LYTTELTON.
GEORGE LYTTELTON, the son of sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley in Worcestershire, was born in 1709. He was educated at Eton, where he was so much distinguished, that his exercises were recommended as models to his schoolfellows.
From Eton he went to Christ-church, where he retained the same reputation of superiority, and displayed his abilities to the publick in a Poem on Blenheim.
He was a very early writer, both in verse and prose. His Progress of Love, and his Persian Letters, were both written when he was very young; and, indeed, the character of a young man is very visible in both. The verses cant of shepherds and flocks, and crooks dressed with flowers; and the letters have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty, which a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.
He staid not long at Oxford; for, in 1728, he began his travels, and saw France and Italy. When he returned, he obtained a seat in parliament, and soon distinguished himself among the most eager opponents of sir Robert Walpole, though his father, who was a commissioner of the admiralty, always voted with the court.
For many years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of every debate in the house of commons. He opposed the standing army; he opposed the excise; he supported the motion for petitioning the king to remove Walpole. His zeal was considered by the courtiers not only as violent, but as acrimonious and malignant; and, when Walpole was at last hunted from his places, every effort was made by his friends, and many friends he had, to exclude Lyttelton from the secret committee.
The prince of Wales, being, 1737, driven from St. James’s, kept a separate court, and opened his arms to the opponents of the ministry. Mr. Lyttelton became his secretary, and was supposed to have great influence in the direction of his conduct. He persuaded his master, whose business it was now to be popular, that he would advance his character by patronage. Mallet was made under-secretary, with two hundred pounds; and Thomson had a pension of one hundred pounds a year. For Thomson, Lyttelton always retained his kindness, and was able, at last, to place him at ease.
Moore courted his favour by an apologetical poem, called the Trial of Selim; for which he was paid with kind words, which, as is common, raised great hopes, that were at last disappointed.
Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of opposition; and Pope, who was incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the ministry, commended him among the other patriots. This drew upon him the reproaches of Fox, who, in the house, imputed to him, as a crime, his intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported his friend; and replied, that he thought it an honour to be received into the familiarity of so great a poet.
While he was thus conspicuous, he married, 1741, Miss Lucy Fortescue, of Devonshire, by whom he had a son, the late lord Lyttelton, and two daughters, and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree of connubial felicity; but human pleasures are short; she died in child-bed about five years afterwards; and he solaced his grief by writing a long poem to her memory.
He did not, however, condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow; for, after awhile, he was content to seek happiness again by a second marriage with the daughter of sir Robert Rich: but the experiment was unsuccessful.
At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way, and honour and profit were distributed among his conquerors. Lyttelton was made, 1744, one of the lords of the treasury; and from that time was engaged in supporting the schemes of the ministry.
Politicks did not, however, so much engage him, as to withhold his thoughts from things of more importance. He had, in the pride of juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, entertained doubts of the truth of Christianity; but he thought the time now come when it was no longer fit to doubt or believe by chance, and applied himself seriously to the great question. His studies, being honest, ended in conviction. He found that religion was true; and what he had learned he endeavoured to teach, 1747, by Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul; a treatise to which infidelity has never been able to fabricate a specious answer. This book his father had the happiness of seeing, and expressed his pleasure in a letter which deserves to be inserted:
“I have read your religious treatise with infinite pleasure and satisfaction. The style is fine and clear, the arguments close, cogent, and irresistible. May the King of kings, whose glorious cause you have so well defended, reward your pious labours, and grant that I may be found worthy, through the merits of Jesus Christ, to be an eye-witness of that happiness which I don’t doubt he will bountifully bestow upon you. In the mean time, I shall never cease glorifying God, for having endowed you with such useful talents, and giving me so good a son.
“Your affectionate father,
“Thomas Lyttelton.”
A few years afterwards, 1751, by the death of his father, he inherited a baronet’s title with a large estate, which, though, perhaps, he did not augment, he was careful to adorn by a house of great elegance and expense, and by much attention to the decoration of his park.
As he continued his activity in parliament, he was gradually advancing his claim to profit and preferment; and accordingly was made, in time, 1754, cofferer and privy counsellor: this place he exchanged next year for the great office of chancellor of the exchequer; an office, however, that required some qualifications which he soon perceived himself to want.
The year after, his curiosity led him into Wales; of which he has given an account, perhaps rather with too much affectation of delight, to Archibald Bower, a man of whom he had conceived an opinion more favourable than he seems to have deserved, and whom, having once espoused his interest and fame, he was never persuaded to disown. Bower, whatever was his moral character, did not want abilities; attacked as he was by an universal outcry, and that outcry, as it seems, the echo of truth, he kept his ground: at last, when his defences began to fail him, he sallied out upon his adversaries, and his adversaries retreated.
About this time Lyttelton published his Dialogues of the Dead, which were very eagerly read, though the production rather, as it seems, of leisure than of study: rather effusions than compositions. The names of his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their conversation; and, when they have met, they too often part without any conclusion. He has copied Fénélon more than Fontenelle.
When they were first published, they were kindly commended by the Critical Reviewers; and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I have read, acknowledgments which can never be proper, since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.
When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry unavoidable, sir George Lyttelton, losing, with the rest, his employment, was recompensed with a peerage; and rested from political turbulence in the house of lords.
His last literary production was his History of Henry the second, elaborated by the searches and deliberations of twenty years, and published with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate.
The story of this publication is remarkable. The whole work was printed twice over, a great part of it three times, and many sheets four or five times. The booksellers paid for the first impression; but the charges and repeated operations of the press were at the expense of the author, whose ambitious accuracy is known to have cost him, at least, a thousand pounds. He began to print in 1755. Three volumes appeared in 1764; a second edition of them in 1767; a third edition in 1768; and the conclusion in 1771.
Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable abilities, and not unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to persuade Lyttelton, as he had persuaded himself, that he was master of the secret of punctuation; and, as fear begets credulity, he was employed, I know not at what price, to point the pages of Henry the second. The book was at last pointed and printed, and sent into the world. Lyttelton took money for his copy, of which, when he had paid the pointer, he probably gave the rest away; for he was very liberal to the indigent.
