?..y '-^y.. f. #*.^'W \ "m^: University of California • Berkeley BRUCE PORTER COLLECTION Gift of Mrs. Robert Bruce Porter >*t-7. ' /. yi. A Wf'M IE'^3 ^J^^^^^V^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/englishhumouristOOthacrich ENGLISH HUMOURISTS EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, ^ Series of ILectures, DELIVERED IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. BY W. M. THACKERAY, Author of "Esmond," "Pendeiinis," "Vanity Fair,"&c. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, & CO. 65, CORNHILL. BOMBAY : SMITH, TAYLOR, & CO. 1853. I27ie author of this vjork reserves to himself the right of authorising a trandation of ii.] LONDON : EKADBORY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, "WHITEFRIARH. CONTENTS. -4- Lecture the First. Page SWIFT 1 Lecture the Second. CONGREVE AND ADDISON 5 Lecture the Third. STEELE 105 Lecture the Fourth. PRIOR, GAT, AND POPE 160 Lecture the Fifth. HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING .219 Lecture the Sixth. STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 269 ERRATA. — ♦ — Page 56, last line but tliree,/o/- "an empire," rea.d "or empire." „ 83, line 11 ; for "Peggott," read " Doggett." ,, 115, last line but four; for "detestable," read "delectable." ,, 117, line 7; for "physic," read "physics." ,, 150, line 14 ; for "the instinct we desire," read "the instinctive desire. ,, 171, line 9 ; for "It was so kind," read "He was so kind." ,, 177, line 11 ; for "deary idyllic," read "dreary idyllic." ,, 196, line 5 ; for "a Hardy," read "or Hardy," ,, 218, line 2 ; for "transcendant," read "transcendent." ,, 226, line 20 ; for " as the clerk," read " and the clerk." „ 228, line 3; for "1800," read "1847." ,, 250, line 4 ; for "wild," read "Welsh." ,, 255, line 3 ; for "wine-stained," read "wine. Stained." ,, 258, line 14; for "him," read "them." ,, 28.3, line 18 ; for "point," read " paint." ,, 294, line 15 ; for "of necessity," read " and necessity." ,, 298, last line but one of text; for "dependants," read "dependents." THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. LECTURE THE FIRST. SWIFT. In treating of the English humourists of the i^ast age, it is of the men and of their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask permission to speak to you ; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with a merely humourous or facetious story. Harlequin without his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, and was himself, the story goes, the melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see Harlequin ' — a man full of cares and perplexities like the rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under whatever mask, or disguise, or uniform he presents it to the public. And as all of you here must needs be grave when you ^ The anecdote is fi-equently told of our performer, Rich. B ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. think of 3^our own past and present, you will not look to find, in tlie histories of those whose lives and feelings I am going to try and describe to you, a story that is otherwise than serious, and often very sad. If Humour only meant laughter, you would scarcely feel more interest about humourous writers than about the private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who possesses in common with these the power of making you laugh. But the men regarding whose lives and stories your kind presence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humourous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness — your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture — your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher, so to speak. According^, as he finds, and speaks, and feels the truth best, we regard him, esteem him — sometimes love him. And, as his business is to mark other people's lives and peculiarities, we moralise upon his life when he is gone — and yesterday's preacher becomes the text for to-day's sermon. Of English parents, and of a good English family of clergymen,* Swift was born in Dublin in 1G67, seven ^ He was from a younger branch of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His SWIFT. 3 months after tlie death of his father, who had come to practise there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree with difficulty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, by the recommendation of his mother. Swift was received into the family of Sir AVilliam Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his patron in 1693, and the next year took orders in Dublin. But he threw up the small Irish preferment which he got, and returned to Temple, in whose family he remained until Sk William's death in 1699. His hopes of advancement in England failing, Swift returned to Ireland, and took the living of Laracor. Hither he invited Hester Johnson,* Temple's gi'andfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, Vicar of Goodrich, in Hereford- shire, 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. ^ " 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. B 2 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. natural daugiiter, -with whom he had contracted a tender friendship, while they were both dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to England, Swift now passed nine years at home. In 1709 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to Ireland, dming which he took possession of his deanery of St. Patrick, he now passed five years in England, taking the most distinguished part in the poli- tical transactions which terminated with the death of Queen Ainie. After her death, his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over, Swift returned to Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In this time he wrote the famous "Drapier's Letters" and "Gulliver's Travels." He married Hester Johnson, Stella, and buried Esther Vanhomrigh, Vanessa, who had followed him to Ireland from London, where she had contracted a violent passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, which he quitted for the last time on hearing of his wife's ilhiess. Stella died in January, 1728, and Swift not until 1745, ha^dng passed the last five of the seventy-eight years of his life, with an impaired intellect and keepers to watch him.* ^ Sometimes, during his mental affliction, lie continued walking about the house foi^ 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, lie wished it had ! He once repeated, slowly, several times, " I am what I am." The last thing he wrote was an epigiam on the building of a magazine for arms and SWIFT. 5 You know, of course, that Swift lias had many biographers ; his hfe has been told by the Idndest and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires but can't bring himself to love him ; and by stout old Johnson,* who, forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the street. Dr. Wilde of Dublin,^ who has written a most stores, which was pointed out to him 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 ! ^ 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, Dr. 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 Irochures, the interesting " Observations on Lord Oi-rery's Remarks," &c. of Dr. Delany. - 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. 6 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. interesting volume on the closing years of Swift's life, calls Johnson " the most malignant of his biographers : " it is not easy for an English critic to please Irishmen — perhaps to try and please them. And yet Johnson truly admires Swift : Johnson does not quarrel with Swift's change of politics, or doubt his sincerity of religion : about the famous Stella and Vanessa contro- versy the Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could not give the Dean that honest hand of his ; the stout old man puts it into his breast, and moves off from him.* Would we have lilted to live with him ? That is a question which, in dealing with these people's w^orks, and thinking of their lives and peculiarities, every reader of biographies must put to himself. Would you have liked to be a friend of the great Dean ? I should like to have been Shakspeare's shoeblack — ^just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped liim — to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet serene 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." ^ " He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to mc to have an unaccountable preju- dice against Swift ; for I once took the liberty to ask him if S^vift had personally offended him, and he told me he had not." — Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. SWIFT. 7 face. I should like, as a j^oung man, to have lived on Fielding's stair-case in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latch-key, to have shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Who would not give something to pass a night at the club with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck ? The charm of Addison's companion- ship and conversation has passed to us by fond tradition— — but Swift ? If you had been his in- ferior in parts (and that, with a great respect for all persons present, I fear is only very likely), his equal in mere social station, he would have bullied, scorned, and insulted you ; if, undeterred by his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he would have quailed before you,^ and not had the pluck to reply, and gone home, and years after written a foul epigTam about you — watched for you in a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's blow and a dirty ^ 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 8 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue riband, wlio flattered his vanity, or could help his ambition, he would have been the most delightful company in the world. He would have been so manly, so sarcastic, so bright, odd, and original, that you might think he had no object in view but the indulgence of his humour, and that he was the most reckless, simple creature in the world. How he would have torn your enemies to pieces for you ! and made fun of the Opposition ! His servility was so boisterous that it looked like inde- pendence ; ^ he would have done your errands, but with the air of patronising you, and after fighting your battles masked in the street or the press, would have amusing circumstances may be once more repeated here. He had unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant Bettes- worth — " 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 this time. ^ '' But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my senti- ments 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." — Orrehy. SWIFT. 9 kept on liis hat before your wife and dangliters in the drawing-room, content to take that sort of pay for his tremendous services as a bravo/ He says as much himself in one of his letters to Bohngbroke : — " All my endeavours to distinguish myself were only for want of a gTeat title and fortune, that I might be used like a lord by those who have an opmion of my parts ; whether right or wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation of wit and great learniug does the office of a blue riband or a coach and six." ^ ^ . . . . "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 Bui'lington, 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 retu-ed. 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. WTien 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. ^ "I make no figure but at court, where I afiect to turn from a lord to the meanest of my acquaintances." — Journal to Stella. " 1 am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me 10 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. Could there be a greater candour ? It is an outlaw, who says, " These are my brains ; with these I'll win titles and compete with fortune. These are my bullets ; these I'll turn into gold ; " and he hears the sound of coaches and six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes society stand and deliver. They are all on their knees before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue riband, and my lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre and crosier in it, which he intends to have for his share, has been delayed on the way from St. James's; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners come and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and rides away into his own country.* 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 f" — Journal to Stella. ^ 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 " factiousness " in the following letter : SWIFT. 11 Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral or adorn a tale of ambition, as any hero's that ever lived and failed. But we must remember that the "BOLINGBBOKE TO THE EaRL OF StRAFFORD. " Whitehall, July 2Srd, 1712. " It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are too weak to punish effectually those factious 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 indigna- tion. 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 w^ell 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, that 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 j it is certain that all persons of true genius ]a ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. morality was lax, — that other gentlemen besides him- self took the road in his day, — that public society was in a strange disordered condition, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was bemg fought and won, and lost — the bells rung in Wilham's victory, in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and to shift for themselves. They, as well as old or knowledge have an invincible modesty and suspicion of themselves upon their 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, Jidy 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 conseqviently a rogue, and deserved hanging for something else, and so he shall swing." SWIFT. 13 beliefs and institutions, had lost tlieii' moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble almost everybody gambled ; as in the Railway mania — not many centuries ago — almost every one took his unlucky share ; a man of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, could scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, and make his spring at his oppor- tunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, his subsequent misanthropy, are ascribed by some pane- gyrists to a deliberate conviction of mankind's unworthi- ness, and a desire to amend them by castigating. His youth was bitter, as that of a great genius bound down by ignoble ties, and powerless in a mean dependence ; his age was bitter,* like that of a great genius that had fought the battle and nearly won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards writhing in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, if he likes, what is caused by his own fury, or disappointment, or self-will. What public man — what statesman projecting a coup — w^hat king determined on an invasion of his neighbour — what satirist meditating an onslaught on society or an individual, can't give a pretext for his move ? There was a French general the other day who proposed to march into this country and put it to sack and pillage, in revenge for humanity outraged by our conduct at Copenhagen, — there is always some excuse for men of 1 It was tis constant pi-actice to keep his birth-day as a day of mourning. 14 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. the aggressive turn. They are of their nature warlike, predatory, eager for fight, pkmder, dominion.' As fierce a heak and talon as ever struck — as strong a wing as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of liis claws, and cut his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not without awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. That Swift was born at No. 7, Hoey's-court, Dublin, on the 30th November, 1G67, is a certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister island the honour and glory ; but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irish- man than a man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo.* Goldsmith was an Irishman and always ^ " These devils of Gi-ub-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." — Jownal to Stella. 2 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 pai'ts 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." SWIFT. 15 an Irishman : Steele was an Irishman, and always an Irishman: Swift's heart was EngHsh and in England, liis habits English, his logic eminently Enghsh; liis statement is elaborately simple ; he shuns tropes and metaphors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise tlnift and economy, as he used his money ; with which he could be generous and splendid upon great occasions, but which he husbanded when there was no need to spend it. He never indulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a grave simpHcity and a j)erfect neatness.^ Dreading ridicule too, as a man of 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 refiise it, although we take it for gi'anted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked." — Scott's Swift, vol. iv. p. 143. He goes fui-ther, 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 vis 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." — Ihid, 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 ! ^ " 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, 16 EN'GLISH HUMOURISTS. his humour — above all an Englishman of his humour — certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power wliich he really possessed ; one often fancies in reading him that he dares not be eloquent when he might ; that he does not speak above his voice, as it were, and the tone of society. His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his knowledge of pohte Hfe, his acquaintance with literature even, which he could not have pursued very sedulously during that reckless career at Dublin, Swift got under the roof of Sir William Temple. He was fond of telHng in after life what quantities of books he devoured there, and how King William taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion. It was at Shene and at Moor Park, with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at the upper servants' table, that this great and lonely Swift passed a ten years' appren- ticeship— wore a cassock that was only not a livery — bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's to supplicate 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 v£e miserse nimium vicina Cremona) ! " — Dr. Del ANT. Observations ui^on Lord Orrery's " EemarJcs, cCr." in Swift. London, 1754. SWIFT. 17 my lady's good graces, or run on his honour's errands/ It was here, as he was writing at Temple's table, or following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard the men who had governed the great world — measured himself with them, looking up from his silent corner, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, turned them, and tried them, and marked them. Ah ! what platitudes he must have heard ! what feeble jokes ! what pompous commonplaces ! what small men they must have seemed under those enormous periwigs, to the swarthy, uncouth, silent Irish secre- tary. I wonder whether it ever struck Temple that that Irishman was his master ? I suppose that dismal conviction did not present itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have lived with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service, — ate humble pie and came back again ; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, swallowing scorn, and submit- ting with a stealthy rage to his fortune. Temple's style is the perfection of practised and easy good-breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, he professes a very gentlemanly acquaintance with it ; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, as it was the ^ " 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. c 18 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. custom for a gentleman to envelope liis head in a peri- wig and liis hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a con- summate grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that gTows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park ; and lets the King's party, and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out among themselves. He reveres the sovereign, (and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow :) he admires the Prince of Orange ; but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Chris- tendom, and that valuable member of society Is himself, Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat; between his study -chair and his tuHp beds,* chpping his apricots and prmimg his essays, — ^ . . . " 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 Moliuists, quietism ; by common men, peace of conscience, — seems all to mean but great. 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 SWIFT. 19 the statesman, the ambassador no more ; but the philo- sopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene ; where in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty ; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse ; or dallies by the south wall with the ruddy nymph of gardens. Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious deal of veneration from his household, and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about him, as delicately as any of the plants which he loved. ^Vlien he fell ill in 1693, the household was aghast at his indisposition; mild mind and indolence of body, whicli he made Lis 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 favoiir 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 alise stirpes hortense?, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadioitim 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 suc- ceeded, which he could never have done in attempts iipon peaches and grapes ; and a good ]()lum is certainly better than an ill 2^each." c 2 20 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Dorothea liis wife, the best companion of the best of men — " Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great. Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate." As for Dorinda, his sister, — " Those who would grief describe, might come and trace Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. To see her weep, joy every face forsook, And grief flung sables on each menial look. The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, That furnished life and spirit through the whole." Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the menials into a mourning livery, a fine image ? One of the menials wrote it, who did not like that Temple livery nor those twenty-pound wages. Cannot one fancy the uncouth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, following at his Honour's heels in the garden walk; or taking his Honour's orders as he stands by the great chair, where Sir William has the gout, and his feet all blistered with moxa ? When Sir Wilham has the gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second table ; ^ the Irish secretary owned ^ Swift's Thoughts on Hanging. [Directions to Servants.) " To grow old in the office of a footman, is the highest of all indig- nities ; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes of a 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 SWIFT. 21 as mucli afterwards : and wlien he came to dinner, how he must have lashed and growled and torn the house- hold with his gibes and scorn ! What would the steward say about the pride of them Irish schollards — and this one had got no great credit even at his Irish college, if the truth were known — and what a contempt his excellency's own gentleman must have had for Parson Teague from Dublin. (The valets and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to say which Swift thought the more contemptible.) And what must have 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 house- breaking, 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 Xewgate : some of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt and white cap, crowned with a crimson or black libbon : take leave cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate : mount the cart with covn-age ; 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 imtil a successor of equal renown succeeds in your place " ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. been the sadness, tlie sadness and terror, of the house- keeper's little daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences above all things — above mother, above mild Dorotliea, above that tremendous Sir WilHam in his square-toes and periwig, — when Air. Swift comes down from his master with rage in his heart, and has not a Idnd word even for little Hester Johnson ? Perhaps for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescension was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir William ivould perpetually quote Latin and the ancient classics a proi:>os of his gardens and his Dutch statues and 'plates hancles, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Csesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. A j)ro2Jos of beans, he would mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean ; he is a Pythagorean philosopher ; he is a wise man — that is the deduction. Does not Swift thmk so ? One can imagine the downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, and the flash of scorn which they emit. Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens ; Pope says nobly (as everything Pope said and thought of his friend was good and noble), " His eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness in them." And SWIFT. 23 one person in that household, that pompous stately kindly Moor Park, saw heaven no where else. But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins ; and in a garden-seat which he devised for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness which punished and tormented him through life. He could not bear the place or the servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condolence, from which we have quoted a few lines of mock melancholy, he breaks out of the funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, and even hope. I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to Temple, in which, after having broke from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteously towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for testimonials for orders. " The particulars required of me are what relate to morals and learning; and the reasons of quitting your Honour's family — that is whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They are left entirely to your Honour's mercy, though in the first I think I cannot reproach myself for any- thing further than for infirmities. This is all I dare at present beg from your Honour, under cii'cumstances of life not worth your regard : what is left me to wish 24 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. (next to the liealtli and prosperity of your Honour and family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of leaving my acknowledgments at jour feet. I beg my most humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your Honour's lady and sister." — Can prostration fall deeper ? could a slave bow lower ? * Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, describing * " 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 Worlcs. 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 apiece 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 oflf that family." — S. to S., Se2'>t. 1710. SWIFT. 25 the same man, says, " Dr. Swift came into the coffee- house and had a bow from everybody but me. When I came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers. Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was sohciting the Earl of AiTan to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to under- take, with my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of 2001. per annum as member of the English Chm'ch at Eotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in to the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out liis gold watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it was very late. A gentleman said he was too fast. ' How can I help it,' says the doctor, ' if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right ? ' Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr, Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into Enghsh, for which he would have them all subscribe ; ' For,' says he, ' he shall not begin to i^rint till I have a thousand guineas for him.' ' Lord Treasurer, after 1 " 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. 26 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. leaving tlie Queen, came through the room beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him, — both went off just before prayers." There's a little malice in the Bishop's "just before prayers." This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in the midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man — he was cautious about his money, but ready. — If you were in a strait would you lilce such a benefactor ? I think I would rather have had a potato and a friendly word from Goldsmith than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner.* He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests look foohsh, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor men's faces. No ; ^ *' 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 tiiis 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 inter- course 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 humoui', thanked him, and told him ' he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a glass at any rate.' SWIFT. 27 the Dean was no Irisliman — no Irishman ever gave but with a kind word and a kind heart. It is tokl, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of St. Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning regularly, but with such secresy, that the guests in his house were never in the least aware of the ceremony. There was no need surely why a church dignitary should assemble his family privily in a crjrpt, and as if he was afraid of heathen persecution. But I thinli: the world was right, and the bishops who advised Queen Anne, when they counselled her not to appoint the author of the " Tale of a Tub " to a bishopric, gave perfectly good advice. The man who wrote the argu- ments and illustrations in that wild book, could not but be aware what must be the sequel of the propositions which he laid down. The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose these as the friends of his life, and the recipients of his confidence and affection, must have heard many an argument, and joined in many a conversation over Pope's port, or St. John's Burgundy, which would not bear to be repeated at other men's boards. * 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 diunei\ 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 Sivift. 28 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. I know of few things more conclusive as to the sin- cerity of Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn clergyman, and look out for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the author of the " Beggar's Opera " — Gay, the wildest of the wits about town — it was this man that Jonathan Swift advised to take orders — to invest in a cassock and bands — just as he advised him to husband his shillings and put his thousand pounds out at interest.* The Queen, and the bishops, and ^ FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHELL. "Cashell^MayZlst, 1735. "Dear Sir^, — " I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am. resolved to have no more, especially v^here 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 fi'om 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 siich a year ; and, if not trans- lated, 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 SWIFT. 29 the world, were right in mistrusting the religion of that man. I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious views, except in so far as they influence his literary character, his Hfe, his humour. The most notorious sinners of all those fellow-mortals whom it is our business to discuss — Harry Fielding and Dick Steele, were especially loud, and I believe really fervent, in their expressions of belief ; they belaboured freethinkers, and stoned imaginary atheists on all sorts of occasions, going out of their way to bawl their own 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 coach ; 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." 30 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. creed, and persecute their neighbour's, and if thej^ sinned and stumbled, as they constantly did with debt, with drink, with all sorts of bad behaviour, they got up on their knees, and cried " Peccavi " with a most sono- rous orthodoxy. Yes ; poor Harry Fielding and poor Dick Steele were trusty and undoubting Church of England men ; they abhorred Popery, Atheism, and wooden shoes, and idolatries in general; and hiccupped Church and State with fervour. But Swift ? His mind had had a different schooling, and possessed a very different logical power. He was not bred up in a tipsy guard-room, and did not learn to reason in a Covent Garden tavern. He could con- duct an argument from beginning to end. He could see forward with a fatal clearness. In his old age, looking at the " Tale of a Tub," when he said, " Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote that book ! " I think he was admiring not the genius, but the conse- quences to which the genius had brought him — a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzlmg, and strong, — to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood and scorch it into per- dition, to penetrate into the hidden motives, and expose the black thoughts of men, — an awful, an evil spirit. Ah, man ! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library, you whose friends were Pope and St. John — what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind your- SWIFT. 31 self to a life -long hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with such real wonder, humility, and reverence ? For Swift's was a reverent, was a pious spiiit — for Swift could love and could pray. Through the storms and tempests of his furious mind, the stars of religion and love break out in the blue, shinmg serenely, though hidden by the driving clouds and the maddened huiTicane of his life. It is my behef that he suffered frightfully from the consciousness of his own scepticism, and that he had bent his pride so far down as to put his apostasy out to hire.' The paper left behind him, called " Thoughts on Eeligion," is merely a set of excuses for not pro- fessing disbelief. He says of his sermons that he preached pamphlets : they have scarce a Christian characteristic ; they might be preached from the steps of a synagogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a coffee-house almost. There is little or no cant — he is too gTeat and too proud for that ; and, in so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is honest. But having put that cassock on, it poisoned him : he was strangled in his bands. He goes through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the 1 " Mr. Swift lived with liim [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 veiy small, he had a scruple of entering into the Church merely for support." — Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the Dean. 3:2 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Fury, and knows that the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it was! what a lonely rage and long agony — what a vidture that tore the heart of that giant ! * It is awful to think of the great suffermgs of this great man. Through life he always seems alone, somehow. Goethe was so. I can't fancy Shakspeare otherwise. The giants must live apart. The kings can have no company. But this man suffered so ; and deserved so to suffer. One hardly reads anywhere of such a pain. The " sseva indignatio" of which he spoke as lacerating his heart, and wdiich he dares to inscribe on his tombstone — as if the wretch who lay under that stone waiting God's judgment had a right to be angry — breaks out from him in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him. Agamst men in office, he having been overthrown ; against men in England, he having lost his chance of preferment there, the furious exile never fails to rage and curse. Is it fair to call the famous "Drapier's Letters" patriotism ? They are master-pieces of dreadful humour and invective : they are reasoned logically enough too, but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the 1 " 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. SWIFT. 33 grievance is so great, but there is liis enemy — tlie assault is wonderful for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his hand, rushing on his enemies and felling them : one admu'es not the cause so much as the strength, the anger, the fury of the champion. As is the case with madmen, certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his fits of wrath. Marriage is one of these ; in a hundred passages in his writings he rages against it ; rages against children — an object of constant satii'e, even more contemptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor curate with a large family. The idea of this luckless paternity never fails to bring down from him gibes and foul language. Could Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire, have written anything like the Dean's famous " modest proposal " for eating children ? Not one of these but melts at the thoughts of childhood, fondles and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters the nursery with the tread and gaiety of an ogre.* " I have been assured," says he in the " Modest Proposal," " by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well-nursed, is, at a year 1 "London, April 10th, 1713. " Lady Masham's eldest boy is very ill : I doubt he will not live, and she stays at Kensiiogton 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. D 34 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. old, a most delicious, nourisliiiig, and wholesome food, wlietlier stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make, no doubt it will equally serve in a ragout.'* And taking up this pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with perfect gravity and logic. He turns and twists this subject in a score of different ways : he hashes it; and he serves it up cold ; and he garnishes it ; and relishes it always. He describes the little animal as " dropped from its dam," advising that the mother should let it suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render it plump and fat for a good table! "A child," says his reverence, "will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends ; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind-quarter will make a reasonable dish," and so on; and, the subject being so delightful that he can't leave it — he proceeds to recommend, in place of venison for squires' tables, "the bodies of young lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen nor under twelve." Amiable humourist ! laughing castigator of morals ! There was a process well known and practised in the Dean's gay days : when a lout entered the coffee-house, the wags proceeded to what they called " roasting " him. This is roasting a subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a native genius for it. As the " Almanach des Gourmands " says. On nait rotisseur. And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that Swift exposed the unreasonableness of loving and SWIFT. 35 having cliildren. In Gulliver, the folly of love and marriage is urged by graver arguments and advice. In the famous Lilliputian kingdom, Swift speaks with approval of the practice of instantly removing children from their parents and educating them by the State ; and amongst his favourite horses, a pair of foals are stated to be the very utmost a well-regulated equine couple would permit themselves. In fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was unad- visable, and illustrated the theory by his own practice and example — God help him — which made him about the most wretched being in God's world.' The grave and logical conduct of an absurd propo- sition, as exemplified in the cannibal proposal just mentioned, is our author's constant method through all his works of humour. Given a country of people six inches or sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a wliite staff near as tall as the mainmast of the " Royal Sovereign," the king of Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as represented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. " The Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and masculine (what a surprising humour there is in this 1 " My liealtli is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head and an aching heart." — In May, 1719. 36 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. description !) — the Emperor's features," Gulliver says, " are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip, an arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well-proportioned, and his deportment majestic- He is taller hy the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into beholders." What a surprising humour there is in these descrip- tions ! How noble the satire is here ! how just and honest ! How perfect the image ! Mr. Macaulay has quoted the charming lines of the poet, where the king of the pigmies is measured by the same standard. We have all read in Milton of the spear that was like " the mast of some tall amiral," but these images are surely likely to come to the comic poet originally. The subject is before him. He is turning it in a thousand ways. He is full of it. The figure suggests itself naturally to him, and comes out of his subject, as in that wonderful passage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped by the eagle into the sea, and Gulliver having been received into the ship's cabin, he calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabin, and put it on the table, the cabin being only a quarter the size of the box. It is the veracity of the blunder which is so admirable. Had a man come from such a country as Brobdingnag he would have blundered so. But the best stroke of humour, if there be a best SWIFT. 37 in that abounding book, is tbat where Gulliver, in the unpronounceable country describes his parting from his master the horse.* "I took," he says, " a ^ Perhaps the most melancholy satu*e 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 mvist 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 come 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 grand- children. 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 tlieir youth and middle age, and even tbat 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 38 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. second leave of my master, but as I was going to pros- trate myself to kiss liis lioof, he did me the honour to 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 tlie 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 Struld- brugs 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 vmder 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 SWIFT. 39 raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how much I have been censured for mentioning this last particular. Detractors are pleased to think it impro- bable that so illustrious a person should descend to give so great a mark of distinction to a creature so mferior as I. Neither am I ignorant how apt some travellers are to boast of extraordinary favours they have received. But if these censurers were better acquainted with the noble and courteous disposition of the Houyhnhnms they would soon change their opinion." The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial evidence, the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has been censured, the nature of the favour conferred, and the respectful exultation at the receipt of it, are surely complete ; it is truth topsy-turvy, entirely logical and absurd. 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 propoi'tion to their number of years, which is not to be described ; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although thei'e was not above a century or two between them." — Gulliver's Travels. 40 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. As for the humour and conduct of this famous fable, I suppose there is no person who reads but must admire ; as for the moral, I think it horrible, shameful, unmanly, blasphemous ; and giant and great as this Dean is, I say we should hoot him. Some of this audience majai't have read the last part of Gulliver, and to such I would recal the advice of the venerable Mr. Punch to persons about to marry, and say " Don't." "When Gulliver first lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling wretches clamber up trees and assault him, and he describes himself as " almost stifled with the filth which fell about him." The reader of the fourth part of Gulliver's Travels is hke the hero him- self in this instance. It is Yahoo language ; a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations against mankind, — tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of manliness and shame; filthy in. word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene. And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the tendency of his creed — the fatal rocks towards which his logic desperately drifted. That last part of Gulliver is only a consequence of what has gone before; and the worthlessness of all mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the general vanitj^, the foolish pretension, the mock greatness, tlie I)ompous dulness, the mean aims, the base suc- cesses,— all these were present to him ; it was with the din of these curses of the world, blasphemies SWIFT. 41 against Heaven, shrieking in liis ears, that he began to \vTite his dreadful allegorj^, — of which the meaning is that man is utterly wicked, desperate, and imbecile, and his passions are so monstrous, and his boasted powers so mean, that he is and deserves to be the slave of brutes, and ignorance is better than his vaunted reason. What had this man done ? Avhat secret remorse was rank- ling at his heart ? what fever was boiling in him, that he should see all the world blood-shot ? AVe view the world with our own eyes, each of us ; and we make from within us the world we see. A weary heart gets no gladness out of sunshine ; a selfish man is sceptical about friendship, as a man with no ear doesn't care for music. A friaiitful self-consciousness it must have o been, which looked on mankind so darkly through those keen eyes of Swift. A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, who interrupted Archbishop King and Swift in a conversa- tion which left tlie prelate in tears, and from which Swift rushed away with marks of strong terror and agitation in his countenance, upon which the arch- bishop said to Delany, "You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must never ask a question." The most unhappy man on earth ; — Miserrimus — what a character of him ! And at this time all the great wits of England had been at his feet. All Ireland had shouted after him, and worshipped as a 42 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. liberator, a saviour, the greatest Irish patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier Bickerstaff Gulliver — the most famous statesmen, and the greatest poets of his day, had applauded him, and done him homage, and at this time writing over to Bolingbroke, from Ireland, he sajs, " It is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not to die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.'' We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behaviour to them ; and now it behoves us not to forget that there are certain other persons in the creation who had rather intimate relations with the great Dean.' Tw^o women whom he loved and injured are known by every ^ 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 jpensee of a sad character about the great Dean ! SWIFT. 43 reader of books so familiarly that if we had seen them, or if they had been relatives of our own, we scarcely could have known them better. Who hasn't in his mind an image of Stella ? AVho does not love her ? Fair and tender creature : pure and affectionate heart ! Boots it to you now that you have been at rest for a hundred and twenty years, not divided in death from the cold heart which caused j^ours, whilst it beat, such faithful pangs of love and grief — boots it to jou now, that the whole world loves and deplores jon ? Scarce any man, I believe, ever thought of that grave, that did not cast a flower of pity on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady ! — so lovely, so loving, so unhappy. You have had countless champions, millions of manly hearts mourning for you. From generation to generation we take up the fond tradition of your beauty ; we watch and follow your tragedy, your bright morning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweet martyrdom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of the saints of English story. And if Stella's love and innocence is charming to contemplate, I will say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, in spite of mysterious separation and union, of hope delayed and sickened heart — in the teeth of Vanessa, and that little episodical aberration which plunged Swift into such woeful pitfalls and quagmires of amorous perplexity — in spite of the 44 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. verdicts of most women, I believe, who, as far as my experience and conversation goes, generally take Vanessa's part in the controversy — in spite of the tears which Swift caused Stella to shed, and the rocks and barriers which fate and temper interposed, and which prevented the pure course of that true love from run- ning smoothly ; the brightest part of Swift's story, the pure star in that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's, is his love for Hester Johnson. It has been my busi- ness, professionally of course, to go through- a deal of sentimental reading in my time, and to acquaint thj- self with love-making, as it has been described in various languages, and at various ages of the world ; and I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls " his little language " in his journal to Stella.' He writes to her night and morning often. He never sends away a letter to her but he begins a new one on the same daj. He can't bear to ^ 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 *' Good- night, M.D. ; Night, M.D. ; Little M.D. ; Stelhikins ; Pretty Stella; Dear roguish, impudent, pretty M.D. ! " Every now and then he breaks into rhyme, as — " I wish you both a merry new yeai". 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." SWIFT. 45 let go lier kind little hand as it were. He knows that she is thinking of him, and longing for him far away in Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from under his i)illow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond epithets and pretty caresses — as he would to the sweet and artless creature who loved him. " Stay," he writes one morning — it is the 1-lth of December, 1710 — " Stay, I will answer some of your letter this morning in bed — let me see. Come and appear little letter ! Here I am says he, and what say you to Stella this mornmg fresh and fasting ? And can Stella read tliis writing without hurting her dear eyes ? " he goes on, after more kind prattle and fond whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly upon him then — the good angel of his life is with him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate : but would she have changed it ? I have heard a woman say that she would have taken Swift's cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone ; of her^ wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably touching; in con- templation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos : liis cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel, whose life he had embittered, confesses his own 46 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. wretchedness and unwortliiness, and adores her with cries of remorse and love : — " When on my sickly couch I lay, Impatient both of night and day, And groaning in unmanly strains, Called every power to ease my pains, Then Stella ran to my relief, With cheerful face and inward grief, And though by Heaven's severe decree She suffers hourly more than me, No cruel master could require From slaves employed for daily hire, What Stella, by her friendship warmed. With vigour and delight performed. Now, with a soft and silent tread. Unheard she moves about my bed : My sinking spirits now supplies With cordials in her hands and eyes. Best pattern of true friends ! beware ; You pay too dearly for your care If, while your tenderness secures My life, it must endanger yours : For such a fool was never found Who pulled a palace to the ground, Only to have the ruins made Materials for a house decayed." One little triumph Stella had in her life — one dear little piece of injustice was performed in her favour, for which I confess, for my part, I can't help thanking fate and the Dean. That other person was sacrificed to her — that — that young woman, who lived five doors from Dr. Swift's lodgings in Bmy-street, and who flattered him, and made love to him in such an outrageous manner — Vanessa was thrown over. Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to SWIFT. 47 those lie wrote to her/ He kept BoUngbroke's, and Pope's, and Harley's, and Peterborough's : but Stella, "very carefully," the Lives say, kept Swift's. Of ^ 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 pane- gyric. But the following prove her wit : " A gentleman, who had been very silly and pei't 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 smart- ness and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came to be so dir-ty. 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 48 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. course : that is tlie way of the world : and so we cannot tell what her stjde was, or of what sort were the little letters which the Doctor placed there at night, and bade to appear from under his pillow of a morning. But in Letter IV. of that famous collection he describes his lodging in Bury-street, where he has the first floor, a dining-room and bed-chamber, at eight shillings a-week ; and in Letter VI. he says " he has visited a lady just come to town," whose name somehow is not mentioned ; and in Letter VIII. he enters a query of Stella's — " What do you mean ' that boards near me, that I dine with now and then ? ' What the deuce ! You know whom I have dined with every day since I left you, better than I do." Of course she does. Of course Swift has not the slightest idea of what she means. But in a few letters more it turns out that the Doctor has been to dine " gravely " with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh : then that he has been to " his neigh- bour : " then that he has been unwell, and means to dine for the whole week with his neighbour ! Stella was quite right in her previsions. She saw from the very first hint what was going to happen ; and scented Vanessa in the air.^ The rival is at the Dean's feet. brim, and a label of paper about its neck. 'What is that ' — said she — ' my apothecary's son !' The ridiculous resemblance, and the sudden- ness of the question, set us all a-laughiug," — Swift's Wo7'hs, Scott's Ed, vol. ix. 295-6. 1 '* 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 SWIFT. 49 The pupil and teacher are reading together, and drinkmg tea together, and going to prayers together, and learning Latin together, and conjugating amo, amas, amavi together. The little language is over for poor Stella. By the rule of grammar and the course of conjugation, doesn't amavi come after amo and avias ? The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa' jou may peruse in Cadenus's o^^ti poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulatory verses and letters to him, she adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks liim something god-like, and onlj prays to be admitted to lie at his feet.^ As they are bringmg him home mere listlessness dine therCf very often; so I did to-day." — Journal to Stella. Mrs, Vanliomrigh, " 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 as Swift and Steele ; and, in our own time, Moore and Crabbe, ^ '' 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 ; sviperior, 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. - " 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 siu-e I could have borne the rack much better than those killing, kilhng words of yours. Some- E 50 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. from cliurcli, those divine feet of Dr. Swift's are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlour. He likes to be admired and adored. He finds Miss Van- liomrigli to be a woman of great taste and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day; he does not tell Stella about the business : until the impetuous Vanessa becomes too fond of him, until the doctor is quite frightened by the young woman's ardour, and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to marry neither of them — that I believe was the truth; but if he had not married Stella, Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he went back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in her isle, pursued the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed and bullied ; the news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to her, and it killed her — she died of that passion.^ times 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 complamt 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.) 1 " If we consider Swift's behaviour, so far only as it relates to SWIFT. 5 1 And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifullj^ regarding her, "that doesn't 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 accoimt 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 Lifiey 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 connection with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must have been perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long elicited her secret jealousy, although only a single E 2 52 EI^GLISH HUMOUKISTS. surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, " for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman — a true woman ! Would you have had one of them forgive the other ? In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke, of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are written in 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 imcertainty 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 impa- tience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connec- tion. 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 i-ival'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. SWIFT. 53 tlie Dean's hand, the words : " Only a icomaiis hairy An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cjmical mdiiference. See the various notions of critics ! Do those words indicate indifference or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words more pathetic ? Only a woman's haii', only love, only fidelity, only purity, innocence, beauty ; only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and wounded, and passed awa}^ now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless desertion ; — only that lock of hair left : and memory and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the grave of his victim. And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of wit and wisdom and tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up in the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. People did not remain there long, and suffered for having been there. ^ He shrank away from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near liim, and away from him. He had not heart ^ "M. Swift est Eabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne compagnie. II n'a pas, ^ la verite, la gaite du premier, mais il a toute la finesse, la raison, le chois, le bon gout qui manquent b; notre cui-e 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 en tendre il faut faii'e un petit voyage dans son pays." — Voltaire, Lettres sur les Anglais. Let. 22. 