The Age of Pope Part 19

[67] Middleton's _Miscellaneous Works_, vol. i., p. 402.

[68] The first edition of Edwards's work was ent.i.tled _Supplement_ to Mr. Warburton's edition of _Shakespeare_, 1747. The third edition (1750) was called _The Canons of Criticism and Glossary_ by Thomas Edwards. Of this volume seven editions were published. Edwards, who was born in 1699, died in 1757.

INDEX OF MINOR POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.

JOHN ARMSTRONG (1709-1779), a Scotchman by birth, practised in London as a physician after some surgical experience in the navy. Believing any subject suitable for poetry, he wrote in blank verse, reminding one of Thomson, _The Art of Preserving Health_ (1744), a poem containing some powerful pa.s.sages, and many which are better fitted for a medical treatise than for poetry. An earlier and licentious poem _The Economy of Love_, which injured him in his profession, was 'revised and corrected by the author' in 1768.

If bulk were a sign of merit SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE (1650-1729) would not rank with the minor poets. He wrote several long and wearisome epics, his best work in Dr. Johnson's judgment being _The Creation_ (1712), which was praised by Addison in the _Spectator_ as 'one of the most useful and n.o.ble productions in our English verse,' a judgment the modern reader is not likely to endorse.

HENRY BROOKE (1706-1783), an Irishman, was the author of a poem ent.i.tled _Universal Beauty_ (1735). Four years later he published _Gustavus Vasa_, a tragedy, which was not allowed to be acted, the sentiments being too liberal for the government. His _Fool of Quality_ (1766) a novel in five volumes, delighted John Wesley, and in our day, Charles Kingsley, who praises its 'broad and genial humanity.' Brooke was a follower of William Law, whose mysticism is to be seen in the story.

WILLIAM BROOME (1689-1745) is chiefly known from his a.s.sociation with Pope in the translation of the _Odyssey_, of which enough has been said elsewhere (p. 38). His name suggested the following epigram to Henley:

'Pope came off clean with Homer; but they say _Broome_ went before and kindly swept the way.'

He entered holy orders, had two livings in Suffolk and one in Norfolk, and married a wealthy widow. His verses are mechanically correct, but are empty of poetry.

JOHN BYROM (1691-1763), the friend and disciple of William Law, the author of the _Serious Call_, is best remembered for his system of shorthand. In a characteristic, copious, and not very attractive journal, he describes, for the consolation of his fellow mortals, how he makes resolutions and breaks them. Byrom wrote rhyme with ease and on subjects with which poetry has nothing to do. His most successful achievement was a pastoral, _Colin and Phoebe_, which appeared in the _Spectator_ (Vol. viii., No. 603). It was written in honour of the daughter of Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity, 'not,' it has been said, 'because he wished to win her affections, but because he desired to secure her father's interest for the Fellows.h.i.+p for which he was a candidate.' The plan was successful. The one verse of Byrom's that every one has read is the happy epigram:

'G.o.d bless the King!--I mean the faith's defender-- G.o.d bless (no harm in blessing!) the Pretender!

But who Pretender is, or who is King-- G.o.d bless us all!--that's quite another thing.'

SAMUEL CLARKE (1675-1729), a man of large attainments in science and divinity, was the favourite theologian of Queen Caroline, who admired his lat.i.tudinarian views, and delighted in his conversation. His works, edited by Bishop Hoadly, were published in 1738 in four folio volumes.

In 1704 he delivered the Boyle lectures on _The Being and Attributes of G.o.d_, and in 1705 _On Natural and Revealed Religion_. His _Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity_ (1712) was condemned by convocation. In defence of Sir Isaac Newton, Clarke had a controversy with Leibnitz, and having published the correspondence dedicated it to the Queen. His sermons, Mr.

Leslie Stephen says, are 'for the most part not sermons at all, but lectures upon metaphysics.' In Addison's judgment Clarke was one of the most accurate, learned, and judicious writers the age had produced.

ELIJAH FENTON (1683-1730) wrote poems and _Mariamne_ a tragedy, in which, according to his friend Broome, 'great Sophocles revives and reappears.' It was acted with applause, and brought nearly one thousand pounds to its author. His name is now chiefly known as having a.s.sisted Pope in his translation of the _Odyssey_.

