Chapter III: Part 3

"The beauty of King's College, Cambridge, now it is restored,
penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk in it. Though
my life has been passed in turbulent scenes, in pleasures or other
pastimes, and in much fashionable dissipation, still, books,
antiquity, and virtue kept hold of a corner of my heart: and since
necessity has forced me of late years to be a man of business, my
disposition tends to be a recluse for what remains--but it will
not be my lot; and though there is some excuse for the young doing
what they like, I doubt an old man should do nothing but what he
ought, and I hope doing one's duty is the best preparation for
death. Sitting with one's arms folded to think about it, is a very
long way for preparing for it. If Charles V. had resolved to make
some amends for his abominable ambition by doing good (his duty
as a king), there would have been infinitely more merit than going
to doze in a convent. One may avoid actual guilt in a sequestered
life, but the virtue of it is merely negative; the innocence is
beautiful."

There had been moments when Horace Walpole even expressed the tenderest feelings for fame; and the following passage, written prior to the preceding ones, gives no indication of that contempt for literary fame, of which the close of this character will exhibit an extraordinary instance.

This letter relates an affecting event--he had just returned from seeing General Conway attacked by a paralytic stroke. Shocked by his appearance, he writes--

"It is, perhaps, to vent my concern that I write. It has operated
such a revolution on my mind, as no time, at _my age_, can efface.
It has at once damped every pursuit which my spirits had even now
prevented me from being weaned from, I mean of virtu. It is like a
mortal distemper in myself; for can amusements amuse, if there is
but a glimpse, a vision of outliving one's friends? _I have had
dreams in which I thought I wished for fame--it was not certainly
posthumous fame at any distance; I feel, I feel it was confined to
the memory of those I love._ It seems to me impossible for a man
who has no friends to do anything for fame--and to me the first
position in friendship is, to intend one's friends should survive
one--but it is not reasonable to oppress you, who are suffering
gout, with my melancholy ideas. What I have said will tell you,
what I hope so many years have told you, that I am very constant
and sincere to friends of above forty years."

In a letter of a later date there is a remarkable confession, which harmonises with those already given.

"My pursuits have always been light, trifling, and tended to
nothing but my casual amusement. I will not say, without a little
vain ambition of showing some parts, but never with industry
sufficient to make me apply to anything solid. My studies, if they
could be called so, and my productions, were alike desultory. In
my latter age I discovered the futility both of my objects and
writings--I felt how insignificant is the reputation of an author
of mediocrity; and that, being no genius, I only added one name
more to a list of writers; but had told the world nothing but what
it could as well be without. These reflections were the best
proofs of my sense; and when I could see through my own vanity,
there is less wonder in my discovering that such talents as I
might have had are impaired at seventy-two."

Thus humbled was Horace Walpole to himself!--there is an intellectual dignity, which this man of wit and sense was incapable of reaching--and it seems a retribution that the scorner of true greatness should at length feel the poisoned chalice return to his own lips. He who had contemned the eminent men of former times, and quarrelled with and ridiculed every contemporary genius; who had affected to laugh at the literary fame he could not obtain,--at length came to scorn himself! and endured "the penal fires" of an author's hell, in undervaluing his own works, the productions of a long life!

The chagrin and disappointment of such an author were never less carelessly concealed than in the following extraordinary letter:--

HORACE WALPOLE TO --------

"_Arlington Street, April 27, 1773._

"Mr. Gough wants to be introduced to me! Indeed! I would see him,
as he has been midwife to Masters; but he is so dull that he
would only be troublesome--and besides, you know I shun
authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to
keep such bad company. They are always in earnest, and think
their profession serious, and dwell upon trifles, and reverence
learning. I laugh at all these things, and write only to laugh
at them and divert myself. None of us are authors of any
consequence, and it is the most ridiculous of all vanities to be
vain of being _mediocre_. A page in a great author humbles me to
the dust, and the conversation of those that are not superior
to myself reminds me of what will be thought of myself. I blush
to flatter them, or to be flattered by them; and should dread
letters being published some time or other, in which they would
relate our interviews, and we should appear like those puny
conceited witlings in Shenstone's and Hughes's correspondence,
who give themselves airs from being in possession of the soil
of Parnassus for the time being; as peers are proud because they
enjoy the estates of great men who went before them. Mr. Gough is
very welcome to see Strawberry-hill, or I would help him to
any scraps in my possession that would assist his publications,
though he is one of those industrious who are only re-burying the
dead--but I cannot be acquainted with him; it is contrary to
my system and my humour; and besides I know nothing of barrows
and Danish entrenchments, and Saxon barbarisms and Phoenician
characters--in short, I know nothing of those ages that knew
nothing--then how should I be of use to modern literati? All the
Scotch metaphysicians have sent me their works. I did not read one
of them, because I do not understand what is not understood by
those that write about it; and I did not get acquainted with
one of the writers. I should like to be intimate with Mr.
Anstey, even though he wrote Lord Buckhorse, or with the author
of the Heroic Epistle--I have no thirst to know the rest of my
contemporaries, from the absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to
the silly Dr. Goldsmith, though the latter changeling has had
bright gleams of parts, and the former had sense, till he
changed it for words, and sold it for a pension. Don't think me
scornful. Recollect that I have seen Pope, and lived with
Gray.--Adieu!"