When time brought the history to a third edition, Reid was either dead or discarded; and the superintendence of typography and punctuation was committed to a man originally a comb-maker, but then known by the style of doctor. Something uncommon was probably expected, and something uncommon was at last done; for to the doctor’s edition is appended, what the world had hardly seen before, a list of errours in nineteen pages.
But to politicks and literature there must be an end. Lord Lyttelton had never the appearance of a strong or of a healthy man; he had a slender, uncompacted frame, and a meagre face: he lasted, however, sixty years, and was then seized with his last illness. Of his death a very affecting and instructive account has been given by his physician[201] which will spare me the task of his moral character.
“On Sunday evening the symptoms of his lordship’s disorder, which for a week past had alarmed us, put on a fatal appearance, and his lordship believed himself to be a dying man. From this time he suffered by restlessness rather than pain; though his nerves were apparently much fluttered, his mental faculties never seemed stronger, when he was thoroughly awake.
“His lordship’s bilious and hepatick complaints seemed alone not equal to the expected mournful event; his long want of sleep, whether the consequence of the irritation in the bowels, or, which is more probable, of causes of a different kind, accounts for his loss of strength, and for his death, very sufficiently.
“Though his lordship wished his approaching dissolution not to be lingering, he waited for it with resignation. He said, ‘It is a folly, a keeping me in misery, now to attempt to prolong life;’ yet he was easily persuaded, for the satisfaction of others, to do or take any thing thought proper for him. On Saturday he had been remarkably better, and we were not without some hopes of his recovery.
“On Sunday, about eleven in the forenoon, his lordship sent for me, and said he felt a great hurry, and wished to have a little conversation with me, in order to divert it. He then proceeded to open the fountain of that heart, from whence goodness had so long flowed as from a copious spring. ‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘you shall be my confessor: when I first set out in the world, I had friends who endeavoured to shake my belief in the Christian religion. I saw difficulties which staggered me; but I kept my mind open to conviction. The evidences and doctrines of Christianity, studied with attention, made me a most firm and persuaded believer of the Christian religion. I have made it the rule of my life, and it is the ground of my future hopes. I have erred and sinned; but have repented, and never indulged any vitious habit. In politicks, and publick life, I have made publick good the rule of my conduct. I never gave counsels which I did not at the time think the best. I have seen that I was sometimes in the wrong; but I did not err designedly. I have endeavoured, in private life, to do all the good in my power, and never for a moment could indulge malicious or unjust designs upon any person whatsoever.’
“At another time he said, ‘I must leave my soul in the same state it was in before this illness; I find this a very inconvenient time for solicitude about any thing.’
“On the evening, when the symptoms of death came on, he said, ‘I shall die; but it will not be your fault.’ When lord and lady Valentia came to see his lordship, he gave them his solemn benediction, and said, ‘Be good, be virtuous, my lord; you must come to this.’ Thus he continued giving his dying benediction to all around him. On Monday morning a lucid interval gave some small hopes, but these vanished in the evening; and he continued dying, but with very little uneasiness, till Tuesday morning, August 22, when, between seven and eight o’clock, he expired, almost without a groan.”
His lordship was buried at Hagley; and the following inscription is cut on the side of his lady’s monument:
This unadorned stone was placed here
by the particular desire and express
directions of the right honourable
George Lord Lyttelton,
Who died August 22, 1773, aged 64.
Lord Lyttelton’s poems are the works of a man of literature and judgment, devoting part of his time to versification. They have nothing to be despised, and little to be admired. Of his Progress of Love, it is sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in Blenheim has neither much force nor much elegance. His little performances, whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes sprightly and sometimes insipid. His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot much tire, because they are short, but which seldom elevates or surprises. But from this censure ought to be excepted his Advice to Belinda, which, though for the most part written when he was very young, contains much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously expressed, and shows a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry which cultivation might have raised to excellence.
| END OF VOL. VIII. |
[1] The difficulty of settling Prior’s birthplace is great. In the register of his college he is called, at his admission by the president, Matthew Prior, of Winburn, in Middlesex; by himself, next day, Matthew Prior, of Dorsetshire, in which county, not in Middlesex, Winborn, or Winborne, as it stands in the Villare, is found. When he stood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlesex. The last record ought to be preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is observable, that, as a native of Winborne, he is styled filius Georgii Prior, generosi; not consistently with the common account of the meanness of his birth. Dr. J.
[2] Samuel Prior kept the Rummer tavern near Charing-cross, in 1685. The annual feast of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields was held at his house, Oct. 14, that year. N.
[3] He was admitted to his bachelor’s degree in 1686; and to his master’s, by mandate, in 1700. N.
[4] Spence.
[5] He received, in September, 1697, a present of two hundred guineas from the lords justices, for his trouble in bringing over the treaty of peace. N.
[6] It should be the earl of Dorset.
[7] Swift obtained many subscriptions for him in Ireland. II.
[8] Spence.
[9] Spence.
[10] Spence; and see Gent. Mag. vol l vii. p. 1039.
[11] Richardsoniana.
[12] It is to be found in Poggii Facetiæ. J.B.
[13] The same thought is found in one of Owen’s epigrams, lib. i. epig. 123. and in Poggii Facetiæ. J.B.
[14] Prior was not the first inventor of this stanza; for excepting the alexandrine close, it is to be found in Churchyard’s Worthies of Wales. See his introduction for Brecknockshire. J.B.
[15] Mr. Malone has ascertained both the place and time of his birth by the register of Bardsey, which is as follows: “William, the sonne of Mr. William Congreve of Bardsey Grange, was baptised Febru. 10th, 1669.” See Malone’s Dryden, vol. i. p. 225. J.B.
[16] Dec. 17, 1714, and May 3, 1718, he received a patent for the same place for life.
[17] The Historical Register says Jan. 19. æt. 57.
[18] “Except!” Dr. Warton exclaims, “Is not this a high sort of poetry?” He mentions, likewise, that Congreve’s opera, or oratorio, of Semele, was set to musick by Handel; I believe, in 1743.
