L. Ch._--Aye, but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev'n of that rival of his, your dear self.

  _L. Ha._--Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name that insolent intruder? A confident, opinionative fop. No, indeed, if I am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung of both sexes,

  The public envy and the public care,

  I shan't be so easily catched--I thank him--I want but to be sure, I should heartily torment him by banishing him, and then consider whether he should depart this life or not.

  _L. Ch._--Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your humour does not at all become you.

  _L. Ha_.--Vanity! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere than you wise folks; all your life's an art.--Speak you real.--Look you there.--[_Hauling her to the glass._] Are you not struck with a secret pleasure when you view that bloom in your look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude in your mien?

  _L. Ch._--Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to correct it.

  _L. Ha._--Pshaw! Pshaw! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. Fardingale, 'tis tiresome for me to think at that rate.

  _L. Ch._--They that think it too soon to understand themselves will very soon find it too late.--But tell me honestly, don't you like Campley?

  _L. Ha._--The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did not think of getting me so easily.--Oh, I hate a heart I can't break when I please.--What makes the value of dear china, but that 'tis so brittle?--were it not for that, you might as well have stone mugs in your closet.'--_The Funeral_, Oct. 2nd.

  "We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings [Steele's]; there being scarcely a comedian of merit in our whole company whom his _Tatlers_ had not made better by his recommendation of them."--CIBBER.

  99 "There is not now in his sight that excellent man, whom Heaven made his friend and superior, to be at a certain place in pain for what he should say or do. I will go on in his further encouragement. The best woman that ever man had cannot now lament and pine at his neglect of himself."--STEELE [of himself]. _The Theatre_, No. 12, Feb., 1719-20.

  _ 100 The Funeral_ supplies an admirable stroke of humour,--one which Sydney Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty in his Lectures.

  The undertaker is talking to his employes about their duty.

  _Sable._--Ha, you!--A little more upon the dismal [_forming their countenances_]; this fellow has a good mortal look,--place him near the corpse: that wainscot-face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the end of the hall. So--But I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation. Look yonder,--that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? _Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, and twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful?--and the more I give you I think the gladder you are!_

  101 "From my own Apartment, Nov. 16.

  "There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in their possession, which they do not enjoy; it is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmuring, which carries with it, in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes.

  "I am led into this thought by a visit I made to an old friend who was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, with his family, for the winter; and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl that we all thought must have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance; after which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbours' daughters; upon which, the gentleman, my friend, said, 'Nay; if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the preference: there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But I know him too
well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her.' With such reflections on little passages which happened long ago, we passed our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand: 'Well, my good friend,' says he, 'I am heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the good woman of the house a little altered since you followed her from the playhouse to find out who she was for me?' I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, I said, 'She is not, indeed, that creature she was when she returned me the letter I carried from you, and told me, "She hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in." You may remember I thought her in earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen.' 'Fifteen!' replied my good friend. 'Ah! you little understand--you, that have lived a bachelor--how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved! It is impossible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried me off last winter. I tell you, sincerely, I have so many obligations to her that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of her present state of health. But, as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasure beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh, she is an inestimable jewel! In her examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and the gossipping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.'

  "He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us 'she had been searching her closet for something very good, to treat such an old friend as I was'. Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observing something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, 'Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you: I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must know he tells me, that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country; for he sees several of his old acquaintances and schoolfellows are here--_young fellows with fair, full-bottomed periwigs_. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out _open-breasted_.' My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. 'Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the playhouse; suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me in the front box.' This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties who were the mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, 'I was glad she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.'

  "We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when, on a sudden, we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him out of the room; but I would not part with him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other side of eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in _Aesop's Fables_; but he frankly declared to me his mind, 'that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true;' for which reason I found he had very much turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the _Seven Champions_, and other historians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his son, and that these diversions might turn to some profit. I found the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagement of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved St. George for being the champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when his mother told me, 'that the little girl who led me in this morning was, in her way, a better scholar than he. Betty,' said she, 'deals chiefly in fairies and sprites; and sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed.'

  "I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I return to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me."--_The Tatler._

  102 "As to the pursuits after affection and esteem, the fair sex are happy in this particular, that with them the one is much more nearly related to the other than in men. The love of a woman is inseparable from some esteem of her; and as she is naturally the object of affection, the woman who has your esteem has also some deg
ree of your love. A man that dotes on a woman for her beauty, will whisper his friend, 'that creature has a great deal of wit when you are well acquainted with her.' And if you examine the bottom of your esteem for a woman, you will find you have a greater opinion of her beauty than anybody else. As to us men, I design to pass most of my time with the facetious Harry Bickerstaff; but William Bickerstaff, the most prudent man of our family, shall be my executor."--_Tatler_, No. 206.

  103 The Correspondence of Steele passed after his death into the possession of his daughter Elizabeth, by his second wife, Miss Scurlock, of Carmarthenshire. She married the Hon. John, afterwards third Lord Trevor. At her death, part of the letters passed to Mr. Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of Steele's; and part to Lady Trevor's next of kin, Mr. Scurlock. They were published by the learned Nichols--from whose later edition of them, in 1809, our specimens are quoted.

  Here we have him, in his courtship--which was not a very long one.

  TO MRS. SCURLOCK

  "Aug. 30, 1707.

  "MADAM,--

  "I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write from a coffee-house, where I am attending about business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, talking of money; while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love! Love which animates my heart, sweetens my humour, enlarges my soul; and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words and actions; it is the natural effect of that generous passion to create in the admirer some similitude of the object admired. Thus, my dear, am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that Heaven which made thee such; and join with me to implore its influence on our tender innocent hours, and beseech the Author of love to bless the rites He has ordained--and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation to His will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavour to please Him and each other.

  "I am for ever your faithful servant,

  "RICH. STEELE."

  Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlock received the next one--obviously written later in the day!

  "Saturday night (Aug. 30, 1707).

  "DEAR, LOVELY MRS. SCURLOCK,--

  "I have been in very good company, where your health, under the character of _the woman I loved best_, has been often drunk; so that I may say that I am dead drunk for your sake, which is more than _I die for you_.

  "RICH. STEELE."

  TO MRS. SCURLOCK.

  "Sept. 1, 1707.

  "MADAM,--

  "It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me.

  "A gentleman asked me this morning, 'What news from Lisbon?' and I answered, 'She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know 'when I had last been at Hampton Court?' I replied, 'It will be on Tuesday come se'nnight.' Pr'ythee allow me at least to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may be in some composure. O Love!

  "A thousand torments dwell about thee, Yet who could live, to live without thee?

  "Methinks I could write a volume to you; but all the language on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion,

  "I am ever yours, "RICH. STEELE."

  Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances and prospects to the young lady's mamma. He dates from "Lord Sunderland's office, Whitehall"; and states his clear income at 1,025_l._ per annum. "I promise myself," says he, "the pleasure of an industrious and virtuous life, in studying to do things agreeable to you."

  They were married according to the most probable conjectures about the 7th inst. There are traces of a tiff about the middle of the next month; she being prudish and fidgety, as he was impassioned and reckless. General progress, however, may be seen from the following notes. The "house in Bury Street, St. James's", was now taken.

  TO MRS. STEELE.

  "Oct. 16, 1707.

  "DEAREST BEING ON EARTH,--

  "Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven o'clock, having met a schoolfellow from India, by whom I am to be informed on things this night which expressly concern your obedient husband,

  "RICH. STEELE."

  TO MRS. STEELE.

  "Eight o'clock, Fountain Tavern,

  "Oct. 22, 1707.

  "MY DEAR,--

  "I beg of you not to be uneasy; for I have done a great deal of business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or two about my _Gazette_."

  "Dec. 22, 1707.

  "MY DEAR, DEAR WIFE,--

  "I write to let you know I do not come home to dinner, being obliged to attend some business abroad, of which I shall give you an account (when I see you in the evening), as becomes your dutiful and obedient husband."

  "Devil Tavern, Temple Bar.

  "Jan. 3, 1707-8.

  "DEAR PRUE,--

  "I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and inclose two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to dinner. I languish for your welfare, and will never be a moment careless more.

  "Your faithful husband," &c.

  "Jan. 14, 1707-8.

  "DEAR WIFE,--

  "Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley, have desired me to sit an hour with them at the George, in Pall Mall, for which I desire your patience till twelve o'clock, and that you will go to bed," &c.

  "Gray's Inn, Feb. 3, 1708.

  "DEAR PRUE,--

  "If the man who has my shoemaker's bill calls, let him be answered that I shall call on him as I come home. I stay here in order to get Jonson to discount a bill for me, and shall dine with him for that end. He is expected at home every minute.

  "Your most humble, obedient servant," &c.

  "Tennis Court Coffee-house, "May 5, 1708.

  "DEAR WIFE,--

  "I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to you; in the meantime shall lie this night at a baker's, one Leg, over against the 'Devil' Tavern, at Charing Cross. I shall be able to confront the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall have the satisfaction to see thee cheerful and at ease.

  "If the printer's boy be at home, send him hither; and let Mrs. Todd send by the boy my night-gown, slippers, and clean linen. You shall hear from me early in the morning," &c.

  Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little parcels of tea, or walnuts, &c. In 1709 the _Tatler_ made its appearance. The following curious note dates April 7, 1710:--

  "I inclose to you ['Dear Prue'] a receipt for the saucepan and spoon, and a note of 23_l_. of Lewis's, which will make up the 50_l._ I promised for your ensuing occasion.

  "I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable to the pleasure I have in your person and society. I only beg of you to add to your other charms a fearfulness to see a man that loves you in pain and uneasiness, to make me as happy as it is possible to be in this life. Rising a little in a morning, and being disposed to a cheerfulness ... would not be amiss."

  In another, he is found excusing his coming home, being "invited to supper to Mr. Boyle's". "Dear Prue," he says on this occasion, "do not send after me, for I shall be ridiculous."

  104 Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote,--

  Virtue wi
th so much ease on Bangor sits, All faults he pardons, though he none commits.

  105 Here we have some of his later letters:--

  TO LADY STEELE. "Hampton Court, March 16, 1716-17.

  "DEAR PRUE,

  "If you have written anything to me which I should have received last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer till the next post.... Your son at the present writing is mighty well employed in tumbling on the floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows a most delightful child, and very full of play and spirit. He is also a very great scholar: he can read his primer; and I have brought down my Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks about the pictures. We are very intimate friends and playfellows. He begins to be very ragged; and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip him with new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall think for his service."