Such a letter seems not to have been written by a literary man--it is the babble of a thoughtless wit and a man of the world. But it is worthy of him whose contracted heart could never open to patronage or friendship. From such we might expect the unfeeling observation in the "Anecdotes of Painting," that "want of patronage is the apology for want of genius. Milton and La Fontaine did not write in the bask of court favour. A poet or a painter may want an equipage or a villa, by wanting protection; they can always afford to buy ink and paper, colours and pencil. Mr. Hogarth has received no honours, but universal admiration." Patronage, indeed, cannot convert dull men into men of genius, but it may preserve men of genius from becoming dull men. It might have afforded Dryden that studious leisure which he ever wanted, and which would have given us not imperfect tragedies, and uncorrected poems, but the regulated flights of a noble genius. It might have animated Gainsborough to have created an English school in landscape, which I have heard from those who knew him was his favourite yet neglected pursuit. But Walpole could insult that genius, which he wanted the generosity to protect!

The whole spirit of this man was penury. Enjoying an affluent income he only appeared to patronise the arts which amused his tastes,--employing the meanest artists, at reduced prices, to ornament his own works, an economy which he bitterly reprehends in others who were compelled to practise it. He gratified his avarice at the expense of his vanity; the strongest passion must prevail. It was the simplicity of childhood in Chatterton to imagine Horace Walpole could be a patron--but it is melancholy to record that a slight protection might have saved such a youth. Gray abandoned this man of birth and rank in the midst of their journey through Europe; Mason broke with him; even his humble correspondent Cole, this "friend of forty years," was often sent away in dudgeon; and he quarrelled with all the authors and artists he had ever been acquainted with. The Gothic castle at Strawberry-hill was rarely graced with living genius--there the greatest was Horace Walpole himself; but he had been too long waiting to see realised a magical vision of his hopes, which resembled the prophetic fiction of his own romance, that "the owner should grow too large for his house." After many years, having discovered that he still retained his mediocrity, he could never pardon the presence of that preternatural being whom the world considered a GREAT MAN.--Such was the feeling which dictated the close of the above letter; Johnson and Goldsmith were to be "scorned," since Pope and Gray were no more within the reach of his envy and his fear.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] He was the youngest son of the celebrated minister, Sir Robert
Walpole.--ED.

[32] In his letters there are uncommon instances of vivacity,
whenever pointed against authors. The following have not yet
met the public eye. What can be more maliciously pungent
than this on Spence? "As I know Mr. J. Spence, I do not
think I should have been so much delighted as Dr. Kippis with
reading his letters. He was a good-natured harmless little
soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius. It was a
neat fiddle-faddle bit of sterling, that had read good books,
and kept good company; but was too trifling for use, and only
fit to please a child."--On Dr. Nash's first volume of
'Worcestershire': "It is a folio of prodigious corpulence, and
yet dry enough; but it is finely dressed with many heads and
views." He characterises Pennant; "_He_ is not one of our
plodders (alluding to Gough); rather the other extreme;
his _corporal_ spirits (for I cannot call them _animal_) do
not allow him to digest anything. He gave a round jump
from ornithology to antiquity, and, as if they had any
relation, thought he understood everything that lay between
them. The report of his being disordered is not true; he has
been with me, and at least is as composed as ever I saw him."
His literary correspondence with his friend Cole abounds
with this easy satirical criticism--he delighted to
ridicule authors!--as well as to starve the miserable artists
he so grudgingly paid. In the very volumes he celebrated the
arts, he disgraced them by his penuriousness; so that he
loved to indulge his avarice at the expense of his vanity!

