His first wife died in 1751, leaving him seven children. He had known her from childhood. The attention paid her by Shenstone shews her to have been an amiable woman. In eight years after, he married Margaret, daughter of James Underwood, Esq. of Rugeley, in Staffordshire, who survived him. During the latter part of his life, his infirmities confined him to the house. He died, after a short illness, on the 8th of May, 1781, and was buried in the church of Snitterfield. In his person he was above the middle stature. His manner was reserved before strangers, but easy even to sprightliness in the society of his friends. He is said to have discharged blamelessly all the duties of his profession and of domestic life. As a poet, he is not entitled to very high commendation. The distinguishing feature of his poetry is the ease of its diction. Johnson has observed, that if blank verse be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled prose. To disprove this, it would be sufficient to quote the greater part of that story from the Tatler [1] of the Young Man restored to Sight, which Jago has introduced into his Edge-hill. Nothing can be described more naturally, than his feelings and behaviour on his first recovery.
The friendly wound was given; th'obstructing filmDrawn artfully aside; and on his sightBurst the full tide of day. Surprised he stood,Not knowing where he was, nor what he saw.The skilful artist first, as first in place,He view'd, then seized his hand, then felt his own,Then mark'd their near resemblance, much perplex'd,And still the more perplex'd the more he saw.Now silence first th' impatient mother broke,And, as her eager looks on him she bent,"My son (she cried), my son!" On her he gazedWith fresh surprise. "And what!" he cried, "art thouMy mother? for thy voice bespeaks thee such,Though to my sight unknown."—"Thy mother I(She quick replied); thy sister, brother, these."—"O! 'tis too much (he said); too soon to part,Ere well we meet! But this new flood of dayO'erpowers me, and I feel a death-like dampChill all my frame, and stop my faltering tongue."Now Lydia, so they call'd his gentle friend,Who, with averted eye, but in her soulHad felt the lancing steel, her aid applied,"And stay, dear youth (she said), or with thee takeThy Lydia, thine alike in life or death!"At Lydia's name, at Lydia's well known voice,He strove again to raise his drooping headAnd ope his closing eye, but strove in vain,And on her trembling bosom sunk away.Now other fears distract his weeping friends:But short their grief! for soon his life return'd,And, with return of life, return'd their peace.—(B. iii.)
The country which he has undertaken to describe in this poem is fertile and tame. There was little left to him, except to enlarge on its antiquities, to speak of the habitations that were scattered over it, and to compliment the most distinguished among their possessors. Every day must detract something from the interest, such as it is, that arises from these sources. A poet should take care not to make the fund of his reputation liable to be affected by dilapidations, or to be passed away by the hands of a conveyancer.
It would seem as if he had never visited a tract of land much wilder than that in which he was bred and born. In speaking of "embattled walls, raised on the mountain precipice," he particularises "Beaudesert; Old Montfort's seat;"[2]—a place, which, though it is pleasantly diversified with hill and dale, has no pretensions of so lofty a kind. This, he tells us, was "the haunt of his youthful steps;" and here he met with Somerville, the poet of the Chase, to whom both the subject and the title of his poem might have been suggested by that extensive common, known by the name of Cannock Chase,[3] on the border of which Beaudesert is situated.
The digressions, with which he has endeavoured to enliven the monotony of his subject, are sometimes very far-fetched. He has scarcely finished his exordium, when he goes back to the third day of the creation, and then passes on to the deluge. This reminds one of the Mock Advocate in the Plaideurs of Racine, who, having to defend the cause of a dog that had robbed the pantry, begins,
Avant la naissance du monde——
on which the judge yawns and interrupts him,
Avocat, ah! passons an deluge.
Of his shorter pieces, the three Elegies on Birds are well deserving of notice. That entitled the Blackbirds is so prettily imagined, and so neatly expressed, that it is worth a long poem. Thrice has Shenstone mentioned it in his Letters, in such a manner as to show how much it had pleased him. The Goldfinches is only less excellent. He has spoiled the Swallows by the seriousness of the moral.
Nunc non erat his locus.
The first half of Peytoe's Ghost has enough in it to raise a curiosity, which is disappointed by the remainder.
FOOTNOTES[1] No. LV.[2] Edge-Hill, Book I.[3] The author has here fallen into an error in confounding Beaudesert,near Henley in Arden, with a place of the same name, near CannockChase. The mistake was pointed out to him a few days after itspublication, by his valued friend and relative, the Rev. ThomasPrice, Rector of Enville, Staffordshire. Mr. Price's letter willfurnish the best explanation. He writes:—
"In your life of Jago, I am afraid you have fallen into a mistake, by confounding the two Beaudeserts. That one of which Jago's father was Rector, and near which Somerville resided, is, as you have stated in the beginning of the life, near Henley, and to that the words, "Old Montfort's seat" must refer, because Dugdale, treating of Beldesert, near Henley, says, 'on the east side of the last mentioned brook runneth a hilly tract, bordered with deep vallies on each part; the point whereof maketh a kind of promontory, whose ascent being somewhat steep, gave occasion of the fortifying thereat first, considering its situation in these woodland parts, where, through the opportunity of so much shelter, advantage was most like to be taken by the disherited English and their offspring, to make head for their redemption from the Norman yoke. Tis not unlike, but thismountainousground, &c. Thurslem de Montfort, near kinsman of the first Norman Earl of Warwick, erected that strong castle, whereunto, by reason of its pleasant situation, the French name Beldesert, was given, and which continued the chief seat of his descendants for divers ages.'"—ED.
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Richard Cambridge, the son of a Turkey merchant, descended from a family long settled in Gloucestershire, was born in London, on the fourteenth of February, 1717. His father dying soon after his birth, the care of his education devolved on his mother and his maternal uncle, Thomas Owen, Esq. a lawyer who had retired from practice to his seat in Buckinghamshire, and who, having no children of his own, adopted his nephew. At an early age he was sent to Eton, where, among his schoolfellows and associates, were Gray, West, Jacob Bryant, the Earl of Orford, and others eminent for wit or learning. Here he contracted not only a literary taste and habits of study, but that preference for the quiet amusements of a country life, which afterwards formed a part of his character. In 1734 he was removed from Eton to Oxford, and admitted a gentleman commoner of St. John's College. On the marriage of the Prince of Wales, two years after, he contributed some verses to the Congratulatory Poems from that University. A ludicrous picture, which he draws of academical festivity, betrays the future author of the Scribleriad:—
In flowing robes and squared caps advance,Pallas their guide, her ever-favour'd band;As they approach they join in mystic dance,Large scrolls of paper waving in their hand;Nearer they come, I heard them sweetly sing.
He left the University without taking a degree, and in 1737 became a member of Lincoln's Inn. In four years after he married the second daughter of George Trenchard, Esq. of Woolverton, in Dorsetshire, who was Member of Parliament for Poole, and son of Sir John Trenchard, Secretary of State to King William. Retiring to his family mansion of Whitminster, in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Stroud, he employed himself in making that stream navigable to its junction with the Severn, in improving his buildings, and in ornamenting his grounds, which lay pleasantly in the rich vale of Berkeley. Here his happiness was interrupted by the death of one among his former playmates at Eton, whom he had most distinguished by his affection. This was Captain Berkeley, an officer, who in those happy times, when military men were not yet educated apart from scholars, had added to his other accomplishments a love of letters, and who fell in the battle of Fontenoy. This affliction discouraged him from proceeding in a poem on Society, which he had intended as a memorial of their friendship. The opening does not promise well enough to make us regret its discontinuance.