  TO LADY STEELE. [Undated.]

  "You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure you I know no one who deserves so much commendation as yourself, and to whom saying the best things would be so little like flattery. The thing speaks for itself, considering you as a very handsome woman that loves retirement--one who does not want wit, and yet is extremely sincere; and so I could go through all the vices which attend the good qualities of other people, of which you are exempt. But, indeed, though you have every perfection, you have an extravagant fault, which almost frustrates the good in you to me; and that is, that you do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my request, and to make me proud of you, or rather to indulge the pride I have that you are mine....

  "Your most affectionate, obsequious husband, "RICH. STEELE.

  "A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are perfectly well."

  TO LADY STEELE. "March 26, 1717.

  "MY DEAREST PRUE,

  "I have received yours, wherein you give me the sensible affliction of telling me enow of the continual pain in your head.... When I lay in your place, and on your pillow, I assure you I fell into tears last night, to think that my charming little insolent might be then awake and in pain; and took it to be a sin to go to sleep.

  "For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented that your _Prueship_ will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher."

  At the time when the above later letters were written, Lady Steele was in Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, about this time, was much occupied with a project for conveying fish alive, by which, as he constantly assures his wife, he firmly believed he should make his fortune. It did not succeed, however.

  Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She lies buried in Westminster Abbey.

  106 Lord Chesterfield sends these verses to Voltaire in a characteristic letter.

  107 Steele replied to Dennis in an _Answer to a Whimsical Pamphlet, called __"__The Character of Sir John Edgar__"_. What Steele had to say against the cross-grained old Critic discovers a great deal of humour:

  "Thou never didst let the sun into thy garret, for fear he should bring a bailiff along with him....

  "Your years are about sixty-five, an ugly, vinegar face, that if you had any command you would be obeyed out of fear, from your ill-nature pictured there; not from any other motive. Your height is about some five feet five inches. You see I can give your exact measure as well as if I had taken your dimension with a good cudgel, which I promise you to do as soon as ever I have the good fortune to meet you....

  "Your doughty paunch stands before you like a firkin of butter, and your duck-legs seem to be cast for carrying burdens.

  "Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself; and while they bark at men of sense, call him knave and fool that wrote them. Thou hast a great antipathy to thy own species; and hatest the sight of a fool but in thy glass."

  Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on account of a pecuniary service which he did him. When John heard of the fact--"'Sdeath!" cries John; "why did not he keep out of the way as I did?"

  The _Answer_ concludes by mentioning that Cibber had offered Ten Pounds for the discovery of the authorship of Dennis's pamphlet; on which, says Steele,--

  "I am only sorry he has offered so much, because the _twentieth part_ would have over-valued his whole carcass. But I know the fellow that he keeps to give answers to his creditors will betray him; for he gave me his word to bring officers on the top of the house that should make a hole through the ceiling of his garret, and so bring him to the punishment he deserves. Some people think this expedient out of the way, and that he would make his escape upon hearing the least noise. I say so too; but it takes him up half an hour every night to fortify himself with his old hair trunk, two or three joint-stools, and some other lumber, which he ties together with cords so fast that it takes him up the same time in the morning to release himself."

  108 Gay calls him--"Dear Prior ... beloved by every muse".--_Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece._

  Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently mentioned in the _Journal to Stella_. "Mr. Prior," says Swift, "walks to make himself fat, and I to keep myself down.... We often walk round the park together."

  In Swift's works there is a curious tract called _Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne_ [Scott's edition, vol. xii]. The _Remarks_ are not by the Dean: but at the end of each is an addition in italics from his hand, and these are always characteristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds, "_Detestably Covetous_," &c. Prior is thus noticed--

  "MATTHEW PRIOR, ESQ., Commissioner of Trade.

  "On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued in his office; is very well at Court with the ministry, and is an entire creature of my Lord Jersey's, whom he supports by his advice; is one of the best poets in England, but very facetious in conversation. A thin, hollow-looked man, turned of 40 years old. _This is near the truth._"

  Yet counting as far as to fifty his years, His virtues and vices were as other men's are, High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears, In a life party-coloured--half pleasure, half care.

  Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, He strove to make interest and freedom agree, In public employments industrious and grave, And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he!

  Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot, Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust; And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about, He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust.

  PRIOR'S _Poems_. ["For my own monument."]

  109 "They joined to produce a parody, entitled _The Town and Country Mouse_, part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old friends Smart and Johnson, by repeating to them. The piece is therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of the _Rehearsal_.... There is nothing new or original in the idea.... In this piece, Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the largest share."--SCOTT'S _Dryden_, vol. i, p. 330.

  110 "He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke of Shrewsbury, but that that nobleman," says Johnson, "refused to be associated with one so meanly born. Prior therefore continued to act without a title till the duke's return next year to England, and then he assumed the style and dignity of ambassador."

  He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his Epitaph:--

  Nobles and heralds by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, The son of Adam an
d of Eve; Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?

  But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke.

  111 His epigrams have the genuine sparkle:

  THE REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE.

  I sent for Radcliff; was so ill, That other doctors gave me over: He felt my pulse, prescribed a pill, And I was likely to recover.

  But when the wit began to wheeze, And wine had warmed the politician, Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.

  ----

  Yes, every poet is a fool; By demonstration Ned can show it; Happy could Ned's inverted rule Prove every fool to be a poet.

  ----

  On his death-bed poor Lubin lies, His spouse is in despair; With frequent sobs and mutual sighs, They both express their care.

  A different cause, says Parson Sly, The same effect may give; Poor Lubin fears that he shall die, His wife that he may live.

  112 PRIOR TO SIR THOMAS HANMER.

  "Aug. 4, 1709.

  "DEAR SIR,

  "Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and cherished by correspondence; but with that additional benefit I am of opinion it will look more cheerful and thrive better: for in this case, as in love, though a man is sure of his own constancy, yet his happiness depends a good deal upon the sentiments of another, and while you and Chloe are alive, 'tis not enough that I love you both, except I am sure you both love me again; and as one of her scrawls fortifies my mind more against affliction than all Epictetus, with Simplicius's comments into the bargain, so your single letter gave me more real pleasure than all the works of Plato.... I must return my answer to your very kind question concerning my health. The Bath waters have done a good deal towards the recovery of it, and the great specific, _Cape Caballum_, will, I think, confirm it. Upon this head I must tell you that my mare Betty grows blind, and may one day, by breaking my neck, perfect my cure: if at Rixham fair any pretty nagg that is between thirteen and fourteen hands presented himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her _goings_ and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand...."--_The Hanmer Correspondence_, p. 120.

  FROM MR. PRIOR.

  "Paris, 1st-12th May, 1714.

  "MY DEAR LORD AND FRIEND,

  "Matthew never had so great occasion to write a word to Henry as now: it is noised here that I am soon to return. The question that I wish I could answer to the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert de Torcy (to whom I made your compliments in the manner you commanded) is, What is done for me: and to what I am recalled? It may look like a bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like me? but it is not such: what is to become of a person who had the honour to be chosen, and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with what the Queen designed should make the peace; returning with the Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest men in England, and one of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not, _n'importe_); having been left by him in the greatest character (that of Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary), exercising that power conjointly with the Duke of Shrewsbury, and solely after his departure; having here received more distinguished honour than any minister, except an Ambassador, ever did, and some which were never given to any, but who had that character; having had all the success that could be expected, having (God be thanked!) spared no pains, at a time when at home the peace is voted safe and honourable--at a time when the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke First Secretary of State? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected, forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the Queen satisfied with his services, or his friends concerned as to his fortune.

  "Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a pity that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late Lord Godolphin. He said he would write to Robin and Harry about me. God forbid, my lord, that I should need any foreign intercession, or owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the decency of behaviour and the returns of common civility: some say I am to go to Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commissioners for settling the commerce. In all cases I am ready, but in the meantime, _dic aliquid de tribus capellis_. Neither of these two are, I presume, honours or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my dear Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me), are what Drift may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was his fellow clerk, has or may possess. I am far from desiring to lessen the great merit of the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem and love him; but in this trade of ours, my lord, in which you are the general, as in that of the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and long service. You would do anything for your Queen's service, but you would not be contented to descend, and be degraded to a charge, no way proportioned to that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr. Ross, though he would charge a party with a halbard in his hand, would be content all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my Lord Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of Trade, or from Secretary of War, would Frank Gwyn think himself kindly used to be returned again to be Commissioner? In short, my lord, you have put me above myself, and if I am to return to myself, I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. I am sure, my lord, you will make the best use you can of this hint for my good. If I am to have anything, it will certainly be for her Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry, that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare not stand by me. If nothing is to be done, _fiat voluntas Dei_. I have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having implored your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance of this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord; all honour, health, and pleasure to you.

  "Yours ever,

  "MATT."

  "PS.--Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths together in usquebaugh after our tea: we are the greatest friends alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the _Book of Travels_ you mentioned; if there be, let friend Tilson send us more particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson can find them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some comfortable tidings."--_Bolingbroke's Letters._

  113 "I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire; Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales's censure of Prior in his preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions 'these impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobium of their ingenious author'. JOHNSON: 'Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people.' I instanced the tale of _Paulo Purganti and his Wife_. JOHNSON: 'Sir, there is nothing there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library.' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_.

  114 Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects not being great, was placed in his youth in the house of a silk-mercer in London. He was born in 1688--Pope'
s year, and in 1712 the Duchess of Monmouth made him her secretary. Next year he published his _Rural Sports_, which he dedicated to Pope, and so made an acquaintance, which became a memorable friendship.

  "Gay," says Pope, "was quite a natural man,--wholly without art or design, and spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. He dangled for twenty years about a Court, and at last was offered to be made usher to the young princess. Secretary Craggs made Gay a present of stock in the South-Sea year; and he was once worth 20,000_l._, but lost it all again. He got about 500_l._ by the first _Beggar's Opera_, and 1,100_l._ or 1,200_l._ by the second. He was negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the Duke of Queensberry took his money into his keeping, and let him only have what was necessary out of it, and, as he lived with them, he could not have occasion for much. He died worth upwards of 3,000_l._"--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  115 "Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as ever I knew."--SWIFT, _to Lady Betty Germaine_, Jan. 1733.