54 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. enough to see them die. He broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan ; he shmk away from his fondest admirer, Pope. His laugh jars on one's ear after seven score years. He was always alone — alone and gnash- ing in the darkness, except when Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that went, silence and utter night closed over him. An immense genius : an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he seems to me, that thinldng of him is like thinkmg of an empire falhng. We have other great names to mention — none I think, however, so great or so gloomy. LECTURE THE SECOND. CON'GREVE AND ADDISON". A GREAT number of years ago, before the passing of the Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debating club, called the " Union," and I remember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of the Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the University Debating Club, and that if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thomson of Trinity, would rise in their might, and draping them- selves in their gowns, rally^ round the monarchy, or hurl defiance at priests and kings with the majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau, fancying all the while that the great nobleman's emissary was Hstening to the debate from the back benches, where he was sitting with the family seat in his pocket. Indeed, the legend said that one or two young Cambridge -men, orators of 56 EI^GLISH HUMOUKISTS. the Union, were actually caught up thence, and carried down to Cornwall or old Sarum, and so into Parliament. And many a young fellow deserted the jogtrot Uni- versity curriculum, to hang on in the dust behind the fervid wheels of the parliamentary chariot. Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of peers and members of Parliament in Anne's and George's time ? Were they all in the army, or hunting in the country, or boxing the watch ? How was it that the young gentlemen from the University got such a pro- digious number of places ? A lad composed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch or Trinity, in which the death of a great personage was bemoaned, the French king assailed, the Dutch or Prince Eugene compli- mented, or the reverse ; and the party in power was presently to provide for the young poet ; and a com- missionership, or a post in the Stamps, or the secretary- ship of an embassy, or a clerkship in the Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A wonderful fruit- bearing rod was that of Busby's. What have men of letters got in our time ? Think, not only of Swift, a king fit to rule in any time an empire — but Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John Dennis, and many others who got pubhc employment, and pretty little i^ickings out of the public purse.* The ^ The following is a conspectus of them : — Addison. — Commissioner of Appeals ; Under Secretary of State ; Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Keeper co:n'greve and addisox. 57 wits of whose names we shall treat in this lecture and two following, all (save one) touched the King's coin, and had, at some period of their lives, a happy quarter- day coming round for them. They all began at school or college in the regular way, producing panegyrics upon public characters, what were called odes upon public events, battles, sieges, court marriages and deaths, in which the gods of Olympus and the tragic muse were fatigued with invo- cations, according to the fashion of the time in France and in England. Aid us Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or Marl- borough. "Accourez, chastes nyinphes de Permesse,'' says Boileau, celebrating the Grand Monarch. " Des sons 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 Coui-t ; 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 ; Commis- sioner for Wine Licenses ; 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 sent plus en honneur qu'ici." — Voltaire, Lettres sw les Anglais, Let. 20. 58 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. que ma lyre enfante, marquez en bien la cadence, et vous, vents, faites silence ! je vais parler cle Louis /" School- boys' themes and foundation-exercises are the only relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The Olym- pians are left quite undisturbed in their mountain. What man of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country newspaper, would now think of writing a con- gratulatory ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a nobleman ? In the xDast century the young gentlemen of the Universities all exercised themselves at these queer compositions ; and some got fame, and some gained patrons and places for life, and many more took nothing by these efforts of what they were pleased to call their muses. WilHam Congreve's ' Pindaric Odes are still to be found m " Johnson's Poets," that now unfrequented poet's corner, in which so many forgotten big- wigs have a niche — but though he was also voted to be one of the greatest tragic poets of any day, it was Congreve's wit and humour which first recommended him to courtly fortune. And it is recorded, that his first play, the " Old Bachelor," brought our author to the notice of that great patron of the English muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax, who being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease and tranquillity, 1 He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Richard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire — a very ancient family. CONGEEVE AND ADDISON. 59 instantly made liim one of the commissioners for licensing hackney-coaches, bestowed on him soon after a place in the Pipe-office, and likewise a post in the Custom-house of the value of 600Z. A commissionership of hackney-coaches — a post m the Custom-house — a place in the Pipe-office, and all for writing a comedy ! Doesn't it sound like a fable, that place m the Pipe -office ? ^ Ah, I'heureux temps que celui de ces fables ! Men of letters there still be : but I doubt whether any pipe-offices are left. The public has smoked them long ago. Words, like men, pass current for a while mth the pubhc, and being known everywhere abroad, at length take their places in society ; so even the most secluded and refined ladies here present will have heard the phrase from their sons or brothers at school, and will ^ " Pipe, — Pipe, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the great roll. " 'PiFE-Office is an ofi&ce 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. Cyclopcecl. Art. Pipe. *' PiPE-Q/^ce. — 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 pii^e 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 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. permit me to call William Congreve, Esquire, the most eminent literary " swell " of his age. In my copy of " Johnson's Lives " Congreve's wig is the tallest, and put on with the jauntiest air of all the laurelled worthies. " I am the great Mr. Congreve," he seems to say, looking out from his voluminous curls. People called him the great Mr. Congreve.' From the begin- ning of his career until the end everybody admired himc Having got his education in Ireland, at the same school and college with Swift ; he came to live m the Middle Temple, London, where he luckily bestowed no atten- tion to the law ; but splendidly frequented the coffee- houses and theatres, and appeared in the side-box, the tavern, the Piazza and the Mall, brilliant, beautiful, and victorious from the first. Everybody acknowledged the young chieftain. The great Mr. Dryden ' declared ^ " It has been observed that no change of ministers affected bim 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. 2 Dryden addressed his " twelfth epistle " to " My dear friend Mr. Congreve," on hia comedy called the " Double Dealer," in which he says — " Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please; Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease. 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 judgment, 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 CONGREVE A^T) ADDISOK 61 that he was equal to Shakspeare, and bequeathed to hhn his own undisputed poetical crown, and writes of him, " Mr. Congreve has done me the favour to review the *^neis,' and compare my version with the origmal. I shall never be ashamed to own that this excellent young man has showed me many faults wliich I have endeavoured to correct." The "excellent young man" was but three or four- and-twenty when the great Dryden thus spoke of him : the greatest literary chief in England, the veteran field-marshal of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe, and the centre of a school of wits, who daily gathered round his chair and tobacco-pipe at Wills'. Pope dedicated his "Iliad" to him; ' Swift, Addison, " Old Bachelor," but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having fallen foul of it, our "Swell " applied the scourge to that presumj^tuous 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 declai'e, 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 1 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." ' " 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 62 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Steele, all acknowledge Congreve's rank, and lavish compliments upon him. Voltaire went to wait upon him as on one of the Eepresentatives of Literature — and the man who scarce praises any other living person, who flung abuse at Pope, and Swift, and Steele, and Addison, — the Grub-street Timon, old John Dennis,* was hat in hand to Mr. Congreve ; and said, that when he retired from the stage, Comedy went with him. Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired in the drawing-rooms as well as the coffee-houses ; as much beloved in the side-box as on the stage. He loved, and conquered, and jilted the beautiful Brace- girdle,^ the heroine of all his plays, the favourite of all the town of her day — and the Duchess of Marlborough, 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. ^ "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 protec- tion in his high authoritative manner." — Thos, Davies. Dramatic Miscellanies, 2 " Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdlc, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his acquaint- ance 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 CONGREVE AN^D ADDISON". 63 Marlborough's daughter, had such an admiration of him, that when he died she had an ivory figure made to imi- tate him,^ and a large wax doll with gouty feet to be dressed just as the great Congreve's gouty feet were dressed in his great lifetime. He saved some money by his Pipe-office, and his Custom-house office, and his Hackney-coach office, and nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle, who wanted it," but to the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't.' would it liave been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle." — Dr. Young, Spences A necclotes. 1 "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. 2 The sum Congreve left her was 200Z., 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 Gibber, and ''such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as inspired eveiybod}^ 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 lier 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 veiy distant from the real character of Congreve." — Dramatic Mis- cellanies, 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. 3 Johnson calls his legacy the "accumulation of attentive parsi- mony, 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. 64 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. How can I introduce to you that merry and shame- less Comic Muse who won him such a reputation ? Nell Gwynn's servant fought the other footmen for having called his mistress a bad name ; and in like manner, and with pretty like epithets, Jeremy Collier attacked that godless, reckless Jezebel, the English comedy of his time, and called her what Nell Gwynn's man's fellow- servants called Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. The servants of the theatre, Dryden, Congreve,' and others, defended themselves with the same success, and for the same cause which set Nell's lackey fighting. She was a disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that Comic Muse. She came over from the continent with Charles (who chose many more of his ^ He replied to Colliei*, in the pamplilet called "Amendments of Mr. Collier's False aud 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, aud 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 Couyreve. CON'GEEVE AND ADDISOI^. 65 female friends there) at the Eestoration — a wild, dishevelled Lais, with eyes bright with wit and wine — a saucy court -favourite that sate at the King's knees, and laughed in his face, and when she showed her bold cheeks at her chariot-window, had some of the noblest and most famous people of the land bowing round her wheel. She was kind and popular enough, that daring Comedy, that audacious poor Nell — she was gay and generous, kind, frank, as such people can afford to be : and the men who lived with her and laughed with her, took her pay and drank her mne, turned out when the Puritans hooted her, to fight and defend her. But the jade was indefensible, and it is pretty certain her servants knew it. There is life and death going on in every thing: truth and lies always at battle. Pleasure is always warring against self-restraint. Doubt is always crying Psha, and sneering. A man in life^ a humourist in writing about life, sways over to one prmciple or the other, and laughs with the reverence for right and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these from the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious business to Harlequin ? I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over before speaking of him ; and my feehngs were rather like those, which I daresay most of us here have had, at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and the rehcs of an orgy, a dried wine -jar or two, a charred supper -table, the breast of a dancing 66 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skuU of a jester, a perfect stillness round ahout, as the Cicerone twangs his moral, and the hlue sky shines calmly over the ruin. The Congreve muse is dead, and her song choked in Time's ashes. Vi'e gaze at the skeleton, and wonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We take the skull up, and muse over the frolic and dai'ing, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desii'e, with which that empty howl once fermented. We think of the glances that allui'ed, the teai's that melted, of the hright eyes that shone in those vacant sockets ; and of lips whispeiing love, and cheeks dimpling with smiles, that once covered yon ghastly yellow frame- work. They used to call those teeth pearls once. See ! there's the cup she di'ank fi'om, the gold-chain she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her looking-glass, and the hai'p she used to dance to. Instead of a feast we find a gi*ave- stone, and in place of a misti'ess, a few bones ! Reading in these plays now, is like shuttiug your eai's and looking at people dancing. "VMiat does it mean ? the measiu'es, the gi'imaces, the bowing, shuffling and retreating, the cavaher seul advancing upon those ladies — those ladies and men twii'ling round at the end in a mad galop, after which ever^'body bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. Without the music we can't understand that comic dance of the last centmy — its strange gi-avity and gaiety, its deconim COXGREYE AND ADDISON. 67 or its indecorum. It has a jargon of its own quite unlilvG life ; a sort of moral of its own quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a Heathen mystery, symbohsmg a Pagan doctrine ; protesting, as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their theatre and laughing at theii' games — as Sallust and his friends, and their mistresses protested — crowned with flowers, with cups in theii* hands, against the new, hard, ascetic pleasure - hatmg doctrine, whose gaunt disciples, lately passed over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean were for breaking the fair images of "Venus, and flinging the altars of Bacchus down. I fancy poor CongTeve's theatre is a temple of Pagan dehghts, and mysteries not permitted except among heathens. I fear the theatre carries down that ancient tradition and worsliip, as masons have carried their secret signs and rites from temple to temple, \\lien the libertine hero carries off the beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for ha'sdng the young wife : in the ballad, when the poet bid his mistress to gather roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still a-fl3ing : in the ballet, when honest Corj-don com'ts Phillis under the treillage of the pasteboard cottage, and leers at her over the head of grandpapa in red stockings, who is opportunely asleep ; and when seduced by the invitations of the rosy youth she comes forward to the foothghts, and they perform on each other's tiptoes that pas which you all know and which F 2 68 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. is only interrupted by old grandpapa awaking from his doze at the pasteboard chalet (whither he returns to take another nap in case the young people get an encore) : when Harlequin, splendid in youth, strength and agility, arrayed in gold and a thousand colours, springs over the heads of countless perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered giants, and, dauntless and splendid, dances danger down : when Mr. Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits his lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the hangman, — don't you see in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the ragged little Punch's puppet-show, — the Pagan protest ? Doesn't it seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment ? Look how the lovers walk and hold each other's hands and whisper ! Sings the chorus — "There is nothing like love, there is nothing like youth, there is nothing like beauty of your spring time. Look ! how old age tries to meddle with merry sport ! Beat him with his own crutch, the wrinkled old dotard ! There is nothing like j^outh, there is nothing like beauty, there is nothing like strength. Strength and valour win beauty and youth. Be brave and conquer. Be young and happy. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy ! Would you know the Segreto per esser felice ? Here it is, in a smiling mistress and a cup of Falernian." As the boy tosses the cup and sings his song. Hark ! what is that chaunt coming nearer and CONGEEVE AND ADDISON". 69 nearer ? What is tliat dirge which will disturb us ? The lights of the festival burn dim — the cheeks turn pale — ^the voice quavers — and the cup drops on the floor. AVho's there ? Death and Fate are at the gate, and they icill come in. Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round the table, emptying their flaming bowls of drink, and exchanging the wildest jests and ribaldry, sit men and women, waited on by rascally valets and attendants as dis- solute as their mistresses — perhaps the very worst com- pany in the world. There doesn't seem to be a pretence of morals. At the head of the table sits Mii^abel or Belmour (dressed in the French fashion and waited on by Enghsh imitators of Scapin and Frontin). Their calling is to be irresistible, and to conquer everywhere. Like the heroes of the chivahy story, whose long-winded loves and combats they were sending out of fasliion ; they are always splendid and triumphant — overcome all dangers, vanquish all enemies, and win the beauty at the end. Fathers, husbands, usurers are the foes these champions contend with. They are merciless in old age, invariably, and an old man plays the part in the dramas, which the wicked enchanter or the great blundering giant performs in the chivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles and resists — a huge stupid obstacle always overcome by the knight. It is an old man with a money-box : Sir Behnour his son or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. It is an old man 70 EJNGLISH HU MO HEISTS. with a young wife whom he locks up : Sir Mirabel robs him of his wife, trips up his gouty old heels and leaves the old hunx — the old fool what business has he to hoard his money, or to lock up blushing eighteen ? Money is for youth, love is for youth, away with the old peoi)le. When Millamant is sixty, having of course divorced the first Lady Millamant, and married his friend Doricourt's grand- daughter out of the nursery — it will be his turn; and young Belmour will make a fool of him. All this pretty morality you have in the comedies of William Congreve, Esq. They are full of wit. Such manners as he observes, he observes with great humour ; but ah ! it's a weary feast that banquet of wit were no love is. It palls very soon ; sad indi- gestions follow it and lonely blank headaches in the morning. I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Congreve's plays * — which are undeniably bright, witty, 1 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. ForedgJit. — 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 CON-GREVE AND ADDISON. 71 and daring, — any more than I could ask you to hear the dialogue of a witty bargeman and a brilliant fish- fools thro' foi^tune ; and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning to-morrow. 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 buz 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 1 Foresight. — I am married. Valentine. — Poor creatui*e ! Is your wife of Covent-garden Parish ? Foresight. — No ; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Valentine. — Alas, poor man ! his eyes are sixnk, and his hands shrivelled ; his leggs 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'i-ing 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? 72 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. woman exchanging compliments at Billingsgate; but some of his verses, — they were amongst the most famous Jeremy. — She's here, Sir. Mrs. Foresight. — Now, Sister ! Mrs. Frail. — 0 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 1 Valeoitine. — Hark'ee — I have a secret to tell you, Endymion and the moon shall meet as 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 1 No ; I hope not. Tattle. — I am JacJc 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 1% CON'GEEVE AND ADDISON". 73 lyrics of the time, and pronounced equal to Horace by liis contemporaries, — may give an idea of his power, Valentine. — You're a woman; one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it gi'afted 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 1 Valentine. — Why, to keep a secret. Tattle.— 0 Lord ! Valentine. — 0, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she shoul'd 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. — Congee VE. " Love for Love." There is a Mrs. Niclclehy, of the year 1700, in Cougreve's Comedy of "The Double Dealer," in whose character the author introduces some wonderful traits of roguish satii'e. 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. — 0 ! 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 ; 0, 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 11 Is it day ? and am I awake ? Madam — Lady Plyant. — 0 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. 0 Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face ; I wai'rant I am as red as a turkey-cock ; 0 fie, cousin Mellefont ! Mellefont.- — Nay, madam, hear me ; I mean Lady Plyant. — Hear you 1 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 74 EN'GLTSH HUMOUEISTS. of liis grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in comphment, and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he, " Every woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he -wTote languidly' in won't trust my honour, I assure you ; my honour is infallible and uncomatable. Mellefont. — For Heaven's sake, madam Lady Plyant. — 0, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart ? May be, you dosn'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 honom-. "Well, but your honour, too — but the sin ! Well, but the necessity. 0 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. 0 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. 0 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 ^j.—The Double Dealer. Act 2nd, scene v. page 156. ^ " 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. COXGREYE AN"D ADDISOl!^. 75 illness, when lie was an " excellent young man." Eiche- lieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellent thing. When he advances to make one of his conquests it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida. "Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment — " Cease, cease to ask her name, The crowned Muse's noblest theme, Whose glory by immortal fame Shall only sounded be. But if you long to know, Then look round yonder dazzling row. Who most does like an angel show You may be sure 'tis she." Here are Hues about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of cele- brating her — " When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, With eyes so bright and with that awful air, I thought my heart would durst so high aspire As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke. Forth fi'om her coral lips such folly broke ; Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound. And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound." Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does not seem to respect one much more 76 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. than tlie other ; and describes both with exquisite satirical humour — " Fair Amoret is gone astray, Pursue aud seek her every lover ; I'll tell the signs by which you may The wandering shepherdess discover. Coquet and coy at once her air, Both studied, though both seem neglected ; Careless she is with artful care, Affecting to be unaffected. With skill her eyes dart every glance, Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them ; For she'd persuade they wound by chance, Though certain aim and art direct them. She likes herself, yet others hates For that which in herself she prizes ; And, while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing which she despises." What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of ridicule upon her ? Could she have resisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve ? Could anybody ? Could Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing under her window. See, he writes — " See ! see, she wakes — Sabina wakes ! And now the sun begins to rise : Less glorious is the morn, that breaks From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. With light united day they give ; But different fates ere night fulfil : How many by his warmth will live ! How many will her coldness kill ! " Are you melted ? Don't jou think him a divine co:n'GREve and addisok. 77 man ? If not toucliecl by tlie brilliant Sabina, hear the devout Selinda : — " Pious Selinda goes to prayers, If I but ask her favour ; And yet the silly fool 's in tears, If she believes I'll leave her. "Would I were free from this restraint. Or else had hopes to win her : "Would she could make of me a saint. Or I of her a sinner ! " "What a conquering air there is about these ! What an irresistible Mr. Congreve it is ! Sinner ! of course he will be a sinner, the delightful rascal ! Win her ; of course he will win her, the victorious rogue ! He knows he will : he must — with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid embroidered suit — you see him with red-heeled shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevelled periwig and dehvering a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina? What a comparison that is between the nymph and the sun ! The sun gives Sabina the pas, and does not venture to rise before her ladyship : the morn's bright beams are less glorious than her fair eyes : but before night everybody will be frozen by her glances : everybody but one lucky rogue who shall be nameless : Louis Quatorze in all his glory is hardly more splendid than our Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Garden.* 'Among those by whom it ('Wills's') was frequented, Southeme 78 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. When Voltake came to visit tlie great Congreve, the latter rather affected to despise his literary reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congreve was not far wrong.^ A touch of Steele's tenderness is worth all his finery — a flash of Swift's lightning — a beam of Addison's pure sunshme, and his tawdry play-house taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him and he was undoubtedly a pretty fellow.' 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 I>ryden, vol. i. p. 370. ^ 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 Voltaii'e." But it is worthy of remark, that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's CEuvres Completes in the Pantheon Litteraire. Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.) " Celm de tons les Anglais qui a portd le plus loin la gloire du thedtre comique est feu M. Congreve. II n'a fait que peu de pieces, mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre Vous y voyez par- tout 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." — Voltaike. Lettres sur les Anglais, Let. 19. " On the death of Queen Mary, he published a Pastoral — " The COJfGREVE AND ADDISOX. 79 We have seen in Swift a humourous philosopher, whose truth frightens one, and whose laughter makes one melancholy. We have had in Congreve a 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 Congi'eve ! In the " Teai-s 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 in to work here again. At the sight of her grief — " Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forego. And dumb distress and new compassion show. Nature herself attentive silence kept, And motion seemed sics^pended ivhile she wcjjt /" — 80 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. humourous observer of another school to whom the world seems to have no moral at all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go to the deuce (if there be a deuce) when the time comes. We come now to a humour that flows from quite a different heart and 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 Shakspeare 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 Judgment 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. CONGREVE AND ADDISON". 