[19] At Saddlers’ hall.
[20] The book he alludes to was Nova Hypothesis ad explicanda febrium intermittentium symptomata, &c. Authore Gulielmo Cole, M.D. 1693.
[21] “The Kit-cat Club,” says Horace Walpole, “though generally mentioned as a set of wits, were, in fact, the patriots who saved Britain.” See, for the history of its origin and name, Addisoniana, i. 120; Ward’s complete and humorous account of the remarkable Clubs and Societies. Ed.
[22] He was born at Shelton, near Newcastle, May 20, 1683; and was the youngest of eleven children of John Fenton, an attorney-at-law, and one of the coroners of the county of Stafford. His father died in 1694; and his grave, in the church-yard of Stoke upon Trent, is distinguished by the following elegant Latin inscription from the pen of his son:
H.S.E.
JOHANNES FENTON,
de Shelton
antiqua stirpe generosus:
juxta reliquias conjugis
CATHERINÆ
forma, moribus, pietate,
optimo viro dignissimæ:
Qui
intemerata in ecclesiam fide,
et virtutibus intaminatis enituit;
necnon ingenii lepore
bonis artibus expoliti,
ac animo erga omnes benevolo,
sibi suisque jucundus vixit.
Decem annos uxori dilectee superstes
magnum sui desiderium bonis
omnibus reliquit,
anno{salutis humanai 1694,
{ætatis suffi 56.
See Gent. Mag. 1791, vol. lxi. p. 703. N.
[23] He was entered of Jesus college, and took a bachelor’s degree in 1704: but it appears, by the list of Cambridge graduates, that he removed, in 1726, to Trinity hall. N.
[24] 1717. M.
[25] Ford was Johnson’s relation, his mother’s nephew, and is said to have been the original of the parson in Hogarth’s Modern Midnight Conversation. See Boswell, i. and iii. Ed.
[26] July 16.
[27] Spence.
[28] Shiels, Dr. Johnson’s amanuensis, who says, in Cibber’s Lives of the Poets, that he received this anecdote from a gentleman resident in Staffordshire. M.
[29] Goldworthy does not appear in the Villare. Dr. J.—Holdsworthy is probably meant.
[30] Spence.
[31] This mishap of Gay’s is said to have suggested the story of the scholar’s bashfulness in the 157th Rambler; and to similar stories in the Adventurer and Repton’s Variety. Ed.
[32] It was acted seven nights. The author’s third night was by command of their royal highnesses. R.
[33] Spence.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] To Trinity college. By the university register it appears, that he was admitted to his master’s degree in 1679; we must, therefore, set the year of his birth some years back. H.
[38] We need not remark to any of our readers, but to those who are not Oxford men, that Pullen’s name is now remembered in the university, not as a tutor, but by the venerable elm tree which was the term of his morning walks. “I have the honour to be well known to Mr. Josiah Pullen, of our hall above-mentioned, (Magdalen hall,) and attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up Headington lull, in his cheerful company.” Guardian, No. 2. Ed.
[39] The vicarage of Willoughby, which he resigned in 1708. N.
[40] This preferment was given him by the duke of Beaufort. N.
[41] Not long after.
[42] Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell till his promotion to the bishoprick of Rochester. Dr. Yalden succeeded him as preacher, in June, 1713. N.
[43] This account is still erroneous. James Hammond, our author, was of a different family, the second son of Anthony Hammond, of Somersham-place, in the county of Huntingdon, esq. See Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 780. R.
[44] Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athenæ Cantab, in Mus. Brit.
[45] William.
[46] An allusion of approbation is made to the above in Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century, ii. 58. Ed.
[47] The first edition of this interesting narrative, according to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 1748, and was published by Cave. Very few alterations were made by the author, when he added it to the present collection. The year before publication, 1743, Dr. Johnson inserted the following notice of his intention in the Gentleman’s Magazine.
“MR. URBAN
“As your collections show how often you have owed the ornaments of your poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfortunate and ingenious Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so much regard to his memory, as to encourage any design that may have a tendency to the preservation of it from insults or calumnies; and, therefore, with some degree of assurance, intreat you to inform the publick, that his life will speedily be published by a person who was favoured with his confidence, and received from himself an account of most of the transactions which he proposes to mention, to the time of his retirement to Swansea, in Wales.
“From that period to his death in the prison of Bristol, the account will be continued from materials still less liable to objection; his own letters and those of his friends; some of which will be inserted in the work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin.
“It may be reasonably, imagined that others may have the same design, but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected that they will supply from invention the want of intelligence, and that under the title of the Life of Savage, they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures and imaginary amours. You may, therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them, in your magazine, that my account will be published, in octavo, by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane.”
[48] This year was made remarkable by the dissolution of a marriage solemnized in the face of the church. Salmon’s Review.
The following protest is registered in the books of the house of lords:
Dissentient: Because we conceive that this is the first bill of that nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be of dangerous consequence in the future. HALIFAX. ROCHESTER.
[49] See Mr. Boswell’s doubts on this head; and the point, fully discussed by Malone, and Bindley in the notes to Boswell. Edit. 1816. i. 150, 151. Ed.
[50] On this circumstance, Boswell founds one of his strongest arguments against Savage’s being the son of lady Macclesfield. “If there was such a legacy left,” says Boswell, “his not being able to obtain payment of it, must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real person. The just inference should be, that, by the death of lady Macclesfield’s child before its godmother, the legacy became lapsed; and, therefore, that Johnson’s Savage was an impostor. If he had a title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given.” With respect for the legal memory of Boswell, we would venture to urge, that the forma pauperis is not the most available mode of addressing an English court; and, therefore, Johnson is not clearly proved wrong by the above argument brought against him. Ed.
[51] He died August 18th, 1712 R.
[52] Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.
[53] Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.
[54] See the Plain Dealer.
[55] The title of this poem was the Convocation, or a Battle of Pamphlets, 1717. J. B.