[33] This opinion on Walpole's talent for letter-writing was
published in 1812, many years before the public had the
present collection of his letters; my prediction has been
amply verified. He wrote a great number to Bentley, the son
of Dr. Bentley, who ornamented Gray's works with some
extraordinary designs. Walpole, who was always proud and
capricious, observes his friend Cole, broke with Bentley
because he would bring his wife with him to Strawberry-hill.
He then asked Bentley for all his letters back, but he
would not in return give Bentley's own.

This whole correspondence abounded with literature, criticism,
and wit of the most original and brilliant composition. This
is the opinion of no friend, but an admirer, and a good judge;
for it was Bentley's own.

[34] This is the renowned Strawberry-hill, a villa still standing on
the banks of the Thames, between Teddington and Twickenham,
but now despoiled of the large collection of pictures,
curiosities, and articles of _vertu_ so assiduously collected
by Walpole during a long life. The ground on which it stands
was originally partially occupied by a small cottage, built by
a nobleman's coachman for a lodging-house, and occupied by a
toy-woman of the name of Chevenix. Hence Walpole says of it,
in a letter to General Conway, "it is a little plaything house
that I got out of Mrs. Chevenix's shop, and is the prettiest
bauble you ever saw."--ED.

[35] Walpole's characters are not often to be relied on, witness his
injustice to Hogarth as a painter, and his insolent calumny of
Charles I. His literary opinions of James I. and of Sidney
might have been written without any acquaintance with the
works he has so maliciously criticised. In his account of
Sidney he had silently passed over the "Defence of Poetry;"
and in his second edition has written this avowal, that "he
had forgotten it; a proof that I at least did not think it
sufficient foundation for so high a character as he acquired."
How heartless was the polished cynicism which could dare to
hazard this false criticism! Nothing can be more imposing than
his volatile and caustic criticisms on the works of James I.,
yet he had probably never opened that folio he so poignantly
ridicules. He doubts whether two pieces, "The Prince's
Cabala," and "The Duty of a King in his Royal Office," were
genuine productions of James I. The truth is that both these
works are nothing more than extracts printed with those
separate titles and drawn from the king's "Basilicon Doron."
He had probably neither read the extracts nor the original.

[36] It was such a person as Cole of Milton, his correspondent of
forty years, who lived at a distance, and obsequious to his
wishes, always looking up to him, though never with a
parallel glance--with whom he did not quarrel, though if
Walpole could have read the private notes Cole made in his
MSS. at the time he was often writing the civilest letters of
admiration,--even Cole would have been cashiered from his
correspondence. Walpole could not endure equality in literary
men.--Bentley observed to Cole, that Walpole's pride and
hauteur were excessive; which betrayed themselves in the
treatment of Gray who had himself too much pride and
spirit _to forgive it_ when matters were made up between them,
and Walpole invited Gray to Strawberry-hill. When Gray came,
he, without any ceremony, told Walpole that though he
waited on him as civility required, yet by _no means would he
ever be there on the terms of their former friendship,
which he had totally cancelled_.--From COLE'S MSS.

INFLUENCE OF A BAD TEMPER IN CRITICISM.

Unfriendly to the literary character, some have imputed the brutality of certain authors to their literary habits, when it may be more truly said that they derived their literature from their brutality. The spirit was envenomed before it entered into the fierceness of literary controversy, and the insanity was in the evil temper of the man before he roused our notice by his ravings. RITSON, the late antiquary of poetry (not to call him poetical), amazed the world by his vituperative railing at two authors of the finest taste in poetry, Warton and Percy; he carried criticism, as the discerning few had first surmised, to insanity itself; the character before us only approached it.

DENNIS attained to the ambiguous honour of being distinguished as "The Critic," and he may yet instruct us how the moral influences the literary character, and how a certain talent that can never mature itself into genius, like the pale fruit that hangs in the shade, ripens only into sourness.

As a critic in his own day, party for some time kept him alive; the art of criticism was a novelty at that period of our literature. He flattered some great men, and he abused three of the greatest; this was one mode of securing popularity; because, by this contrivance, he divided the town into two parties; and the irascibility and satire of Pope and Swift were not less serviceable to him than the partial panegyrics of Dryden and Congreve. Johnson revived him, for his minute attack on Addison; and Kippis, feebly voluminous, and with the cold affectation of candour, allows him to occupy a place in our literary history too large in the eye of Truth and Taste.

Let us say all the good we can of him, that we may not be interrupted in a more important inquiry. Dennis once urged fair pretensions to the office of critic. Some of his "Original Letters," and particularly the "Remarks on Prince Arthur," written in his vigour, attain even to classical criticism.[37] Aristotle and Bossu lay open before him, and he developes and sometimes illustrates their principles with close reasoning. Passion had not yet blinded the young critic with rage; and in that happy moment, Virgil occupied his attention even more than Blackmore.