  116 Of manners gentle, of affections mild; In wit a man; simplicity, a child; With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, Form'd to delight at once and lash the age; Above temptation in a low estate, And uncorrupted e'en among the great: A safe companion, and an easy friend, Unblamed through life, lamented in the end. These are thy honours; not that here thy bust Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust; But that the worthy and the good shall say, Striking their pensive bosoms, "_Here_ lies Gay."

  POPE'S _Epitaph on Gay_.

  A hare who, in a civil way, Complied with everything, like Gay.

  _Fables_, "The Hare and Many Friends."

  117 "I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope, curiously, "since he was raffled for, and won back by his Duchess."--_Works_, Roscoe's ed., vol. ix, p. 392.

  Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen Anne brought back Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him the secretaryship of that nobleman, of which he had had but a short tenure.

  Gay's Court prospects were never happy from this time.--His dedication of the _Shepherd's Week_ to Bolingbroke, Swift used to call the "original sin", which had hurt him with the house of Hanover.

  "Sept. 23, 1714.

  "DEAR MR. GAY,

  "Welcome to your native soil! welcome to your friends! thrice welcome to me! whether returned in glory, blest with Court interest, the love and familiarity of the great, and filled with agreeable hopes; or melancholy with dejection, contemplative of the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the future; whether returned a triumphant Whig or a depending Tory, equally all hail! equally beloved and welcome to me! If happy, I am to partake of your elevation; if unhappy, you have still a warm corner in my heart, and a retreat at Benfield in the worst of times at your service. If you are a Tory, or thought so by any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but your gratitude to a few people who endeavoured to serve you, and whose politics were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think your principles and mine (as brother poets) had ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know you will be an honest man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you are incapable of being so much of either party as to be good for nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are or in whatever state you are, all hail!

  "One or two of your own friends complained they had nothing from you since the Queen's death; I told them no man living loved Mr. Gay better than I, yet I had not once written to him in all his voyage. This I thought a convincing proof, but truly one may be a friend to another without telling him so every month. But they had reasons, too, themselves to allege in your excuse, as men who really value one another will never want such as make their friends and themselves easy. The late universal concern in public affairs threw us all into a hurry of spirits: even I, who am more a philosopher than to expect anything from any reign, was borne away with the current, and full of the expectation of the successor. During your journeys, I knew not whither to aim a letter after you; that was a sort of shooting flying: add to this the demand Homer had upon me, to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, all of which are at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, O my friend! that my labour is over; come and make merry with me in much feasting. We will feed among the lilies (by the lilies I mean the ladies). Are not the Rosalindas of Britain as charming as the Blousalindas of the Hague? or have the two great Pastoral poets of our own nation renounced love at the same time? for Philips, unnatural Philips, hath deserted it, yea, and in a rustic manner kicked his Rosalind. Dr. Parnell and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) your company would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses: Homer shall support his children. I beg a line from you, directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnell is in an ill state of health.

  "Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write something on the King, or Prince, or Princess. On whatsoever foot you may be with the court, this can do no harm. I shall never know where to end, and am confounded in the many things I have to say to you, though they all amount but to this, that I am, entirely, as ever,

  "Your," &c.

  Gay took the advice "in the poetical way", and published _An Epistle to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales_. But, though this brought him access to Court, and the attendance of the Prince and Princess at his farce of the _What d'ye, call it?_ it did not bring him a place. On the accession of George II, he was offered the situation of Gentleman Usher to the Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years old); but "by this offer", says Johnson, "he thought himself insulted."

  118 Gay was a great eater.--As the French philosopher used to prove his existence by _cogito, ergo sum_, the greatest proof of Gay's existence is, _edit, ergo est_--CONGREVE, _in a Letter to Pope_ (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  119 Swift indorsed the letter--"On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; received Dec. 15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune."

  "It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord Bolingbroke, and obtained his patronage."--SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. i, p. 156.

  Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus:--

  "[Dec. 5, 1732.]

  "One of the dearest and longest ties I have ever had is broken all on a sudden by the unfortunate death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflammatory fever carried him out of this life in three days.... He asked of you a few hours before when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels and breast.... His sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows.... Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left! few are worth praying for, and one's self the least of all."

  120 "Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. 'He could play on the flute,' says Malone, 'and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so happily some of the airs in the _Beggar's Opera_.' "--_Notes to_ SPENCE.

  121 'Twas when the seas were roaring With hollow blasts of wind, A damsel lay deploring All on a rock reclined. Wide o'er the foaming billows She cast a wistful look; Her head was crown'd with willows That trembled o'er the brook.

  Twelve months are gone and over, And nine long tedious days; Why didst thou, venturous lover-- Why didst thou trust the seas? Cease, cease
, thou cruel Ocean, And let my lover rest; Ah! what's thy troubled motion To that within my breast?

  The merchant robb'd of pleasure, Sees tempests in despair; But what's the loss of treasure To losing of my dear? Should you some coast be laid on, Where gold and diamonds grow, You'd find a richer maiden, But none that loves you so.

  How can they say that Nature Has nothing made in vain; Why, then, beneath the water Should hideous rocks remain? No eyes the rocks discover That lurk beneath the deep, To wreck the wandering lover, And leave the maid to weep?

  All melancholy lying, Thus wail'd she for her dear; Repay'd each blast with sighing, Each billow with a tear; When o'er the white wave stooping, His floating corpse she spy'd; Then, like a lily drooping, She bow'd her head, and died.

  _A Ballad_, from the "_What d'ye call it?_"

  "What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the _What d'ye call it?_ ''Twas when the seas were roaring'? I have been well informed, that they all contributed."--Cowper to Unwin, 1783.

  122 "Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try at such a thing for some time, but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what gave rise to the _Beggar's Opera_. He began on it, and when he first mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice; but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, 'It would either take greatly, or be damned confoundedly.' We were all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 'It will do--it must do!--I see it in the eyes of them!' This was a good while before the first Act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke [besides his own good taste] has a more particular research than any one now living in discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this as usual; the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  123 "Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favourites, in the order they are named, in his first reading, till he was about twelve years old."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  "Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in Hollands, wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in being pleased; and used often to send him back to new turn them. 'These are not good rhimes;' for that was my husband's word for verses."--POPE'S MOTHER (_Spence_).

  "I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic Poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes, and some of the neighbouring islands; and the poem opened under water with a description of the Court of Neptune."--POPE (ibid.).

  "His perpetual application (after he set to study of himself) reduced him in four years' time to so bad a state of health, that, after trying physicians for a good while in vain, he resolved to give way to his distemper; and sat down calmly in a full expectation of death in a short time. Under this thought, he wrote letters to take a last farewell of some of his more particular friends, and, among the rest, one to the Abbe Southcote. The Abbe was extremely concerned, both for his very ill state of health and the resolution he said he had taken. He thought there might yet be hope, and went immediately to Dr. Radcliffe, with whom he was well acquainted, told him Mr. Pope's case, got full directions from him, and carried them down to Pope in Windsor Forest. The chief thing the Doctor ordered him was to apply less, and to ride every day. The following his advice soon restored him to his health."--POPE (ibid.).

  124 MR. POPE TO THE REV. MR. BROOME, PULHAM, NORFOLK.

  "Aug. 29, 1730.

  "DEAR SIR,--

  "I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to have informed myself and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a gradual decay, though so early in life, and was declining for five or six months. It was not, as I apprehended, the gout in his stomach, but, I believe, rather a complication first of gross humours, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves, as he used no sort of exercise. No man better bore the approaches of his dissolution (as I am told), or with less ostentation yielded up his being. The great modesty which you know was natural to him, and the great contempt he had for all sorts of vanity and parade, never appeared more than in his last moments: he had a conscious satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling himself honest, true, and unpretending to more than his own. So he died as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient contentment.

  "As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but few; for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or thought much of the applause of men. I know an instance when he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that way; and if we join to this his natural love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sort: at least, I have heard of none, except some few further remarks on Waller (which his cautious integrity made him leave an order to be given to Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years since I saw it, a translation of the first book of _Oppian_. He had begun a tragedy of _Dion_, but made small progress in it.

  "As to his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no debts or legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr. Trumbull and my lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, and mutual esteem.

  "I shall, with pleasure, take upon me to draw this amiable, quiet, deserving, unpretending, Christian, unphilosophical character in his epitaph. There truth may be spoken in a few words; as for flourish, and oratory, and poetry, I leave them to younger and more lively writers, such as love writing for writing sake, and would rather show their own fine parts than report the valuable ones of any other man. So the elegy I renounce.

  "I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so worthy a man, and a friend to us both....

  "Adieu; let us love his memory, and profit by his example. Am very sincerely, dear sir,

  "Your affectionate and real servant."

  TO THE EARL OF BURLINGTON.

  "August, 1714.

  "MY LORD,

  "If your mare could speak she would give you an account of what extraordinary company she had on the road, which, since she cannot do, I will."

  "It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr. Tonson, who, mounted on a stonehorse, overtook me in Windsor Forest. He said he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat of the Muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all means accompany me thither.

  "I asked him where he got his horse? He answered he got it of his publisher; 'for that rogue, my printer,' said he, 'disappointed me. I hoped to put him in good humour by a treat at the tavern of a brown fricassee of rabbits, which cost ten shillings, with two quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I thought myself cocksure of his horse, which he readily promised me, but said that Mr. Tonson had just such another design of going to Cambridge, expecting there the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr. ----; and if Mr. Tonson went, he was pre-engaged to attend him, being to have the printing of the said copy. So, in short, I borr
owed this stonehorse of my publisher, which he had of Mr. Oldmixon for a debt. He lent me, too, the pretty boy you see after me. He was a smutty dog yesterday, and cost me more than two hours to wash the ink off his face; but the devil is a fair-conditioned devil, and very forward in his catechism. If you have any more bags he shall carry them.'

  "I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave the boy a small bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir Virgil, and, mounting in an instant, proceeded on the road, with my man before, my courteous stationer beside, and the aforesaid devil behind.

  "Mr. Lintot began in this manner: 'Now, damn them! What if they should put it into the newspaper how you and I went together to Oxford? What would I care? If I should go down into Sussex they would say I was gone to the Speaker; but what of that? If my son were but big enough to go on with the business, by G-d, I would keep as good company as old Jacob.'

  "Hereupon, I inquired of his son. 'The lad,' says he, 'has fine parts, but is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for nothing in his education at Westminster. Pray, don't you think Westminster to be the best school in England? Most of the late Ministry came out of it; so did many of this Ministry. I hope the boy will make his fortune.'

  " 'Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford?' 'To what purpose?' said he. 'The Universities do but make pedants, and I intend to breed him a man of business.'