[56] Jacob’s Lives of the Dramatick Poets. Dr. J.
[57] This play was printed first in 8vo.; and afterwards in 12mo. the fifth edition. Dr. J.
[58] Plain Dealer, Dr. J.
[59] As it is a loss to mankind when any good action is forgotten, I shall insert another instance of Mr. Wilks’s generosity, very little known. Mr. Smith, a gentleman educated at Dublin, being hindered by an impediment in his pronunciation from engaging in orders, for which his friends designed him, left his own country, and came to London in quest of employment, but found his solicitations fruitless, and his necessities every day more pressing. In this distress he wrote a tragedy, and offered it to the players, by whom it was rejected. Thus were his last hopes defeated, and he had no other prospect than of the most deplorable poverty. But Mr. Wilks thought his performance, though not perfect, at least worthy of some reward, and, therefore, offered him a benefit. This favour he improved with so much diligence, that the house afforded him a considerable sum, with which he went to Leyden, applied himself to the study of physick, and prosecuted his design with so much diligence and success, that, when Dr. Boerhaave was desired by the czarina to recommend proper persons to introduce into Russia the practice and study of physick, Dr. Smith was one of those whom he selected. He had a considerable pension settled on him at his arrival, and was one of the chief physicians at the Russian court. Dr. J.
A letter from Dr. Smith, in Russia, to Mr. Wilks, is printed in Chetwood’s History of the Stage. R.
[60] “This,” says Dr. Johnson, “I write upon the credit of the author of his life, which was published in 1727;” and was a small pamphlet, intended to plead his cause with the publick while under sentence of death “for the murder of Mr. James Sinclair, at Robinson’s coffee-house, at Charing-cross, price 6d. Roberts.” Savage sent a copy of it to Mrs. Carter, with some corrections and remarks. See his letter to that lady in Mrs. Carter’s life by Mr. Pennington, vol. i. p. 58.
[61] Chetwood, however, has printed a poem on her death, which he ascribes to Mr. Savage. See History of the Stage, p. 206
[62] In 1724.
[63] Printed in the late collection of his poems.
[64] It was acted only three nights, the first on June 12,1723. When the house opened for the winter season it was once more performed for the author’s benefit, Oct. 2. R.
[65] To Herbert Tryst, esq. of Herefoulshire. Dr. J.
[66] The Plain Dealer was a periodical paper, written by Mr. Hill and Mr. Bond, whom Savage called the two contending powers of light and darkness. They wrote, by turns, each six essays; and the character of the work was observed regularly to rise in Mr. Hill’s weeks, and fall in Mr. Bond’s. Dr. J.
[67] The names of those who so generously contributed to his relief having been mentioned in a former account, ought not to be omitted here. They were the dutchess of Cleveland, lady Cheyney, lady Castlemain, lady Gower, lady Lechmere, the dutchess dowager and dutchess of Rutland, lady Strafford, the countess dowager of Warwick, Mrs. Mary Floyer, Mrs. Sofuel Noel, duke of Rutland, lord Gainsborough, lord Milsington, Mr. John Savage. Dr. J.
[68] This the following extract from it will prove:—“Since our country has been honoured with the glory of your wit, as elevated and immortal as your soul, it no longer remains a doubt whether your sex have strength of mind in proportion to their sweetness. There is something in your verses as distinguished as your air. They are as strong as truth, as deep as reason, as clear as innocence, and as smooth as beauty. They contain a nameless and peculiar mixture of force and grace, which is at once so movingly serene, and so majestically lovely, that it is too amiable to appear any where but in your eyes and in your writings.”
“As fortune is not more my enemy than I am the enemy of flattery, I know not how I can forbear this application to your ladyship, because there is scarce a possibility that I should say more than I believe, when I am speaking of your excellence.” Dr. J.
[69] Mr. Savage’s life.
[70] She died October 11, 1753, at her house in Old Bond street, aged above fourscore. R.
[71] It appears that during his confinement he wrote a letter to his mother, which he sent to Theophilus Cibber, that it might be transmitted to her through the means of Mr. Wilks. In his letter to Cibber he says: “As to death, I am easy, and dare meet it like a man—all that touches me is the concern of my friends, and a reconcilement with my mother. I cannot express the agony I felt when I wrote the letter to her: if you can find any decent excuse for showing it to Mrs. Oldfield, do; for I would have all my friends (and that admirable lady in particular) be satisfied I have done my duty towards it. Dr. Young to-day sent me a letter most passionately kind.” R.
[72] Written by Mr. Beckingham and another gentleman. Dr. J.
[73] Printed in the late collection.
[74] In one of his letters he styles it “a fatal quarrel, but too well known.” Dr. J.
[75] Printed in his works, vol. ii. p. 231.
[76] See his works, vol. ii. p. 233.
[77] This epigram was, I believe, never published:
“Should Dennis publish you had stabb’d your brother,
Lampoon’d your monarch, or debauch’d your mother;
Say, what revenge on Dennis can be had,
Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad?
On one so poor you cannot take the law,
On one so old your sword you scorn to draw,
Uncag’d then, let the harmless monster rage,
Secure in dullness, madness, want, and age.”
Dr. J.
[78] 1729.
[79] His expression, in one of his letters, was, “that lord Tyrconnel had involved his estate, and, therefore, poorly sought an occasion to quarrel with him,” Dr. J.
[80] This poem is inserted in the late collection.
[81] Printed in the late collection.
[82] A short satire was, likewise, published in the same paper, in which were the following lines:
For cruel murder doom’d to hempen death,
Savage, by royal grace, prolong’d his breath.
Well might you think he spent his future years
In pray’r, and fasting, and repentant tears.
—But, O vain hope!—the truly Savage cries,
“Priests, and their slavish doctrines, I despise.
Shall I——
Who, by free-thinking to free action fir’d.
In midnight brawls a deathless name acquir’d,
Now stoop to learn of ecclesiastic men?
No, arm’d with rhyme, at priests I’ll take my aim.
Though prudence bids me murder but their fame.”
Weekly Miscellany.