At Whitminster he had the honour of entertaining the Prince of Wales, with his consort, and their daughter the late Duchess Dowager of Brunswick, then on a visit to Lord Bathurst at Cirencester. The royal guests were feasted in a vessel of his own constructing, that was moored on a reach of the Severn; and the Prince gratified him by declaring, that he had often made similar attempts on the Thames, but never with equal success. To the exercise of mechanical ingenuity in improving the art of boat-building, he added uncommon skill in the use of the bow and arrow, and had assembled all the varieties of those instruments that could be procured from different countries.
He appears to have possessed in an unusual degree, the power of suddenly ingratiating himself with those who conversed with him. A gentleman who had never before seen him, and who had reluctantly accompanied the Prince in his aquatic expedition, was so much pleased with Cambridge, as to be among the foremost to acknowledge his satisfaction; and having been introduced by William Whitehead, then tutor to the Earl of Jersey's eldest son, into the house of that nobleman, he soon became a welcome guest, and formed a lasting friendship with one of the family, who was afterwards Earl of Clarendon. In the number of his intimates he reckoned Bathurst, afterwards Chancellor, with whom an acquaintance, begun at Eton, had been continued at Lincoln's Inn; Carteret, Lyttelton, Grenville, Chesterfield, Yorke, Pitt, and Pulteney. In order to facilitate his intercourse with such associates, and perhaps in conformity with the advice of his departed friend Berkeley, who had recommended London as the proper stage for the display of his poetical talent, he was induced to pass two of his winters in the capital; but finding that the air of the town was injurious to his health, in 1751 he purchased a residence at Twickenham. He had now another opportunity of showing his taste for rural embellishment, in counteracting the effects of his predecessor's formality, in opening his lawns and grouping his trees with an art that wore the appearance of negligence. An addition to his fortune by the decease of his uncle Mr. Owen, who left him his name together with his estate, enabled him to gratify these propensities. By some of his powerful friends he had been urged to obtain a seat in Parliament, and addict himself to a public life; but he valued his tranquillity too highly to comply with their solicitations. A sonnet addressed to him by his friend Edwards, author of the Canons of Criticism, and which is not without elegance, tended to confirm him in his resolve.
In the year[1] of his removal to Twickenham, the Scribleriad was published, a poem calculated to please the learned, rather than the vulgar, and with respect to which he had observed the rule of thenonum prematur in annum. To The World, the periodical paper undertaken soon after by Moore, and continued for four years, he contributed twenty-one numbers. Though determined against taking an active part in public affairs, yet he shewed himself to be far from indifferent to the interests of his country. Her maritime glory more peculiarly engaged his attention.
Anson, Boscawen, and indeed nearly all the distinguished seamen of his day, were among his intimates or acquaintance; and he assisted some of the principal navigators in drawing up the relations which they gave to the world of their discoveries. In 1761, he was prompted by his apprehensions, that the nation was not sufficiently on her guard against the endeavours making by the French to deprive her of her possessions in the East, to publish a History of the War upon the Coast of Coromandel. The great work undertaken by Mr. Orme prevented him from pursuing the subject.
Continuing thus to pass his days in the enjoyment of domestic happiness and learned ease, surrounded by a train of menials grown grey in his service, exercising the rites of hospitality with uniform cheerfulness, and performing the duties of religion with exemplary punctuality, respected by the good and admired by the ingenious, he reached his eighty-third year with little inconvenience from the usual infirmities of age. His faculties then declining, he was dismissed by a gradual exhaustion of his natural powers, and resigning his breath without a sigh on the seventeenth of September, 1802—
—Like ripe fruit he dropp'd Into his mother's lap … …for death mature.
Having always lived in an union of the utmost tenderness with his family, he exhibited a pleasing instance of the "ruling passion strong in death." "Having passed," says his son, "a considerable time in a sort of doze, from which it was thought he had hardly strength to revive, he awoke, and upon seeing me, feebly articulated, 'How do the dear people do?' When I answered that they were well; with a smile upon his countenance, and an increased energy of voice, he replied, 'I thank God;' and then reposed his head upon his pillow, and spoke no more."
He was buried at Twickenham, where, on inquiring a few years ago, I found that no monument had been raised to his memory.
He left behind a widow, a daughter, and two sons. From the narrative of his life written by one of these, the Reverend Archdeacon Cambridge, and prefixed to a handsome edition of his poems and his papers in The World, the above account has been chiefly extracted.
Chesterfield, another of the contributors to The World, inserted in it a short character of him under the name of Cantabrigiensis, introduced by an encomium on his temperance; for he was a water-drinker.
That he was what is commonly termed a news-monger, appears from the following laughable story, told by the late Mr. George Hardinge, the Welch Judge:—
I wished upon some occasion to borrow a Martial. He told me he had no such book,except by heart. I therefore inferred, that he could not immediately detect me. Accordingly I sent him an epigram which I had made, and an English version of it, as from the original. He commended the latter, but said, that it wanted the neatness of the Roman. When I undeceived him, he laughed, and forgave me.
It originated in a whimsical fact. Mr. Cambridge had a rage for news; and living in effect at Richmond, though on the other side of the Thames, he had the command of many political reporters. As I was then in professional business at my chambers, I knew less of public news than he did; and every Saturday, in my way from Lincoln's Inn to a villa of my own near him, called upon him for the news from London. This I told him was not unlike what Martial said, L. iii. 7.
Deciano salutem.
Vix Roma egressus, villa novus advena, rurisVicini dominum te "quid in urbe?" rogo.Tu novitatis amans Roma si Tibura mallesPer nos "de villa quae nova" disce "tua."
Nichols's Illust. of the Literary Hist, of the xviii. Cent. v. i. p. 131.
Of his poems, which are neither numerous, nor exhibit much variety of manner, little remains to be said. Archimage, though a sprightly sally, cannot be ranked among the successful imitations of Spenser's style.Als neandmote, how often soever repeated, do not go far towards a resemblance of the Faery Queene.
In his preface to the Scribleriad, which betrays great solicitude to explain and vindicate the plan of the poem, he declares that his intention is "to shew the vanity and uselessness of many studies, reduce them to a less formidable appearance, and invite our youth to application, by letting them see that a less degree of it than they apprehend, judiciously directed, and a very few books indeed, well recommended, will give them all the real information which they are to expect from human science." The design was a laudable one. In the poem itself we feel the want of some principal event, on the development and issue of which the interest of the whole may turn; as in those patterns of the mock-heroic, the Secchia Rapita, the Lutrin, and the Rape of the Lock; an advantage, which these poems in some measure derive from having been founded in fact; for however trifling the incident by which the imagination of the poet may have been first excited, when once known or believed to be true, it communicates something of its own reality to all the fictions that grow out of it. The hero too is one of the [Greek: amenaena karaena]; or rather is but the shadow of a shade; for he has taken the character of Martinus Scriblerus, as he found it in the memoirs of that unsubstantial personage. The adventures indeed in which the author has engaged him, though they did not require much power of invention, are yet sufficiently ludicrous; and we join, perhaps, more willingly in the laugh, as it is aimed at general folly and not at individual weakness. The wit is not condensed and sparkling as in the Dunciad; the writer's chief resource consisting in an adaptation of passages from writers, ancient and modern, to the purposes of a grave burlesque; and for the application of these, by a contrivance not very artificial, it is sometimes necessary to recur to the notes. The style, if it be not distinguished by any remarkable strength or elegance, is at least free and unaffected.