81 spirit — a wit that makes us laugh and leaves us good and happy ; to one of the kindest benefactors that society has ever had, and I believe you have divined already that I am about to mention Addison's honoured name. From reading over his writings, and the biographies which w^e have of him, amongst which the famous aj;ticle in the Edinburgh Eeview ^ may be cited as a magnificent statue of the great writer and morahst of the last age, raised by the love and the marvellous skill and genius of one of the most illustrious artists of our own ; looking at that calm, fair face, and clear countenance — those chiselled features pure and cold, I can't but fanc}^ that this great man, in this respect, like him of wdiom we spoke in the last lecture, was also one of the lonely ones of the world. Such men have very few equals, and they don't herd with those. It is ^ " 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." — Macaulat. '' 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 fi'iends 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. G 82 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. in the nature of such lords of intellect to he sohtary — they are in the world hut not of it ; and our minor struggles, hrawls, successes, pass under them. Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not tried heyond easy endurance, his affections not much used, for his hooks were his family, and his society was in puhlic ; admirably wiser, wittier, calmer, and more instructed than almost every man with whom he met, how could Addison suffer, desire, admire, feel much ? I may expect a child to admii'e me for heing taller or writing more cleverly than she ; hut how can I ask my superior to say that I am a wonder wdien he knows better than I ? In Addison's days you could scarcety show him a literary performance, a sermon, or a poem, or a piece of literary criticism, but he felt he could do better. His justice must have made him indifferent. He didn't praise, because he measured his compeers by a liigher standard than common people have.* How was he who was so tall to look up to any but the loftiest genius ? He must have stooped to put himself on a level with most men. By that profusion of gTaciousness and smiles, with which Goethe or Scott, for instance, greeted almost every literary beginner, every small literary adventurer who came to his court and went ^ "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. {S^ence's Anecdotes). COIn^GREYE and ADDISON". 83 away charmed from the great king's audience, and cuddling to his heart the compliment which his literary majesty had paid him — each of the two good- natured potentates of letters brought their star and riband into discredit. Everybody had his Majesty's orders. Everybody had liis Majesty's cheap j)ortrait, on a box surrounded with diamonds worth twopence a piece. A very great and just and wise man ought not to praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of the truth. Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Pinkethman : Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Peggott the actor, whose benefit is coming off that night : Addison praises Don Saltero : Addison praises Milton with all his heart, bends liis knee and frankly pays homage to that imperial genius.^ But between those degrees of his men his praise is very scanty. I don't think the great Mr. Addison liked young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much; I don't think he abused him. But when Mr. ^ "Milton's cliief talent, and indeed his distinguisliing excellence lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the modem, who rival him in every other part of poetiy ; but in the greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all tha poets, both modem and ancient, Homer alone excepted. It is impossible for the imagination of man to distvu'b 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 19th to May 3rd, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, we may place those he did to Sacred Music. G 2 84 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Addison's men abused Mr. Pope, I don't think Addison took liis pipe out of liis mouth to contradict them.* Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in Wiltshire, and rose in the church.^ His famous son never lost his clerical training and scholastic gravity, and was called " a parson in a tye-wig " ^ in London afterwards at a time when tye-wigs were only worn by the laity, and the fathers of theology did not think it ^ "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 Wortlet Montagu {Spence's Anecdotes). 2 Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield and Archdeacon of Coventry. ^ " 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 staid above a year at Blois. He 'would rise as early as between two and three in the height of summer, and lie a bed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of ^vinter. He was untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful : sometimes so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and staid 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 whilst too, that I know of ; and I think I should have known it, if he had had any." — Abbe Philippeaux of Blois {Spence's Anecdotes). CONGREYE AND ADDISON. 85 decent to appear except in a full bottom. Having been at school at Salisbury, and the Charterhouse, in 1687, when he was fifteen years old he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he speedily began to distinguish himself by the making of Latin verses. The beautiful and fanciful j)oem of " The Pigmies and the Cranes " is still read by lovers of that sort of exercise, and verses are extant in honour of King AYilliam by which it appears that it was the loyal youth's custom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple Lyseus ; and many more works are in the Collection, includmg one on the -peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which was so good that Montague got him a pension of 300L a year, on which Addison set out on his travels. During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply imbued himself with the Latin poetical literature, and had these poets at his fingers' ends when he travelled in Italy.* His patron went out of office, and his pension was unpaid : and hearing that this great scholar, now eminent and known to the literati of Europe (the great Boileau,'' upon perusal of Mr. Addison's elegant hexameters, was first made aware that England was not altogether a barbarous nation) — hearing that the ^ " His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus, down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound." — Macaulay. 2 " 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 Musce Angllcance." — Tickell {Preface to Addison's Woi-ks). 86 ENGLISH HTJMOUPJSTS. celebrated Mr. Addison, of Oxford, proposed to travel as governor to a young gentleman on the grand tour, the great Duke of Somerset proposed to Mr. Addison to accompany his son, Lord Hartford, Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his Grace and his lordship, his Grace's son, and expressed him- self ready to set forth. His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one of the most famous scholars of Oxford and Europe that it was his gracious intention to allow my Lord Hartford's tutor one hundred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison wrote back that his services were his Grace's, but he by no means found his account in the recompense for them. The negotiation was broken off. They parted with a profusion of congees on one side and the other. Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the best society of Europe. How could he do otherwise ? He must have been one of the finest gentlemen the world ever saw : at all moments of life serene and courteous, cheerful and calm.* He could scarcely ever have had a degrading thought. He might have omitted a vii'tue or two, or many, but could not have had many faults committed for which he need blush or turn pale. ^ "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 Cougreve." — Lady Wortlet Montaou {Spence's Anecdotes). CONGKEVE AND ADDISOK 87 When warmed into confidence, his conversation appears to have been so delightful that the greatest wits sate wrapt and charmed to listen to him. No man bore poverty and narrow fortune with a more lofty cheerful- ness. His letters to his friends at this period of his life when he had lost his government pension, and given up his college chances, are full of courage and a gay confidence and philosophy: and they are none the worse in my eyes, and I hope not in those of his last and greatest biogi^apher (though Mr. Macaulay is bound to own and lament a certain weakness for wine, which the great and good Joseph Addison notoriously pos- sessed, in common with countless gentlemen of his time), because some of the letters are written when his honest hand was shaking a little in the morning after libations to purple Lyseus over-night. He was fond of drinking the healths of his friends : he writes to Wyche,' ^ mr, addison to me. wyche. "Dear Sir, " My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, BO 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 88 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. of Hamburgh, gratefully remembering Wyche's " hoc." " I have been drinking your health to-day with Sir Richard Shirley," he writes to Bathurst. " I have lately had the honour to meet my Lord Effingham at Amsterdam, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's health a hundred times in excellent champagne," he writes again. Swift * describes him over his cups, when Joseph I tell him Mr. Wycbe 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 ownei'S of them, and desiring you to believe me always, " Dear Sir, " Yours, &c. " To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, "May, 1703." — From the " Life of Addison,'" by Miss Aikin. Vol, i. p. 146. ^ 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 judgment, 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 retire- ment near Chelsea I will get what good offices I can from Mr. Addison. " 27. — To-day all our company dined at WillFrankland's, with Steele and Addison, too. " 29. —I dined with Mr. Addison, fee." — Journal to Stella. Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his Travels '' To Dr. CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 89 yielded to a temptation wliicli Jonathan resisted. Joseph was of a cold nature, and needed perhaps the fire of wine to warm his hlood. If he was a parson : he wore a tye-wig, recollect, A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine — why, we could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we do.^ At thirty-three years of age, this most distinguished wit, scholar, and gentleman was without a profession and an income. His book of " Travels " had failed : his " Dialogues on Medals " had had no particular success : his Latin verses, even though reported the best since Virgil, or Statins at any rate, had not brought him a 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. Yol. xix. p. 274. Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly commvmi- cations. Time renewed them ; and Tickell enjoyed Swift's friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so honourably connected. ^ " Addison usually studied all the morning ; then met his party at Button's ; dined there, and stayed five or six houi-s, 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 {SpeTic^s Anecdotes). 90 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Government-place, and Addison was living up two shabby pair of stairs in the Haymarket (in a poverty over which old Samuel Johnson rather chuckles), when in these shabby rooms, an emissary from Government and Fortune came and found him.* A poem was wanted about the Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim. Would Mr. Addison write one ? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, took back the reply to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, that Mr. Addison would. When the poem had reached a certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin ; and the last lines which he read were these : — *' But 0, my muse ! wliat numbers wilt thou find To sing the furious trqops in battle join'd? Methinks I hear the drum's tumultouuf? sound, The victor's shouts and dying groans confound ; The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, And all the thunders of the battle rise. 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, Examined all the dreadful scenes of war : In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, To fainting squadrons lent the timely aid, Inspired repulsed battalions to engage. And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. So when an angel by divine command. With rising tempests shakes a guilty land (Such as of late o'er pale Bi'itannia passed). Calm and serene he dxives the furious blast ; And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform. Bides on the whirlwind and directs the storm." "When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of CONGREVE AXD ADDIS0:N". 91 Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was pronounced to be of the greatest ever produced in poetry. That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of Commis- sioner of Appeals — vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the follomng year, Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was made Under-Secretary of State. 0 angel visits ! you come " few and far between " to literary gentlemen's lodgings ! Your wings seldom quiver at second-floor windows now ! You laugh ? You think it is in the power of few writers now-a-days to call up such an angel ? Well perhaps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves by pointing out that there are in the poem of the " Campaign" some as bad lines as heart can desire : and to hint that Mr. Addison did very wisely in not going- further with my Lord Godolphin than that angelical simile. Do allow me, just for a little harmless mischief, to read you some of the lines which follow. Here is the interview between the Duke and the King of the Romans after the battle : — " Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, there- fore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind." — Johnson {Lives of the Poets). 92 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. Whose boasted ancestry so higli extends That in the pagan Gods his lineage ends, Comes from afar, in gratitude to own The great supporter of his father's throne. What tides of glory to his bosom ran Clasped in th' embraces of the godlike man ! How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt, To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt ! Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, So learned and finished for the camp or court I " How many fourtli-form boys at Mr. Addison's school of Charter-house could write as well as that now ? The " Campaign " has blunders, triumphant as it was ; and weak points like all campaigns.' In the year 1718 " Cato " came out. Swift has left a description of the first night of the performance. All the laurels of Europe were scarcely sufficient for the author of this prodigious poem.^ Laudations of Whig ^ " 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). 2 "As to poetical affairs," says Pope, in 1713, "lam content at present to be a bare looker-on Cato was not so much the wonder of Eome 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 CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 93 and Tory chiefs, popular ovations, complimentary garlands from literary men, translations in all languages, delight and homage from all — save from John Dennis in a minority of one — Mr. Addison was called the " great Mr. Addison" after this. The Coffee- house Senate saluted him Divus : it was heresy to question that decree. Meanwhile he was writing political i)a]3ers and 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 acknowledgment (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." " 1 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 ! 94 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. advancing in the political profession. He went Secretary to Ireland. He was appointed Secretary of State in 1717. And letters of liis are extant, bearing date some year or two before, and written to young Lord Warwick, in which he addresses him as " my dearest lord," and asks affectionately about his studies, and writes very prettily about nightingales, and birds' -nests, which he has found at Fulham for his lordship. Those nightin- gales were intended to warble in the ear of Lord Warwick's mamma. Addison married her ladyship in 1716 ; and died at Holland House three years after that splendid but dismal union. ^ ^ " 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 Wortlet Montagu TO Pope. Woi-Jcs, Lord Wharncliffe's edit., 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 CONGEE YE AIN'D ADDISON". 95 But it is not for liis reputation as the great author of "Cato" and the " Campaign," or for his merits as Secre- tary of State, or for his rank and high distinction as my Lady AVarwick's husband, or for his eminence as an Examiner of political questions on the Whig side, or a Guardian of British liberties, that we admire Joseph Addison. It is as a Tatler of small talk and a Sj^ec- tator of mankind, that we cherish and love him, and owe as much pleasure to him as to any human being that ever wrote. He came in that artificial age, and began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle satirist, who hit no unfair blow ; the kind judge who castigated only in smilmg. While Swift went about, hanging and ruthless — a literary Jeffries — in Addison's kind court only minor cases were tried : only peccadilloes and small sins against society : only a 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 aroimd. " 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." 96 ENGLISH HUMOITRISTS. dangerous libertinism in tuckers and lioops ; * or a nuisance in the abuse of beaux' canes and snuff-boxes. 1 One of the most humorous 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 extravagancies. 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 head-dresses ; 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 1 " 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 out-works and lines of circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whale-bone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etlieridge'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 CONGEE VE AND ADDISON. 97 It may be a lady is tried for breaking the peace of our sovereign lady Queen Anne, and ogling too danger- ously from the side-box : or a Templar for beating the watch, or breaking Priscian's head : or a citizen's wife for caring too much for the puppet-show, and too Httle for her husband and children : every one of the little sinners brought before him is amusmg, and he dis- misses each with the pleasantest penalties and the most charming words of admonition. Addison wrote his papers as gaily as if he was going out for a hoHday. "When Steele's " Tatler " first began his prattle, Addison, then in Ireland, caught at his friend's notion, poured in paper after paper, and con- tributed the stores of his mind, the sweet fruits of his reading, the delightful gleanmgs of his daily observa- tion, with a wonderful profusion, and as it seemed an almost endless fecundity. He was six-and-thii'ty years old: full and ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his brain, manurmg hastily, subsoiling indif- ferently, cutting and sowing and cutting agam, like other luckless cultivators of letters. He had not done much as yet ; a few Latin poems — graceful prolusions ; will have it that it portends the downfall of the French king, and observes, that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it foretells battle and blood-shed, and believe it of the same prognosti- cation as the tail 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. kc— Spectator, No. 127. H 98 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. a polite book of travels ; a dissertation on medals, not very deep ; four acts of a tragedy, a great classical exercise ; and the " Campaign," a large prize poem that won an enormous prize. But with his friend's discovery of the " Tatler," Addison's calling was found, and the most delightful tallver in the world began to speak. He does not go very deep : let gentlemen of a profound genius, critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, console themselves by thinking that he couldn't go very deep. There are no traces of suffering in his writing. He was so good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfully selfish, if I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment. I doubt, until after his marriage, perhaps, whether he ever lost his night's rest or his day's tranquillity about any woman in his life : * whereas poor Dick Steele had capacity enough to melt, and to languish, and to sigh, and to cry his honest old ejes out, for a dozen. His writmgs do not show insight into or reverence for the love of women, which I take to be, one the consequence of the other. He walks about the world watchmg their pretty humours, fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries ; and noting them with the most charming archness. He sees them in public, in the theatre, or the assembly, or the puppet-show; or at the toy- shop higgling for gloves and lace ; or at the ^ " Mr. Addison has not liad one epitbalamium 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. CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 99 auction, battling together over a blue porcelain dragon, or a darling monster in Japan ; or at church, eyeing the width of their rivals' hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as they sweep down the aisles. Or he looks out of liis window at the Garter in St. James's Street, at Ardeha's coach, as she blazes to the dra-wdng-room with her coronet and six footmen ; and remembering that her father was a Turkey merchant in the city, cal- culates how many sponges went to purchase her earring, and how many drums of figs to build her coach-box ; or he demurely watches behind a tree in Spring Garden as Saccharissa (whom he knows under her mask) trips out of her chair to the alley where Sir Fopling is waiting. He sees only the public life of women. Addison was one of the most resolute club- men of his day. He passed many hours daily in those haunts. Besides drinking, which alas ! is past praj^mg for ; you must know it, he owned, too, ladies, that he indulged in that odious practice of smoking. Poor fellow ! He was a man's man, remember. The only woman he did know, he didn't write about. I take it there would not have been much humour in that story. He lilves to go and sit in the smoking-room at the Grecian, or the Devil; to pace 'Change and the Mair — to mingle in that great club of the world — sitting alone ^ " 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 H 2 100 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. in it somehow: having good-will and kindness for every single man and woman in it — having need of otlier particulars of the 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 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 schoolmastei', who used to say that my parts xoere solid and would wear icell. 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 Wills', 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 CONGREVE AND ADDISON". 101 some habit and custom binding him to some few ; never doing any man a wrong (unless it be a wrong to hint a little doubt about a man's parts, and to damn him with faint praise) ; and so he looks on the world and plays with the ceaseless humours of all of us — laughs the kindest laugh — points our neighbour's foible or eccentricity out to us with the most good-natured, smiling confidence ; and then, turning over his shoulder, whispers our foibles to our neighbour. What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without his follies and his charming little brain-cracks ? * If the good knight did not call out to the iDeople sleeping in church, and say " Amen " 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, whei-ever 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 specu- lative 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. ^ " 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." — Macau lay. 102 E:t^GLISH HUMOURISTS. with sucli a delightful pomposity : if he did not make a speech in the assize-court apropos cle hottes, and merely to show his dignity to Mr. Spectator : * if he did not mistake Madam Doll Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple Garden : if he were wiser than he is : if he had not his humour to salt his life, and were but a mere English gentleman and game -preserver — of what worth were he to us ? We love him for his vanities as much as his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful in him : we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. And out of that laughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and out of those harmless eccentricities and follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of that honest manhood and ^ " 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 hu lordship had met icith so much good weather in his circuit. I was listening to the proceedings of the Court with much attention, and infinitelj^ 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 observe to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting i;p 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. CONGEE VE AND ADDISON. 103 simplicity — we get a result of happiness, goodness, tenderness, pity, piety; such as, if my audience will think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune to inspire. And why not ? Is the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in black coats ? Must the truth be only expounded in gown and surplice, and out of those two vestments can nobody preach it ? Commend me to this dear preacher without orders — this parson in the tye-wig. When this man looks from the world whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lighted up with a more serene rapture : a human intellect thrilhng with a purer love and adora- tion than Joseph Addison's. Listen to him : from your childhood you have known the verses : but who can hear their sacred music without love and awe ? " Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth, Repeats the story of her birth ; And all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll. And spread the truth from pole to pole. What though, in solemn silence, all Move round this dark terrestrial ball ; What though no real voice nor sound, Among their radiant orbs be found ; In reason's ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, For ever singing as they shine. The hand that made us is divine." 104 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They shine out of a great deep cahn. When he turns to Heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man's mind : and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and praj^er. His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the town : looking at the birds in the trees : at the children in the streets : in the morning or in the moonlight : over his books in his own room : in a happy party at a country merry- making or a town assembly, good-will and peace to God's creatures, and love and awe of Him who made them, fill his pure heart and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most wretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A life prosperous and beautiful — a calm death — an immense fame and affec- tion afterwards for his happy and spotless name.^ ^ " 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 con- sider 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 gladnesss, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of light- ning that breaks throvigh 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.) LECTURE THE THIRD. STEELE. "What do we look for in studying the history of a past age ? Is it to learn the political transactions and characters of the leading public men ? is it to make ourselves acquainted with the life and being of the time ? If we set out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, and who believes that he has it entke ? What character of what great man is known to you ? You can but make guesses as to character more or less happy. In common life don't you often judge and misjudge a man's whole conduct, setting out from a wrong impression ? The tone of a voice, a word said in joke, or a trifle in behaviour — the cut of his hair or the tie of his neckcloth may disfigure him in your eyes, or poison your good opinion ; or at the end of years of intimacy it may be your closest friend sajs something, reveals something which had previously been a secret, which alters all your views about him, and shows that he has been acting on quite a different 106 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. motive to that Avliich 3^011 fancied you knew. And if it is so with those you know, how much more with those you don't know ? Say, for example, that I want to understand the character of the Duke of Marlborough. I read Swift's history of the times in which he took a part ; the shrewdest of observers and initiated, one would think, into the politics of the age — he hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, and even of doubt- ful military capacity : he speaks of Walpole as a contemptible boor, and scarcely mentions, except to flout it, the great intrigue of the Queen's latter days, which was to have ended in bringing back the Pre- tender. Again, I read Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon, who has the command of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is called the best infor- mation ; and I get little or no insight into this secret motive which I believe influenced the whole of Marl- borough's career, which caused his turnings and wind- ings, his opportune fidelity and treason, stopped his army almost at Paris gate, and landed him finally on the Hanoverian side — the winning side ; I get, I say, no truth or only a portion of it in the narrative of either writer, and believe that Cox's portrait or Swift's portrait is quite unlike the real Churchill. I take this as a single instance, prepared to be as sceptical about any other, and say to the Muse of History, " 0 vener- able daughter of Mnemosyne, I doubt every single statement you ever made since j^our ladyship was a STEELE. 