The contests that arose out of Wilkes’s case produced much disquisition into the laws and Constitution; and amidst much party invective, some grave and serious treatises appeared, especially one I have mentioned, the masterly tract called An Inquiry into the Doctrine of Libels.[79]
Several other good pamphlets were written on national affairs, particularly relative to the East India Company; and to the heats occasioned in America by the Stamp Act. Among the latter were justly distinguished A Farmer’s Letters from Pennsylvania, written by Dr. Franklin.[80]
The state of our finances, and the properest methods of conducting and restoring them, were much discussed: never more ably than in Mr. Edmund Burke’s answer to a (supposed) pamphlet of Mr. Grenville, in 1769.[81]
Politics not only occupied our prose but inspired our poets. I have taken notice of Churchill’s works; and will only say here that he did not so much prove himself a great poet, as he showed how great he might have been.
The politics of the times gave birth to two other poems of uncommon merit, both in the burlesque style, but one in that of “Hudibras,” the other in the graver march of “The Dispensary.” The first called “Rodondo,” of which only two cantos appeared, though a third was promised, was written by a Mr. Dalrymple, a Scot, and contained a severe satire on Mr. Pitt, not much inferior in wit to Butler, and like his work, liable by temporary allusions to lose many beauties in the eyes of posterity.[82]
The second called “Patriotism; a Mock Heroic,” by Mr. Richard Bentley, though full of negligences and crowded with intricate and sometimes too far-fetched metaphors,—nay, in some places pushed to nonsense by the confusion of those metaphors, in sense and imagination excelled Churchill; and though less sonorous, did not breathe a spirit less poetic. The flattery was profuse and indelicate; the satire rarely unjust. The imitations of Milton, Dryden, and Garth, though frequent, were always happy; and the whole poem, though much more incorrect than “The Dispensary” or “The Dunciad,” has beauties that rank it next to them in merit: in the dignity of its heroes it precedes both. One of its greatest faults seems to be, that though all the personages appear under allegoric names, all were meant for living characters, till the last canto, when Fate is introduced in its own essence, and though maintained with as sublime dignity as the nature of burlesque would allow, still produces a confusion by not being of a piece with the rest of the work. It has the same misfortune with Rodondo of being written on transient ridicules.[83]
Two other poets of great merit arose, who meddled not with politics; Dr. Goldsmith, the correct Author of “The Traveller;” and Mr. Anstey, who produced as original a poem as “Hudibras” itself, “The New Bath Guide.” The easiest wit, the most genuine humour, the most inoffensive satire, the happiest parodies, the most unaffected poetry, and the most harmonious melody in every kind of metre, distinguished that poem by their assemblage from the works of all other men. It was a melancholy proof of how little an author can judge of the merit of his own compositions, when he afterwards produced “The Patriot,” in which nobody could discover his meaning, or whether he had any meaning; and in which, amidst various but unsuccessful attempts at humour, nothing remained but his sonorous numbers. He afterwards sunk to no kind of merit at all.[84]
I do not know whether this period may not be said to have given birth to another original poem; for notwithstanding its boasted antiquity, and the singularity of the style, it remains a doubt with me and many others, whether “Fingal” was not formed in this age from scraps, perhaps not modern, but of no very early date. Its sterility of ideas, the insipid sameness that reigns throughout, and the timidity with which it anxiously avoids every image that might affix it to any specific age, country, or religion, are far from bespeaking a savage bard, who the more he was original, the more he would naturally have availed himself of the images and opinions around him. Few barbarous authors write with the fear of criticism before their eyes. The moon, a storm, the troubled ocean, a blasted heath, a single tree, a waterfall, and a ghost; take these away, and Cadmus’s warriors, who started out of the earth, and killed one another before they had time to conceive an idea, were as proper heroes for an epic poem as Fingal and his captains.
I will mention but two other authors of this period, Dr. Robertson, and Mrs. Macaulay. The first as sagacious and penetrating as Tacitus, with the perspicuity of Livy, and without the partialities of his own countryman, Hume, gave a perfect model of history in that of Scotland. In biography, his method and style were still preserved, though his Charles the Fifth fell far short of his other works. The female historian, as partial in the cause of liberty as bigots to the Church and royalists to tyranny, exerted manly strength with the gravity of a philosopher.[85] Too prejudiced to dive into causes, she imputes everything to tyrannic views, nothing to passions, weakness, error, prejudice, and still less to what operates oftenest, and her ignorance of which qualified her yet less for a historian,—to accident and little motives. She seems to think men have acted from no views but those of establishing a despotism or a republic. As a mixed government clashed with her system, she forgot the nation had been habituated to it, and she could not forgive the victors in the civil war for not abolishing all established order, and for not shutting their ears and hearts against every connection and interest, in pursuit of a model which mad Harrington had chalked out, though impracticable, and which she was not then born to preach up. In this wild pursuit of a vision which must have rooted up every law, she is reduced to declare for the army[86] that tore out of the House of Commons the very Parliament to whom the nation had owed the first assertion of its liberties. To such absurdities are they reduced whose prejudices hurry them to extremes! If the Parliament were not the legal authority for controlling the King, where shall we say legality resides? She would answer, In the natural right of mankind to be free. That right, then, must be vindicated by force. Thence we revert to a state of nature. What did that state of nature produce? System-builders will tell me, it produced deliberation on the right method of governing nations. The answer is not true. Time, accident, and events produced government;—but no matter, I will allow the position, with this proviso, that a victorious army shall sheathe their swords, and allow the wisest and best citizens to form a new Constitution: who sees not the absurdity and impracticability of this proposition? When did an army bestow freedom? Did that army which raised Cromwell to the throne—those republican heroes of Mrs. Macaulay? The Parliament was the true barrier against the King’s usurpations, and had done its duty nobly. Reformation, not destruction of the constitution, was its aim; and therefore, in her eyes, it was not less guilty than the King. I worship liberty as much as she does, detest despotism as much; but I never yet saw or read of a form of government under which more general freedom is enjoyed, than under our own. Republics veer towards aristocracy or democracy, and often end in a single tyrant,—not that nobles are not tyrants. For the people, they are not capable of government, and do more harm in an hour, when heated by popular incendiaries than a king can do in a year. It is a government like ours, in which all the three parts seek augmentation of their separate powers, and in which King, Lords, and Commons, are a watch and a check upon the other two, that best ensures the general happiness. Mrs. Macaulay will allow that there is no check upon an absolute monarch. In an aristocracy, the pride, ambition, and jealousy of the nobles are some check upon each individual grandee. But what is a check upon the people in a republic? In what republic have not the best citizens fallen a sacrifice to the ambition and envy of the worst? God grant that, with all its deficiencies, we may preserve our own mixed government!