The imitations of Horace are often happy: that addressed to Lord Bathurst, particularly towards the latter part, is perhaps the best. Of the original jeux d'esprits, the verses occasioned by the Marriage and Game Acts, both passed the same session, have, I think, most merit. The Fable of Jotham, or the Borough Hunters, does not make up by ingenuity for what it wants in reverence. In the Fakeer, a tale professedly borrowed from Voltaire, the story takes a less humorous turn than as it is told in the extracts from Pere Le Comte's memoirs in the preface.
FOOTNOTE [1] In 1752 appeared his Dialogue between a Member and his Servant. The Intruder in 1754; and the Fakeer in 1756.—MS. addition. ED.
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Tobias Smollett was born in the parish of Cardross, in Dumbartonshire, in the year 1721. His father, Archibald, a Scotch gentleman of small fortune, was the youngest son of Sir James Smollett, who was knighted on King William's accession, represented the borough of Dumbarton in the last Scotch Parliament, and was of weight enough to be chosen one of the commissioners for framing the treaty of union between the two countries. On his return from Leyden, where it was then the custom for young Scotchmen to complete their education, Archibald married Barbara, the daughter of Mr. Cunningham, of Gilbertfield, near Glasgow; and died soon after the birth of our poet, leaving him, with another son and a daughter, dependent on the bounty of their grandfather. The place of Smollett's nativity was endeared to him by its natural beauties; insomuch that, when he had an opportunity of comparing it with foreign countries, he preferred the neighbouring lake of Loch Lomond to those most celebrated in Switzerland and Italy. Being placed at the school of Dumbarton, which was conducted by John Love, a man of some distinction as a scholar, he is said to have exercised his poetical talents in writing satires on the other boys, and in panegyrising his heroic countryman Wallace. From hence, at the usual age, he was removed to Glasgow; and there making choice of the study of medicine, was apprenticed to Mr. John Gordon, a chirurgeon, who afterwards took out a diploma, and practised as a physician. His irresistible propensity to burlesque did not suffer the peculiarities of this man, whom he has represented under the character of Potion, in Roderick Random, to escape him. He made some amends for the indignity, by introducing honourable mention of the name of Dr. Gordon in the last of his novels. A more overt act of contumacy to his superiors, into which his vivacity hurried him, trifling as it may appear, is so characteristic, that I cannot leave it untold. A lad, who was apprenticed to a neighbouring chirurgeon, and with whom he had been engaged in frolic on a winter's evening, was receiving a severe reprimand from his master for quitting the shop; and having alleged in his excuse, that he had been hit by a snow-ball, and had gone out in pursuit of the person who had thrown it, was listening to the taunts of his master, on the improbability of such a story. "How long," said the son of Aesculapius, with the confident air of one fearless of contradiction, "might I stand here, and such a thing not happen to me?" when Smollett, who stood behind the pillar of the shop-door, and heard what passed, snatching up a snow-ball, quickly delivered his playmate from the dilemma in which this question had placed him, by an answer equally prompt and conclusive. Not content with this attack, he afterwards made the offender sit for his whole-length portrait, in the person, as it is supposed, of Crab, in the same novel.
In the midst of these childish sallies, he meditated greater things; and the sound of the pestle and mortar did not prevent him from attending to the inspirations of Melpomene. At the age of eighteen he had composed a tragedy on the murder of James I. the Scottish monarch, and about that time losing his grandfather, by whom he had been supported, and discovering that he must thenceforth rely on his own exertions for a maintenance, he set forth with his juvenile production for London. On his arrival there, failing as might be expected, to persuade the managers to bring his tragedy on the stage, he solicited and obtained the place of a chirurgeon's mate, on board the fleet destined for the attack of Carthagena. Of this ill-conducted and unfortunate expedition, he not only made a sketch in his Roderick Random, but afterwards inserted a more detailed account of it in the Compendium of Voyages. After a short time, he was so little pleased with his employment, that he determined to relinquish it, and remain in the West Indies. During his residence in Jamaica, he met with Miss Anne Lascelles, to whom, after a few years, he was married, and with whom he expected to receive a fortune of three thousand pounds. In the islands he probably depended for a subsistence on the exercise of his skill as a chirurgeon. He returned to London in the year 1746; and though his family had distinguished themselves by their revolutionary principles, testified his sympathy with the late sufferings of his countrymen, in their expiring struggle for the house of Stuart, by some lines, entitled the Tears of Scotland. When warned of his indiscretion, he added that concluding stanza of reproof to his timid counsellors:—
While the warm blood bedews my veins,And unimpair'd remembrance reigns,Resentment of my country's fateWithin my filial breast shall beat;And spite of her insulting foe,My sympathizing verse shall flow:Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mournThy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn!
His first separate publication was, Advice, a satire, in the autumn of this year. At the beginning of the next it was followed by a second part, called Reproof, in which he took an occasion of venting his resentment against Rich, the manager of Covent Garden, with whom he had quarrelled concerning an opera, written by him for that theatre, on the story of Alcestis. In consequence of their dispute the piece was not acted; nor did he take the poet's usual revenge by printing it.
The fallacious prospects of his wife's possessions now encouraged him to settle himself in a better house, and to live with more hospitality than his circumstances would allow him to maintain. These difficulties were in some measure obviated by the sale of a new translation which he made of Gil Bias, and still more by the success of Roderick Random, which appeared in 1748. In none of his succeeding novels has he equalled the liveliness, force, and nature of this his first essay. So just a picture of a sea-faring life especially had never before met the public eye. Many of our naval heroes may probably trace the preference which has decided them in their choice of a profession to an early acquaintance with the pages of Roderick Random. He has not, indeed, decorated his scenes with any seductive colours; yet such is the charm of a highly wrought description, that it often induces us to overlook what is disgusting in the objects themselves, and transfer the pleasure arising from the mere imitation to the reality.
Strap was a man named Lewis, a book-binder, who came from Scotland with Smollett, and who usually dined with him at Chelsea on Sundays. In this book he also found a niche for the exhibition of his own distresses in the character of Melopoyn the dramatic poet. His applications to the directors of the theatre, indeed, continued so unavailing, that he at length resolved to publish his unfortunate tragedy by subscription; and in 1749 the Regicide appeared with a preface, in which he complained grievously of their neglect, and of the faithlessness of his patrons, among whom Lord Lyttelton particularly excited his indignation. In the summer of this year his view of men and manners was extended by a journey to Paris. Here he met with an acquaintance and countryman in Doctor Moore, the author of Zeluco, who a few years after him had been also an apprentice to Gordon, at Glasgow. In his company Smollett visited the principal objects of curiosity in the neighbourhood of the French metropolis.
The canvas was soon stretched for a display of fresh follies: and the result was, his Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, in 1751. The success he had attained in exhibiting the characters of seamen led him to a repetition of similar delineations. But though drawn in the same broad style of humour, and, if possible, discriminated by a yet stronger hand, the actors do not excite so keen an interest on shore as in their proper element. The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, the substance of which was communicated by the woman herself, whose story they relate, quickened the curiosity of his readers at the time, and a considerable sum which he received for the insertion of them augmented the profits which he derived from a large impression of the work. But they form a very disagreeable interruption in the main business of the narrative. The pedantic physician was intended for a representation of Akenside, who had probably too much dignity to notice the affront, for which some reparation was made by a compliment to his talents for didactic poetry, in our author's History of England.