  "As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his saddle, for which I expressed some solicitude. 'Nothing,' says he. 'I can bear it well enough; but, since we have the day before us, methinks it would be very pleasant for you to rest awhile under the woods.' When we were alighted, 'See, here, what a mighty pretty Horace I have in my pocket! What, if you amused yourself in turning an ode till we mount again? Lord! if you pleased. What a clever miscellany might you make at leisure hours!' 'Perhaps I may,' said I, 'if we ride on; the motion is an aid to my fancy; a round trot very much awakens my spirits; then jog on apace, and I'll think as hard as I can.'

  "Silence ensued for a full hour; after which Mr. Lintot lugged the reins, stopped short, and broke out, 'Well, sir, how far have you gone?' I answered, seven miles. 'Z--ds, sir,' said Lintot, 'I thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldisworth, in a ramble round Wimbledon Hill, would translate a whole ode in half this time. I'll say that for Oldisworth [though I lost by his Timothy's] he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in England. I remember Dr. King would write verses in a tavern, three hours after he could not speak: and there is Sir Richard, in that rumbling old chariot of his, between Fleet Ditch and St. Giles's pound shall make you half a Job.'

  " 'Pray, Mr. Lintot,' said I, 'now you talk of translators, what is your method of managing them?' 'Sir,' replied he, 'these are the saddest pack of rogues in the world: in a hungry fit, they'll swear they understand all the languages in the universe. I have known one of them take down a Greek book upon my counter, and cry, "Ah, this is Hebrew," and must read it from the latter end. By G-d, I can never be sure in these fellows, for I neither understand Greek, Latin, French, nor Italian myself. But this is my way; I agree with them for ten shillings per sheet, with a proviso that I will have their doings corrected with whom I please; so by one or the other they are led at last to the true sense of an author; my judgement giving the negative to all my translators.' 'Then how are you sure these correctors may not impose upon you?' 'Why, I get any civil gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into my shop, to read the original to me in English; by this I know whether my first translator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits his money or not.

  " 'I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with S---- for a new version of _Lucretius_, to publish against Tonson's, agreeing to pay the author so many shillings at his producing so many lines. He made a great progress in a very short time, and I gave it to the corrector to compare with the Latin; but he went directly to Creech's translation, and found it the same, word for word, all but the first page. Now, what d'ye think I did? I arrested the translator for a cheat; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay, too, upon the proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the original.'

  " 'Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics?' 'Sir,' said he, 'nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them; the rich ones for a sheet a-piece of the blotted manuscript, which cost me nothing; they'll go about with it to their acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, who submitted it to their correction: this has given some of them such an air, that in time they come to be consulted with and dedicated to as the tip-top critics of the town.--As for the poor critics, I'll give you one instance of my management, by which you may guess the rest: a lean man, that looked like a very good scholar, came to me, t'other day; he turned over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders, and pish'd at every line of it. "One would wonder," says he, "at the strange presumption of some men; Homer is no such easy task as every stripling, every versifier--" He was going on, when my wife called to dinner; "Sir," said I, "will you please to eat a piece of beef with me?" "Mr. Lintot," said he, "I am very sorry you should be at the expense of this great book, I am really concerned on your account." "Sir, I am much obliged to you: if you can dine upon a piece of beef together with a slice of pudding--?" "Mr. Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of learning--" "Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath, that the book is commendable, and the pudding excellent.'

  " 'Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, 'in return for the frankness I have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at Court that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar or not?' I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my lord being one I had particular obligations to.--'That may be,' replied Mr. Lintot; 'but by G-- if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good trial.'

  "These, my lord, are a few traits with which you discern the genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord Carleton, at Middleton....

  "I am," &c.

  DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE.

  "Sept. 29, 1725.

  "I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin--into the _grand monde_--for fear of burying my parts; to signalize myself among curates and vicars, and correct all corruptions crept in relating to the weight of bread-and-butter through those dominions where I govern. I have employed my time (besides ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my _Travels_ [_Gulliver's_], in four parts complete, newly augmented, and intended for the press when the world shall deserve them, or rather, when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and dissensions; but the chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it; and if I could compass that design without hurting my own person and fortune, I would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, without reading. I am exceedingly pleased that you have done with translations; Lord Treasurer Oxford often lamented that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of misemploying your genius for so long a time; but since you will now be so much better employed, when you think of the world, give it one lash the more at my request. I have ever hated all societies, professions, and communities; and all my love is to
wards individuals--for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Councillor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one: it is so with physicians (I will not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man--although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so on.

  "... I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of that definition _animal rationale_, and to show it should be only _rationis capax_.... The matter is so clear that it will admit of no dispute--nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that you and I agree in the point....

  "Dr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the world, have lost that hardness of heart contracted by years and general conversation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking nor getting others. Oh, if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my _Travels_!"

  MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.

  "October 15, 1725.

  "I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends.... Here is one [Lord Bolingbroke] who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) learned to be content with returning to his first point without the thought or ambition of shining at all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you again than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long despised but what is made up of a few men like yourself....

  "Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs--and generally by Tories too. Because he had humour, he was supposed to have dealt with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil....

  "Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall; I wish he had received no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most improved mind since you saw him, that ever was improved without shifting into a new body, or being _paullo minus ab angelis_. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after so many varieties and changes, after so much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single thought of the one, any more than a single action of the other, remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that we should meet like the righteous in the millennium, quite at peace, divested of all our former passions, smiling at our past follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity.

  ----

  "I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter."

  125 Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says:--"He was one of those men of careless wit, and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand _bons mots_ and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was this lord, of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant as Amadis and as brave; but a little more expeditious in his journeys; for he is said to have seen more kings and more postilions than any man in Europe.... He was a man, as his friend said, who would neither live nor die like any other mortal."

  FROM THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH TO POPE.

  "You must receive my letter with a just impartiality, and give grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day; I sink grievously with the weather-glass, and am quite spiritless when oppressed with the thoughts of a birthday or a return.

  "Dutiful affection was bringing me to town, but undutiful laziness, and being much out of order keep me in the country: however, if alive, I must make my appearance at the birthday....

  "You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you on this point, I doubt, every jury will give a verdict against me. So, sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favourite privileges of our Church.

  "I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you must not think of women in a reasonable way; you know we always make goddesses of those we adore upon earth; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the Deity?

  "... I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a place as odd and as out of the way as himself.

  "Yours."

  Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer.

  126 "Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house.

  "From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late and drank too much wine."--DR. JOHNSON.

  Will's coffee-house was on the west side of Bow Street, and "corner of Russell Street". See _Handbook of London_.

  127 "My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712: I liked him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his conversation. It was very soon after that Mr. Addison advised me 'not to be content with the applause of half the nation'. He used to talk much and often to me, of moderation in parties: and used to blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of a party man. He encouraged me in my design of translating the _Iliad_, which was begun that year, and finished in 1718."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  128 "Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the selfishness of Pope's friendship; and, resolving that he should have the consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis by Steele that he was sorry for the insult."--JOHNSON (_Life of Addison_).

  129 "While I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know 'that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak of him severely in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; that I should rather tell him himself fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner.' I then subjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and never did me any injustice, that I know of, from that time to his death, which was about three years after."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  130 "That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable; that Addison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable; but that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany, seems, to us, improbable in a tenfold degree."--MACAULAY.

  131 LORD BOLINGBROKE TO THE THREE YAHOOS OF TWICKENHAM.

  "July 23, 1726.

  "JONATHAN, ALEXANDER, JOHN, MOST EXCELLENT TRIUMVIRS OF PARNASSUS,--

  "Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few line
s to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neighbourhood again, by the end of next week: by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, _la bagatelle_. Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, John, mirth be with you!"

  132 Prior must be excepted from this observation. "He was lank and lean."

  133 Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the _Iliad_ subscription; and also introduced Pope to Harley and Bolingbroke.--Pope realized by the _Iliad_ upwards of 5,000_l._, which he laid out partly in annuities, and partly in the purchase of his famous villa. Johnson remarks that "it would be hard to find a man so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money".

  134 Garth, whom Dryden calls "generous as his Muse", was a Yorkshireman. He graduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. in 1691. He soon distinguished himself in his profession, by his poem of the _Dispensary_, and in society, and pronounced Dryden's funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable member of the Kit-Kat and a friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted by George I, with the Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718.

  135 "Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergyman in Scotland, and belonged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was educated at Aberdeen; and, coming up to London--according to a Scotch practice often enough alluded to--to make his fortune--first made himself known by 'an examination of Dr. Woodward's account of the Deluge'. He became physician, successively to Prince George of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have been the most learned, as well as one of the most witty and humorous members of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of him by the humourists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their correspondence. When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift:

  "Hampstead, Oct. 4, 1734.

  "MY DEAR AND WORTHY FRIEND,--

  "You have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful friends, for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The first was about your health; the last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar. I can assure you with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart towards you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world, and you, among the rest of my friends, shall have my last prayers and good wishes.

  "... I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most earnestly desired and begged of God that he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had forborne for some years), I recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again.... What I did, I can assure you was not for life, but ease; for I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to sea--who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family and from the kindness of my friends as any man; but the world, in the main, displeases me, and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are to befall my country. However, if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine why you are frightened from a journey to England: the reasons you assign are not sufficient--the journey I am sure would do you good. In general, I recommend riding, of which I have always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own experience.

  "My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sustained in one of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour; for all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from the way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none are with more sincerity than I am, my dear friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant."

  "Arbuthnot," Johnson says, "was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit who in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal."

  Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a department of which he was particularly qualified to judge: "Let me add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of _Martinus Scriblerus_ ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share."--See Preliminary Dissertation to _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, note to p. 242, and also note B. B. B., p. 285.

  136 TO MR. RICHARDSON.

  "Twickenham, June 10, 1733.

  "As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hope that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this for the very reason, which possibly might hinder you coming, that my poor mother is dead. I thank God, her death was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painter drew; and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could come and sketch it for me. I am sure, if there be no very precedent obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this; and I hope to see you this evening, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written this--I could not (at this time) have written at all. Adieu! May you die as happy!

  "Yours," &c.

  137 "Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. 'Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, 'you have the honour of seeing the two greatest men in the world.'--'I don't know how great you may be,' said the Guinea man, 'but I don't like your looks: I have often bought a man, much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas.' "--DR. WARBURTON (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

  138 Swift's mention of him as one

  ---- whose filial piety excels, Whatever Grecian story tells,

  is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better use than he ever intended it for, a propos of this subject.--He charitably sneers, in one of his letters, at Spence's "fondling an old mother--in imitation of Pope!"

