Settle died in 1723, the author of ten tragedies, three operas, a comedy, and a pastoral, all of which are now forgotten. His comedy was written against Wesley, Sault, and Dunton; but Dunton says it “was a poor performance, and failed in its design.”
The place where Wesley, Sault, and Dunton met respecting the affairs of their united publication, was Smith’s Coffee-house, George Yard, adjoining the Mansion House, and here, on one occasion, an incident occurred, illustrative of Samuel Wesley’s character. In a box, at the other end of the room, where Wesley and his two friends were met for business, there were a number of gentlemen, including an officer of the guards, who, in his conversation, swore most dreadfully. Wesley heard the oaths of this foul-mouthed man, and, feeling excessively annoyed at such disgraceful ribaldry, asked the waiter to bring him a glass of water, and then, in a loud voice so as to be heard by every one present, said, “Carry the water to that gentleman in the red coat, and desire him to wash his mouth after his oaths.” No sooner were the words spoken, than the irate officer started to his feet to chastise the bold young parson. His friends, however, possessed of more sense and manners than himself, seized him and said, “Nay, Colonel! you gave the first offence, you know it is an affront to swear in the presence of a clergyman.” And there for the present the matter ended; but, many years afterwards, when Wesley was in London attending convocation, on going through St James’s Park, a gentleman accosted him, and asked if he knew him. Wesley answered in the negative, upon which the gentleman recalled to his remembrance the scene in Smith’s coffee-house, and added, “Since then, sir, I thank God I have feared an oath, and everything that is offensive to the divine Majesty. I rejoice at seeing you, and cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude to God and to you, that we ever met.” A word spoken in season, how good is it!
It has been already stated that Wesley, Sault, and Dunton were the only proprietors of the Athenian Gazette; but it is right to add that they had, among their contributors, some of the distinguished writers of that period.
Sault was, in some respects, a remarkable man. His literary attainments were considerable, and his skill in mathematics great; but he proved unfaithful to his wife, sunk into a state of extreme melancholy, and wrote a paper, which, to a great extent, embodied his own experience, and which he entitled, “The Second Spira, being a fearful example of an Atheist, who had apostatised from the Christian religion, and died in despair at Westminster, Dec. 8, 1692.” In this account, he speaks of himself as having spent five years at the university. He then came to London, and began to study law. He formed an acquaintance with atheistical companions, and drank into their spirit. He was then taken ill, and was visited by his friends. After this, follows an account of his pretended bewailings of his past faithlessness. Once he knew the mercies of God and tasted what they were; but now he had denied Christ, and wished that he was in hell. He refused all sustenance; he groaned and tossed, and said he knew himself sealed unto damnation. “Oh that I was to broil,” he cried, “upon that fire for a thousand years, to purchase the favour of God, and be reconciled to Him again! But it is a fruitless wish! Millions of millions of years will bring me no nearer to the end of my tortures than one poor hour. Oh eternity! eternity!” His last words were, “Oh the insufferable pangs of hell and damnation.” Sault sent this fictitious paper to Dunton, in a disguised hand, and requested him to publish it as a truthful narrative. Dunton did so, and in six weeks sold thirty thousand copies, at sixpence each. Afterwards, it became known that the pamphlet was a piece of fiction, except so far as it was a partial description of Sault’s own experience; for Dunton tells us that a little before he received the narrative, “Sault was under the severest terrors of conscience; and his despair and melancholy made him look like some walking ghost.” Dunton several times heard him muttering to himself, “I am damned! I am damned!” The publication of “The Second Spira” created an immense sensation, and Dunton found it necessary to publish the “Secret History of Mr Sault,” so as to clear himself from the imputation of sham or fraud in giving to the public such a narrative; and yet, it is a singular circumstance, that, nearly a hundred years afterwards, John Wesley republished the greater part of “The Second Spira” in his Arminian Magazine, without a single line of explanation that the piece, though powerfully written, was almost altogether false. Richard Sault ultimately removed to Cambridge, where his ingenuity and his algebraic skill obtained for him a considerable reputation. He died there in 1704, being supported in his last sickness by the charity of the scholars. He was interred in St Andrew’s Church, Cambridge; and a writer, who knew him, says, “his learning was as universal as his sense of things was fine and curious.”