On his return (in 1749) he took his degree of Doctor in Medicine, and settled himself at Chelsea[1], where he resided till 1763. The next effort of his pen, an Essay on the External Use of Water, in a letter to Dr.——, with particular remarks upon the present method of using the mineral waters at Bath, in Somersetshire, &c. (in 1752) was directed to views of professional advancement. In his profession, however, he did not succeed; and meeting with no encouragement in any other quarter, he devoted himself henceforward to the service of the booksellers. More novels, translation, historical compilation, ephemeral criticism, were the multifarious employments which they laid on him. Nothing that he afterwards produced quite came up to the raciness of his first performances. In 1753, he published the Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. In the dedication of this novel he left a blank after the word Doctor, which may probably be supplied with the name of Armstrong. From certain phrases that occur in the more serious parts, I should conjecture them to be hastily translated from another language. Some of these shall be laid before the reader, that he may judge for himself. "A solemn profession, on which shereposed herself withthe most implicit confidence and faith;" ch. xii. (v. 4. p. 54, of Dr. Anderson's edition.)—"Our hero would have made his retreat through theport, by which he had entered;" instead of thedoor; ch. xiii. p. 55.—"His own penetration pointed out thecanal, through which his misfortune had flowed upon him;" instead of thechannel; ch. xx. p. 94.—"Public ordinaries, walks, andspectacles;" instead ofplaces of entertainment; ch. xxv. p. 125.—"The Tyrolese, by thecanalof Ferdinand's finger, and recommendation, sold a pebble for a real brilliant;" ch. xxxvii. p. 204.—"A young gentleman whose pride wasindomitable;" ch. xlvi. p. 242. In one chapter we find ourselves in a stage-coach, with such a company as Smollett loved to introduce to his readers.
He was about this time prosecuted in the King's Bench, on a charge of having intended to assassinate one of his countrymen, whose name was Peter Gordon. A few blows of the cane, which, after being provoked by repeated insolence, he had laid across the shoulders of this man, appeared to be the sole grounds for the accusation, and he was, therefore, honourably acquitted by the jury. A letter, addressed to the prosecutor's counsel, who, in Smollett's opinion, by the intemperance of his invective had abused the freedom of speech allowed on such occasions, remains to attest the irritability and vehemence of his own temper. The letter was either not sent, or the lawyer had too much moderation to make it the subject of another action, the consequences of which he could have ill borne; for the expense, incurred by the former suit, was already more than he was able to defray, at a time when pecuniary losses and disappointments in other quarters were pressing heavily upon him. A person, for whom he had given security in the sum of one hundred and eighty pounds, had become a bankrupt, and one remittance which he looked for from the East Indies, and another of more than a thousand pounds from Jamaica, failed him. From the extremity to which these accidents reduced him, he was extricated by the kindness of his friend, Doctor Macaulay, to which he had been before indebted; and by the liberality of Provost Drummond, who paid him a hundred pounds for revising the manuscript of his brother Alexander Drummond's travels through Germany, Italy, Greece, &c. which were printed in a folio volume in 1754. He had long anticipated the profits of his next work. This was a translation of Don Quixote, published at the beginning of 1755. Lord Woodhouselee, in his Essay on Translation, has observed, that it is little else than an improvement of the version by Jarvis. On comparing a few passages with the original, I perceive that he fails alike in representing the dignity of Cervantes in the mock-heroic, and the familiarity of his lighter manner. These are faults that might have been easily avoided by many a writer of much less natural abilities than Smollett, who wanted both the leisure and the command of style that were requisite for such an undertaking. The time, however, which he gave to that great master, was not thrown away. He must have come back from the study with his mind refreshed, and its powers invigorated by contemplating so nearly the most skilful delineation that had ever been made of human nature, according to that view in which it most suited his own genius to look at it.
On his return from a visit to Scotland, where a pleasant story is told of his being introduced to his mother as a stranger, and of her discovery of him after some time, with a burst of maternal affection, in consequence of his smiling, he engaged (1756) in an occupation that was not likely to make him a wiser, and certainly did not make him a happier man. The celebrity obtained by the Monthly Review had raised up a rival publication, under the name of the Critical. The share which Smollett had in the latter is left in some uncertainty. Doctor Anderson tells us, that he undertook the chief direction; and Mr. Nichols,[2] that he assisted Archibald Hamilton the printer. Whatever his part might be, the performance of it was enough to waste his strength with ignoble labour, to embitter his temper by useless altercation, and to draw on him contempt and insult from those who, however they surpassed him in learning, could scarcely be regarded as his superiors in native vigour and fertility of mind. "Sure I," said Gray, in a letter to Mason, "am something a better judge than all the man-midwives and presbyterian parsons that ever were born. Pray give me leave to ask you, do you find yourself tickled with the commendations of such people? (for you have your share of these too) I dare say not; your vanity has certainly a better taste. And can then the censure of such critics move you?" And Warburton, who had probably been exasperated in the same way, called his History of England the nonsense of a vagabond Scot.
In the same year was published a Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages, in seven volumes, which was said to have been made under his superintendence. We have his own word [3], that he had written a very small part of it. In 1757, his Reprisal, or the Tars of Old England, an entertainment in two acts, in which the scene throughout is laid on board ship, and which describes seamen in his usual happy vein, was acted at Drury-lane with tolerable success. In 1758, he published his History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, four volumes. Of this work, hasty as it was, having been compiled in fourteen months, ten thousand copies were speedily sold.
Some strictures in the Critical Review, which, in order to screen the printer of it, he generously avowed himself to have written, once more exposed him to a legal prosecution. The offensive passages were occasioned by a pamphlet, in which Admiral Knowles had vindicated himself from some reflections that were incidentally cast on him in the course of Sir John Mordaunt's trial for the failure of a secret expedition on the coast of France, near Rochefort. In his comments on the pamphlet, Smollett had stigmatized Knowles, the author of it, as "an admiral without conduct, an engineer without knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without veracity." It can scarcely be wondered, if, after such provocation, the party injured was not deterred by menaces, or diverted by proposals of agreement, from seeking such reparation as the law would afford him. This reparation the law did not fail to give; and Smollett was sentenced to pay a penalty of one hundred pounds, and to be confined for three months in the prison of the King's Bench. Cervantes wrote his Don Quixote in a gaol; and Smollett resolved, since he was now in one, that he would write a Don Quixote too. It maybe said of the Spaniard, according to Falstaff's boast, "that he is not only witty in himself, but the cause that wit is in other men;" and among the many attempts at imitation, to which the admirable original has given rise, Sir Launcelot Greaves is not one of the worst. That a young man, whose brain had been slightly affected by a disappointment in love, should turn knight-errant, at a time when books of chivalry were no longer in vogue, is not, indeed, in the first instance, very probable. But we are contented to overlook this defect in favour of the many original touches of character, and striking views of life, particularly in the mad-house, and the prison into which he leads his hero, and which he has depicted with the force of Hogarth. If my recollection does not mislead me, he will be found in some parts of this novel to have had before him the Pharsamond of Marivaux, another copy of Cervantes. But it does not anywhere like Count Fathom, betray symptoms of being a mere translation. Sir Launcelot Greaves was first printed piecemeal in the British Magazine, or Monthly Repository, a miscellany to which Goldsmith was also a contributor. It has the recommendation of being much less gross and indelicate than any other of his novels.