107 Muse ! For all your grave airs and high pretensions, you are not a whit more trustworthy than some of your lighter sisters on whom your partisans look down. You bid me listen to a general's oration to his soldiers. Nonsense ! He no more made it than Turpin made his dying speech at Newgate. You pronounce a panegyric of a hero ; I doubt it, and say you flatter outrageously. You utter the condemnation of a loose character ; I doubt it, and think you are prejudiced and take the side of the Dons. You offer me an autobiography ; I doubt all autobiographies I ever read except those, perhaps, of Mr. Eobinson Crusoe, Mariner, and writers of his class. These have no object in setting them- selves right with the public or their own consciences, these have no motive for concealment or half truths, these call for no more confidence than I can cheerfully give, and do not force me to tax my credulity or to fortify it by evidence. I take up a volume of Dr. Smollett, or a volume of the " Spectator," and say the fiction carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volume which purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life of the time ; of the manners, of the movement, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of societ}' — the old times live again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for me ? As we read in these delightful volumes of the " Tatler" 108 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. and " Spectator," the past age returns, the England of our ancestors is revivified. The May- pole rises in the Strand again in London ; the churches are thronged with daily worshippers ; the beaux are gathering in the coffee-houses — the gentry are going to the Drawing- room — the ladies are thronging to the toy- shops — the chairmen are jostling in the streets — the footmen are running with links before the chariots, or fighting round the theatre doors. In the country I see the young Squire riding to Eton with his servants behind him, and Will Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him safe. To make that journey from the Squire's and back. Will is a week on horseback. The coach takes five days between London and the Bath. The judges and the bar ride the circuit. If my lady comes to town in her post- chariot, her people carry pistols to fire a salute on Captain Macheath if he should appear, and her couriers ride a-head to prepare apartments for her at the great caravanserais on the road ; Boniface receives her under the creaking sign of the Bell or the Ram, and he and his chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the state -apartments, whilst her carriage rumbles into the court-yard, where the Exeter Fly is housed that performs the journey in eight days God willing, having achieved its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its passengers for supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen, where the Captain's man — having hung up his master's half pike STEELE. 109 — is at his bacon and eggs, bragging of Ramillies and Malplaquet to the town's -folk, who have their chib in the chimney-corner. The Captain is ogling the chambermaid in the wooden gallery, or bribing her to know who is the pretty young mistress that has come in the coach ? The pack-horses are in the great stable, and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman of military appearance who travels with pistols, as all the rest of the world does, and has a rattling grey mare in the stables which will be saddled and away with its owner half-an-hour before the " Fly " sets out on its last day's flight. And some five miles on the road, as the Exeter Fly comes jingling and creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought to a halt by a gentleman on a grey mare, with a black vizard on his face, who thrusts a long pistol into the coach- window, and bids the company to hand out their purses. ... It must have been no small pleasure even to sit in the gTeat kitchen in those days and see the tide of human kind pass by. We arrive at places now, but we travel no more. Addison talks jocularly of a difference of manner and costume being quite per- ceivable at Staines, where there passed a young fellow " with a very tolerable periwig," though to be sure his hat was out of fashion, and had a Eamillies cock. I would have liked to travel in those days (being of that class of travellers who are proverbially pretty easy 110 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. coram latro7iibus) and have seen my friend with the grey mare and the hlack vizard. Alas ! there always came a da}^ in the life of that warrior when it was the fashion to accompany him as he passed — without his black mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, accompanied by halberdiers and attended by the sheriff, — in a carriage without springs, and a clergyman jolting beside him to a spot close by Cumberland-gate and the Marble Arch, where a stone still records that here Tybm-n turnpike stood. What a change in a century ; in a few years ! Within a few yards of that gate the fields began : the fields of his exploits, behind the hedges of which he lurked and robbed. A great and wealthy city has grown over those meadows. Were a man brought to die there now, the windows would be closed and the inhabitants keep theii' houses in sickening horror. A hundred years back, people crowded to see that last act of a highwayman's Hfe, and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at him, grimly advising him to pro- vide a Holland shirt and white cap crowned with a crimson or black ribbon for his exit, to mount the cart cheerfully — shake hands with the hangman, and so — farewell. Gay wrote the most delightful ballads and made merry over the same hero. Contrast these with the writings of our present humourists ! Compare those morals and ours — those manners and ours ! We can't tell — you would not bear to be told the whole truth regarding those men and manners. You STEELE. Ill could no more suffer iii a British drawing-room, under the reign of Queen Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady of Queen Anne's time, or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive an ancient Briton. It is as one reads about savages, that one contemplates the wild ways, the barbarous feasts, the terrific pas- times, of the men of pleasure of that age. AVe have our fine gentlemen, and our "fast men;" permit me to give you an idea of one particularly fast nobleman of Queen Anne's days, whose biography has been preserved to us by the law reporters. In 1691, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord Mohun was tried by his peers for the mui'der of William Mountford, comedian. In "Howell's State- Trials," the reader will find not only an edifying account of this exceedingly fast nobleman, but of the times and manners of those days. My lord's friend, a Captain Hill, smitten -^ith the charms of the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and anxious to marry her at all hazards, determined to carry her off, and for this purpose hired a hackney-coach with six horses, and a half-dozen of soldiers, to aid him in the storm. The coach with a pair of horses (the four leaders being in waitmg elsewhere) took its station opposite my Lord Craven's house in Drury-lane, by which door Mrs. Bracegirdle was to pass on her way from the theatre. As she passed in company of her mamma and a friend, Mr. Page, the Captam seized her by the hand, the 112 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. soldiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked liim sword in hand, and Captain Hill and his noble friend endea- voured to force Madam Bracegirdle into the coach. Mr, Page called for help : the population of Drury-lane rose : it was impossible to effect the capture ; and bidding the soldiers go about their business, and the coach to drive off. Hill let go of his prey sulkily, and he waited for other opportunities of revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous was Will Mountford, the come- dian ; Will removed, he thought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his : and accordingly the Captain and his lordship lay that night in wait for Will, and as he was coming out of a house in Norfolk Street, while Mohun engaged him in talk. Hill, in the words of the Attorney- General, made a pass and run him clean through the body. Sixty-one of my lord's peers finding him not guilty of murder, while but fourteen found him guilty, this very fast nobleman was discharged : and made his appearance seven years after in another trial for murder — when he, my Lord Warwick, and three gentle- men of the military profession were concerned in the fight which ended in the death of Captain Coote. This jolly company were drinking together at Lockit's in Charing Cross, when angry words arose between Captain Coote and Captain French; whom my Lord Mohun and my lord the Earl of Warwick ^ and 1 The husband of the Lady Warwick, who married Addison, and the father of the young Earl, who was brought to his step -father's bed to STEELE. 1 1 3 Holland endeavoured to pacify. My Lord "Warwick was a dear friend of Captain Coote, lent him a hundred pound to buy his commission in the Guards ; once when the captain was arrested for 13L by his tailor, my lord lent him five guineas, often paid his reckoning for him, and showed him other offices of friendship. On this evening the disputants, French and Coote, being separated whilst the}^ were upstairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale again at the bar of Locket's. The row began afresh — Coote lunged at French over the bar, and at last all six called for chairs, and went to Liecester-fields, where they fell to. Their lordships engaged on the side of Captain Coote. My Lord of Warwick was severely wounded in the hand, Mr. French also was stabbed, but honest Captain Coote got a couple of wounds — one especialty, " a wound m the left side just under the short ribs, and piercing through the diaphragma," which did for Captain Coote. 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 anecdofcists 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. I 114 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Hence the trial of my Lords Warwick and Mohun : hence the assemblage of peers, the report of the trans- action, in which these defunct fast men still live for the observation of the curious. My Lord of Warwick is brought to the bar by the Deputy Governor of the Tower of London, having the axe carried before him by the gentleman gaoler, who stood with it at the bar at the right hand of the prisoner, turning the edge from him ; the prisoner, at his approach, making three bows, one to his Grace the Lord High- Steward, the other to the peers on each hand ; and his Grace and the peers return the salute. And besides these great personages, august in periwigs, and nodding to the right and left, a host of the small come up out of the past and pass before us — the jolly captains brawhng in the tavern and laughing and cursing over their cups — the drawer that serves, the bar-girl that waits, the bailiff on the prowl, the chairmen trudging through the black lampless streets, and smoking their pipes by the railings, whilst swords are clashing in the garden within. " Help there ! a gentleman is hurt : " the chairmen put up their pipes, and help the gentleman over the railings, and carry him, ghastly and bleeding, to the Bagnio in Long Acre, where they knock up the surgeon — a pretty tall gentleman — but that wound under the short ribs has done for him. Surgeon, lords, captains, bailiffs, chairmen, and gentleman gaoler with your axe, w4iere be you now ? The gentleman axeman's head is STEELE. ] 15 off his o\Yn slioulclers ; the lords and judges can wag theirs no longer ; the hailiff's writs have ceased to run ; the honest chau*men's pipes are put out, and with their brawny calves they have walked away into Hades — all as irrecoverably done for as Will Mountford or Captain Coote. The subject of our night's lecture saw all these people — rode in Captain Coote's company of the Guards very probably — wrote and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy in many a chair, after many a bottle, in many a tavern — fled from many a baihff. In 1709, when the publication of the " Tatler" began, our great-great-grandfathers must have seized upon that new and delightful paper, with much such eager- ness as lovers of Hght literature in a later day exhibited when the Waverley novels appeared, upon which the public rushed, forsaking that feeble enter- tainment of which the Miss Porters, the Anne of Swanseas, and worthy Mrs. Eadcliffe herself, with her dreary castles, and exploded old ghosts, had had pretty much the monopoly. I have looked over many of the comic books mth which our ancestors amused themselves, from the novels of Swift's coadjutrix, Mrs. Manley, the detestable author of the " New Atlantis," to the facetious productions of Tom Dm-fey and Tom Brown, and Ned Ward, writer of the " London Spy," and several other volumes of ribaldry. The slang of the taverns and ordinaries, the wit of the I 2 116 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. Bagnios, form the strongest part of the farrago of which these lihels are composed. In the excellent newspaper collection at the British Museum, you may see besides the " Craftsmen" and " Postboy" specimens, and queer specimens they are, of the higher literature of Queen Anne's time. Here is an abstract from a notable journal bearing date, Wednesday, October 13th, 1708, and entitled "The British Apollo; or, curious amusements for the ingenious, by a society of gentle- men." The British Apollo invited and professed to answer questions upon all subjects of wit, morality, science, and even religion ; and two out of its four pages are filled with queries and replies much like some of the oracular pennj^-prints of the present time. One of the first querists, referring to the passage that a bishop should be thehusbandof one wife, argues that potygamy is justifiable in the laity. The society of gentlemen conducting the " British Apollo " are posed by this casuist, and promise to give him an answer. Celinda then wishes to know from " the gentlemen," concerning the souls of the dead, whether they shall have the satisfaction to know those whom they most valued in this transitory life. The gentle- men of the Apollo give but cold comfort to poor Celinda. They are inclined to think not : for snj they, since every inhabitant of those regions will be infinitely dearer than here are our nearest relatives — what have we to do with a partial friendship in that happy place ? STEELE. 117 Poor Celinda ! it may have been a child or a lover whom she had lost, and was pining after, when the oracle of " British Apollo " gave her this dismal answ^er. She has solved the question for herself by this time, and knows quite as well as the society of gentlemen. From theology we come to physic, and Q. asks, " Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold ? " Apollo replies, " Hot water cannot be said to freeze sooner than cold, but water once heated and cold, may be subject to freeze by the evaporation of the spirituous parts of the water, which renders it less able to withstand the power of frosty weather." The next query is rather a delicate one. " You, Mr. Apollo, who are said to be the God of wisdom, pray give us the reason why kissing is so much in fashion : what benefit one receives by it, and who was the inventor, and you will oblige Corinna." To this queer demand the lips of Phoebus, smiling, answer : " Pretty innocent Corinna ! Apollo owns that he was a little surprised by your kissing question, particularly at that part of it where you desire to know the benefit you receive by it. Ah ! madam, had you a lover, you would not come to ApoUo for a solution ; since there is no dispute but the kisses of mutual lovers give infinite satisfaction. As to its invention 'tis certain nature was its author, and it began with the first courtship." After a column more of questions, follow nearly two lis ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. pages of poems, signed by Pliilancler, Armenia, and the like, and chiefly on the tender passion ; and the paper wound up with a letter from Leghorn, an account of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene before Lille, and proposals for pubhshing two sheets on the present state of Ethiopia, by Mr. Hill ; all of which is printed for the authors by J. Mayo, at the Printing Press against Water Lane in Fleet Street, What a change it must have been — how Apollo's oracles must have been struck dumb, when the " Tatler" appeared, and scholars, gentlemen, men of the world, men of genius, began to speak ! Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young Swift had begun to make acquaintance with English court manners and English servitude, in Sir William Temple's family, another Irish youth was brought to learn his humanities at the old school of Charterhouse, near Smithiield; to which foundation he had been appointed by James Duke of Ormond, a governor of the House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy was an orphan, and described, twenty years after, with a sweet pathos and simplicity, some of the earhest recollections of a life which was destined to be chequered by a strange variety of good and evil fortune. I am afraid no good report could be given by his masters and ushers of that thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft-hearted little Irish boy. He was very idle. He was whipped deservedly a great number of STEELE. 119 times. Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other boys to do his lessons for him, and only took just as much trouble as should enable him to scuffle through his exercises, and by good fortune escape the flogging block. One hundred and fifty years after, I have myself inspected, but only as an amateur, that instru- ment of righteous torture still existing, and in occa- sional use, in a secluded private apartment of the old Charterhouse School ; and have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if not the ancient and interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick Steele submitted himself to the tormentors. Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy went invariably into debt with the tart-woman ; ran out of bounds, and entered into pecuniary, or rather promissory engagements with the neighbouring lollipop -vendors and piemen- — exliibited an early fond- ness and capacity for drinking mum and sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had money to lend. I have no sort of authority for the statements here made of Steele's early life; but if the child is father of the man, the father af young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without taking a degree and entered the Life Guards — the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his company through the patronage of my Lord Cutts — the father of Mr. Steele the com- missioner of Stamps, the editor of the *' Gazette," the *' Tatler," and " Spectator," the expelled member of 120 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. parliament, and the author of the *' Tender Husband" and the " Conscious Lovers; " if man and boy resembled each other, Dick Steele the schoolboy must have been one of the most generous, good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb tupto I beat, tuptomai I am whipped, in any school in Great Britain. Almost every gentleman who does me the honour to hear me will remember that the very greatest cha- racter which he has seen in the course of his life, and the person to whom he has looked up with the greatest wonder and reverence, was the head boy at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardly inspires such an awe. The head boy construes as well as the school- master himself. When he begins to speak the hall is hushed, and every little boy listens. He writes off copies of Latin verses as melodiously as Virgil. He is good-natured, and, his own master-pieces achieved, pours out other copies of verses for other boys with an astonishing ease and fluency ; the idle ones only trembling lest they should be discovered on giving in their exercises, and whipped because their poems were too good. I have seen great men in my time, but never such a great one as that head-boy of my child- hood : we all thought he must be Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting him in after life to find he was no more than six feet high. Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted STEELE. 121 such an admiration in the years of his childhood, and retained it faithfully through his life. Through the school and through the world, whithersoever his strange fortune led this erring, wayward, affectionate crea- ture, Josej^h Addison was always his head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his best themes. He ran on Addison's messages : fagged for liim and blacked his shoes : to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleasure ; and he took a sermon or a caning from his monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, and affection.* Steele found Addison a stately college Don at Oxford, and himself did not make much figure at this place. He wrote a comedy, which, by the advice of a friend, the humble fellow burned there ; and some verses which I dare say are as sublime as other gentlemen's compo- sitions at that age ; but being smitten with a sudden love for military glory, he threw up the cap and gown for the saddle and bridle, and rode privately in the Horse Guards, in the Duke of Ormond's troop — the second — and, probably, with the rest of the gentlemen of his troop, " all mounted on black horses with white feathers in their hats, and scarlet coats richly laced ;" ^ "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.) 122 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. marcliecl by King William, iii Hyde Park, in November, 1699, and a great show of the nobility, besides twenty thousand people, and above a thousand coaches. " The Guards had just got their new clothes," the " London Post" said : " they are extraordinary grand and thought to be the finest body of horse in the world." But Steele could hardly have seen any actual service. He who wrote about himself, his mother, his wife, his loves, his debts, his friends, and the wine he drank, would have told us of his battles if he had seen any. His old patron, Ormond, probably got him his cornetcy in the Guards, from which he was promoted to be a captain in Lucas's Fusiliers, getting his company through the patronage of Lord Cutts, whose secretary he was, and to whom he dedicated his work called the " Christian Hero." As for Dick, whilst writing this ardent devotional work, he was deep in debt, in drink, and in all the folhes of the town ; it is related that all the officers of Lucas's, and the gentlemen of the Guards, laughed at Dick.* And in truth a theologian in liquor ^ The gaiety of liis 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, gi-ave, and respectable, in the eyes of readers of that pious piece. \_" Scene draxos, and discovers Lady Charlotte, reading at a tahle, — 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 STEELE. 123 is not a respectable object, and a hermit though he may be out at elbows must not be in debt to the tailor. herself as she sj^ealcs'] as 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 — \loolcing 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. "i. Cli. — [Rising], It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such impertinent company — but granting t'were as you say, as to my Lord Hardy — t'is 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 t'is only stuff, the men will be talking. — Some people are such admu'ers of teeth — Lord, what signifies teeth ! {Shotving 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. — Ay, 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 yoii view that bloom in your look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude in your mien ? 124 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Steele says of himself that he was always sinning and repenting. He beat his breast and cried most piteously when he did repent : but as soon as crying had made him thirsty, he fell to sinning again. In that charming paper in the " Tatler," in which he records his father's death, his mother's griefs, his own most solemn and tender emotions, he says he is interrupted by the arrival of a hamper of wine, " the same as is to be sold at Garraway's, next week," upon the receipt of which he sends for three friends, and they fall to instantly, "drinking two bottles a-piece, with great benefit to themselves, and not separating till two o'clock in the morning." His life was so. Jack the drawer was always inter- rupting it, bringing him a bottle from the " Rose," or inviting him over to a bout there with Sir Plume and Mr. Diver ; and Dick wiped his eyes, which were whim- pering over his papers, took down his laced hat, put on " 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. iTa.— Phsaw ! Plisaw ! 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 1 " L. ZTa.— 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." — ClBBER. STEELE. 125 his sword and wig, kissed his wife and children, told them a lie about pressing business, and went off to the " Rose " to the jolly fellows. While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home in rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of his classical friend of Charterhouse Cloister, and Maudlin Walk. Could not some painter give an inter- view between the gallant captain of Lucas's, with his hat cocked, and his lace, and his face too, a trifle tar- nished with drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, his friend and monitor of school days, of all days ? How Dick must have bragged about his chances and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and the charms of the reigning toasts and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that he and my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked over night at the " Devil," or the " Garter ! " Cannot one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile and cold grey eyes following Dick for an instant, as he struts down the Mall, to dine with the Guard, at St. James's, before he turns, with his sober pace and thread-bare suit, to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs ? Steele's name was down for promotion, Dick alwaj^s said himself, in the glorious, pious, and immortal William's last table-book. Jonathan Swift's name had been written there by the same hand too. 126 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. Our worthy friend, the author of the " Christian Hero," continued to make no small figure about town by the use of his wits.' He was appointed Gazetteer : he wrote, in 1703, " The Tender Husband," his second j)lay, in which there is some delightful farcical writing, and of which he fondly owned in after-hfe, and when Addison was no more, that there were " many applauded strokes " from Addison's beloved hand.'* Is it not a pleasant partnership to remember ? Can't one fancy Steele, full of spirits and youth, leaving his gay company to go to Addison's lodging, where his friend sits in the shabby sitting-room, quite serene, and cheerful, and poor? In 1704 Steele came on the ^ " 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. 2 "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 employh about their duty. Salle. — " 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 pleasui-e of receiv- ing wages ? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen^ and tiventy shillings a week to he sorrowful ? — and the more I give you, I think the gladder you are/" STEELE. 127 town with another comedy, and behold, it was so moral and religious, as poor Dick insisted, so dull the town thought, that the " Lying Lover " was damned. Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able to help our friend, the " Christian Hero," in such a way, that, if there had been any chance of keeping that poor tipsy champion upon his legs, his fortune was safe, and his competence assured. Steele pro- cured the place of Commissioner of Stamps : he wrote so richly, so gracefully often, so kindly always, with such a pleasant wit and easy frankness, with such a gush of good spirits and good humour, that his early papers may be compared to Addison's own, and are to be read, by a male reader at least, with quite an equal pleasure.' 1 ^'Froni my oivn Apartment, Nov. 16. " There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertain- ments 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 comj)lication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inqviietudes, " I am led into this thought by a visit I made to an old friend who was formerly my school-fellow. He came to town last week, with his family, for the winter ; and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinnex\ 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 128 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. After the " Tatler," in 1711, the famous "Spectator" made its appearance, and this was followed, at various 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, tliey begun 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 viith the very memoiy of those who floui'ished 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 yoiir heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my \rife 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 i-eturned 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 ofi"ended 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 3-our 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 inider- stand — you, that have lived a bachelor — how givat, how exquisite a STEELE. 129 intervals, by many periodicals under the same editor — the " Guardian "—the " Englishman "—the " Lover," 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 obligAticns 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 inclina- tions, and, her pi'udence 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, me thinks, 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 frieud 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 E 130 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. whose love was rather insipid — the "Eeader," of whom the public saw no more after his second appearance — which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with gi-eat 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 school- fellows are here — young fellows tvith fair, full-bottomed j^enwigs. 