Among the principal contributors to the Athenian Gazette were Daniel Defoe, already sketched, Dr Norris, Nahum Tate, Dean Swift, Sir William Temple, and Mrs Rowe.[[43]]
John Norris was born at Collingborne-Kingston, in Wiltshire, in 1657, and died at Bemerton, in the same county, in 1711. He was educated first in Winchester School, and afterwards in the same college, at Oxford, as that which Samuel Wesley entered. He was elected Fellow of All Souls’ College, and, shortly after Wesley left Oxford, he was presented to the rectory of Newton St Loe, and, two years later, to that of Bemerton. He was a pious, learned, and ingenious man, but had a tincture of enthusiasm[enthusiasm] in his nature, which led him to imbibe the principles of the idealists in philosophy and of the mystics in theology. A late writer says of him, “In metaphysical acumen, in theological learning, and in purity of diction, Dr Norris acknowledges no superior. He carries the whole circle of the sciences in his head, and piety and religion illustrate all his actions. Never was any question proposed by ingenious malice or curiosity, but, with the utmost readiness and facility, he gave not only fair and amusing ideas of it, but full and most evident demonstrations. He was good, great, and learned; and a worthy companion of so great a man as Samuel Wesley.”[[44]] His greatest work is “The Theory of the Ideal World,” but, besides that, he published several others.
Nahum Tate was poet-laureate to King William III. He was born in Dublin in 1655, and educated in the Dublin University. On coming to London, he fell into pecuniary difficulties, from which he was relieved by the Earl of Dorset. He was the author of nine dramatic pieces, and of a variety of miscellaneous poems, now deservedly forgotten. His name is principally known by his version of the Psalms, generally affixed to the Liturgy of the Church of England, and in the composition of which he was assisted by Dr Brady.
Jonathan Swift, another of the Athenian contributors, was a marvellous mortal. One of his earliest poetical productions was a commendatory poem of 307 lines sent to the Athenian Society. Dryden read it, and said, “Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.” Dr Johnson says that this unfortunate remark caused Swift to regard Dryden with malevolence to the end of life. His “Tale of a Tub,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” and other works are too well known to need description. He was a man of amazing genius, but never ought to have been a priest. During his residence in Dublin University, he incurred no less than seventy penalties for irregularities; and, in the last year of his residence, his academical degree was suspended, and he was sentenced to ask public pardon of the junior dean for insolence. In his personal habits he was scrupulously nice; and yet there are passages in his writings almost as gross as his pen could make them. As an author, he is perhaps not surpassed for originality, and it has been said of him that he never borrowed a thought from any man. In some matters he was ludicrously penurious. Once when going from Sir William Temple’s to his mother’s, he travelled the whole distance on foot, except when the violence of the weather drove him into stage waggons; and, at nights, put up at penny lodgings, where, to secure himself from filth, he hired clean sheets for sixpence; and yet with all this he can hardly be called a man of avarice, for he seems to have saved only that he might have the more to give. Three years before his death, he became insane, and sunk into a lethargy, in which he remained speechless for a year. He left the greater part of his fortune to an hospital for lunatics and idiots. He died in 1744. The pranks and puns of Jonathan Swift, Dean Of St Patrick’s, are endless. The common people received him everywhere with profound respect; and upon one occasion, he made a laughable experiment on the public belief in his authority. A number of the people having assembled round the deanery to see an eclipse, Swift became tired of their commotion, and directed the town crier to make proclamation, that the eclipse was postponed, by command of the Dean of St Patrick’s, which had the effect of dispersing the assembled star-gazers.
Sir William Temple was a frequent contributor to the Athenian Gazette. This eminent statesman was a pupil of the learned Dr Hammond, his maternal uncle. As an author, he was pleasing and popular, his style being long regarded as a model of grace and elegance. He died at Moor Park, in 1698, where, in accordance with his will, his heart was buried in a silver box under the sun-dial, opposite to a window where he had been accustomed to contemplate and admire the works of nature; while his body was privately interred in Westminster Abbey.
The last contributor, we mention, was Mrs Rowe, who supplied “a variety of inimitable poems.” “She was,” says Dunton, “the richest genius of her sex. She knew the purity of our tongue, and conversed with as much briskness and gaiety as she wrote. Her style is noble and flowing, and her images vivid and shining.” Mrs Rowe, at this time, was not more than twenty years of age; but she had cultivated music, painting, and poetry from her childhood. She afterwards studied French and Italian, and enjoyed the friendship of some of the most eminent literati of her day. She died in 1737, and, shortly after her death, Dr Isaac Watts published her “Devout Exercises of the Heart.” A year or two afterwards, appeared her miscellaneous works, in prose and verse, in two volumes octavo.