RICHARD GLOVER (1712-1785), the son of a London merchant, was himself a merchant of high reputation in the city. He also 'cultivated the Muses,'

and his _Leonidas_ (1737), an elaborate poem in blank verse, preferred by some critics of the day to _Paradise Lost_, pa.s.sed through several editions and was praised by Fielding and by Lord Chatham. Power is visible in this epic, which displays also a large amount of knowledge, but the salt of genius is wanting, and the poem, despite many estimable qualities, is now forgotten. _Leonidas_ was followed by _Boadicea_ (1758), and _The Atheniad_, published after his death in 1788. Glover was a politician as well as a verseman. His party feeling probably inspired _Admiral Hosier's Ghost_ (1739), a ballad still remembered and preserved in anthologies.

MATTHEW GREEN (1696-1737) is the author of _The Spleen_, an original and brightly written poem. _The Grotto_, printed but not published in 1732, is also marked by freshness of treatment. Green's poems, written in octosyllabic metre, were published after his death.

JAMES HAMMOND (1710-1742) produced many forlorn elegies on a lady who appears to have scorned him, and who lived in 'maiden meditation' for nearly forty years after the poet's death. His love is said to have affected his mind for a time. 'Sure Hammond has no right,' says Shenstone, 'to the least inventive merit. I do not think that there is a single thought in his elegies of any eminence that is not literally translated.'

NATHANIEL HOOKE (1690-1763), the author of a _Roman History_, is better known as the editor of _An Account of the conduct of the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, from her first coming to Court in the year 1710, in a letter from herself to Lord ---- in 1742_. The d.u.c.h.ess is said to have dictated this letter from her bed, and to have been so eager for its completion that she insisted on Hooke's not leaving the house till he had finished it. He was munificently rewarded for his labour by a present of 5,000. It was Hooke, a zealous Roman Catholic, who, when Pope was dying, asked him if he should not send for a priest, and received the poet's hearty thanks for putting him in mind of it.

JOHN HUGHES (1677-1719) was the author of poems, an opera, a masque, several translations, and a tragedy, _The Siege of Damascus_, which was well received, and kept its place on the stage for some years. He died on the first night's performance of the play. Several articles in the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ are from his pen. In 1715 he published an edition of Spenser in six volumes. Hughes received warm praise from Steele, and enjoyed also the friends.h.i.+p of Addison.

CONYERS MIDDLETON (1683-1750) is now chiefly known for an extravagantly eulogistic life of _Cicero_ (1741), in which, as Macaulay observes, he 'resorted to the most disingenuous s.h.i.+fts, to unpardonable distortions and suppressions of facts.' The book is written in a forcible and lively style. A man of considerable learning, Middleton was a violent controversialist, who liked better to attack and to defend than to dwell in the serene atmosphere of literature or of practical divinity. He a.s.sailed the famous Richard Bentley with such rancour that he had to apologize and was fined 50 by the Court of King's Bench. Middleton was a doctor of divinity, but his controversial works, while never directly attacking the chief tenets of the religion he professed, lean far more to the side of the Deists than to the orthodox creed, and, indeed, it would not be uncharitable to cla.s.s him among them. He appears, like Swift, to have chiefly regarded the Christian religion as an inst.i.tution of service to the stability of the State. Of the _Miscellaneous Works_ which were published after his death in five volumes, the most elaborate and the most provocative of disputation is _A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church through several successive centuries_ (1749). Middleton was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1734 was elected librarian of the University.

RICHARD SAVAGE (1698-1743), whose fate is one of the most melancholy in the annals of vers.e.m.e.n, lives in the admirable though neither impartial nor wholly accurate biography of Dr. Johnson. In 1719 he produced _Love in a Veil_, a comedy from the Spanish; and in 1723 his tragedy _Sir Thomas Overbury_ was acted, but with little success. In the same year he published _The b.a.s.t.a.r.d_, a poem which is said to have driven his mother out of society. _The Wanderer_, in five cantos, appeared in 1729, and was regarded by the author as his masterpiece. It has some vigorous lines and several descriptive pa.s.sages that are not conventional. Savage died in prison at Bristol, a city which recalls the equally painful story of Chatterton.

