This comedy was first presented very hurriedly for the amusement of Prince Charles as he passed through Cambridge to York. Cowley himself describes it, then, as “neither made nor acted, but rough-drawn by him, and repeated by his scholars” for this temporary purpose. After the Restoration he endeavoured to do more justice to his juvenile work, by remodelling it, and producing it at the Duke of York’s theatre. But as many of the characters necessarily retained the features of the older play, and times had changed; it was easy to affix a false stigma to the poet’s pictures of the old Cavaliers; and the play was universally condemned as a satire on the Royalists. It was reproduced with success at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, as long afterwards as the year 1730.—Ed.
The anecdote, probably little known, may be found in “The Judgment of Dr. Prideaux in Condemning the Murder of Julius Cæsar by the Conspirators as a most villanous act, maintained,” 1721, p. 41.
He was the youngest son of the celebrated minister, Sir Robert Walpole.—Ed.
In his letters there are uncommon instances of vivacity, whenever pointed against authors. The following have not yet met the public eye. What can be more maliciously pungent than this on Spence? “As I know Mr. J. Spence, I do not think I should have been so much delighted as Dr. Kippis with reading his letters. He was a good-natured harmless little soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius. It was a neat fiddle-faddle bit of sterling, that had read good books, and kept good company; but was too trifling for use, and only fit to please a child.”—On Dr. Nash’s first volume of ‘Worcestershire’: “It is a folio of prodigious corpulence, and yet dry enough; but it is finely dressed with many heads and views.” He characterises Pennant; “He is not one of our plodders (alluding to Gough); rather the other extreme; his corporal spirits (for I cannot call them animal) do not allow him to digest anything. He gave a round jump from ornithology to antiquity, and, as if they had any relation, thought he understood everything that lay between them. The report of his being disordered is not true; he has been with me, and at least is as composed as ever I saw him.” His literary correspondence with his friend Cole abounds with this easy satirical criticism—he delighted to ridicule authors!—as well as to starve the miserable artists he so grudgingly paid. In the very volumes he celebrated the arts, he disgraced them by his penuriousness; so that he loved to indulge his avarice at the expense of his vanity!
This opinion on Walpole’s talent for letter-writing was published in 1812, many years before the public had the present collection of his letters; my prediction has been amply verified. He wrote a great number to Bentley, the son of Dr. Bentley, who ornamented Gray’s works with some extraordinary designs. Walpole, who was always proud and capricious, observes his friend Cole, broke with Bentley because he would bring his wife with him to Strawberry-hill. He then asked Bentley for all his letters back, but he would not in return give Bentley’s own.
This whole correspondence abounded with literature, criticism, and wit of the most original and brilliant composition. This is the opinion of no friend, but an admirer, and a good judge; for it was Bentley’s own.