An answer was published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, written by an unknown hand, from which the following lines are selected:
Transform’d by thoughtless rage, and midnight wine,
From malice free, and push’d without design;
In equal brawl if Savage lung’d a thrust,
And brought the youth a victim to the dust;
So strong the hand of accident appears,
The royal hand from guilt and vengeance clears.
Instead of wasting “all thy future years,
Savage, in pray’r and vain repentant tears,”
Exert thy pen to mend a vitious age,
To curb the priest, and sink his high-church rage;
To show what frauds the holy vestments hide,
The nests of av’rice, lust, and pedant pride:
Then change the scene, let merit brightly shine,
And round the patriot twist the wreath divine;
The heav’nly guide deliver down to fame;
In well-tun’d lays transmit a Foster’s name;
Touch ev’ry passion with harmonious art,
Exalt the genius, and correct the heart.
Thus future times shall royal grace extol;
Thus polish’d lines thy present fame enrol.
——But grant——
——Maliciously that Savage plung’d the steel,
And made the youth its shining vengeance feel;
My soul abhors the act, the man detests,
But more the bigotry in priestly breasts.
Gentleman’s Magazine, May, 1735.
Dr. J.
[83] By Mr. Pope. Dr. J.
[84] Reprinted in the late collection.
[85] In a letter after his confinement. Dr. J.
[86] Letter, Jan. 15.
[87] See this confirmed, Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. 1140. N.
[88] The author preferred this title to that of London and Bristol compared; which, when he began the piece, he intended to prefix to it. Dr. J.
[89] This friend was Mr. Cave, the printer. N.
[90] Mr. Strong, of the post-office. N.
[91] See Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. 1040. N.
[92] Mr. Pope. See some extracts of letters from that gentleman to and concerning Mr. Savage, in Ruffhead’s Life of Pope, p. 502. R.
[93] Mr. Sheridan, in his Life of Swift, observes, that this account was really written by the dean, and now exists in his own handwriting in the library of Dublin college. R.
[94] Spence’s Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 273.
[95] The words speciali gratia, or per specialem gratium, were used in the record of his degree in the college of Dublin; but were never entered in any testimonium, which merely states the fact of a degree having been taken, and, therefore, the account that they were omitted as a favour to Swift is incorrect.
[96] The affecting and amiable circumstances attending this resignation are not mentioned by Johnson, but may be seen in Sheridan’s Life of Swift, p. 21, 22.
[97] The publisher of this collection was John Dunton. R.
[98] How does it appear that Stella’s father was steward to sir William Temple? In his will he does not say one word of her father’s services, and did not leave Esther Johnson a thousand pounds, but a lease. His bequest runs thus: “I leave the lease of some lands I have in Morris-town, in the county of Wicklow, in Ireland, to Esther Johnson, servant to my sister Gifford.” M.
[99] See Sheridan’s Life, edit. 1784, p. 525; where are some remarks on this passage. R.
[100] The whole story of this bishoprick is a very blind one. That it was ever intended for Swift, or that Sharpe and the dutchess of Somerset ever dissuaded queen Anne from promoting him, is not ascertained by any satisfactory evidence. M.
[101] Mr. Sheridan, however, says, that Addison’s last Whig Examiner was published October 12, 1711; and Swift’s first Examiner, on the 10th of the following November. R.
[102] This emphatic word has not escaped the watchful eye of Dr. Warton, who has placed a nota bene at it.
[103] See this affair very differently represented in Swift’s Panegyrist, Sheridan, p. 530.
[104] An account somewhat different from this is given by Mr. Sheridan, in his Life of Swift, p. 511. R.
[105] It is but justice to the dean’s memory, to refer to Mr. Sheridan’s defence of him from this charge. See the Life of Swift, p. 458. R.
[106] This account is contradicted by Mr. Sheridan, who, with great warmth, asserts, from his own knowledge, that there was not one syllable of truth in this whole account from the beginning to the end. See Life of Swift, edit. 1784, p. 532. R.
[107] Spence.
[108] Henley’s joke was borrowed. In a copy of verses, entitled the Time Poets, preserved in a miscellany called Choice Drollery, 1656, are these lines:
Sent by Ben Jonson, as some authors say,
Broom went before, and kindly swept the way.
J. B.
[109] This weakness was so great that he constantly wore stays, as I have been assured by a waterman at Twickenham, who, in lifting him into his boat, had often felt them. His method of taking the air on the water was to have a sedan chair in the boat, in which he sat with the glasses down. H.
[110] This opinion is warmly controverted by Roscoe, in his Life of Pope; and, perhaps, with justice; for, to adopt the words of D’Israeli, “Pope’s literary warfare was really the wars of his poetical ambition more, perhaps, than of the petulance and strong irritability of his temper.” See also sir Walter Scott’s Swift, i. 316. Ed.
[111] This is incorrect; his ordinary hand was certainly neat and elegant. I have some of it now before me. M.
[112] Pope’s first instructor is repeatedly mentioned by Spence under the name of Banister, and described as the family priest. Spence’s Anecd. 259. 283. Singer’s edit. Roscoe’s Pope, i. 11. Ed.
[113] Dryden died May 1, 1700, a year earlier than Johnson supposed. M.
[114] No. 253. But, according to Dr. Warton, Pope was displeased at one passage, in which Addison censures the admission of “some strokes of ill-nature.”
[115] See Gent. Mag. vol. li. p. 314. N. See the subject very fully discussed in Roscoe’s Life of Pope, i. 86, and following pages.
[116] What eye of taste ever beheld the dancing fawn or the immortal Canova’s dancing girl, and doubted of this power? Pindar long ago assigned this to sculpture, and was never censured for his poetic boldness:
Ἑργα δἑ ζωοἱσιν ερπὁν-
τεσσἱ θ' ομοἱα κἑλευθοι
Φἑρον.
Olym. vii. 95. Ed.
[117] Pope never felt with Eloisa, and, therefore, slighted his own affected effusions. He had little intense feeling himself, and all the passionate parts of the epistle are manifestly borrowed from Eloisa’s own Latin letters. Ed.