LEWIS THEOBALD (1688-1744), the original hero of the _Dunciad_, was a dramatist and translator, but is chiefly known as the author of _Shakespeare Restored; or specimens of blunders committed or unamended in Pope's edition of the poet_ (1726). This was followed two years later by _Proposals for Publis.h.i.+ng Emendations and Remarks on Shakespeare_, and in 1733 by his edition of the dramatist in seven volumes. 'Theobald as an editor,' say the editors of the _Cambridge Shakespeare_, 'is incomparably superior to his predecessors and to his immediate successor Warburton, although the latter had the advantage of working on his materials. He was the first to recall a mult.i.tude of readings of the first Folio unquestionably right, but unnoticed by previous editors.

Many most brilliant emendations ... are due to him.'

WILLIAM WALSH (1663-1708) has chronologically little claim to be noticed here, for his poems were published before the beginning of the century, but he is to be remembered as the early friend and wise counsellor of Pope, and also as the author, I believe, of the only English sonnet between Milton's in 1658, and Gray's, on Richard West, in 1742.

ANNE FINCH, Countess of Winchelsea (1660-1720), published a volume of verse in 1713 under the t.i.tle of _Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions, Written by a Lady_. The book contains a _Nocturnal Reverie_, which has some lines showing a close and faithful observation of rural sounds and sights, as for example:

'When the loosed horse, now as his pasture leads, Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads, Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear, Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear; When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food, And unmolested kine rechew the cud; When curlews cry beneath the village walls, And to her straggling brood the partridge calls.'

The _Nocturnal Reverie_, however, is an exception to the general character of Lady Winchelsea's poems, which consist chiefly of odes (including the inevitable Pindaric), fables, songs, affectionate addresses to her husband, poetical epistles, and a tragedy, _Aristomenes; or the Royal Shepherd_. The _Pet.i.tion for an Absolute Retreat_ is one of the best pieces in the volume. It displays great facility in versification, and a love of country delights.

THOMAS YALDEN (1670-1736), born in Exeter, and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, entered into holy orders (1711), and was appointed lecturer of moral philosophy. 'Of his poems,' writes Dr. Johnson, 'many are of that irregular kind which, when he formed his poetical character, was supposed to be Pindaric.' Pindarics were indeed the bane of the age.

Every minor poet, no matter however feeble his poetical wings might be, endeavoured to fly with Pindar. Like Gay, Yalden tried his skill as a writer of fables.

NOTE.

_Mrs. Veal's Ghost_ (see pp. 186-187). A curious discovery, made by Mr. G. A. Aitken (see _Nineteenth Century_, January, 1895), makes it certain, he thinks, that 'the whole narrative is literally true.' He even hopes that the receipt for scouring Mrs. Veal's gown may some day be found. Mr. Aitken seems to infer that Defoe's other tales will also turn out to be true histories, but Defoe avers, with all the seriousness he expends on Mrs. Veal, that he witnessed the great Plague of London, which it is needless to say he did not.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

=1667.= =Swift born.= =1672.= =Steele born.= =1672.= =Addison born.= 1674. Milton died.

=1688.= =Gay born.= =1688.= =Pope born.= 1688. Bunyan died.

1690. Locke's _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_.

1694. Voltaire born.

1699. Racine died.

=1700.= =Thomson born.= =1700.= =Dryden died.= 1700. Fenelon's _Telemaque_.

1703. John Wesley born.

1704. Locke died.

=1704.= =Addison's= _Campaign_.

=1704.= =Swift's= _Tale of a Tub_ and _Battle of the Books_.

1707. Fielding born.

1709. Johnson born.

=1709.= =Pope's= _Pastorals_.

=1709-1711.= _The Tatler._ =1710.= =Berkeley's= _Principles of Human Knowledge_.

=1711.= =Pope's= _Essay on Criticism_.

1711-1712,} _The Spectator._ and 1714. } 1711. Hume born.

=1712.= =Pope's= _Rape of the Lock_.

1712. Rousseau born.

=1713.= =Addison's= _Cato_.

1713. Sterne born.

=1714.= =Mandeville's= _Fable of the Bees_.

=1715.= =Gay's= _Trivia_.

=1715-1720.= =Pope's= _Translation of Homer's Iliad_.

1715. Wycherley died.

=1718.= =Prior's= _Poems on Several Occasions_ =(folio)=.

=1719-1720.= =Defoe's= _Robinson Crusoe_ =(first part)=.

=1719.= =Addison died.= =1721.= =Prior died.= 1721. Smollett born.

=1723-1725.= =Pope's= _Translation of Homer's Odyssey_.