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 hjid 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 ' -^sop'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 Bel- lianis 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 STEELE. 131 the " Theatre," under the pseudonym of Sir John Edgar, which Steele wrote, w^iile Governor of the Eoyal Company of Comedians, to which post, and to that of Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, and to the Commission of the Peace for Middlesex, and to the honour of knighthood, Steele had been preferred soon after the accession of George I., whose cause honest Dick had nobly fought, through disgrace and danger, against the most formidable enemies, against traitors and buihes, against Boling- broke and Swift, in the last reign. With the arrival of the King, that splendid conspiracy broke up ; and a golden opportunity came to Dick Steele, whose hand, alas, was too careless to gripe it. miglit turn to some profit. I found the boy had made remarks, which might be of sei'vice 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 accomplisViments 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 sprights ; and sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go u.p to bed.' " I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, some- times 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 ofi" 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, mj^ cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me." — The Tatler. K 2 132 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Steele married twice ; and outlived liis places, his schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost everything but his kind heart. That ceased to trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost forgotten by his contemporaries in Wales, where he had the remnant of a property. Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature ; all women especially are bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was the first of our waiters who really seemed to admire and respect them. Congreve the Great, who alludes to the low estimation in which women were held in Elizabeth's time, as a reason why the women of Shakspeare make so small a figure in the poet's dialogues, though he can himself pay splendid com- pliments to women, j^et looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, and destined, like the most consummate fortifications, to fall, after a certain time, before the arts and bravery of the besieger, man. There is a letter of Swift's, entitled " Advice to a very Young Married Lady," wdiich shows the Dean's opinion of the female society of his day, and that if he despised man he utterly scorned women too. No lad}^ of our time could be treated by any man, were he ever so much a wit or Dean, in such a tone of insolent patronage and vulgar protection. In this performance. Swift hardly takes pains to hide his opinion that a woman is a fool : tells her to read books, as if reading was a novel accomplishment ; and informs her that " not one STEELE. 133 gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or understand her own natural tongue." Addison laughs at women equally; but, with the gentleness and x^oliteness of his nature, smiles at them and watches them, as if they were harmless, half-witted, amusing, pretty creatures, only made to be men's playthings. It was Steele who first began to pay a manly homage to their goodness and under- standing, as well as to their tenderness and beauty.' In his comedies, the heroes do not rant and rave about the divine beauties of Gloriana or Statira, as the characters were made to do in the chivalry romances and the high-flown dramas just going out of vogue, but Steele admu^es women's virtue, acknow- ledges their sense, and adores their purity and beauty, with an ardour and strength which should win the good will of all women to their hearty and respect- ful champion. It is this ardour, this respect, this ^ " As to the pursioits 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 affec- tion, the woman who has your esteem has also some degree 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. 134 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. manliness, which makes his comedies so pleasant and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finest compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. Of one woman, whom Congreve had also admired and celebrated, Steele says, that "to have loved her was a liberal education." " How often," he says, dedicating a volume to his wife, " how often has your tenderness removed pain from my sick head, how often anguish from my afflicted heart ! If there are such beings as guardian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot believe one of them to be more good in inclination, or more charming in form than my wife." His breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets with a good and beautiful woman, and it is with his heart as well as with his hat that he salutes her. About children, and all that relates to home, he is not less tender, and more than once speaks in apology of what he calls his softness. He would have been nothing without that delightful weakness. It is that which gives his works theii' worth and his style its charm. It, like his life, is full of faults and careless blunders ; and redeemed, Hke that, by his sweet and compassionate nature. We possess of poor Steele's wild and chequered life some of the most curious memoranda that ever were left of a man's biography.' Most men's letters, from ^ The Correspondence of Steele passed after his death into the possession of his daughter Elizabeth, by his second wife, Miss Scurlock, of STEELE. 135 Cicero down to Walpole, or clown to the great men of oiu' own time, if you will, are doctored compositions, Carmarthensliire. 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. ''Aug. 30,1707. to mrs. scurlock. " Madam, — " I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write from a cofiee-bouse, 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 afiects 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 eff"ect 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 / die for you. "Rich. Steele." 136 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. and written with an eye suspicious towards posterity. That dedication of Steele's to his wife is an artificial 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 desii-ed to know ' when I had last been at Hampton Court ? ' I replied, 'it will be on Tuesday come se'nnnight.' Pry'thee allow me at least to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may be in some composure. Oh 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 your's, "Rich. Steele."' Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances and prospects to the young lady's mamma. He dates from " Lord Sunder- land's office, Whitehall ; " and states his clear income at 1025^. 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 fidgetty, 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 school-fellow from India, by whom I am to be informed on things this night which expressly concerns your obedient husband, "Rich. Steele." STEELE. 137 performance, possibly ; at least, it is written with tiiat degree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a TO MRS. STEELE. "Eifjht o'clod; Fountain Tavern, Oct. 22, 1707. "My Dear, — "I beg of you not to be uneasy ; for I have done agi'eat 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. " Yovir faithful husband," &c. "Jan. 14, 1707-8. " Dear Wife, — " Mr. Edgecomb, 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. " Ttnnis-court Coffee-house, 31 ay 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 confi'ont the 138 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. statement for the House, or a poet emploj^s in x)reparing a sentiment in verse or for the stage. But there are some 400 letters of Dick Steele's to his wife, which that thrifty woman preserved accurately, and which could have been written but for her and her alone. They contain details of the business, pleasures, quar- rels, reconciliations of the pair; they have all the genuineness of conversation ; they are as artless as a child's prattle, and as confidential as a curtain-lecture. Some are written from the printing-office, where he is waiting for the proof sheets of his " Gazette," or his " Tatler ; " some are written from the tavern, whence he promises to come to his wife " witliin a pint of 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 appear- ance. The following curious note dates April 7th, 1710: — " I inclose to you [' Dear Prue '] a receipt for the saucepan and spoon, and a note of 231. of Lewis's, which will make up the 501. 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. Eising 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." STEELE. 139 wine," and where he has given a rendezvous to a friend, or a money-lender: some are composed in a high state of vinous excitement, when his head is flustered with Burgundy, and his heart abounds with amorous warmth for his darhng Prue : some are under the influence of the dismal headache and repentance next morning : some, alas, are from the lock-up house, where the lawyers have impounded him, and where he is waiting for bail. You trace many years of the poor fellow's career in these letters. In September, 1707, from wliieh day she began to save the letters, he mar- ried the beautiful ^listress Scurlock. You have his passionate protestations to the lady ; his respectful proposals to her mamma; his private prayer to Heaven when the union so ardently desii'ed was com- pleted ; his fond professions of contrition and promises of amendment, when, immediately after his marriage, there began to be just cause for the one and need for the other. Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their marriage, " the thii'd door from Germain-street, left hand of Berry-street," and the next year he j)resented his wife with a countr}^ house at Hampton. It appears she had a chariot and i^au', and sometimes four horses : he himself enjoyed a little horse for his own riding. He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fifty pounds a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a large black-buclded periwig, that must have 140 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. cost somebody fifty guineas. He was rather a well-to- do gentleman, Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as writer of the " Gazette," and his office of gentleman waiter to his Royal Highness Prince George. His second wife brought him a fortune too. But it is melancholy to relate that with these houses and chariots and horses and income, the Captain was constantly in want of money, for which his beloved bride was asldng as constantly. In the course of a few pages we begin to find the shoemaker calling for money, and some directions from the Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. He sends his wife, " the beautifullest object in the world," as he calls her, and evidently in reply to applications of her own, which have gone the way of all waste paper, and lighted Dick's pipes, which were smoked a hundred and forty years ago — he sends his wife now a guinea, then a half- guinea, then a couple of guineas, then half a pound of tea ; and again no money and no tea at all, but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some in a day or two ; or a request, perhaps, that she will send over his night-gown and shaving- plate to the temporary lodging where the nomadic captain is l3'ing, hidden from the bailiffs. Oh that a Christian hero and late captain in Lucas's should be afraid of a dirty sheriff's officer ! That the pink and pride of chivalry sliould turn pale before a writ ! It stands to record in poor Dick's own handwriting ; the STEELE. 141 queer collection is preserved at the British Museum to this present clay ; that the rent of the nuptial house in Jermyn- street, sacred to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three doors from Bury-street, was not paid until after the landlord had put in an execution on Captain Steele's furniture. Addison sold the house and furniture at Hampton, and, after deducting the sum in which his incorrigible friend was indebted to him, handed over the residue of the proceeds of the sale to poor Dick, who wasn't in the least angry at Addison's summary proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale or execution, the result of which was to give him a little ready money. Having a small house in Jermyn-street for which he couldn't pay, and a country house at Hampton on which he had borrowed money, nothing must content Captain Dick but the taking, in 1712, a much finer, larger, and grander house, in Bloomsbury-square ; where his unhappy landlord got no better satisfaction than his friend in St. James's, and where it is recorded that Dick, giving a gTand entertainment, had a half-dozen queer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon his noble guests, and con- fessed that his servants were baihffs to a man. " I fared like a distressed prince," the Idndly j^rodigal writes, generously complimenting Addison for his assistance in the " Tatler," — " I fared lilve a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary ; when I had once called 142 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury ! think of him in his palace, with his allies from Chancery-lane ominously guarding him. All sorts of stories are told indicative of his reck- lessness and his good humour. One narrated by Dr. Hoadly is exceedingly characteristic ; it shows the life of the time : and our poor friend very weak, but very kind both in and out of his cups. " My father," (says Dr. John Hoadly, the Bishop's son) — "when Bishop of Bangor, was by invitation, present at one of the Whig meetings, held at the Trumpet, in Shoe Lane, when Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, having the double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the immortal memory of King Wilham, it being the 4th November, as to drink his friend Addison up to con- versation-pitch, whose phlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society by that time. Steele was not fit for it. Two remarkable circumstances happened. John Sly, the hatter of facetious memory, was m the house ; and John, pretty mellow, took it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with a tankard of ale in his hand to drink oif to the immortal memory, and to return in the same manner. Steele sitting next my father, whispered him — Do laugh. It is humanity to laugh. Sir Bichard, in the evening, being too much in the same condition, was put into a chair, and sent STEELE. 143 home. Nothing wonkl serve him hut heing carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as it was. However, the chairmen carried him home, and got him up stairs, when his great complaisance would wait on them down stairs, which he did, and then was got quietly to hed." ' There is another amusing story which I believe that renowned collector, Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, have incorporated into their work. Sir Richard Steele, at a time when he was much occupied with theatrical affairs, built himself a pretty private theatre, and, before it was opened to his friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was well adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote part of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to speak up from the stage. The man at first said that he was unaccus- tomed to pubhc speaking, and did not know what to say to his honour ; but the good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever was uppermost ; and after a moment the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: "Sir Bichard Steele!" he said, "for three months past me and my men has been a working in this theatre, and we've never seen the colour of your honour's money: we will be very much obliged if you'll pay it directly, for until you do we won't drive ^ Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote, — " Vu'tue with so much ease on Bangor sits, All faults he pardons, though he none commits." 144 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. in another nail." Sir Richard said that his friend's elocution was perfect, but that he didn't like his subject much. The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. He wrote so quickly and carelessly, that he was forced to make the reader his confidant, and had not the time to deceive him. He had a small share of book- learning, but a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known men and taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentlemen ushers of the Court, with men and women of fashion ; with authors and wits, with the inmates of the spunging houses, and with the frequenters of all the clubs and coffee houses in the town. He was liked in all com- pany because he liked it; and you like to see his enjoyment as jou like to see the glee of a box full of children at the pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary; on the contrar}^, he admired, I think, more than any man who ever wrote ; and full of hearty applause and sympathy, wins upon you by calling you to share his delight and good humour. His laugh rings through the whole house. He must have been invaluable at a traged}^ and have cried as much as the most tender young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for beaut}^ and goodness wherever he meets it. He admired Shakspeare affectionately, and more than any man of his time; and, according to his generous STEELE. 145 expansive nature, called upon all his company to like what lie liked himself. He did not damn with faint praise : he was in the world and of it ; and his enjoy- ment of life presents the strangest contrast to Swift's savage indignation, and Addison's lonely serenity.' ^ 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 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, "Eicn. Steele. " A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are perfectly well." L 146 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Permit me to read to 3^011 a x^assage from each writer, curiously indicative of liis peculiar humour : the subject is the same, and the mood the very gravest. We have said that upon all the actions of man, the most trifling and the most solemn, the humourist takes upon him- seK to comment. All readers of our old masters know the terrible lines of Swift, in which he hints at liis philosophy and describes the end of mankind : — ' " Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, The world stood trembling at Jove's throne ; ^Yhile each pale sinner lumg his head, Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said : ' Offending race of human kind, By nature, reason, learning, blind ; You who through frailty stepped aside, And you who never err'd through pride ; TO LADY STEELE. "March 26, mr. "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 tim3 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. * Lord Chesterfield sends these verses to Voltaire in a characteristic letter. STEELE. 147 You who in diflferent sects were shamm'd, And come to see each other damn'd ; (So some folk told you, but they knew .No more of Jove's designs than you.) The world's mad business now is o'er, And I resent your freaks no more ; I to svich blockheads set my wit, I damn such fools — go, go, you're bit ! ' " Addison, speaking on the very same theme, but with how different a voice, says, in his famous paper on West- minster Abbey (" Spectator," No. 26) : — " For my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melanchol}^, and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. AVhen I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies within me ; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, everj'' inordinate desu'e goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents on a tomb- stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those we must quickly follow." (I have owned that I do not think Addison's heart melted very much, or that he indulged very inordi- nately in the " vanity of grieving.") " When," he goes on, "when I see kings Ij'ing by those who deposed them : when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, — I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of L 2 148 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. mankind. And, when I read the several dates on the tombs of some that died j^esterday and some 600 years ago, I consider that Great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together." Our third humourist comes to speak upon the same subject. You will have observed in the previous extracts the characteristic humour of each writer — the subject and the contrast — the fact of Death, and the play of individual thought, by which each comments on it, and now hear the third writer — death, sorrow, and the grave, being for the moment also his theme. " The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," Steele says in the " Tatler," " was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age : but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed of a real understanding why nobody would play with us. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sate weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the cofiin, and calling papa; for, I know not how, I had some idea that he was locked up there. My mother caught me in her arms, and, transported bej^ond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces, and told me in a flood of tears, ' Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more : for they were going to put him imder ground, whence he would never come to us again.' STEELE. 149 She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport, which methought struck me with an instinct of sorrow that, before I was sensible what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since." Can there be three more characteristic moods of minds and men ? " Fools, do you know anything of this mystery ? " says Swift, stamping on a grave and carrying his scorn for mankind actually beyond it. Miserable, purblind wretches, how dare you to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and how can your dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths of yonder bound- less heaven ? Addison, in a much kinder language and gentler voice, utters much the same sentiment : and speaks of the rivalry of wits, and the contests of holy men, with the same sceptic placidity. " Look what a little vain dust we are ; " he says, smiling over the tombstones, and catching, as is his wont, quite a divine effulgence as he looks heavenward, he speaks in words of inspiration almost, of " the Great Day, w^hen we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together." The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of moral as Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows j^ou his beau- tiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious Httle boy wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow 150 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. as lie takes your hand and confidingly asks your sym- pathy. " See how good and innocent and beautiful women are," he says, " how tender little children ! " Let us love these and one another, brother — God knows we have need of love and pardon. So it is each man looks with his own eyes, speaks with his own voice, and prays his own prayer. When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in that charming scene of Love and Grief and Death, who can refuse it ? One yields to it as to the frank advance of a child, or to the appeal of a woman. A man is seldom more manly than when he is what you call unmanned — the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and courage; the instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. He is by no means the most brilliant of wits nor the deepest of thinkers : but he is our friend : we love him, as children love their love with an A. because he is amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisest of mankind ; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks French ; or plays thie piano better than the rest of her sex ? I own to liking Dick Steele the man, and Dick Steele the author, much better than much better men and much better authors. The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most part of the company here present must take his amiability STEELE. 151 upon hearsay, and certainly can't make liis intimate acquaintance. Not that Steele was worse than his time ; on the contrary, a far better, truer, and higher-hearted man than most who lived in it. But things were done in that society, and names were named, which would make you shudder now. What would be the sensation of a polite youth of the present day, if at a ball he saw the young object of his affec- tions taking a box out of her pocket and a pinch of snuff: or if at dinner, by the charmer's side, she deliberately put her knife into her mouth ? If she cut her mother's throat ^\ith it mamma would scarcely be more shocked. I allude to these peculiarities of by*gone times as an excuse for my favourite, Steele, who was not worse, and often much more delicate than his neighbours. There exists a curious document descriptive of the manners of the last age, which describes most minutely the amusements and occupations of persons of fashion in London at the time of which we are speaking ; the time of Swift, and Addison, and Steele. When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel Atwit, the immortal personages of Swift's pohte con- versation, came to breakfast with my Lady Smart, at eleven o'clock in the morning, my Lord Smart was absent at the levee, His lordship was at home to dinner at three o'clock to receive his guests ; and we may sit down to this meal, like the Barmecide's, and 152 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. see tlie fops of the last century before us. Seven of them sate down at dinner, and were joined by a country baronet, who told them they kept court hours. These persons of fashion began their dinner with a sii'loin of beef, fish, a shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart carved the sii-loin, my Lady Answerall helped the fish, and the gallant Colonel cut the shoulder of veal. All made a considerable inroad on the sirloin and the shoulder of veal with the exception of Sir John, who had no appetite, having already partaken of a beefsteak and two mugs of ale, besides a taiikard of March beer as soon as he got out of bed. They drank claret, which the master of the house said should always be drunk after fish; and my Lord Smart X)articularly recommended some excellent cider to my Lord Sparldsh, which occasioned some briUiant remarks from that nobleman. AVhen the host called for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, " Tom Neverout, my service to you." After the first course came almond pudding, fritters, which the Colonel took with his hands out of the dish, in order to help the brilliant Miss Notable ; chickens, black puddings, and soup ; and Lady Smart, the elegant mistress of the mansion, finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in her plate with directions that it should be carried dovm to the cook and dressed for the cook's own dinner. AVine and small beer were STEELE. 158 diimk during this second coiu'se ; and Tvhen the Colonel called for beer., he called the butler, Friend, and asked whether the beer was good. Various jocular remarks passed from the gentlefolks to the servants ; at breakfast several persons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my lady's maid, who wanned the cream and had chai'ge of the canister (the tea cost thirty shillings a pound in those days). "\Mien my Lady Sparkish sent her footman out to my Lady Match to come at six o'clock and play at quadrille, her ladyship warned the man to follow his nose, and if he fell by the way not to stay to get up again. And when the gentlemen asked the hall-porter if his lady was at home, that fimctionar}- replied, with manly waggishness, "She was at home just now, but she's not gone out yet" After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and soup, came the thii'd course, of which the chief dish was a hot venison pasty, which was put before Lord Smart, and cai-ved by that nobleman. Besides the pasty, there was a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, pai*tridges, a goose, and a ham. Beer and wine were freely imbibed dm'ing tliis course, the gentlemen always pledging somebody with every glass which they drank; and by this time the conversation between Tom Xeverout and Miss Notable had gi-own so brisk and lively, that the Derby shii'e baronet began to think the young gentlewoman was Tom's sweetheart ; on 154 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. which Miss remarked, that she loved Tom "like pie." After the goose, some of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy, which " was very good for the wholesomes," Sir John said ; and now having had a tolerably sub- stantial dinner, honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring up the great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard was passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, but when pressed by the noble host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, " No faith, my lord, I like your wine, and won't put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honour's claret is good enough for me." And so, the dinner over, the host said, " Hang saving, bring us up a ha'porth of cheese." The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of Burgundy was set down, of which the ladies were invited to partake before they went to their tea. When they withdrew the gentlemen promised to join them in an hour ; fresh bottles were brought, the " dead men," meaning the empty bottles, removed ; and " d'you hear, John ? bring clean glasses," my Lord Smart said. On which the gallant Colonel Alwit said, " I'll keep my glass ; for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses in." After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then they all sate and played quadrille until three o'clock in the morning, when the chairs and the flambeaux came, and this noble company went to bed. STEELE. 