[118] It is still at Caen Wood. N.
[119] Spence.
[120] Earlier than this, viz. in 1688, Milton’s Paradise Lost had been published with great success by subscription, in folio, under the patronage of Mr. (afterwards lord) Somers. R.
[121] This may very well be doubted. The interference of the Dutch booksellers stimulated Lintot to publish cheap editions, the greater sale of which among the people probably produced his large profits. Ed.
[122] Spence.
[123] Spence.
[124] As this story was related by Pope himself, it was most probably true. Had it rested on any other authority, I should have suspected it to have been, borrowed from one of Poggio’s Tales. De Jannoto Vicecomite. J.B.
[125] On this point, see notes on Halifax’s life in this edition.
[126] Spence.
[127] See, however, the Life of Addison in the Biographia Britannica, last edition. R.
[128] See the letter containing Pope’s answer to the bishop’s arguments in Roscoe’s life, i. 212.
[129] The late Mr. Graves, of Claverton, informs us, that this bible was afterwards used in the chapel of Prior-park. Dr. Warburton probably presented it to Mr. Allen.
[130] See note to Adventurer, No. 138.
[131] Mr. D’Israeli has discussed the whole of this affair in his Quarrels of Authors, i. 176. Mr. Roscoe likewise, in his Life of Pope, examines very fully all the evidence to be gathered on the point, and comes to a conclusion much less reputable to Curll, than that to be inferred from Dr. Johnson’s arguments. Ed.
[132] These letters were evidently prepared for the press by Pope himself. Some of the originals, lately discovered, will prove this beyond all dispute; in the edition of Pope’s works, lately published by Mr. Bowles.
[133] Ayre, in his Life of Pope, ii. 215, relates an amusing anecdote on this occasion. “Soon after the appearance of the first epistle,” he observes, “a gentleman who had attempted some things in the poetical way, called on Pope, who inquired from him, what news there was in the learned world, and what new pieces were brought to light? The visiter replied, that there was little or nothing worthy notice; that there was, indeed, a thing called an Essay on Man, shocking poetry, insufferable philosophy, no coherence, no connexion. Pope could not repress his indignation, and instantly avowed himself the author. This was like a clap of thunder to the mistaken bard, who took up his hat and never ventured to show his unlucky face there again.” It is generally supposed that Mallet was this luckless person. Ed.
[134] This letter is in Mr. Malone’s Supplement to Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 223.
[135] Spence.
[136] It has been admitted by divines, even that some sins do more especially beset particular individuals. Mr. Roscoe enters into a long vindication of Pope’s doctrine against the imputations of Dr. Johnson; the most satisfactory parts of which are the refutations drawn from Pope’s own essay.
The business of reason is shown to be,
to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this passion more as friend than foe.
Essay on Man, ep. ii. 164.
Th’ eternal art, educing good from ill,
Grafts on this passion our best principle;
’Tis thus the mercury of man is fix’d:
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix’d.
Ib. ii. 175.
As fruits, ungrateful to the planter’s care,
On savage stocks inserted learn to bear,
The surest virtues thus from passions shoot,
Wild nature’s vigour working at the root,
What crops of wit and honesty appear
From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear, &c.
Ib. ii. 181.
“And thus,” concludes Mr. Roscoe, “the injurious consequences which Johnson supposes to be derived from Pope’s idea of the ruling passion, are not only obviated, but that passion itself is shown to be conducive to our highest moral improvement.” Ed.
[137] Entitled, Sedition and Defamation displayed. 8vo. 1733. R.
[138] Among many manuscripts, letters, &c. relating to Pope, which I have lately seen, is a lampoon in the bible style, of much humour, but irreverent, in which Pope is ridiculed as the son of a hatter.
[139] On a hint from Warburton. There is, however, reason to think, from the appearance of the house in which Allen was born at Saint Blaise, that he was not of a low, but of a decayed family.
[140] Since discovered to have been Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester. See the collection of that prelate’s Epistolary Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 6. N.
This I believe to be an error. Mr. Nichols has ascribed this preface to Atterbury on the authority of Dr. Walter Harte, who, in a manuscript note on a copy of Pope’s edition, expresses his surprise that Pope should there have described the former editor as anonymous, as he himself had told Harte fourteen years before his own publication, that this preface was by Atterbury. The explication is probably this; that during that period he had discovered that he had been in a mistake. By a manuscript note in a copy presented by Crynes to the Bodleian library, we are informed that the former editor was Thomas Power, of Trinity college, Cambridge. Power was bred at Westminster, under Busby, and was elected off to Cambridge in the year 1678. He was author of a translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost; of which only the first book was published, in 1691. J.B.
[141] In 1743.
[142] In 1744.
[143] Mr. Roscoe, with good reason, doubts the accuracy of this inconsistent and improbable story. See his Life of Pope, 556.
[144] Spence.
[145] This is somewhat inaccurately expressed. Lord Bolingbroke was not an executor: Pope’s papers were left to him specifically, or, in case of his death, to lord Marchmont.
[146] This account of the difference between Pope and Mr. Allen is not so circumstantial as it was in Johnson’s power to have made it. The particulars communicated to him concerning it he was too indolent to commit to writing; the business of this note is to supply his omissions. Upon an invitation, in which Mrs. Blount was included, Mr. Pope made a visit to Mr. Allen, at Prior-park, and having occasion to go to Bristol for a few days, left Mrs. Blount behind him. In his absence Mrs. Blount, who was of the Romish persuasion, signified an inclination to go to the popish chapel at Bath, and desired of Mr. Allen the use of his chariot for the purpose; but he being at that time mayor of the city, suggested the impropriety of having his carriage seen at the door of a place of worship, to which, as a magistrate, he was at least restrained from giving a sanction, and might be required to suppress, and, therefore, desire to be excused. Mrs. Blount resented this refusal, and told Pope of it at his return, and so infected him with her rage that they both left the house abruptly[1].