  139 Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. He was a short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, a clergyman, and professor of poetry. He was a friend of Thomson's, whose reputation he aided. He published an _Essay on the Odys
sey_ in 1726, which introduced him to Pope. Everybody liked him. His _Anecdotes_ were placed, while still in MS., at the service of Johnson and also of Malone. They were published by Mr. Singer in 1820.

  140 He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through "that long disease, my life". But not only was he so feeble as is implied in his use of the "buckram", but "it now appears", says Mr. Peter Cunningham, "from his unpublished letters, that, like Lord Hervey, he had recourse to ass's-milk for the preservation of his health." It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage that he alludes when he says--

  Let Sporus tremble!--A. What, that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's-milk?

  141 "He (Johnson) repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the _Dunciad_."--BOSWELL.

  142 "Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired these lines so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered. 'And well it might, sir,' said Johnson, 'for they are noble lines.' "

  J. BOSWELL, junior.

  143 Coleridge speaks of the "beautiful female faces" in Hogarth's pictures, "in whom," he says, "the satirist never extinguished that love of beauty which belonged to him as a poet."--_The Friend._

  144 "I was pleased with the reply of a gentleman, who, being asked which book he esteemed most in his library, answered, 'Shakespeare': being asked which he esteemed next best, replied 'Hogarth'. His graphic representations are indeed books: they have the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of _words_. Other pictures we look at--his prints we read....

  "The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture would almost unvulgarize every subject which he might choose....

  "I say not that all the ridiculous subjects of Hogarth have necessarily something in them to make us like them; some are indifferent to us, some in their nature repulsive, and only made interesting by the wonderful skill and truth to nature in the painter; but I contend that there is in most of them that sprinkling of the better nature, which, like holy water, chases away and disperses the contagion of the bad. They have this in them, besides, that they bring us acquainted with the every-day human face,--they give us skill to detect those gradations of sense and virtue (which escape the careless or fastidious observer) in the circumstances of the world about us; and prevent that disgust at common life, that _taedium quotidianarum formarum_, which an unrestricted passion for ideal forms and beauties is in danger of producing. In this, as in many other things, they are analogous to the best novels of Smollett and Fielding."--CHARLES LAMB.

  "It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly unlike any other representations of the same kind of subjects--that they form a class, and have a character, peculiar to themselves. It may be worth while to consider in what this general distinction consists.

  "In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, _historical_ pictures; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of _Tom Jones_ ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because it contained a regular development of fable, manners, character, and passion, the compositions of Hogarth, will, in like manner, be found to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many which have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and humours of mankind in action, and their characters by varied expression. Everything in his pictures has life and motion in it. Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full play; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvas for ever. The expression is always taken _en passant_, in a state of progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point.... His figures are not like the background on which they are painted: even the pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their own. Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth's heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the extremes of character and expression, but he gives them with perfect truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what distinguishes his compositions from all others of the same kind, that they are equally remote from caricature, and from mere still life.... His faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we believe in any single instance) go beyond it."--HAZLITT.

  145 He made this excursion in 1732, his companions being John Thornhill (son of Sir James), Scott the landscape-painter, Tothall, and Forrest.

  146 "Dr. Johnson made four lines once, on the death of poor Hogarth, which were equally true and pleasing: I know not why Garrick's were preferred to them:--

  The hand of him here torpid lies, That drew th' essential forms of grace; Here, closed in death, th' attentive eyes, That saw the manners in the face.

  "Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me when I was too young to have a proper sense of them, was used to be very earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible the friendship, of Dr. Johnson; whose conversation was, to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting compared to Hudson's, he said: 'but don't you tell people now that I say so' (continued he) 'for the connoisseurs and I are at war, you know; and because I hate _them_, they think I hate _Titian_--and let them!' ... Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and he were talking about him one day, 'That man' (says Hogarth) 'is not contented with believing the Bible; but he fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing _but_ the Bible. Johnson' (added he), 'though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than King Solomon, for he says in his haste, _All men are liars_.' "--MRS. PIOZZI.

  Hogarth died on the 26th of October, 1764. The day before his death, he was removed from his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, "in a very weak condition, yet remarkably cheerful." He had just received an agreeable letter from Franklin. He lies buried at Chiswick.

  147 TO SIR WATKIN PHILLIPS, BART., OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXON.

  "DEAR PHILLIPS,--In my last, I mentioned my having spent an evening with a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous and afraid of one another. My uncle was not at all surprised to hear me say I was disappointed in their conversation. 'A man may be very entertaining and instructive upon paper,' said he, 'and exceedingly dull in common discourse. I have observed, that those who shine most in private company are but secondary stars in the constellation of genius. A small stock of ideas is more easily managed, and sooner displayed, than a great quantity crowded together. There is very seldom anything extraordinary in the appearance and address of a good writer; whereas a dull author generally distinguishes himself by some oddity or extravagance. For this reason I fancy that an assembly of grubs must be very diverting.'

  "My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend Dick Ivy, who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was Sunday last. He carried me to dine with S----, whom you and I have long known by his writings. He lives in the skirts of the town; and every Sunday his house is open to all unfortunate brothers of the quill, whom he treats with beef, pudding, and potatoes, port, punch, and Calvert's entire butt beer. He has fixed upon the first day of the week for the exercise of his hospitality, because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any other, for reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received in a plain, yet decent habitation, which opened backwards into a very pleasant garden, kept in excellent order; and, indeed, I saw none of the outward signs of
authorship either in the house or the landlord, who is one of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own foundation, without patronage, and above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic in the entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of singularity.

  "At two in the afternoon, I found myself one of ten messmates seated at table; and I question if the whole kingdom could produce such another assemblage of originals. Among their peculiarities, I do not mention those of dress, which may be purely accidental. What struck me were oddities originally produced by affectation, and afterwards confirmed by habit. One of them wore spectacles at dinner, and another his hat flapped; though (as Ivy told me) the first was noted for having a seaman's eye, when a bailiff was in the wind; and the other was never known to labour under any weakness or defect of vision, except about five years ago, when he was complimented with a couple of black eyes by a player, with whom he had quarrelled in his drink. A third wore a laced stocking, and made use of crutches, because, once in his life, he had been laid up with a broken leg, though no man could leap over a stick with more agility. A fourth had contracted such an antipathy to the country, that he insisted upon sitting with his back towards the window that looked into the garden; and when a dish of cauliflower was set upon the table, he snuffed up volatile salts to keep him from fainting; yet this delicate person was the son of a cottager, born under a hedge, and had many years run wild among asses on a common. A fifth affected distraction: when spoke to, he always answered from the purpose. Sometimes he suddenly started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath; sometimes he burst out a-laughing; then he folded his arms, and sighed; and then he hissed like fifty serpents.

  "At first, I really thought he was mad; and, as he sat near me, began to be under some apprehensions for my own safety; when our landlord, perceiving me alarmed, assured me aloud that I had nothing to fear. 'The gentleman,' said he, 'is trying to act a part for which he is by no means qualified: if he had all the inclination in the world, it is not in his power to be mad; his spirits are too flat to be kindled into phrenzy.' ''Tis no bad p-p-puff, how-owever,' observed a person in a tarnished laced coat: 'aff-ffected m-madness w-will p-pass for w-wit w-with nine-nineteen out of t-twenty.' 'And affected stuttering for humour,' replied our landlord; 'though, God knows! there is no affinity betwixt them.' It seems this wag, after having made some abortive attempts in plain speaking, had recourse to this defect, by means of which he frequently extorted the laugh of the company, without the least expense of genius; and that imperfection, which he had at first counterfeited, was now become so habitual, that he could not lay it aside.

  "A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, had, on his first introduction, taken such offence at S----, because he looked and talked, and ate and drank, like any other man, that he spoke contemptuously of his understanding ever after, and never would repeat his visit, until he had exhibited the following proof of his caprice. Wat Wyvil, the poet, having made some unsuccessful advances towards an intimacy with S----, at last gave him to understand, by a third person, that he had written a poem in his praise, and a satire against his person: that if he would admit him to his house, the first should be immediately sent to press; but that if he persisted in declining his friendship, he would publish the satire without delay. S---- replied, that he looked upon Wyvil's panegyric as, in effect, a species of infamy, and would resent it accordingly with a good cudgel; but if he published the satire, he might deserve his compassion, and had nothing to fear from his revenge. Wyvil having considered the alternative, resolved to mortify S---- by printing the panegyric, for which he received a sound drubbing. Then he swore the peace against the aggressor, who, in order to avoid a prosecution at law, admitted him to his good graces. It was the singularity in S----'s conduct on this occasion, that reconciled him to the yellow-gloved philosopher, who owned he had some genius; and from that period cultivated his acquaintance.

  "Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my fellow guests were employed, I applied to my communicative friend Dick Ivy, who gave me to understand that most of them were, or had been, understrappers, or journeymen, to more creditable authors, for whom they translated, collated, and compiled, in the business of bookmaking; and that all of them had, at different times, laboured in the service of our landlord, though they had now set up for themselves in various departments of literature. Not only their talents, but also their nations and dialects, were so various, that our conversation resembled the confusion of tongues at Babel. We had the Irish brogue, the Scotch accent, and foreign idiom, twanged off by the most discordant vociferation; for as they all spoke together, no man had any chance to be heard, unless he could bawl louder than his fellows. It must be owned, however, there was nothing pedantic in their discourse; they carefully avoided all learned disquisitions, and endeavoured to be facetious; nor did their endeavours always miscarry; some droll repartee passed, and much laughter was excited; and if any individual lost his temper so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually checked by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal authority over this irritable tribe.

  "The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had been expelled the university for atheism, has made great progress in a refutation of Lord Bolingbroke's metaphysical works, which is said to be equally ingenious and orthodox: but in the meantime, he has been presented to the grand jury as a public nuisance for having blasphemed in an alehouse on the Lord's Day. The Scotchman gives lectures on the pronunciation of the English language, which he is now publishing by subscription.