During the same period, 1761 and 1762, he published, in numbers, four volumes of a Continuation of his History of England; and in 1765, a fifth, which brought it down to that time.
Not contented with occupation under which an ordinary man would have sunk, he undertook, on the 29th of May, 1762, to publish the Briton, a weekly paper, in defence of the Earl of Bute, on that day appointed first commissioner of the treasury; and continued it till the 12th of February in the ensuing year, about two months before the retirement of that nobleman from office. By his patron he complained that he was not properly supported; and he incurred the hostility of Wilkes, who had before been his staunch friend, but who espoused the party in opposition to the Minister, by an attack, the malignance of which no provocation could have justified.
In 1763, his name was prefixed, in conjunction with that of Francklin, the Greek professor at Cambridge, and translator of Sophocles and Lucian, to a version of the works of Voltaire, in twenty-seven volumes. To this he contributed, according to his own account, a small part, including all the notes historical and critical. To the Modern Universal History, which was published about the same time, he also acknowledged himself to be a contributor, though of no very large portion.
His life had hitherto been subjected to the toil and anxiety of one doomed to earn a precarious subsistence by his pen. Though designed by nature for the light and pleasant task of painting the humours and follies of men, he had been compelled to undergo the work of a literary drudge. Though formed to enjoy the endearments of friendship, his criticisms had made those who were before indifferent to him his enemies; and his polities, those whom he had loved, the objects of his hatred. The smile, which the presence of his mother for a moment recalled, had almost deserted his features. Still we may suppose it to have lightened them up occasionally, in those hours of leisure when he was allowed to unbend himself in the society of a wife, with whom he seems always to have lived happily, and of an only daughter, who was growing up to share with her his caresses, and to whom both looked as the future support of their age.
[Greek:Tautae, gegaetha, kapilaethomai kakon'Haed anti pollon esti moi parapsychae,Aeolis, tithaenae, baktron, haegemon hodou]
In her, rejoicing, I forgot mine ills.I have lost much; but she remains, my comfort,My city and my nurse, my staff and guide.
He had bemoaned his distresses as an author; but was now to feel calamity of a different kind. This only daughter was taken from him by death, in her fifteenth year. Henceforward he was, with some short intervals, a prey to querulousness and disease. Soon after this loss (in June, 1763,) being resolved to try what change of climate would do for him, he set out with his disconsolate partner on a journey through France and Italy. On quitting his own country, he describes himself "traduced by malice, persecuted by faction, abandoned by false patrons, and overwhelmed by the sense of a private calamity, which it was not in the power of fortune to repair." The account which he published of this expedition on his return, shews that he did not derive from it the relief which he had expected. The spleen with which he contemplated every object that presented itself to him, was ridiculed by Sterne, who gave him the name of Smelfungus. With this abatement, the narration has much to interest and amuse, and conveys some information by which a traveller might perhaps still profit. When he brings before us the driver pointing to the gibbeted criminal whom he had himself betrayed, and unconsciously discovering his own infamy to Smollett, we might suppose ourselves to be reading a highly wrought incident in one of his own fictions. His prognostics of the approaching Revolution in France are so remarkable, that I am tempted to transcribe them. "The King of France, in order to give strength and stability to his administration, ought to have sense to adopt a sage plan of economy, and vigour of mind sufficient to execute it in all its parts with the most rigorous exactness. He ought to have courage enough to find fault, and even to punish the delinquents, of what quality soever they may be; and the first act of reformation ought to be a total abolition of all the farms. There are undoubtedly many marks of relaxation in the reins of the French government; and in all probability, the subjects of France will be the first to take the advantage of it. There is at present a violent fermentation of different principles among them, which under the reign of a very weak prince, or during a long minority, may produce a great change in the constitution. In proportion to the progress of reason and philosophy, which have made great advances in this kingdom [**kingfrom in original], superstition loses ground; ancient prejudices give way; a spirit of freedom takes the ascendant. All the learned laity of France, detest the hierarchy as a plan of despotism, founded on imposture and usurpation. The protestants, who are very numerous in the southern parts, abhor it with all the rancour of religious fanaticism. Many of the Commons, enriched by commerce and manufacture, grow impatient of those odious distinctions, which exclude them from the honours and privileges due to their importance in the commonwealth; and all the parliaments or tribunals of justice in the kingdom seem bent upon asserting their rights and independence in the face of the king's prerogative, and even at the expense of his power and authority. Should any prince, therefore, be seduced, by evil counsellors, or misled by his own bigotry, to take some arbitrary step that may be extremely disagreable to all those communities, without having spirit to exert the violence of his power for the support of his measures, he will become equally detested and despised, and the influence of the Commons will insensibly encroach upon the pretensions of the crown." (Travels through France and Italy, c. xxxvi. Smollett's Works, vol. v. p. 536.) This presentiment deserves to be classed with that prophecy of Harrington in his Oceana, of which some were fond enough to hope the speedy fulfilment at the beginning of the revolution. Smollett passed the greater part of his time abroad at Nice, but proceeded also to Rome and Florence.
About a year after he had returned from the continent (in June, 1766,) he again visited his native country, where he had the satisfaction to find his mother and sister still living. At Edinburgh he met with the two Humes, Robertson, Adam Smith, Blair, and Ferguson; but the bodily ailments, under which he was labouring, left him little power of enjoying the society of men who had newly raised their country to so much eminence in literature. To his friend, Dr. Moore, then a chirurgeon at Glasgow, who accompanied him from that place, to the banks of Loch Lomond, he wrote, in the February following, that his expedition into Scotland had been productive of nothing but misery and disgust, adding, that he was convinced his brain had been in some measure affected; for that he had had a kind ofcoma vigilupon him from April to November, without intermission. He was at this time at Bath, where two chirurgeons, whom he calls the most eminent in England, and whose names were Middleton and Sharp, had so far relieved him from some of the most painful symptoms of his malady, particularly an inveterate ulcer in the arm, that he pronounced himself to be better in health and spirits than during any part of the seven preceding years. But the flattering appearance which his disorder assumed was not of long continuance. A letter written to him by David Hume, on the 18th of July following, shews that either the state of his health, or the narrowness of his means, or perhaps both these causes together, made him desirous of obtaining the consulship of Nice or Leghorn. But neither the solicitations of Hume, nor those of the Duchess of Hamilton, could prevail on the Minister, Lord Shelburne, to confer on him either of these appointments. In the next year, September 21, 1768, the following paragraph in a letter from Hume convinced him that he had nothing to expect from any consideration for his necessities in that quarter. "What is this you tell me of your perpetual exile and of your never returning to this country? I hope that, as this idea arose from the bad state of your health, it will vanish on your recovery, which, from your past experience, you may expect from those happier climates to which you are retiring; after which, the desire of revisiting your native country will probably return upon you, unless the superior cheapness of foreign countries prove an obstacle, and detain you there. I could wish that means had been fallen on to remove this objection, and that at least it might be equal to you to live anywhere, except when the consideration of your health gave the preference to one climate above another. But the indifference of ministers towards literature, which has been long, and indeed almost always is the case in England, gives little prospect of any alteration in this particular."