An instance of the like negligence may be noted in his relation of Pope’s love of painting, which differs much from the information I gave him on that head. A picture of Betterton, certainly copied from Kneller by Pope[2], lord Mansfield once showed me at Kenwood-house, adding, that it was the only one he ever finished, for that the weakness of his eyes was an obstruction to his use of the pencil. H.
(Footnote 1: This is altogether wrong. Pope kept up his friendship with Mr. Allen to the last, as appears by his letters, and Mrs. Blount remained in Mr. Allen’s house some time after the coolness took place between her and Mrs. Allen. Allen’s conversation with Pope on this subject, and his letters to Mrs. Blount, all whose quarrels he was obliged to share, will be found in Mr. Bowles’s edition of Pope’s works. C.—See further and more minute information on this affair in Roscoe’s Pope, i. 526, and following pages. Ed.)
(Footnote 2: See p. 249.)
[147] But see this matter explained by facts more creditable to Pope, in his life, Biographical Dictionary, vol. xxv.
[148] Part of it arose from an annuity of two hundred pounds a year, which he had purchased either of the late duke of Buckinghamshire, or the dutchess, his mother, and which was charged on some estate of that family. [See p. 256.] The deed by which it was granted was some years in my custody. H.
[149] The account herein before given of this lady and her catastrophe, cited by Johnson from Ruffhead, with a kind of acquiescence in the truth thereof, seems no other than might have been extracted from the verses themselves. I have in my possession a letter to Dr. Johnson, containing the name of the lady; and a reference to a gentleman well known in the literary world for her history. Him I have seen; and, from a memorandum of some particulars to the purpose, communicated to him by a lady of quality, he informs me, that the unfortunate lady’s name was Withinbury[1], corruptly pronounced Winbury; that she was in love with Pope, and would have married him; that her guardian, though she was deformed in person, looking upon such a match as beneath her, sent her to a convent; and that a noose, and not a sword, put an end to her life. H.
(Footnote 1: According to Warton, the lady’s name was Wainsbury. Ed.)
[150] Bentley was one of these. He and Pope, soon after the publication of Homer, met at Dr. Mead’s at dinner; when Pope, desirous of his opinion of the translation, addressed him thus: “Dr. Bentley, I ordered my bookseller to send you your books: I hope you received them.” Bentley, who had purposely avoided saying any thing about Homer, pretended not to understand him, and asked, “Books! books! what books?”—“My Homer,” replied Pope, “which you did me the honour to subscribe for.”—“Oh,” said Bentley, “aye, now I recollect—your translation:—it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer.” H. Some good remarks on Pope’s translation may be found in the work of Melmoth, entitled Fitzosborne’s Letters. Ed.
[151] In one of these poems is a couplet, to which belongs a story that I once heard the reverend Dr. Ridley relate:
“Slander or poison dread from Delia’s rage;
Hard words, or hanging, if your judge be ****,”
Sir Francis Page, a judge well known in his time, conceiving that his name was meant to fill up the blank, sent his clerk to Mr. Pope, to complain of the insult. Pope told the young man that the blank might be supplied by many monosyllables, other than the judge’s name:—“but, sir,” said the clerk, “the judge says that no other word will make sense of the passage.”—“So then it seems,” says Pope “your master is not only a judge but a poet; as that is the case, the odds are against me. Give my respects to the judge, and tell him, I will not contend with one that has the advantage of me, and he may fill up the blank as he pleases.” H.
[152] See note, by Gifford, on Johnson’s criticism here in Massinger’s works.
[153] Johnson, I imagine, alludes to a well-known line by Rochester:
The best good man with the worst-natur’d muse.
[154] Major Bernardi, who died in Newgate, Sept. 20, 1736. See Gent. Mag. vol. 1. p. 125. N.
[155] This was altered much for the better, as it now stands on the monument in the abbey, erected to Rowe and his daughter. WARB. See Bowles’s edition of Pope’s works, ii. 416.
[156] In the north aisle of the parish church of St. Margaret, Westminster. H.
[157] The thought was, probably, borrowed from Carew’s Obsequies to the lady Anne Hay:
I heard the virgins sigh, I saw the sleek
And polish’d courtier channel his fresh cheek
With real tears.
J.B.
[158] Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child. DRYDEN, on Mrs. Killigrew.
[159] The same thought is found in George Whetstone’s epitaph on the good lord Dyer, 1582:
Et semper bonus ille bonis fuit, ergo bonorum
Sunt illi demum pectora sarcophagus.
J.B.
[160] It has since been added to the collection. R.
[161] According to the Biographical Dictionary the name of Thomson’s mother was Beatrix Trotter. Hume was the name of his grandmother. Ed.
[162] See the Life of Beattie, by sir William Forbes, for some additional anecdotes. Ed.
[163] Warton was told by Millan that the book lay a long time unsold on his stall. Ed.
[164] “It was at this time that the school of Pope was giving way: addresses to the head rather than to the heart, or the fancy; moral axioms and witty observations, expressed in harmonious numbers, and with epigrammatick terseness; the limae labor, all the artifices of a highly polished style, and the graces of finished composition, which had long usurped the place of the more sterling beauties of the imagination and sentiment, began first to be lessened in the public estimation by the appearance of Thomson’s Seasons, a work which constituted a new era in our poetry.” Censura Literaria, iv. 280.
[165] An interesting anecdote respecting Thomson’s deportment before a commission, instituted in 1732, for an inquiry into the state of the public offices under the lord chancellor, is omitted by Johnson and all the poet’s biographers. We extract it from the nineteenth volume of the Critical Review, p. 141. “Mr. Thomson’s place of secretary of the briefs fell under the cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot, who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the best of his poetical compositions.” The above praise is precisely such as we might anticipate that an old lawyer would give, but it, at all events, exempts the poet’s character from the imputation of listless indolence, advanced by Murdoch, and leaves lord Hardwicke little excuse for his conduct. Ed.
[166] It is not generally known that in this year an edition of Milton’s Areopagitiea was published by Millar, to which Thomson wrote a preface.
[167] See vol. v. p. 329 of this edition, and Mr. Roscoe’s Life of Pope, for some anecdotes respecting Gay’s Beggars’ Opera and Polly, illustrative of the efficacy of a lord-chamberlain’s interference with the stage. Ed.
