| As was never read. |
Grey was outrageously attacked by all the wits, first by Warburton, in his preface to Shakspeare, who declares that “he hardly thinks there ever appeared so execrable a heap of nonsense under the name of commentaries, as hath been lately given us on a certain satyric poet of the last age.” It is odd enough, Warburton had himself contributed towards these very notes, but, for some cause which has not been discovered, had quarrelled with Dr. Grey. I will venture a conjecture on this great conjectural critic. Warburton was always meditating to give an edition of his own of our old writers, and the sins he committed against Shakspeare he longed to practise on Butler, whose times were, indeed, a favourite period of his researches. Grey had anticipated him, and though Warburton had half reluctantly yielded the few notes he had prepared, his proud heart sickened when he beheld the 106 amazing subscription Grey obtained for his first edition of “Hudibras;” he received for that work 1500l.[75]—a proof that this publication was felt as a want by the public.
Such, however, is one of those blunt, dogmatic censures in which Warburton abounds, to impress his readers with the weight of his opinions; this great man wrote more for effect than any other of our authors, as appears by his own or some friend’s confession, that if his edition of Shakspeare did no honour to that bard, this was not the design of the commentator—which was only to do honour to himself by a display of his own exuberant erudition.
The poignant Fielding, in his preface to his “Journey to Lisbon,” has a fling at the gravity of our doctor. “The laborious, much-read Dr. Z. Grey, of whose redundant notes on ‘Hudibras’ I shall only say that it is, I am confident, the single book extant in which above 500 authors are quoted, not one of which could be found in the collection of the late Dr. Mead.” Mrs. Montague, in her letters, severely characterises the miserable father of English commentators; she wrote in youth and spirits, with no knowledge of books, and before even the unlucky commentator had published his work, but wit is the bolder by anticipation. She observes that “his dulness may be a proper ballast for doggrel; and it is better that his stupidity should make jest dull than serious and sacred things ridiculous;” alluding to his numerous theological tracts.
Such then are the hard returns which some authors are doomed to receive as the rewards of useful labours from those who do not even comprehend their nature; a wit should not be admitted as a critic till he has first proved by his gravity, or his dulness if he chooses, that he has some knowledge; for it is the privilege and nature of wit to write fastest and best on what it least understands. Knowledge only encumbers and confines its flights.
THE LIFE OF AN AUTHORESS.
Of all the sorrows in which the female character may participate, there are few more affecting than those of an authoress;—often insulated and unprotected in society—with all the sensibility of the sex, encountering miseries which break the 107 spirits of men; with the repugnance arising from that delicacy which trembles when it quits its retirement.
My acquaintance with an unfortunate lady of the name of Eliza Ryves, was casual and interrupted; yet I witnessed the bitterness of “hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick.” She sunk, by the slow wastings of grief, into a grave which probably does not record the name of its martyr of literature.