  "The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name of My Lord Potatoe. He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a minister, hoping his zeal would be rewarded with some place or pension; but finding himself neglected in that quarter, he whispered about that the pamphlet was written by the minister himself, and he published an answer to his own production. In this he addressed the author under the title of 'your lordship', with such solemnity, that the public swallowed the deceit, and bought up the whole impression. The wise politicians of the metropolis declared they were both masterly performances, and chuckled over the flimsy reveries of an ignorant garreteer, as the profound speculations of a veteran statesman, acquainted with all the secrets of the cabinet. The imposture was detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer retains no part of his assumed importance but the bare title of 'my lord', and the upper part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in Shoe Lane.

  "Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public with a humorous satire, entitled _The Balance of the English Poets_; a performance which evinced the great modesty and taste of the author, and, in particular, his intimacy with the elegances of the English language. The sage, who laboured under the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, or 'horror of green fields', had just finished a treatise on practical agriculture, though, in fact, he had never seen corn growing in his life, and was so ignorant of grain, that our entertainer, in the face of the whole company, made him own that a plate of hominy was the best rice-pudding he had ever eat.

  "The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe and part of Asia, without ever budging beyond the liberties of the King's
Bench, except in term-time, with a tipstaff for his companion: and as for little Tim Cropdale, the most facetious member of the whole society, he had happily wound up the catastrophe of a virgin tragedy, from the exhibition of which no promised himself a large fund of profit and reputation. Tim had made shift to live many years by writing novels, at the rate of five pounds a volume; but that branch of business is now engrossed by female authors, who publish merely for the propagation of virtue, with so much ease, and spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge of the human heart, and all in the serene tranquillity of high life, that the reader is not only enchanted by their genius, but reformed by their morality.

  "After dinner, we adjourned into the garden, where I observed Mr. S---- give a short separate audience to every individual in a small remote filbert-walk, from whence most of them dropped off one after another, without further ceremony."

  Smollett's house was in Lawrence Lane, Chelsea, and is now destroyed. See _Handbook of London_, p. 115.

  "The person of Smollett was eminently handsome, his features prepossessing, and, by the joint testimony of all his surviving friends, his conversation, in the highest degree, instructive and amusing. Of his disposition, those who have read his works (and who has not?) may form a very accurate estimate; for in each of them he has presented, and sometimes, under various points of view, the leading features of his own character without disguising the most unfavourable of them.... When unseduced by his satirical propensities, he was kind, generous, and humane to others; bold, upright, and independent in his own character; stooped to no patron, sued for no favour, but honestly and honourably maintained himself on his literary labours.... He was a doating father, and an affectionate husband; and the warm zeal with which his memory was cherished by his surviving friends, showed clearly the reliance which they placed upon his regard."--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

  148 Smollett of Bonhill, in Dumbartonshire. _Arms_, az. "a bend, or, between a lion rampant, ppr., holding in his paw a banner, arg. and a bugle-horn, also ppr. _Crest_, an oak-tree, ppr. _Motto, Viresco._"

  Smollett's father, Archibald, was the fourth son of Sir James Smollett of Bonhill, a Scotch judge and Member of Parliament, and one of the commissioners for framing the Union with England. Archibald married, without the old gentleman's consent, and died early, leaving his children dependent on their grandfather. Tobias, the second son, was born in 1721, in the old house of Dalquharn in the valley of Leven; and all his life loved and admired that valley and Loch Lomond beyond all the valleys and lakes in Europe. He learned the "rudiments" at Dumbarton Grammar-school, and studied at Glasgow.

  But when he was only eighteen, his grandfather died, and left him without provision (figuring as the old judge in _Roderick Random_ in consequence, according to Sir Walter). Tobias, armed with the _Regicide_, a tragedy--a provision precisely similar to that with which Dr. Johnson had started, just before--came up to London. The _Regicide_ came to no good, though at first patronized by Lord Lyttelton ("one of those little fellows who are sometimes called great men," Smollett says); and Smollett embarked as "surgeon's mate" on board a line-of-battle ship, and served in the Carthagena expedition, in 1741. He left the service in the West Indies, and, after residing some time in Jamaica, returned to England in 1746.

  He was now unsuccessful as a physician, to begin with; published the satires, _Advice_ and _Reproof_--without any luck; and (1747) married the "beautiful and accomplished Miss Lascelles".

  In 1748 he brought out his _Roderick Random_, which at once made a "hit". The subsequent events of his life may be presented, chronologically, in a bird's-eye view:--

  1750. Made a tour to Paris, where he chiefly wrote _Peregrine Pickle_.

  1751. Published _Peregrine Pickle_.

  1753. Published _Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom_.

  1755. Published version of _Don Quixote_.

  1756. Began the _Critical Review_.

  1758. Published his _History of England_.

  1763-1766. Travelling in France and Italy; published his _Travels_.

  1769. Published _Adventures of an Atom_.

  1770. Set out for Italy; died at Leghorn 21st of Oct., 1771, in the fifty-first year of his age.

  149 A good specimen of the old "slashing" style of writing is presented by the paragraph on Admiral Knowles, which subjected Smollett to prosecution and imprisonment. The admiral's defence on the occasion of the failure of the Rochfort expedition came to be examined before the tribunal of the _Critical Review_.

  "He is," said our author, "an admiral without conduct, an engineer without knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without veracity!"

  Three months imprisonment in the King's Bench avenged this stinging paragraph.

  But the _Critical_ was to Smollett a perpetual fountain of "hot water". Among less important controversies may be mentioned that with Grainger, the translator of _Tibullus_. Grainger replied in a pamphlet; and in the next number of the _Review_ we find him threatened with "castigation", as an "owl that has broken from his mew"!

  In Dr. Moore's biography of him is a pleasant anecdote. After publishing the _Don Quixote_, he returned to Scotland to pay a visit to his mother:--

  "On Smollett's arrival, he was introduced to his mother with the connivance of Mrs. Telfer (her daughter), as a gentleman from the West Indies, who was intimately acquainted with her son. The better to support his assumed character, he endeavoured to preserve a serious countenance, approaching to a frown; but while his mother's eyes were riveted on his countenance, he could not refrain from smiling: she immediately sprung from her chair, and throwing her arms round his neck, exclaimed, 'Ah, my son! my son! I have found you at last!'

  "She afterwards told him, that if he had kept his austere looks and continued to _gloom_, he might have escaped detection some time longer, but 'your old roguish smile', added she, 'betrayed you at once.' "

  "Shortly after the publication of _The Adventures of an Atom_, disease again attacked Smollett with redoubled violence. Attempts being vainly made to obtain for him the office of Consul in some part of the Mediterranean, he was compelled to seek a warmer climate, without better means of provision than his own precarious finances could afford. The kindness of his distinguished friend and countryman, Dr. Armstrong (then abroad), procured for Dr. and Mrs. Smollett a house at Monte Nero, a village situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea, in the neighbourhood of Leghorn, a romantic and salutary abode, where he prepared for the press, the last, and like music 'sweetest in the close', the most pleasing of his compositions, _The Expedition of Humphry Clinker_. This delightful work was published in 1771."--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

  150 The dispute with the captain arose from the wish of that functionary to intrude on his right to his cabin, for which he had paid thirty pounds. After recounting the circumstances of the apology, he characteristically adds:--

  "And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him from a motive which would make men much more forgiving, if they were much wiser than they are; because it was convenient for me so to do."

  151 Lady Mary was his second cousin--their respective grandfathers being sons of George Fielding, Earl of Desmond, son of William, Earl of Denbigh.

  In a let
ter dated just a week before his death, she says:--

  "H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to his own figure excepted; and I am persuaded, several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact. I wonder he does not perceive Tom Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry scoundrels.... Fielding has really a fund of true humour, and was to be pitied at his first entrance into the world, having no choice, as he said himself, but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman. His genius deserved a better fate; but I cannot help blaming that continued indiscretion, to give it the softest name, that has run through his life, and I am afraid still remains.... Since I was born no original has appeared excepting Congreve, and Fielding, who would, I believe, have approached nearer to his excellences, if not forced by his necessities to publish without correction, and throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got without money, or money without scribbling.... I am sorry not to see any more of Peregrine Pickle's performances; I wish you would tell me his name,"--_Letters and Works_ (Lord Wharncliffe's ed.), vol. iii, pp. 93, 94.

  152 He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend, on Sunday morning, June 30th, 1754; and began the _Journal of a Voyage_ during the passage. He died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October of the same year. He lies buried there, in the English Protestant church-yard, near the Estrella Church, with this inscription over him:--

  "HENRICUS FIELDING, LUGET BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DATUM FOVERE NATUM."

  153 Fielding himself is said by Dr. Warton to have preferred _Joseph Andrews_ to his other writings.

  154 "Richardson," says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of him, prefixed to his Correspondence, "was exceedingly hurt at this (_Joseph Andrews_), the more so as they had been on good terms, and he was very intimate with Fielding's two sisters. He never appears cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps it was not in human nature he should), and he always speaks in his letters with a great deal of asperity of _Tom Jones_, more indeed than was quite graceful in a rival author. No doubt he himself thought his indignation was solely excited by the loose morality of the work and of its author, but he could tolerate Cibber."

  155 It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the Doctor couldn't be expected to like Fielding's wild life (to say nothing of the fact, that they were of opposite sides in politics), Richardson was one of his earliest and kindest friends. Yet Johnson too (as Boswell tells us) read _Amelia_ through without "stopping".

  156 "Manners change from generation to generation, and with manners morals appear to change--actually change with some, but appear to change with all but the abandoned. A young man of the present day who should act as Tom Jones is supposed to act at Upton, with Lady Bellaston, &c., would not be a Tom Jones; and a Tom Jones of the present day, without perhaps being in the ground a better man, would have perished rather than submit to be kept by a harridan of fortune. Therefore, this novel is, and indeed, pretends to be, no example of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this, I do loathe the cant which can recommend _Pamela_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_ as strictly moral, although they poison the imagination of the young with continued doses of _tinct. lyttae_, while _Tom Jones_ is prohibited as loose. I do not speak of young women; but a young man whose heart or feelings can be injured, or even his passions excited by this novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sunshiny, breezy spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with the close, hot, day dreamy continuity of Richardson."--COLERIDGE, _Literary Remains_, vol. ii, p. 374.

  157 "Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to that beloved first wife, whose picture he drew in his _Amelia_, when, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ, did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident related in the novel--a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose. He loved her passionately, and she returned his affection....

  "His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the death of this charming woman, he married her maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost brokenhearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her; nor solace when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least, this was what he told his friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion."--_Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu._ Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. _Introductory Anecdotes_, vol. i, pp. 80, 81.

  Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from Salisbury, with a fortune of 1,500_l._, whom he married in 1736. About the same time he succeeded, himself, to an estate of 200_l._ per annum, and on the joint amount he lived for some time as a splendid country gentleman in Dorsetshire. Three years brought him to the end of his fortune; when he returned to London, and became a student of law.

  158 In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for 1786, an anecdote is related of Harry Fielding, "in whom," says the correspondent, "good nature and philanthropy in their extreme degree were known to be the prominent features." It seems that "some parochial taxes" for his house in Beaufort Buildings had long been demanded by the collector. "At last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process of literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, when he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He asked the chum to dinner with him at a neighbouring tavern; and learning that he was in difficulties, emptied the contents of his pocket into his. On returning home he was informed that the collector had been twice for the money. 'Friendship has called for the money and had it,' said Fielding; 'let the collector call again.' "

  It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name "Fielding", and not "Feilding", like the head of the house? "I cannot tell, my lord," said he, "except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell."

  159 In 1749, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, an office then paid by fees, and very laborious, without being particularly reputable. It may be seen from his own words, in the Introduction to the _Voyage_, what kind of work devolved upon him, and in what a state he was, during these last years; and still more clearly, how he comported himself through all.

  "Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message from his grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the King's messenger, to attend his grace the next morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon some business of importance: but I excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had lately undergone, added to my distemper.

  "His grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next morning, with another s
ummons; with which, though in the utmost distress, I immediately complied; but the duke happening, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented for these murders and robberies, which were every day committed in the streets; upon which I promised to transmit my opinion in writing to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the Privy Council.

  "Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myself down to work, and in about four days sent the duke as regular a plan as I could form, with all the reasons and arguments I could bring to support it, drawn out on several sheets of paper; and soon received a message from the Duke, by Mr. Carrington, acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with.

  "The principal and most material of these terms was the immediately depositing 600_l._ in my hands; at which small charge I undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able for the future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time formidable to the public.

  "I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintances, and the ardent desire of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire to demolish this gang of villains and cut-throats....

  "After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and within a few days, after 200_l._ of it had come into my hands, the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed...."

  Further on, he says--

  "I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased to suspect me of taking; on the contrary, by composing, instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had reduced an income of about 500_l._, a year of the dirtiest money upon earth, to little more than 300_l._, a considerable portion of which remained with my clerk."

  160 He came of a Suffolk family--one of whom settled in Nottinghamshire. The famous "starling" was actually the family crest.

  161 "It was in this parish" (of Animo, in Wicklow), "during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race, whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt; the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me."--STERNE.

  162 "My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at Bagneres--I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the church, in Yorkshire. We all live the longer, at least the happier, for having things our own way; this is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis not the worst."--STERNE'S _Letters_, 20th January, 1764.

  163 In a collection of _Seven Letters by Sterne and His Friends_, (printed for private circulation), in 1844, is a letter of M. Tollot, who was in France with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here is a paragraph:--

  "Nous arrivames le lendemain a Montpellier, ou nous trouvames notre ami Mr. Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et quelques autres Anglaises; j'eus, je vous l'avoue, beaucoup de plaisir en revoyant le bon et agreable Tristram.... Il avait ete assez longtemps a Toulouse, ou il se serait amuse sans sa femme, qui le poursuivit partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces dispositions dans cette bonne dame, lui ont fait passer d'assez mauvais momens; il supporte tous ces desagremens avec une patience d'ange."

  About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne wrote to the same gentleman to whom Tollot had written; and from his letter we may extract a companion paragraph:--

  "... All which being premised, I have been for eight weeks smitten with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent. I wish, dear cousin, thou couldst conceive (perhaps thou canst without my wishing it) how deliciously I canter'd away with it the first month, two up, two down, always upon my _hanches_, along the streets from my hotel to hers, at first once--then twice, then three times a day, till at length I was within an ace of setting up my hobby-horse in her stable for good and all. I might as well, considering how the enemies of the Lord have blasphemed thereupon. The last three weeks we were every hour upon the doleful ditty of parting--and thou mayest conceive, dear cousin, how it altered my gait and air--for I went and came like any louden'd carl, and did nothing but _jouer des sentimens_ with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the same; and now she is gone to the south of France; and to finish the _comedie_, I fell ill and broke a vessel in my lungs, and half bled to death. _Voila mon histoire!_"

  Whether husband or wife had most of the _patience d'ange_ may be uncertain; but there can be no doubt which needed it most!

  164 "_Tristram Shandy_ is still a greater object of admiration, the man as well as the book; one is invited to dinner, when he dines, a fortnight before. As to the volumes yet published, there is much good fun in them, and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed. Have you read his _Sermons_, with his own comick figure, from a painting by Reynolds, at the head of them? They are in the style I think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination and a sensible heart; but you see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience."--GRAY'S _Letters_, June 22nd, 1760.

  "It having been observed that there was little hospitality in London--Johnson: 'Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London. The man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three months.' Goldsmith: 'And a very dull fellow.' Johnson: 'Why, no, sir.' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_.

  "Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. 'I am sure,' said she, 'they have affected me.' 'Why,' said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about--'that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce.' When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth and politeness, 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it.' "--BOSWELL's _Life of Johnson_.

  165 A passage or two from Sterne's _Sermons_ may not be without interest here. Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties of the Church of Rome, stamped with the autograph of the author of the _Sentimental Journey_?--

  "To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of the Inquisition--behold _religion_ with mercy and justice chained down under her feet,--there, sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks, and instruments of torment.--Hark!--what a piteous groan!--See the melancholy wretch who uttered it, just brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock-trial, and endure the utmost pain that a studied system of _religious cruelty_ has been able to invent. Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors. _His body so wasted with sorrow and long confinement, you'll see every nerve and muscle as it suffers._ Observe the last movement of that horrid engine.--What convulsions it has thrown him into! Consider the nature
of the posture in which he now lies stretched.--What exquisite torture he endures by it.--'Tis all nature can bear.--Good GOD! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not suffered to depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell,--dragg'd out of it again to meet the flames--and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle--this principle, that there can be religion without morality--has prepared for him."--_Sermon 27th_.

  The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges xix, ver. 1, 2, 3, concerning a "certain Levite":--

  "Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill up that uncomfortable blank in the heart in such a situation; for, notwithstanding all we meet with in books, in many of which, no doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the secrets of retirement, &c.... yet still, '_it is not good for man to be alone_': nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship;--a good heart wants some object to be kind to--and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution.

  "Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed him! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way; _let me be wise and religious, but let me be_ MAN; wherever Thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, 'How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down';--to whom I may say, 'How fresh is the face of Nature! how sweet the flowers of the field! how delicious are these fruits!' "--_Sermon 18th._

  The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous "Captive". The second shows that the same reflection was suggested to the Rev. Laurence, by a text in Judges, as by the _fille-de-chambre_.

  Sterne's _Sermons_ were published as those of "Mr. Yorick".

  166 "I am glad that you are in love--'twill cure you at least of the spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and woman--I myself must even have some Dulcinea in my head; it harmonizes the soul; and in these cases I first endeavour to make the lady believe so, or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am in love--but I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally--_l'amour_ (say they) _n'est rien sans sentiment_. Now, notwithstanding they make such a pother about the _word_, they have no precise idea annexed to it. And so much for that same subject called love."--STERNE'S _Letters_, May 23rd, 1765.

  "PS.--My _Sentimental Journey_ will please Mrs. J---- and my Lydia [his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle]--I can answer for those two. It is a subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind I have been in for some time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to love the world and our fellow creatures better than we do--so it runs most upon those gentler passions and affections which aid so much to it."--_Letters_ [1767].

  167 TO MRS. H----.

  "Coxwould, Nov. 15th, 1767.

  "Now be a good, dear woman, my H----, and execute those commissions well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss--there's for you! But I have something else for you which I am fabricating at a great rate, and that is my _Sentimental Journey_, which shall make you cry as much as it has affected me, or I will give up the business of sentimental writing ...

  "I am yours, &c. &c.,

  "T. SHANDY."

  TO THE EARL OF ----.

  "Coxwould, Nov. 28th, 1767.

  "MY LORD--'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to thank your lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick--he was worn out, both his spirits and body, with the _Sentimental Journey_; 'tis true, then, an author must feel himself, or his reader will not--but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my feelings--I believe the brain stands as much in need of recruiting as the body; therefore I shall set out for town the twentieth of next month, after having recruited myself a week at York. I might indeed solace myself with my wife (who is come from France), but, in fact, I have long been a sentimental being, whatever your lordship may think to the contrary."

  168 "It is known that Sterne died in hired lodgings, and I have been told that his attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeve-buttons while he was expiring."--DR. FERRIAR.

  "He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemonger's) on the west side of Old Bond Street.--_Handbook of London._"

  169 "In February, 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted by long debilitating illness, expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, London. There was something in the manner of his death singularly resembling the particulars detailed by Mrs. Quickly, as attending that of Falstaff, the compeer of Yorick for infinite jest, however unlike in other particulars. As he lay on his bed totally exhausted, he complained that his feet were cold, and requested the female attendant to chafe them. She did so, and it seemed to relieve him. He complained that the cold came up higher; and whilst the assistant was in the act of chafing his ankles and legs, he expired without a groan. It was also remarkable that his death took place much in the manner which he himself had wished; and that the last offices were rendered him, not in his own house, or by the hand of kindred affection, but in an inn, and by strangers.

  "We are well acquainted with Sterne's features and personal appearance, to which he himself frequently alludes. He was tall and thin, with a hectic and consumptive appearance."--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

  170 "With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends, firstly, on the modesty it gives pain to; or, secondly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; or thirdly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature--a sort of dallying with the devil--a fluxionary art of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea-urn, because it has been forbidden; so that the mind has its own white and black angel; the same or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude--the feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character; and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound, because exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an offence against the good manners of human nature itself.

  "This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit, drollery, fancy, and even humour; and we have only to regret the misalliance; but that the latter are quite distinct from the former, may be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are all antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest of _Tristram Shandy_, and by supposing, instead of them, the presence of two or three callous debauchees. The result will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely censured for thus using the best dispositions of our nature as the panders and condiments for the basest."--COLERIDGE, _Literary Remains_, vol. i, pp. 141, 142.

  171 "He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages never forgets what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of feeling distinguishes whate
ver he wrote, and bears a correspondence to the generosity of a disposition which knew no bounds but his last guinea....