[168] Several anecdotes of Thomson’s personal appearance and habits are scattered over the volumes of Boswell. Ed.
[169] For an interesting collection of the various readings of the successive editions of the Seasons, see vols. ii. in. and iv. of the Censura Literaria. Thomson’s own preface to the second edition of Winter may be found in vol. ii. p. 67, of the above-quoted work. Ed.
[170] He took his degrees, A. B. 1696, A. M. 1700.
[171] This ought to have been noticed before. It was published in 1700, when he appears to have obtained a fellowship of St. John’s.
[172] Spence.
[173] Ibid.
[174] The archbishop’s letters, published in 1760, (the originals of which are now in Christ-church library, Oxford,) were collected by Mr. Philips.
[175] At his house in Hanover-street, and was buried in Audley chapel.
[176] Mr. Ing’s eminence does not seem to have been derived from his wit. That the men who drive oxen are goaded, seems to be a custom peculiar to Staffordshire. J.B.
[177] Certainly him. It was published in 1697.
[178] In the Poetical Calendar, a collection of poems by Fawkes and Woty, in several volumes, 1763, &c.
[179] A monument of exquisite workmanship, by Flaxman, is erected in Chichester to Collins’s memory.
[180] It is printed in the late collection.
[181] This charge against the Lyttelton family has been denied, with some degree of warmth, by Mr. Potter, and since by Mr. Graves. The latter says, “The truth of the case, I believe, was, that the Lyttelton family went so frequently with their family to the Leasowes, that they were unwilling to break in upon Mr. Shenstone’s retirement on every occasion, and, therefore, often went to the principal points of view without waiting for any one to conduct them regularly through the whole walks. Of this Mr. Shenstone would sometimes peevishly complain; though, I am persuaded, he never really suspected any ill-natured intention in his worthy and much-valued neighbours.” R.
[182] Mr. Graves, however, expresses his belief that this is a groundless surmise. “Mr. Shenstone,” he adds, “was too much respected in the neighbourhood to be treated with rudeness; and though his works, (frugally as they were managed) added to his manner of living, must necessarily have made him exceed his income, and, of course, he might sometimes be distressed for money, yet he had too much spirit to expose himself to insults from trifling sums, and guarded against any great distress, by anticipating a few hundreds; which his estate could very well bear, as appeared by what remained to his executors after the payment of his debts, and his legacies to his friends, and annuities of thirty pounds a year to one servant, and six pounds to another, for his will was dictated with equal justice and generosity.” R.
[183] We may, however, say with the Grecian orator, ὁτι απολλὑμενος ευφραἱνει, he gives forth a fragrance as he wastes away. Ed.
[184] “These,” says Mr. Graves, “were not precisely his sentiments, though he thought, right enough, that every one should, in some degree, consult his particular shape and complexion in adjusting his dress; and that no fashion ought to sanctify what was ungraceful, absurd, or really deformed.”
[185] Mr. D’Israeli’s remarks on Shenstone and his writings, may be profitably compared with Johnson’s life. See last edition of the Curiosities of Literature. Ed.
[186] See Gent. Mag. vol. lxx. p. 225. N.
[187] As my great friend is now become the subject of biography, it should be told, that every time I called upon Johnson during the time I was employed in collecting materials for this life and putting it together, he never suffered me to depart without some such farewell as this: “Don’t forget that rascal Tindal, sir. Be sure to hang up the atheist.” Alluding to this anecdote, which Johnson had mentioned to me.
[188] Dr. Johnson, in many cases, thought and directed differently, particularly in Young’s works. J.N.
[189] Not in the Tatler, but in the Guardian, May 9, 1713.
[190] See a letter from the duke of Wharton to Swift, dated 1717, in Swift’s works, in which he mentions Young being then in Ireland. J.B.N.
[191] Davies, in his life of Garrick, says 1720, and that it was produced thirty-three years after.
[192] Mr. Boswell discovered in this heavy piece of biography a successful imitation of Johnson’s style. An eminent literary character exclaimed, “No, no, it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak without its strength.” Endeavouring to express himself still more in Johnsonian phrase, he added, “It has all the contortions of the Sybil, without the inspiration.” See Boswell, iv. According to Malone, this eminent person was Burke, and the observation is assigned to him, without hesitation, in Prin’s Life. It has sometimes been attributed to G. Stevens. Ed.
[193] See Mrs. Piozzi’s Anecdotes, 162.
[194] Mallet’s William and Margaret was printed in Aaron Hill’s Plain Dealer, No. 36, July 24,1724 In its original state it was very different from what it is in the last edition of his works. Dr. J.
[195] See note on this passage of Pope’s life in the present edition.
[196] Johnson entertained a very high idea of the varied learning and science necessarily connected with the character of an accomplished physician, and often affirmed of the physicians of this island, that “they did more good to mankind without a prospect of reward, than any profession of men whatever.” His friendship for Dr. Bathurst, and the most eminent men in the medical line of his day, is well known. See an epistle to Dr. Percival, developing the wide field of knowledge over which a physician should expatiate, prefixed to Observations on the Literature of the Primitive Christian Writers. Ed.
[197] A most curious and original character of Akenside is given by George Hardinge, in vol. viii. of Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes. Ed.
[198] We shall, in comparison with this criticism, quote a passage from Rasselas, and deduce no inference:
“As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: answer, said she, great father of waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint.” Ed.
[199] I have a soul, that like an ample shield
Can take in all; and verge enough for more.
Dryden’s Sebastian.
[200] Lord Orford used to assert, that Gray “never wrote any thing easily, but things of humour;” and added, that humour was his natural and original turn. For a full examination of Johnson’s strange and capricious strictures on the poetry of Gray, we, with much satisfaction, refer our readers to the life prefixed to, and the notes that accompany, an elegant edition of Gray’s works, 2 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1825. Much that is both elegant and useful will be found in that publication. Ed.
[201] Dr. Johnstone, of Kidderminster.