155 Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw no inference from this queer picture — let all moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy the moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion joked with a footman, and carved a great shoulder of veal, and provided besides a sirloin, a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black-pud- dings, and a ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What — what could have been the condition of that polite world in which people openly ate goose after almond pudding, and took their soup in the middle of dinner ? Fancy a colonel in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of beignets d'ahricot, and helping his neighbour, a young lady du monde ! Fancy a noble lord calling out to the servants, before the ladies at his table, " Hang expense, bring us a ha'porth of cheese !" Such were the ladies of Saint James's — such were the frequenters of White's Chocolate House, when Swift used to visit it, and Steele described it as the centre of pleasure, gallantry and entertainment, a hundred and forty years ago ! Dennis who ran a muck at the literary society of his day, falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts him, — ■ " Sir John Edgar, of the Comity of in Ireland is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney — a short chin, a short nose, a short forehead a broad, flat face, and a dusky countenance. Yet with 156 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. such a face and such a shape, he discovered at sixty that he took himself for a beauty, and appeared to be more mortified at being told that he was ugly, than he was by any reflection made upon his honour or understanding. " He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of very honourable family ; certainly of a very ancient one, for his ancestors flourished in Tipperary long before the Enghsh ever set foot in Ireland. He has testimony of this more authentic than tlie Heralds' Oflice, or any human testimony. For God has marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his native country on his face, his understanding, his writings, his actions, his passions, and above all his vanity. The Hibernian brogue is still upon all these, though long habit and length of days have worn it off liis tongue.'" ^ 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 did'st 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 ai'e libels upon others, and satires upon thyself; and STEELE. 157 Altliougii this portrait is the work of a man who was neither the friend of Steele, nor of any other man alive ; yet there is a dreadful resemblance to the original, in the savage and exaggerated traits of the caricature, and every body who knows him must recognise Dick Steele. Dick set about almost all the midertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he took and furnished a house with the most generous intentions towards his friends, the most ten- der gallantry towards his wife, and with this only drawback, that he had not wherewithal to pay the rent when Quarter-day came, — so, in his life he pro- posed to himself the most magnificent schemes of 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 — "S'death!" cries John; "why did not he keep out of the way as I did?" The '' Answer " concludes by mentioning that Gibber 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 ttcentieth part would have over-valued his whole carcase. 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." 158 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. virtue, forbearance, public and private good, and the advancement of his own and the national religion ; but when he had to pay for these articles — so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain — poor Dick's money was not forthcoming : and when Virtue called with her little bill, Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not see her that morning, having a headache from being tipsy over night; or when stern Duty rapped at the door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready to pay. He was shirking at the tavern; or had some particular business (of somebody's else) at the ordinary : or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, in the lock-up house. What a situation for a man ! — for a philanthropist — for a lover of right and truth — for a magnificent designer and schemer ! Not to dare to look in the face the Beligion which he adored and which he had offended : to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who had trusted him — to have the house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for her ladyship's company which he wished to entertain splendidly, in the posses- sion of a bailiff's man, with a crowd of little creditors, — grocers, butchers, and small-coal men, Imgering round the door with their bills and jeering at him. Alas ! for poor Dick Steele ! For nobody else of course. There is no man or woman in our time who makes fine projects and gives them up from idleness STEELE. 159 or want of means. When Duty calls upon us, we no doubt are always at home and ready to pay that grim tax-gatherer. When we are stricken with remorse and promise reform, we keep our promise, and are never angry, or idle, or extravagant any more. There are no chambers in our hearts, destined for family friends and affections, and now occupied by some Sin's emissary and bailiff in possession. There are no Kttle sins, shabby peccadilloes, importunate remembrances, or disappointed holders of our promises to reform, hovering at our steps, or knocking at our door ! Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth century, and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jail and out again, and sinned and repented ; and loved and suffered ; and lived and died scores of years ago. Peace be with him ! Let us think gently of one who v/as so gentle : let us speak kindly of one whose own breast exuberated with human kindness. LECTURE THE EOURTH. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky- wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it behoves us not to pass over. Mat was a world-philosopher of no small genius, good nature, and acumen/ He loved, he drank, he sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, "in a little Dutch chaise ^ Gay calls him — " Dear Prior .... beloved by every muse." — Mr. Popes 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 PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 161 on a Saturday niglit ; on his left hand his Horace, and a friend on his right," going out of town from the Hague to pass that evening and the ensuing Sunday, boozing at a Spiel-haus with his companions, perhaps bobbing for perch in a Dutch canal, and noting down, in a strain and with a grace not unworthy of his Epicurean master, the charms of his idleness, his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner's son in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of the Eod, Prior attracted some notice by writing verses at St. John's CoUege, Cambridge, and, coming up to town, aided Montague ' in an attack on the noble old English best poets in England, but very factious in conversation. A thin, hollow-looked man, turned of 40 years old. This is near the truths " 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 be ! Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot. Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust ; And whirled in the roimd as the wheel turned about, He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust." Prior's Poems. [For my own monument.] 1 " 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 shai'e." — Scott's Dryden^ vol. i. p. 330. M 162 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. lion Jolm Dryclen, in ridicule of whose work, " The Hind and the Panther," he hrought out that remark- able and famous burlesque, " The Town and Country Mouse." Aren't you all acquainted with it? Have you not all got it by heart ? What ! have you never heard of it ? See what fame is made of ! The wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural consequence of " The Town and Country Mouse," Matthew Prior was made Secretary of Embassy at the Hague ! I believe it is dancing, rather than singing, which distinguishes the j^oung English diplomatists of the present day ; and have seen them in various parts perform that part of their duty very finely. In Prior's time it appears a different accomplishment led to preferment. Could you write a copy of Alcaics ? that was the question. Could you turn out a neat epigi'am or two ? Could you compose " The Town and Country Mouse ? " It is manifest that, hj the possession of this facult}^ the most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and the interests of our own, are easily understood. Prior rose in the diplomatic ser- vice, and said good things that proved his sense and his spirit. When the apartments at Versailles were shown to him, with the victories of Louis XIV. painted on the walls, and Prior was asked whether the palace of the king of England had any such decorations, " The monuments of my master's actions," Mat said, of William, whom he cordially revered, *' are to be PRIOE, GAY, AXD POPE. 163 seen everwhere except in liis ovra house." Bravo, Mat! Prior rose to be full ambassador at Paris/ where he somehow was cheated out of his ambassa- dorial plate ; and m a heroic poem, addressed by him to her late lamented majesty Queen Anne, Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of wliich Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, is her Majesty's picture; without that he can't be happy. " Thee, gracious Anne, tliee present I adore : Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power Higher to raise the glories of thy reign, In words sublimer and a nobler strain. May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of Verse, The votive tablet I suspend." "With that word the poem stops abrui)tly. The votive tablet is suspended for ever like Mahomet's cofiin. News came that the Queen was dead. Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to this day, over the votive tablet. The picture was never ^ " 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 embassador." He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his Epitaph : — " Nobles and heralds by your leave, Here Kes what once was Matthew Piior, The son of Adam and of Eve ; Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher V But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke. M 2 164 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. got any more than the spoons and dishes — the inspira- tion ceased — the verses were not wanted — the ambas- sador wasn't wanted. Poor Mat was re-called from his embassy, suffered disgrace along mth his patrons, Hved under a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared in Essex. When deprived of all his pensions and emoluments, the hearty and generous Oxford pensioned him. They played for gallant stakes — the bold men of those days — and lived and gave splendidly. Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, after spending an evening with Harley, St. John, Pope, and Swift, would go off and smoke a pipe with a couple of friends of his, a soldier and his wife, in Long Acre. Those who have not read his late excellency's poems should be warned that they smack not a httle of the conversation of his Long Acre friends. Johnson speaks shghtingiy of his lyrics ; but with due deference to the great Samuel, Prior's seem to me amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humourous of English lyrical poems. Horace is always in his mind, and his song, and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns and melody, his loves, and his epicureanism, ' His epigrams have the genuine sparkle : The Remedy worse than the Disease. " I sent for Radcliflf; was so ill, That other doctors gave me over : He felt my pulse, prescribed a pill, And I was likely to recover. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 165 bear a great resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished master. In reading his works, one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their happy similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, he says, writing of that endless theme to poets, the vanity of human wishes — " So when in fevered dreams we sink, And, waking, taste what we desire. The real draught but feeds the fire, The dream is better than the drink. " Our hopes like towering falcons aim At objects in an airy height : To stand aloof and view the flight, Is all the pleasure of the game." Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days " 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 tabe 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." 166 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. was singing ? and, in the verses of Chloe weeping and reproaching him for his inconstancy, where he says — • " The God of us verse-men, you know, child, the Sun, How after his journey, he set up his rest. If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run, At night he declines on his Thetis's breast. " So, when I am wearied with wandering all day. To thee, my delight, in the evening I come : No matter what beauties I saw in my way ; They were but my visits, but thou art my home 1 " Then finish, dear Cloe, this pastoral wai". And let us like Horace and Lydia agree ; For thou art a girl as much brighter than her. As he was a poet sublimer than me." If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study Prior? Love and pleasure find singers in all days. Roses are always blowing and fading — to-day as in that pretty time when Prior sang of them, and of Chloe lamenting their decay — " She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers Pointing, the lovely moralist said ; See, friend, in some few leisure hours, See yonder what a change is made I " Ah, me ! the blooming pride of May, And that of Beauty are but one : At morn both flourisht bright and gay, Both fade at evening, pale and gone. " At dawn poor Stella danced and sung, The amorous youth around her bowed. At night her fatal knell was rung ; I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 167 " Such as she is who died to day, Such I, alas, may be to-morrow : Go, Damon, bid the Muse display The justice of thy Cloe's sorrow." Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf lie lightly on him ! Deus sitpropitius huicpotatori as Walter de Maj)es sang.' Perhaps Samuel Johnson, who spoke ^ PRIOR TO SIR THOMAS HANMER. "Aug.i, 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 aflfliction 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, Caj^e Cahallum, 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 fail- any pretty nagg tliat is between thirteen and fourteen hands pre- sented himself, and you would be pleased to pm^chase 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 joincture, 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 Hcmmer Correspondence, p. 120, FROM MR, PRIOR, " Paris, 1st— 12th May, 1714. "My dear Lord and Friend, " Matthew never had so gi*eat occasion to write a word to Henry 168 ENGLISH HUMOUKISTS. slightingly of Prior's verses, enjoyed tliem more than he was willing to own. The old moralist had studied as now : it is noised liere 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 com- manded) 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, oi'impoiie) ; 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 ministei', 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 Seci-etary 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 Eobin 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 mean time, die 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, Avho was his fellow clerk, has or may possess. I am far from desiiiug 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 PEIOR, GAY, AXD POPE. 169 them as well as Mr. Thomas Moore, and defended them, and showed that he remembered them very well too, on an occasion when their morality was called in question by that noted puritan, James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck.^ the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and long service. You wovild do anything for your Queen's service, but you would not be contented to descend, and be degraded to a charge, no way pro- portioned 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 Gwin think himself kindly used to be returned again to be Commissioner 1 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. " P.S. 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 svich 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." — BoliiKjlroTce s Letters. ^ " I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire ; Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales' censure of Prior in his preface to a collection of sacred poems, by varioxis hands, published 170 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. In the gTeat society of the wits, John Gay deserved to be a favourite, and to have a good place. ^ In his set all were fond of him. His success offended nobody. He missed a fortune once or twice. He was talked of for court favour, and hoped to win it ; but the court favour jilted him. Craggs gave him some South-Sea Stock ; and at one time Gay had very nearly made his fortune. But Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted him too : and so his friends, instead of being angry with 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. ^ 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 Loudon. He was born in 1688 — Pope's year, and in 1712 the Duchess of Monmouth made him her secretaiy. Next year he published his ''Eural 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 Cx'aggs made Gay a present of stock in the South-Sea year ; and he was once worth 20,000^., but lost it all again. He got about 500^. by the first Beggar's Opera, and llOOZ. or 120UZ. by the second. He was negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the Duke of Queeusberry 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 3000^." — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes). PEIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 171 him, and jealous of him, were kind and fond of honest Gay. In the portraits of the Hterary worthies of the early part of the last century, Gay's face is the pleasantest perhaps of all. It appears adorned with neither perimg nor night-cap (the full dress and negligee of learning, without which the painters of those days scarcely ever pourtrayed wits), and he laughs at you over his shoulder with an honest boyish glee — an artless sweet humour. It was so kind, so gentle, so jocular, so delightfully brisk at times, so dismally woe-begone at others, such a natural good-creature, that the Giants loved him. The great Swift was gentle and sportive with him,' as the enormous Brob- dingnag maids of honour were with little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,^ and sport, and bark, ^ '* Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as ever I knew." — Swift, to Lady Betty Germaine, Jan. 1733. - " Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; In wit a man ; simplicity, a child ; With native humom- tem'pring virtuous rage, Fox'm'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 fx'iend, 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, Comply'd with everything, like Gay." Fables, " The Bare and many Friends." 172 ENGLISH HUMOUKISTS. and caper without offending the most thin-skinned of poets and men ; and when he was jilted in that little court affair of which we have spoken, his warm-hearted patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry/ (the 1 " I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope, curiously, " since he was raffled for, and won back by his Duchess."— Works, Roscoeh 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 Secretary- ship of that nobleman, of which he had had but a short tenure. Gay's court prospects were never happy from this time. — His dedica- tion 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. Gat, — " 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 nothiug 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 wiitten 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, them- PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 173 ' Kitty, beautiful and young,' of Prior) pleaded bis cause witb indignation, and quitted tbe court in a buff. selves 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 expecta- tion 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, 0 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 1 or have the two great Pastoral poets of our own nation renounced love at the same time 1 for Phillips, unnatural Phillips, 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 oflfei'ed 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." 174 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. canning off with tliem into tlieir retirement their kind, gentle, protege. With these kind, lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as delightful as those who har- boured Don Quixotte, and loved that dear old Sancho, Gay lived, and was lapped in cotton, and had his plate of chicken, and his saucer of cream, and frisked, and barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, and so ended.' He became very melancholy, and lazy, sadly plethoric, and only occasionally diverting in his latter days. But everybody loved him, and the remembrance of his pretty little tricks; and the raging old Dean of St. Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, was afraid to open the letter which Pope wrote him, announcing the sad news of the death of Gay.'' ' " 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). - Swift indorsed the letter — " On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death ; received Dec. 1 5, 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 Boliugbroke, and obtained his patronage." — Scott's Siolft, vol. i, p. 156. Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus : — " IDcc. 5, 1732.] . . . " Oue of the nearest 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 1 In every fiiend 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." PRIOE, GAY, AND POPE. 175 Swift's letters to him are beautiful ; and having no purpose but kindness in writing to him, no party aim to advocate, or slight or anger to wreak, every word the Dean says to his favourite is natural, trustworthj'-, and kindly. His admiration for Gay's parts and honesty, and his laughter at his weaknesses, were alike just and genuine. He paints his character in wonder- ful pleasant traits of jocular satire. " I writ lately to Mr. Pope," Swift says, writing to Gay ; " I wish you had a little villakin in liis neighbourhood ; but you are yet too volatile, and any lady with a coach and six horses would carry you to Japan." "If your ramble," says Smft, in another letter, "was on horseback, I am glad of it, on account of your health ; but I know your arts of pack- ing up a journey between stage-coaches and friends' coaches — for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which may take up seven years to finish, besides two or three under-ones that may add another thousand pounds to your stock, and then I shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but 3^ou love twelve-penny coaches too well, without con- sidering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half-a-crown a day:" and then Swift goes off from Gay to pay some grand compliments to Her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry, in whose sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and in whose 176 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. radiance the Dean would have liked to warm him- self too. But we have Gay here before us, in these letters, — lazy, kindly, uncommonly idle ; rather slovenly, I'm afraid ; for ever eating and saying good things ; a little, round, French abbe of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft-hearted. Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the men than their works ; or to deal with the latter only in as far as they seem to illustrate the character of their writers. Mr. Gay's " Fables/' which were written to benefit that amiable Prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the warrior of Dettingen and Culloden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse since a period of very early youth ; and it must be confessed that they did not effect much benefit upon the illustrious young Prince, whose manners they were intended to mollify, and whose natural ferocity our gentle -hearted Satirist perhaps proposed to restrain. But the six pastorals called the '^ Shepherd's Week," and the burlesque poem of " Trivia," any man fond of lazy literature will find delightful, at the present day, and must read from beginning to end with pleasure. They are to poetry what charming little Dresden china figures are to sculpture : graceful, minikin, fantastic ; with a certain beauty always accompanying them. The pretty little i^ersonages of the pastoral, with gold clocks to their stockmgs, and fresh satin ribbons to PRIOR, GAY, Al!TD POPE. 177 their crooks and waistcoats and boddices, dance their loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, or rush from the false one damtily on their red-heeled tiptoes, and die of despair or raptiu'e, with the most pathetic little grins and ogles ; or repose, simpermg at each other, under an arbour of pea- green crockery ; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed with the best Naples in a stream of Bergamot. Gay's gay plan seems to me far pleasanter than that of Phillips — his rival and Pope's — a serious and deary idylUc cockney ; not that Gay's " Bumkinets and Hobnelias " are a whit more natural than the would-be serious characters of the other posture -master ; but the quality of this true humourist was to laugh and make laugh, though always with a secret Idndness and tenderness, to perform the drollest little antics and capers, but always with a certain grace, and to sweet music, — as you may have seen a Savoj^ard boy abroad, with a hurdy-gurdy and a monkey, tm'ning over head and heels, or clattering and pirouetting in a pair of wooden shoes, yet always with a look of love and appeal in his bright eyes, and a smile that asks and wins affection and protection. Happy they who have that sweet gift of nature ! It was this which made the great folks and court ladies free and friendly with John Gay — which made Pope and Arbuthnot love him — which melted the savage heart of S\vift when he thought of him — and drove away, for a 178 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. moment or two, tlie dark frenzies which obsciu*ed the lonely tyi'ant's brain, as he heai'd Gay's voice with its simple melody and artless linging laughter. AVhat used to be said about Rubini, quil avait des larmes dans la voivy may be said of Gay/ and of one other humomist of whom we shall have to speak. In almost every ballad of his, however slight ; ^ in the ^ " Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. ' He could play on the flute,' says Malone, ' and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so happUy some of the airs in the Beggat^s Opera.' " — Notes to Spenck. - •' T'was when the se<a3 were roaring With hollow blasts of wind, A damsel lay deploi-ing All on a rock reclinecL 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, — "NMiy didbt thou tnist 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 treas\ire To losing of my dear ] Should you some coast be laid on, Where gold and ditimonds grow. You'd find a richer maiden, But none that loves you so. rmOK, C!AY, ANO VOVK. 170 " IV'ggjir's OiHM'M." ' mul ill its wi^irisinnc couliuuMiion (whore i\\c wvscx nvc lo \\\c full as pic^tty as in llu> " ' How i;ui tlu-y «:<>' (luit. Naliut> ll:is iiotliini; mail*' in vain ; ^Vhy tluMi hiMioath tho wator SluniKl liiiUnnis roi'ks riMnain ? No oyos tlu> riU'Us tlisiH)vor Tliul. link hiMUMith tho iloop. To w ivi'k tlii> waiuloritij; lovoi*, And Iravo tho maid to woop?' •■ All ini>lani-lioly lyini:;, Tims wailM sho for hor dear : UopayM oarli Mast with Hij^hinj?, Kiu'h biUow with a ttMO" ; When o'cv tlu> whito wavo stooping, His float in;;- rorpso sho spy'd ; TluMi, liko a lily drooping, Sho how'd luM' luNvd, and diod." .1 luillaif. front the " W/iaf-iri/c call it." "What can bo pvottitM* lluui Uay's ballad, ov rathor Swift's. Arlnitlmot'H, Popo's. and (lay's, in tho 'What d'yo mil it.' "T'was wluMi the scaa wovo roaring f* I have l)i>t>n well inroriu(>d, (ha( tlu>y all oontrih\it,cd." — Cowprr to Univin, 17S;?. ' " l>i- Swift had boon obsorvini^ onco to Mr. (Jay. what an odd protty siM-f. of (hm;^ a Nowgato Pastoral nii;;ht: makiv (Jay was iiuliut'd to try at sm-h a thing, for somo titno, but alU'rwards thought it would bo bottcM' to writo a oonunly on tho saino ]Wan. This was what gavo riso to tho 'Beggar's OptM'a." Il«> began on it, and wIumi ho lirst nuMilionod it to Swift, tho Dortor did not nmeh liko tho i>roioot. As ho cariied it on, ho showotl what ho wrote to both of »is ; and we now and t lu>n ga\ f a eoiTcetien. or a word or two of advice : but it was wholly of his own M riling. \\'luMi it. was done*, ncitlu>r oi' ns thought it. wouhl sueei>ed. Wo showed it to (\)ngreve. who, aftiM* readii\g it ovtM-. said. ' if. wo\dd cither tak(> greatly or be «lanin(>d eiHifoundediy.' \\'e \\i'r(> all at. tho fu*st night of it, in great uneertainty of the evt>nt ; till we were very unu'h eneoiu'aged by overheai'ing the I>id;e of Argyle. who sat in tho next, box to US, any. * it. will Ao it. must i\y) ! I sei> it. in tlu> I'yes of them ! ■ This was a gooil \vliili> before tlu' lirst aet was over, and so N 2 180 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. first piece, however), there is a peculiar, hinted, pathetic sweetness and melody. It charms and melts you. It's mdefinahle, hut it exists ; and is the pro- perty of John Gay's and Ohver Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, or freshness of a rose. Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so famous that most people here are no doubt familiar with it, but so delightful that it is always pleasant to hear : — "I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common hayfield, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers — as constant as ever were found in romance — beneath a spreading bush. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewet ; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five and twenty ; Sarah, a brave woman of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah ; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pails. Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood, for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding clothes; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourei-s to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out 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 {Spences Anecdotes.) PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 181 of breath, sunk on a haycock ; and John (who never sepai-ated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together, to secure her. Immediately, there was heard so loud a crash, as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another : those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay : they first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair — John, with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or dis- colouring on their bodies — only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave ! " And tlie proof that this description is delightful and beautiful is, that the great Mr. Pope admired it so much that he thought proper to steal it and to send it off to a certain lady and wit, with whom he pretended to be in love in those days — my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to Mr. Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople. We are now come to the greatest name on our list — the highest among the poets, the highest among the English wits and humourists with whom we have to rank him. If the author of the " Dunciad " be not a humourist, if the poet of the " Rape of the Lock " be not a wit, who deserves to be called so ? Besides that brilliant genius, and immense fame, for both of which we should respect liim, men of letters should admii'e him as being the greatest literary artist that England has seen. He poKshed, he refined, he thought ; he took thoughts from other works to adorn and complete his own ; borrowing an idea or a cadence from another 183 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. poet as he would a figure or a simile from a flower, or a river, stream, or any object which struck him in his walk, or contemplation of Nature. He began to imitate at an early age;' and taught himself to write by copying printed books. Then he passed into the hands of the priests, and from his first clerical master, who came to him when he was eight years old, he went to a school at Twyford, and another school at Hyde Park, at which places he unlearned all that he had 1 " 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. Tlie 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 Abbd South cote. 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. RadcliflFe, 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). PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 183 got from liis first instructor. At twelve years old, he went with his father into Windsor Forest, and there learned for a few months under a fourth priest. " And this was all the teaching I ever had," he said, " and God knows it extended a very little way." When he had done with his priests he took to reading hy liimself, for which he had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry. He learned versification from Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of " Alcander," he imitated every poet, Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statius, Homer, Virgil. In a few years he had dipped into a great number of the EngUsh, French, Itahan, Latin, and Greek poets. " This I did," he says, " without any design except to amuse myself; and got the languages hy hunting after the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the books to get the languages. I followed everj^where as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and woods, just as they fell in his way. These five or six years I looked upon as the happiest in my life." Is not here a beautiful hohday pictm^e? The forest and the fairy story-book — the boy speUing Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, batthng with the Cid for the love of Chimene, or dreaming of Armida's garden — peace and sunshine romid about — the kindest love and tenderness waiting for him at his quiet home yonder — and Genius throbbing in his young heart, and whispering to him, " You shall be great ; you shaU be 184 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. famous ; you, too, sliall love and sing ; you will sing her so nobly that some kmd heart shall forget you are weak and ill-formed. Every poet had a love. Fate must give one to you too," — and day by day he wallas the forest, very hkely looking out for that charmer. " They were the happiest days of his life," he says, when he was only dreaming of his fame : when he had gained that mistress she was no consoler. That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, about the year 1705, when Pope was seventeen. Letters of his are extant, addressed to a certain Lady M , whom the youth courted, and to w^hom he expressed his ardour in language, to say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious, and affected. He imitated love compositions as he had been imitating love poems just before — it was a sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, expressed as became it. These unlucky letters found their way into print years afterwards, and were sold to the congenial Mr, Curll. If any of my hearers, as I hope they may, should take a fancy to look at Pope's correspondence, let them j)ass over that first part of it; over, perhaps, almost all Pope's letters to women ; in which there is a tone of not pleasant gallantry, and, amidst a profusion of com- pliments and politenesses, a something which makes one distrust the little pert, prurient bard. There is very little indeed to say about his loves, and that little not edifying. He wrote flames and raptures and PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 185 elaborate verse and prose for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; but that passion probably came to a climax in an impertinence and was extinguished by a box on the ear, or some such rebuff, and he began on a sudden to hate her with a fervour much more genuine than that of his love had been. It was a feeble, puny grimace of love, and paltering with passion. After Mr. Pope had sent off one of his fine compositions to Lady Mary, he made a second draft from the rough copy, and favoured some other friend with it. He was so charmed with the letter of Gay's, that I have just quoted, that he had copied that and amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary as his own. A gentleman who writes letters a deux fins, and after having poured out his heart to the beloved, serves up the same dish rechauffe to a friend, is not very much in earnest about his loves, however much he may be in his piques and vanities when his impertinence gets its due. But, save that unlucky part of the Pope Corres- pondence, I do not know, in the range of our literature, volumes more delightful.* You live in them in the ^ MR, POPE TO THE REV. MR. BROOME, PULHAM, NORFOLK. "Aug. 29th, 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 fii'st of gross humours, as he was 186 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. finest company in the world. A little stately, perhaps ; a little apprete and conscious that they are speaking to 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 gi*eat 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 farther 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. Trumball 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, Chx-istian, unphilosophical character in his epitaph. There truth may be spoken in a few woi'ds ; 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 veiy 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 PKIOE, GAY, AND POPE. 187 whole generations who are listening ; but in the tone of their voices — pitched, as no doubt they are, beyond the what extraordinaiy company she had on the road, which, since she cannot do, I will. " It was the enterprising Mr. Lin tot, the redoubtable rival of Mr Tonson, who, mounted on a stone-horse, 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 quax'ts of wine, besides my conversation. I thought mj-self cock-sure 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 borrowed this stone-horse of my pviblisher, 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 yestex'day, 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 : ' Kow, damn them ! "What if they should put it into the newspaper how you and I went together to Oxford 1 What would I care 1 If I should go down into Sussex they would say I was gone to the Speaker ; but what of that 1 If my son were but big enough to go on with tbe business, by G — d, I Vv'ould 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 Ministiy 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 V 'To what 188 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. mere conversation key — in the expression of tlieir thoughts, their various views and natures, there is 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 1 Lord ! if you pleased. What a clever miscel- lany 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 1 * I answered, seven miles. * Z — ds, sir,' said Lintot, ' I thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldsworth, in a ramble rovind Wimbleton-hill, would translate a whole ode in half this time. I'll say that for Olds- worth [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 wx'ite 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.' "' Pi-ay, Mr. Lintot,' (said I) ' now you talk of translators, what is your method of managing them 1 ' Sir ' [replied he] ' these are the saddest pack of rogues in the world : in a hungry fit, they'll swear they under- stand 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 judgment giving the negative to all my trans- lators.' ' Then how are you sux-e these correctors may not impose upon youl' '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 PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 189 something generous, and cheering, and ennobling. You are in the society of men who have filled the know whetlier 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 1 ' ' Sir,' said he, * nothing moi^e 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 sti'ipling, 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 veiy sorry you should be at the expense of this gi-eat 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 com- plies ; he comes to a taste of your'poetry, and tells me in the same breath, that the book is commendable, and the poetry excellent. " ' Now, sii-,' continued Mr. Lintot, ' in return to 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 parti- 190 ENGLISH HUMOUKISTS. greatest parts in the world's story — you are with St. John the statesman ; Peterborough the conqueror ; cular obligations to. — ' That may be/ replied Mr. Lintot ; ' but by G — if be 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. "-Sfepi. 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 could I compass that design without hurting my own person or 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 i-ascally 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 towards individuals, — for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor 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 PRIOR, GAY, Al^D POPE. 191 Swift, the greatest wit of all times ; Gay, the kindliest laugher — it is a privilege to sit in that company. 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. " Octoler 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 distingtiished 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 anyone had learning foi'merly, 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 ah 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, 192 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Deliglitful and generous banquet ! with a little faith and a little fancy any one of us here may enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures out of the past, and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind that there is always a certain cachet about great men — they may be as mean on many points as you or I, but they carry their great air — they speak of common life more largely and generously than common men do — they regard the world with a manlier countenance, and see its real features more fairly than the timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through blinkers, or to have an opinion when there is a crowd to back it. He who reads these noble records of a past age, salutes and reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may go home now and talk with St. John ; you may take a volume from your hbrary and listen to Swift and Pope. Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say to him, try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most wholesome society ; learn to admire rightly ; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired ; they admired great things : narrow spirits admire basely, and worship 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." * * * PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 193 meanly. I know nothing in any story more gallant and cheering, than the love and friendship which this company of famous men bore towards one another. There never has been a society of men more friendly, as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the society of men great and famous ? and for lildng them for the qualities which made them so ? A mere pretty fellow from "White's could not have written the " Patriot King," and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, tlie decrepit Papist, whom the great St. John held to be one of the best and greatest of men : a mere nobleman of the Court could no more have won Barcelona, than he could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,* which are as witty as 1 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 OP 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 alFection was bringing me to town, but uudutiful laziness, and being much out of order keep me in the country: however, if alive I must make my appearance at the birthday o 194 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS. Congreve : a mere Irish Dean could not liave written " Gulliver ; " and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To name his friends is to name the best men of his time. Addison had a senate ; Pope reverenced his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always. His admiration for Boling- broke was so great, that when some one said of his friend, " There is something in that great man which looks as if he was placed here by mistake," " Yes," Pope answered, " and when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possibly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club -table, so faithful and so friendly. We have said before that the chief wits of this time, " 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 fairy will gfve a verdict against me. So sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favouiite 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. « Tour's." Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer. PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 195 witli the exception of Congreve, were wliat we should now call men's men. They spent many hours of the four- and-twenty, a fourth part of each day nearly, in ckibs, and coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by word of mouth; a journal of 1710 contained the very smallest portion of one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faithful habitues sate around ; strangers came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden had his head-quarters at Will's, in EusseU- street, at the corner of Bow-street, at which place Pope saw him when he was twelve years old. The company used to assemble on the first floor — what was called the dining-room floor in those days — and sate at various tables smoking their pipes. It is recorded that the beaux of the day thought it a great honour to be allowed to take a pinch out of Dryden' s snuff-box. When Addison began to reign, he with a certam crafty propriety — a policy let us call it — which belonged to his nature, set up his court, and appointed the officers of his royal house. His palace was Button's, opposite Will's.* A ^ " 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 with- drew 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 " comer of Russell-street." See " Handbook of London." o 2 196 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. quiet opposition, a silent assertion of empire, distin- guished this great man. Addison's ministers were Budgell, Tickeil, Philips, Carey ; his master of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who was what Duroc was to Napoleon, a Hardy to Nelson ; the man who per- formed his master's bidding, and would have cheerfully died in his quarrel. Addison lived with these people for seven or eight hours every day. The male society passed over their punch-bowls and tobacco-pipes, about as much time as ladies of that age spent over Spadille and Manille. For a brief space, upon coming up to town. Pope formed part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather too eager and obsequious humble servant.' Dick Steele, the editor of the " Tatler," Mr. Addison's man, and his own man too, — a person of no little figure in the world of letters, patronised the young poet ; and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope did the tasks very quickly and smartly (he had been at the feet quite as ^ " 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 pai-ty man. He encouraged me in my design of translating the * Iliad,' which was begvm that year, and finished in 1718."— Pope (Spence's Anecdotes.) "Addison had Budgell, and I think Phillips, in the house with him. — Gay, they would call one of my eleves. — They were angry with me for keeping so much with Dr. Swift, and some of the late ministry." — Pope [S^ence's Anecdotes.) PRIOK, GAY, AND POPE. 197 a boy of AVj^clierle^^'s ' decrepit reputation, and propped up for a year that doting old wit) : he was anxious to be well with the men of letters, to get a footing and a recognition. He thought it an honour to be admitted into their company ; to have the confidence of ^ " TO MR. ALCOURT. "/cm. 21, 1715-16. " I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, and I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as soon as his life was despaired of Accordingly, a few days before his death, he underwent the ceremony, and joined together those two sacraments which wise men say we should be the last to receive ; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the consciousness of having, by this one act, obliged a woman who (he was told) had merit, and shown an heroic i-esentment of the ill-usage of his next heir. Some hundred pounds which he had with the lady, discharged his debts ; a jointure of 5001. a year made her a recompense ; and the nephew was left to comfort himself as well as he could with the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate. I saw our friend twice after this was done — less peevish in his sickness than he used to be in his health ; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to the bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request — the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her : ' My dear, it is only this — that you will never marry an old man again.' I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour. Mr. Wycherley showed his even in his last compliment ; though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms 1 "So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself to know such trifles when they concern or characterize any eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men arc seldom wiser or 198 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. Mr. Addison's friend, Captain Steele. His eminent parts obtained for him the honour of heralding Addison's triumph of " Cato," with his admirable prologue, and heading the victorious procession as it were. Not content with this act of homage and admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself, by assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John Dennis with a prose lam- poon, which highly offended his lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed to write to Mr. Dennis and inform him, that Mr. Pope's pamphlet against him was written quite without Mr. Addison's approval.^ Indeed, " The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the phrenzy of J. D.," is a vulgar and mean satire, and such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire to see any partisan of his strike, in any literary quarrel. Pope was closely allied with Swift when he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has been printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the foul marks of the master hand. Swift admired and enjoyed with all his heart the prodigious genius of the young Papist lad wittier than others in these sober moments ; at least, our friend ended much in the same character he had lived in ; and Horace's rule for play may as well be applied to him as a playwright : — " ' Servetvir ad imum, Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet.' «' I am," &c. 1 ''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). PEIOE, GAY, AND POPE. 199 out of Windsor Forest, who liacl never seen a University in his life, and came and conquered the Dons and the doctors with his wit. He applauded, and loved him, too: and protected him, and taught him mischief, I wish Addison could have loved him better. The best satire that ever has been penned would never have been written then ; and one of the best characters the world ever knew, would have been without a flaw. But he who had so few equals could not bear one, and Pope was more than that. When Pope, trying for himself, and soaring on his immortal young wings, found that his, too, was a genius, which no pinion of that age could follow, he rose and left Addison's company, settling on his own eminence, and singing his own song. It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer of Mr. Addison; nor likely that after escaping from his vassalage and assuming an independent crown, the sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him amicably.' They did not do wrong to mislike each other. They but followed the impulse of nature, and ^ '' AVhile 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 year« after." — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes). 200 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. the consequence of position. Wlien Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was naturally Napoleon's enemy. " There are many passions and tempers of mankind," says Mr. Addison in the " Spectator," speaking a couple of j^ears before their little differences between him and Mr. Pope took place, " w^hich naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind. All those who made their entrance into the world with the same advantages, and w^ere once looked on as his equals, are apt to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. Those, who were once his equals, envy and defame him, because they now see him the superior ; and those who were once his superiors, because they look uj)on him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking, that as young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university education, he couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his young friend, Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid him with his own know^n scholarship and skill ? ' It was natural that Mr. Addison should doubt of the learning of an amateur Grecian ; should have a high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's ; and should help that ingenious ^ " That Tickell slioiild have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improbable ; that Addison should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improbable ; but that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villainy, seems, to us, improbable in a tenfold degree." — Macaulay. PKIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 201 youiig man. It was natural, on tlie other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends should believe that this counter-translation, suddenly advertised and so long written, though Tickell's college friends had never heard of it — though when Pope first wrote to Addison regarding his scheme, Mr. Addison knew nothing of the similar project of Tickell, of Queen's — it was natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, having interests, pensions, and prejudices of his own, should believe that Tickell's translation was but an act of opposition against Pope, and that they should call Mr. Tickell's emulation Mr. Addison's envy — if envy it were. '* Aud were there one whose fires True genius kindles and fair fame inspires, Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease ; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne ; View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes, And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise ; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike. Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; Alike i-eserved to blame as to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged. And so obliging that he ne'er obliged ; Like Cato give his little senate laws. And sit attentive to his own applause ; While wits and templars every sentence raise. And wonder with a foolish face of praise; Who but must laugh if such a man there be. Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? " 202 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. "I sent tlie verses to Mr. Addison," said Pope, "and he used me very civilly ever after." No wonder lie did. It was sliame very likely more than fear that silenced him. Johnson recounts an interview between Pope and Addison after their quarrel, in which Pope was angry, and Addison tried to be contemptuous and calm. Such a weapon as Pope's must have pierced any scorn. It flashes for ever, and quivers in Addison's memor}^ His great figure looks out on us from the past — stainless but for that — pale, calm, and beautiful: it bleeds from that black wound. . He should be drawn, like St. Sebastian, with that arrow in his side. As he sent to Gay and asked his pardon, as he bade his step-son come and see his death, be sure he had forgiven Pope, when he made ready to show how a Christian could die. Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a short time, and describes himself in his letters as sitting with that coterie until two o'clock in the morning over punch and Burgundy amidst the fumes of tobacco. To use an expression of the present day, the "pace" of those viveurs of the former age was awful. Peterborough lived into the very jaws of death ; Godolphin laboured all day and gambled at night ; Bolingbroke, ' writing to Swift, from Dawle}^, in his 1 LORD BOLINGBROKE TO THE THREE YAHOOS OF TWICKENHAM. ''July 23, 1726. "Jonathan, Alexander, John, most excellent Triumvirs op Parnassus, — " Though you are probably very indiflferent where I am, or what PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 203 retirement, dating his letter at six o'clock in the morning, and rising, as he says, refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time of his London Hfe ; when about that hour he used to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure, and jaded with business; his head often full of schemes, and his heart as often full of anxiety. It was too hard, too coarse a life for the sensitive, sickly Pope. He was the only wit of the day, a friend writes to me, who wasn't fat.^ Swift was fat ; Addison was fat ; Steele was fat ; Gay and Thomson w^ere pre- posterously fat — all that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, shortened the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of that age. Pope withdrew in a great measure from this boisterous London company, and being put into an independence by the gallant exertions of Swift ^ and his private friends, 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 mj' long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of miud, I can do no less than write a few lines 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 ! " ^ Prior must be excepted from this observation. " He was lank and lean." 2 Swift exerted himself, very much, in promoting the " Iliad " sub- scription ; and also introduced Pope to Harley and Bolingbroke. — Pope realised by the " Iliad " upwards of 5000^,, which he laid out partly in 204 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS. and by the enthusiastic national admiration which justly rewarded his great achievement of the Iliad, purchased that famous villa of Twickenham which his song and life celebrated; duteously bringing his old parents to live and die there, entertaining his friends there, and making occasional visits to London in his little chariot, in which Atterbury compared him to " Homer in a nutshell." "Mr. Dryden was not a genteel man," Pope quaintly said to Spence, speaking of the manners and habits of the famous old patriarch of Will's. With regard to Pope's own manners, we have the best contemporary authority that they were singularly refined and polished. With his extraordinary sensibility, with his known tastes, with his delicate frame, with his power and dread of ridicule, Pope could have been no other than what we call a highly-bred person.' His closest friends, with the exception of Swift, were among the delights and ornaments of the polished society of their age. Garth,^ the accomplished and benevolent, whom annuities, and partly in the purchase of his famous villa. Johnson remaiks 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." ^ "His (Pope's) voice in commoa conversation was so naturally musical, that I remember honest Tom Southerne used always to call him * the little nightingale,' " — Orreky. 2 Garth, whom Dryden calls "generous as his Muse," was a York- shireman. 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 PRIOE, GAY, AND POPE. 205 Steele has described so charmingly, of whom Codring- ton said that his character was " all beauty," and whom Pope himself called the best of Christians with- out knowing it ; Arbuthnot,' one of the wisest, wittiest, friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted by George I., with the Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718. ^ " Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergj^man 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 correspond- ence. "When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift : " Ea7n2)stead, 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