  "The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the pleasing truth with which the principal characters are designed, make the _Vicar of Wakefield_ one of the most delicious morsels of fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever employed.

  "... We read the _Vicar of Wakefield_ in youth and in age--we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature."--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

  172 "Now Herder came," says Goethe in his Autobiography, relating his first acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, "and together with his great knowledge brought many other aids, and the later publications besides. Among these he announced to us the _Vicar of Wakefield_ as an excellent work, with the German translation of which he would make us acquainted by reading it aloud to us himself....

  "A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful subject for a modern idyl; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest and king in one person. To the most innocent situation which can be imagined on earth, to that of a husbandman, he is, for the most part, united by similarity of occupation as well as by equality in family relationships; he is a father, a master of a family, an agriculturist, and thus perfectly a member of the community. On this pure, beautiful, earthly foundation rests his higher calling; to him is it given to guide men through life, to take care of their spiritual education, to bless them at all the leading epochs of their existence, to instruct, to strengthen, to console them, and if consolation is not sufficient for the present, to call up and guarantee the hope of a happier future. Imagine such a man with pure human sentiments, strong enough not to deviate from them under any circumstances, and by this already elevated above the multitude of whom one cannot expect purity and firmness; give him the learning necessary for his office, as well as a cheerful, equable activity, which is even passionate, as it neglects no moment to do good--and you will have him well endowed. But at the same time add the necessary limitation, so that he must not only pause in a small circle, but may also, perchance, pass over to a smaller; grant him good nature, placability, resolution, and everything else praiseworthy that springs from a decided character, and over all this a cheerful spirit of compliance, and a smiling toleration of his own failings and those of others,--then you will have put together pretty well the image of our excellent Wakefield.

  "The delineation of this character on his course of life through joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the singular, make this novel one of the best which has ever been written; besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite moral, nay, in a pure sense, Christian--represents the reward of a goodwill and perseverance in the right, strengthens an unconditional confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil; and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was preserved from both of these by an elocution of mind that shows itself throughout in the form of irony, by which this little work must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The author, Dr. Goldsmith, has, without question, a great insight into the moral world, into its strength and its infirmities; but at the same time he can thankfully acknowledge that he is an Englishman, and reckon highly the advantages which his country and his nation afford him. The family, with the delineation of which he occupies himself, stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes in contact with the highest; its narrow circle, which becomes still more contracted, touches upon the great world through the natural and civil course of things; this little skiff floats on the agitated waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury or help from the vast fleet which sails around it.

  "I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it in memory; whoever hears it named for the first time here, as well as he who is induced to read it again, will thank me."--GOETHE, _Truth and Poetry; from my own Life_ (English translation, vol. i, pp. 378-9).

  "He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one bright, the other blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his cradle by the 'good people' who haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion, on the banks of the Inny.

  "He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or college: they unfit him for close study and practical science, and render him heedless of everything that does not address itself to his poetical imagination, and genial and festive feelings; they dispose him to break away from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures....

  "Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor, they never could betray him into companionship with the depraved. His relish for humour, and for the study of character, as we have before observed, brought him often into convivial company of a vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store familiar features of life which form the staple of his most popular writings."--WASHINGTON IRVING.

  173 "The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally written, Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and seems always to have held a respectable station in society. Its origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was long settled at Crayford in Kent."--PRIOR'S _Life of Goldsmith_.

  Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were clergymen; and two of them married clergymen's daughters.

  174 At church with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal each honest rustic ran; E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts his awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

  _The Deserted Village._

  175 "In May this year (1768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, for whom he had been unable to obtain preferment in the Church....

  "....To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the moderate stipend of which, forty pounds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his brother's lines. It has been stated that Mr. Goldsmith added a school, which, after having been held at more than one place in the vicinity, was finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his talents and industry gave it celebrity, and under his care the sons of many of the neighbouring gentry received their education. A fever breaking out among the boys about 1765, they dispersed for a time, but reassembling at Athlone, he continued his scholastic labours there until the time of his death, which happened, like that of his brother, about the forty-fifth year of his age. He was a man of an excellent heart and an amiable disposition."--PRIOR'S _Goldsmith_.

  Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee: Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengt
hening chain.

  _The Traveller_.

  176 "When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. William Filby (amounting in all to 79_l_.) was for clothes supplied to this nephew Hodson."--FORSTER'S _Goldsmith_, p. 520.

  As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) "a prosperous Irish gentleman", it is not unreasonable to wish that he had cleared off Mr. Filby's bill.

  177 "Poor fellow! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but when he saw it on the table."--CUMBERLAND'S _Memoirs_.

  178 "These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often disturb the mind only in order to its future refinement: a life spent in phlegmatic apathy resembles those liquors which never ferment and are consequently always muddy."--GOLDSMITH, _Memoir of Voltaire_.

  "He (Johnson) said Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. There appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young."--BOSWELL.

  179 "An 'inspired idiot', Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him [Johnson] ... Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the 'gooseberry-fool', but rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker sort than Johnson's; and all the more genuine that he himself could never become _conscious_ of it, though unhappily never cease attempting to become so: the author of the genuine _Vicar of Wakefield_, nill he will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine manhood."--CARLYLE'S _Essays_ (2nd ed.), vol. iv, p. 91.

  180 "At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on the great for subsistence; they have now no other patrons but the public, and the public, collectively considered, is a good and a generous master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as to the merits of every candidate for favour; but to make amends, it is never mistaken long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author should never arrogate to himself any share of success till his works have been read at least ten years with satisfaction.

  "A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly sensible of their value. Every polite member of the community, by buying what he writes, contributes to reward him. The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret might have been wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, because no longer true. A writer of real merit now may easily be rich, if his heart be set only on fortune: and for those who have no merit, it is but fit that such should remain in merited obscurity."--GOLDSMITH, _Citizen of the World_, Let. 84.

  181 Goldsmith attacked Sterne, obviously enough, censuring his indecency, and slighting his wit, and ridiculing his manner, in the 53rd letter in the _Citizen of the World_.

  "As in common conversation," says he, "the best way to make the audience laugh is by first laughing yourself; so in writing, the properest manner is to show an attempt at humour, which will pass upon most for humour in reality. To effect this, readers must be treated with the most perfect familiarity; in one page the author is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the nose; he must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed in order to dream for the solution," &c.

  Sterne's humorous _mot_ on the subject of the gravest part of the charges, then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted here, from the excellent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott. "Soon after _Tristram_ had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire lady of fortune and condition, whether she had read his book, 'I have not, Mr. Sterne,' was the answer; 'and to be plain with you, I am informed it is not proper for female perusal.' 'My dear good lady,' replied the author, 'do not be gulled by such stories; the book is like your young heir there' (pointing to a child of three years old, who was rolling on the carpet in his white tunics): 'he shows at times a good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in perfect innocence.' "

  182 "Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural History; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six-mile stone in the Edgeware Road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the _Spectator_ appeared to his landlady and her children; he was _The Gentleman_. Mr. Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_, and I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a blacklead pencil."--BOSWELL.

  183 "When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, 'Your pulse is in greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever which you have; is your mind at ease?' Goldsmith answered it was not."--DR. JOHNSON (_in Boswell_).

  "Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much farther. He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let not his failings be remembered; he was a very great man."--DR. JOHNSON to Boswell, July 5th, 1774.

  184 "When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into tears. Reynolds was in his painting-room when the messenger went to him; but at once he laid his pencil aside, which in times of great family distress he had not been known to do, left his painting-room, and did not re-enter it that day....

  "The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with mourners, the reverse of domestic; women without a home, without domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to weep for; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable. And he had domestic mourners, too. His coffin was reopened at the request of Miss Horneck and her sister (such was the regard he was known to have for them!) that a lock might be cut from his hair. It was in Mrs. Gwyn's possession when she died, after nearly seventy years."--FORSTER'S _Goldsmith_.

  185 "Goldsmith's incessant desire of being conspicuous in company was the occasion of his sometimes appearing to such disadvantage, as one should hardly have supposed possible in a man of his genius. When his literary reputation had risen deservedly high, and his society was much courted, he became very jealous of the extraordinary attention which was everywhere paid to Johnson. One evening, in a circle of wits, he found fault with me for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honour of unquestionable superiority. 'Sir,' said he, 'you are for making a monarchy of what should be a republic.'

  "He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with fluent vivacity, and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration of all present, a German who sat next him, and perceived Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, suddenly stopped him, saying, 'Stay, stay--Toctor Shonson is going to zay zomething.' This was no doubt very provoking, especially to one so irritable as Goldsmith, who frequently mentioned it with strong expressions of indignation.

  "It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions would be consequential and important. An instance of this occurred in a small particular. Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy.... I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said--'We are all in labour for a name to _Goldy's_ play,' Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, 'I have often desired him not to call me _Goldy_.' "

  This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions
of Goldsmith--which may well irritate biographers and admirers--and also those who take that more kindly and more profound view of Boswell's own character, which was opened up by Mr. Carlyle's famous article on his book. No wonder that Mr. Irving calls Boswell an "incarnation of toadyism". And the worst of it is, that Johnson himself has suffered from this habit of the Laird of Auchenleck's. People are apt to forget under what Boswellian stimulus the great Doctor uttered many hasty things:--things no more indicative of the nature of the depths of his character than the phosphoric gleaming of the sea, when struck at night, is indicative of radical corruption of nature! In truth, it is clear enough on the whole that both Johnson and Goldsmith _appreciated_ each other, and that they mutually knew it. They were, as it were, tripped up and flung against each other, occasionally, by the blundering and silly gambolling of people in company.

  Something must be allowed for Boswell's "rivalry for Johnson's good graces" with Oliver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), for Oliver was intimate with the Doctor before his biographer was,--and as we all remember, marched off with him to "take tea with Mrs. Williams" before Boswell had advanced to that honourable degree of intimacy. But, in truth, Boswell--though he perhaps showed more talent in his delineation of the Doctor than is generally ascribed to him--had not faculty to take a fair view of _two_ great men at a time. Besides, as Mr. Forster justly remarks, "he was impatient of Goldsmith from the first hour of their acquaintance."--_Life and Adventures_, p. 292.

  186 The above portraits are from contemporary prints of this princess, before her marriage, and in her old age.

  187 Here [below in the text] are the figures, as drawn by young Gilray, of Lord North, Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Burke.

  Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net
Share this book with friends