If ministers would in no other way conduce to his support, he was determined to levy on them at least an involuntary contribution, and accordingly (in 1769,) he published the Adventures of an Atom, in which he laid about him to right and left, and with a random humour, somewhat resembling that of Rabelais and Swift, made those whom he had defended and those whom he had attacked, alike the subject of very gross merriment.
But his sport and his suffering were now coming to a close. The increased debility under which he felt himself sinking, induced him again to try the influence of a more genial sky. Early in 1770, he set out with his wife for Italy; and after staying a short time at Leghorn, settled himself at Monte Nero, near that port. In a letter to Caleb Whitefoord, dated the 18th of May, he describes himself rusticated on the side of a mountain that overlooks the sea, a most romantic and salutary situation. One other flash broke from him in this retirement. His novel, called the Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which he sent to England to be printed in 1770, though abounding in portraitures of exquisite drollery, and in situations highly comical, has not the full zest and flavour of his earlier works. The story does not move on with the same impetuosity. The characters have more the appearance of being broad caricatures from real life, than the creatures of a rich and teeming invention. They seem rather the representation of individuals grotesquely designed and extravagantly coloured, than of classes of men.
His bodily strength now giving way by degrees, while that of his mind remained unimpaired, he expired at his residence near Leghorn, on the 21st of October, 1771, in the 51st year of his age.
His mother died a little before him. His widow lived twelve years longer, which she passed at Leghorn in a state of unhappy dependence on the bounty of the merchants at that place, and of a few friends in England. Out of her slender means she contrived to erect a monument to her deceased husband, on which the following inscription from the pen of his friend Armstrong was inscribed:
Hic ossa condunturTOBIAE SMOLLETT, Scoti;Qui prosapia generosa et antiqua natus,Priscae virtutis exemplar emicuit;Aspectu ingenue,Corpore valido,Pectore animoso,Indole apprime benigna,Et fere supra facultates munificaInsignis.Ingenio feraci, faceto, versatili,Omnigenae fere doctrinae mire capaci,Varia fabularum dulcedineVitam moresque hominum,Ubertate summa ludens depinxit.Adverso, interim, nefas! tali tantoque alumno,Nisi quo satyrae opipare supplebat,Seculo impio, ignavo, fatuo,Quo Musse vix nisi nothaeMaerenatulis BritannicisFovebantur.In memoriamOptimi et amabilis omnino viri,Permultis amicis desiderati,Hocce marmor,Dilectissima simul et amantissima conjunxL. M.Sacravit.
A column with a Latin inscription was also placed to commemorate him on the banks of his favourite Leven, near the house in which he was born, by his kinsman Mr. Smollett of Bonhill.
The person of Smollett is described by his friend Dr. Moore as stout and well-proportioned, his countenance engaging, and his manner reserved, with a certain air of dignity that seemed to indicate a consciousness of his own powers.
In his disposition, he appears to have been careless, improvident, and sanguine; easily swayed both in his commendation and censures of others, by the reigning humour of the moment, yet warm, and (when not influenced by the baneful spirit of faction) steady in his attachments. On his independence he particularly prided himself. But that this was sometimes in danger from slight causes is apparent, from an anecdote related by Dr. Wooll, in his Life of Joseph Warton. When Huggins [4] had finished his translation of Ariosto, he sent a fat buck to Smollett, who at that time managed the Critical Review; consequently the work was highly applauded; but the history of the venison becoming public, Smollett was much abused, and in a future number of the Review retracted his applause. Perpetual employment of his pen left him little time for reflection or study. Hence, though he acquired a greater readiness in the use of words, his judgment was not proportionably improved; nor did his manhood bear fruits that fully answered to the vigorous promise of his youth. Yet it may he questioned whether any other writer of English prose had before his time produced so great a number of works of invention. When, in addition to his novels, we consider his various productions, his histories, his travels, his two dramatic pieces, his poems, his translations, his critical labours, and other occasional publications, we are surprised that so much should have been done in a life of no longer continuance.
Excepting Congreve, I do not remember that any of the poets, whose lives have been written by Johnson, is said to have produced anything in the shape of a novel. Of the Incognita of Congreve, that biographer observes, not very satisfactorily, that he would rather praise it than read it. In the present series, Goldsmith, Smollett, and Johnson himself, if his Rasselas entitle him to rank in the number, are among the most distinguished in this species of writing, of whom modern Europe can boast. To these, if there be added the names of De Foe, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne, not to mention living authors, we may produce such a phalanx as scarcely any other nation can equal. Indeed no other could afford a writer so wide a field for the exercise of this talent as ours, where the fullest scope and encouragement are given to the human mind to expand itself in every direction, and assume every shape and hue, by the freedom of the government, and by the complexity of civil and commercial interests. No one has portrayed the whimsical varieties of character, particularly in lower life, with a happier vein of burlesque than Smollett. He delights, indeed, chiefly by his strong delineation of ludicrous incidents and grotesque manners derived from this source. He does not hold our curiosity entangled by the involution of his story, nor suspend it by any artful protraction of the main event. He turns aside for no digression that may serve to display his own ingenuity or learning. From the beginning to the end, one adventure commonly rises up and follows upon another, like so many waves of the sea, which cease only because they have reached the shore.
The billows float in order to the shore,The wave behind rolls on the wave before.
Admirable as the art of the novelist is, we ought not to confound it with that of the poet; nor to conclude, because the characters of Parson Adams, Colonel Bath, and Squire Western in Fielding; and of Strap, Morgan, and Pipes, in Smollett, impress themselves as strongly on the memory, and seem to be as really individuals whom we have seen and conversed with, as many of those which are the most decidedly marked in Shakspeare himself; that therefore the powers requisite for producing such descriptions are as rare and extraordinary in one instance as in the other. For the poet has this peculiar to himself; that he communicates something from his own mind, which, at the same time that it does not prevent his personages from being kept equally distinct from one another, raises them all above the level of our common nature. Shakspeare, whom we appear not only to know, personally, but to admire and love as one superior to the cast of his kind,—
Sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,
has left some trick of his own lineaments and features discoverable in the whole brood.
Igneus est ollis vigor et coelestis origoSeminibus.
It is this which makes us willing to have our remembrance of his characters refreshed by constant repetition, which gives us such a pleasure in summoning them before us, as "age cannot wither, nor custom stale." This is a quality which we do not find in Fielding, with all that consummate skill which he employs in developing his story; nor in Smollett, with all that vivacity and heartiness of purpose with which he carries on his narrative.
Of Smollett's poems much does not remain to be said. The Regicide is such a tragedy as might be expected from a clever youth of eighteen. The language is declamatory, the thoughts inflated, and the limits of nature and verisimilitude transgressed in describing the characters and passions. Yet there are passages not wanting in poetical vigour.
His two satires have so much of the rough flavour of Juvenal, as to retain some relish, now that the occasion which produced them has passed away.
The Ode to Independence, which was not published till after his decease, amid much of common place, has some very nervous lines. The personification itself is but an awkward one. The term is scarcely abstract and general enough to be invested with the attributes of an ideal being.
In the Tears of Scotland, patriotism has made him eloquent and pathetic; and the Ode to Leven Water is sweet and natural. None of the other pieces, except the Ode to Mirth, which has some sprightliness of fancy, deserve to be particularly noticed.
FOOTNOTES[1] He first settled at Bath.—MS. addition. ED.[2] Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii. p. 398.[3] In a Letter in Dr. Anderson's Edition of his Works, vol. i. p. 179.[4] From a letter of Granger's (the author of the Biographical Historyof England,) to Dr. Ducarel (see Nichols's Illustrations of theLiterary History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iii. p. 601,) itappears that Huggins made also a translation of Dante, which wasnever printed. He was son of that cruel keeper of the Fleet prisonwho was punished for the ill treatment of his prisoners.—(Ibid.)
* * * * *
The life of Thomas Warton, by Dr. Mant, now Bishop of Killaloe, prefixed to the edition of his poems published at Oxford, is drawn from sources so authentic, and detailed with so much exactness, that little remains to be added to the circumstances which it relates.
Thomas Warton was descended from a very respectable family in Yorkshire. His grandfather, Anthony Warton, was rector of a village in Hampshire; and his father was a fellow of Magdalen College, and Poetry Professor in the University of Oxford. His mother, daughter of Joseph Richardson, who was also a clergyman, gave birth to three children:—Joseph, of whom some account will hereafter be given, Thomas, and Jane. Thomas was born at Basingstoke, in 1728; and very early in life afforded promise of his future excellence. A letter, addressed to his sister from school when he was about nine years of age, containing an epigram on Leander, was preserved with affectionate regard by their brother, Dr. Warton. What school it was, that may claim the honour of contributing to the instruction of one who was afterwards so distinguished as a scholar, has not been recorded.
On the 16th of March, 1743, he was admitted a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford; and about two years after lost his father,—a volume of whose poems was, soon after his death, printed by subscription, by his eldest son Joseph, with two elegiac poems to his memory, one by the editor, the other by his daughter above-mentioned. The latter of these tributes is termed by Mr. Crowe, in a note to one of his eloquent Crewian Orations,—"Ode tenera, simplex, venusta,"—"tender, simple, and beautiful."
In 1745 he published his Pastoral Eclogues, which Mr. Chalmers has added to the collection of his poems; and in the same year he published, without his name, the Pleasures of Melancholy; having, perhaps, been influenced in the choice of a subject, thus sombre, by the loss of his parent. In this poem, his imitations of Milton are so frequent and palpable, as to discover the timid flight of a young writer not daring to quit the track of his guide. Yet by some (as appears from the letters between Mrs. Carter and Miss Talbot) it was ascribed to Akenside. In 1746 was produced his Progress of Discontent,—paraphrase on one of his own exercises, made at the desire of Dr. Huddesford, the head of his college.
His next effort attracted more general notice. In consequence of some disgrace which the University had incurred with Government, by its supposed attachment to the Stuart family, Mason had written his Isis, an Elegy; and in 1749, Warton was encouraged by Dr. Huddesford to publish an answer to it, with the title of the Triumph of Isis. It may naturally be supposed, that so spirited a defence of Oxford against the aspersions of her antagonist would be welcomed with ardour; and among other testimonies of approbation which it received, Dr. King, whose character is eulogized in the poem, coming into the bookseller's shop, and inquiring whether five guineas would be acceptable to the author, left for him an order for that sum. After an interval of twenty-eight years, his rival, Mason, was probably sincere in the opinion he gave,—that Warton had much excelled him both "in poetical imagery, and in the correct flow of his versification."
He now became a contributor to a monthly miscellany called The Student; in which, besides his Progress of Discontent, were inserted A Panegyric on Oxford Ale, a professed imitation of the Splendid Shilling; The Author confined to College; and A Version of the twenty-ninth chapter of Job.
His two degrees having been taken at about the usual intervals, in 1751 he succeeded to a fellowship of his college, where he found a peaceful and unenvied retreat for the remainder of his days, without betraying any ambition of those dignities,—which, to the indignation of Bishop Warburton, were not conferred upon him.
At this time appeared his Newmarket, a Satire; An Ode written for Music, performed in the University Theatre; and two copies of verses, one in Latin, the other in English, on the Death of Frederic, Prince of Wales.
In 1753, his Ode on the approach of Summer,—The Pastoral, in the Manner of Spenser—(which has not much resemblance to that writer), and Verses inscribed on a beautiful Grotto,—were printed in the Union, a poetical miscellany, selected by him, and edited at Edinburgh.
The next year we find him employed in drawing up a body of statutes for the Radcliffe Library, by the desire of Dr. Huddesford, then Vice Chancellor; in assisting Colman and Thornton in the Connoisseur; and in publishing his Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser, which he afterwards enlarged from one to two volumes. Johnson complimented him "for having shewn to all, who should hereafter attempt the study of our ancient authors, the way to success, by directing them to the perusal of the books which their author had read;" a method of illustration which since, certainly, has not wanted imitators. Much of his time must have been now diverted from his favourite pursuits, by his engagement in the instruction of college pupils. During his excursions in the summer vacations, to different parts of England, he appears to have occupied himself in making remarks on such specimens of Gothic and Saxon architecture as came in his way. His manuscript on this subject was in the possession of his brother, since whose decease, unfortunately, it has not been discovered. Some incidental observations on our ancient buildings, introduced into his book on the Faerie Queene, are enough to make us regret the loss. The poetical reader would have been better pleased if he had fulfilled an intention he had of translating the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius.
Though it was not the lot of Warton to attain distinction in his clerical profession, yet literary honours, more congenial to his taste and habits, awaited him. In 1756, he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and faithfully performed the duties of his office, by recommending the purest models of antiquity in lectures which are said to have been "remarkable for elegance of diction, and justness of observation," and interspersed with translations from the Greek epigrammatists.
To Johnson he had already rendered a material service by his exertions to procure him the degree of Master of Arts, by diploma; and he increased the obligation, by contributing some notes to his edition of Shakspeare, and three papers to The Idler. The imputation cast on one, from whom such kindness had been received, of his "being the only man of genius without a heart," must have been rather the effect of spleen in Johnson, than the result of just observation; and if either these words, or the verses in ridicule of his poems—
Endless labour all along,Endless labour to be wrong;Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet,Ode, and elegy, and sonnet;
had been officiously repeated to Warton, we cannot much wonder at what is told, of his passing Johnson in a bookseller's shop without speaking, or at the tears which Johnson is related to have shed at that mark of alienation in his former friend.
A Description of Winchester, and a Burlesque on the Oxford Guides, or books professing to give an account of the University, both anonymous, are among the next publications attributed to his pen.
In 1758, he made a selection of Latin inscriptions in verse; and printed it, together with notes, under the title of Inscriptionum Romanarum Metricarum Delectus; and then first undertook, at the suggestion it is said of Judge Blackstone, the splendid edition of Theocritus, which made its appearance twelve years after. The papers left by Mr. St. Amand,[1] formed the basis of this work: to them were added some valuable criticisms by Toup; and though the arrangement of the whole may be justly charged with a want of clearness and order, and Dr. Gaisford has since employed much greater exactness and diligence in his edition of the same author, yet the praise of a most entertaining and delightful variety cannot be denied to the notes of Warton. In a dissertation on the Bucolic poetry of the Greeks, he shews that species of composition to have been derived from the ancient comedy; and exposes the dream of a golden age.
La bella eta dell' or unqua non venne,Nacque da nostre mentiEntro il vago pensiero,E nel nostro desio chiaro divenne.Guidi.
The characters in Theocritus, are shewn to be distinguished into three classes,—herdsmen, shepherds, and goatherds; the first of which was superior to the next, as that in its turn was to the third; and this distinction is proved to have been accurately observed, as to allusions and images. The discrimination seems to have been overlooked by Virgil: in which instance, no less than in all the genuine graces of pastoral poetry, he is inferior to the Sicilian.[2] The contempt with which Warton speaks of those eminent and unfortunate Greek scholars, who diffused the learning of their country over Europe, after the capture of Constantinople, and whom he has here termed "Graeculi famelici," is surely reprehensible. But for their labours, Britain might never have required an editor of Theocritus.
In 1760, he contributed to the Biographia Britannica a Life of Sir Thomas Pope, twice, subsequently published, in a separate form, with considerable enlargements: in the two following years he wrote a Life of Dr. Bathurst, and in his capacity of Poetry Professor, composed Verses on the Death of George II., the Marriage of his Successor, and the Birth of the Heir Apparent, which, together with his Complaint of Cherwell, made a part of the Oxford Collections. Several of his humorous pieces were soon after (in 1764) published in the Oxford Sausage, the preface to which he also wrote; and in 1766, he edited the Greek Anthology of Cephalas. In 1767, he took the degree of Bachelor in Divinity; and in 1771, was chosen a Fellow of the Antiquarian Society; and on the nomination of the Earl of Lichfield, Chancellor of the University, was collated to the Rectory of Kiddington, Oxfordshire, a benefice of small value. Ten years after, he drew up a History of his Parish, and published it as a specimen of a Parochial History of Oxfordshire. Meanwhile, he was engaged in an undertaking, of higher interest to the national antiquities and literature.
In illustrating the origin, and tracing the progress of our vernacular poetry, we had not kept pace with the industry of our continental neighbours. To supply this deficiency, a work had been projected by Pope, and was now contemplated, and indeed entered on, by Gray and Mason, in conjunction. We cannot but regret, that Gray relinquished the undertaking, as he did, on hearing into whose hands it had fallen, since he would (as the late publication of his papers by Mr. Mathias has shewn) have brought to the task a more accurate and extensive acquaintance with those foreign sources from whence our early writers derived much of their learning, and would, probably, have adopted a better method, and more precision in the general disposition of his materials. Yet there is no reason to complain of the way in which Warton has acquitted himself, as far as he has gone. His History of English Poetry is a rich mine, in which, if we have some trouble in separating the ore from the dross, there is much precious metal to reward our pains. The first volume of this laborious work was published in 1774; two others followed, in 1778, and in 1781; and some progress had been made at his decease in printing the fourth. In 1777, he increased the poetical treasure of his country by a volume of his own poems, of which there was a demand for three other editions before his death. In 1782, we find him presented by his college to the donative of Hill Farrance, in Somersetshire, and employed in publishing an Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, and Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds's painted window at New College: about the same time, probably, he was chosen a member of the Literary Club.
In 1785, he edited Milton's minor poems, with very copious illustrations; and in the year following, was elected to the Camden Professorship of History, and was appointed to succeed Whitehead, as Poet Laureate. In his inaugural speech as Camden Professor, subjoined to the edition of his poetical works by Dr. Mant, he has shewn that the public duties required at the first foundation of the Professorship, owing to the improvement in the course of academical studies, are rendered no longer necessary. From one who had already voluntarily done so much, it would have been ungracious to exact the performance of public labours not indispensably requisite. In the discharge of his function as Laureate, he still continued, as he had long ago professed himself to be,—
Too free in servile courtly phrase to fawn;
and had the wish been gratified,—expressed by himself before his appointment, or by Gibbon after it,—that the annual tribute might be dispensed with, we should have lost some of his best lyric effusions.
Till his sixty-second year, he had experienced no interruption to a vigorous state of health. Then a seizure of the gout compelled him to seek relief from the use of the Bath waters; and he returned from that place to college, with the hope of a recovery from his complaint. But on the 20th of May, 1790, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, as he was sitting in the common room with two of the college fellows, and in higher spirits than usual, a paralytic affection deprived him of his speech. Some indistinct sounds only, in which it was thought the name of his friend, Mr. Price, the librarian of the Bodleian, was heard, escaped him, and he expired on the day but one after. His funeral was honoured by the attendance of the Vice-Chancellor, and a numerous train of followers, to the ante-chapel of his college, where he is interred, with a very plain inscription to his memory.
His person was short and thick, though in the earlier part of his life he had been thought handsome. His face, latterly, became somewhat rubicund, and his utterance so confused, that Johnson compared it to the gobbling of a turkey. The portrait of him by Reynolds, besides the resemblance of the features, is particularly characterized by the manner in which the hand is drawn, so as to give it a great air of truth. He was negligent in his dress; and so little studious of appearances, that having despatched his labours, while others were yet in bed, he might have been found, at the usual hours of study, loitering on the banks of his beloved Cherwell, or in the streets, following the drum and fife, a sound which was known to have irresistible attraction for his ears,—a spectator at a military parade, or even one amongst a crowd at a public execution. He retained to old age the amiable simplicity and unsuspecting frankness of boyhood: his affection for his brother, to whose society at Winchester he latterly retired from college, during the vacations in summer, does not seem ever to have suffered any abatement; and his manners were tranquil and unassuming. The same amenity and candour of disposition, which marked him in private life, pervade his writings, except on some few occasions, when his mind is too much under the influence of party feelings. This bias inclined him, not only to treat the character of Milton with a most undue asperity, but even to extenuate the atrocities committed under the government of Mary, and somewhat to depreciate the worth of those divines, whose attachment to the reformed religion led them to suffer death in her reign.
The writer of this paper has been told by an Italian, who was acquainted with Warton, that his favourite book in the Italian language (of which his knowledge was far from exact) was the Gerusalemme Liberata. Both the stately phrase, and the theme of that poem, were well suited to him.
Among the poets of the second class, he deserves a distinguished place. He is almost equally pleasing in his gayer, and in his more exalted moods. His mirth is without malice or indecency, and his seriousness without gloom.
In his lyrical pieces, if we seek in vain for the variety and music of Dryden, the tender and moral sublime of Gray, or the enthusiasm of Collins, yet we recognize an attention ever awake to the appearances of nature, and a mind stored with the images of classical and Gothic antiquity. Though his diction is rugged, it is like the cup in Pindar, which Telamon stretches out to Alcides, [Greek: chruso pephrkuan], rough with gold, and embost with curious imagery. A lover of the ancients would, perhaps, be offended, if the birth-day ode, beginning
Within what fountain's craggy cellDelights the goddess Health to dwell?
were compared, as to its subject, with that of the Theban bard, on the illness of Hiero, which opens with a wish that Chiron were yet living, in order that the poet might consult him on the case of the Syracusan monarch; and in its form, with that in which he asks of his native city, in whom of all her heroes she most delighted.
Among the odes, some of which might more properly be termed idylliums, The Hamlet is of uncommon beauty; the landscape is truly English, and has the truth and tenderness of Gainsborough's pencil. Those To a Friend on his leaving a Village in Hampshire, and the First of April, are entitled to similar praise. The Crusade, The Grave of King Arthur, and most of the odes composed for the court, are in a higher strain. In the Ode written at Vale Royal Abbey, is a striking image, borrowed from some lent verses, written by Archbishop Markham, and printed in the second volume of that collection.
High o'er the trackless heath, at midnight seen,No more the windows ranged in long array(Where the tall shaft and fretted arch betweenThick ivy twines) the taper'd rites betray.