The prominent feature in his literary character was good sense; but in literature, though not in life, good sense is a penurious virtue. Dennis could not be carried beyond the cold line of a precedent, and before he ventured to be pleased, he was compelled to look into Aristotle. His learning was the bigotry of literature. It was ever Aristotle explained by Dennis. But in the explanation of the obscure text of his master, he was led into such frivolous distinctions, and tasteless propositions, that his works deserve inspection, as examples of the manner of a true mechanical critic.

This blunted feeling of the mechanical critic was at first concealed from the world in the pomp of critical erudition; but when he trusted to himself, and, destitute of taste and imagination, became a poet and a dramatist, the secret of the Royal Midas was revealed. As his evil temper prevailed, he forgot his learning, and lost the moderate sense which he seemed once to have possessed. Rage, malice, and dulness, were the heavy residuum; and now he much resembled that congenial soul whom the ever-witty South compared to the tailor's goose, which is at once hot and heavy.

Dennis was sent to Cambridge by his father, a saddler, who imagined a genius had been born in the family. He travelled in France and Italy, and on his return held in contempt every pursuit but poetry and criticism. He haunted the literary coteries, and dropped into a galaxy of wits and noblemen. At a time when our literature, like our politics, was divided into two factions, Dennis enlisted himself under Dryden and Congreve;[38] and, as legitimate criticism was then an awful novelty in the nation, the young critic, recent from the Stagirite, soon became an important, and even a tremendous spirit. Pope is said to have regarded his judgment; and Mallet, when young, tremblingly submitted a poem, to live or die by his breath. One would have imagined that the elegant studies he was cultivating, the views of life which had opened on him, and the polished circle around, would have influenced the grossness which was the natural growth of the soil. But ungracious Nature kept fast hold of the mind of Dennis!

His personal manners were characterised by their abrupt violence. Once dining with Lord Halifax he became so impatient of contradiction, that he rushed out of the room, overthrowing the sideboard. Inquiring on the next day how he had behaved, Moyle observed, "You went away like the devil, taking one corner of the house with you." The wits, perhaps, then began to suspect their young Zoilus's dogmatism.

The actors refused to perform one of his tragedies to empty houses, but they retained some excellent thunder which Dennis had invented; it rolled one night when Dennis was in the pit, and it was applauded! Suddenly starting up, he cried to the audience, "By G--, they wont act my tragedy, but they steal my thunder!" Thus, when reading Pope's "Essay on Criticism," he came to the character of Appius, he suddenly flung down the new poem, exclaiming, "By G--, he means me!" He is painted to the life.

_Lo!_ _Appius reddens_ at each word you speak,
And stares tremendous with a threatening eye,
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.

I complete this picture of Dennis with a very extraordinary caricature, which Steele, in one of his papers of "The Theatre," has given of Dennis. I shall, however, disentangle the threads, and pick out what I consider not to be caricature, but resemblance.

"His motion is quick and sudden, turning on all sides, with a suspicion of every object, as if he had done or feared some extraordinary mischief. You see wickedness in his meaning, but folly of countenance, that betrays him to be unfit for the execution of it. He starts, stares, and looks round him. This constant shuffle of haste without speed, makes the man thought a little touched; but the vacant look of his two eyes gives you to understand that he could never run out of his wits, which seemed not so much to be lost, as to want employment; they are not so much astray, as they are a wool-gathering. He has the face and surliness of a mastiff, which has often saved him from being treated like a cur, till some more sagacious than ordinary found his nature, and used him accordingly. Unhappy being! terrible without, fearful within! Not a wolf in sheep's clothing, but a sheep in a wolf's."[39]

However anger may have a little coloured this portrait, its truth may be confirmed from a variety of sources. If Sallust, with his accustomed penetration in characterising the violent emotions of Catiline's restless mind, did not forget its indication in "his walk now quick and now slow," it maybe allowed to think that the character of Dennis was alike to be detected in his habitual surliness.

Even in his old age--for our chain must not drop a link--his native brutality never forsook him. Thomson and Pope charitably supported the veteran Zoilus at a benefit play; and Savage, who had nothing but a verse to give, returned them very poetical thanks in the name of Dennis. He was then blind and old, but his critical ferocity had no old age; his surliness overcame every grateful sense, and he swore as usual, "They could be no one's but that _fool_ Savage's"--an evidence of his sagacity and brutality![40] This was, perhaps, the last peevish snuff shaken from the dismal link of criticism; for, a few days after, was the redoubted Dennis numbered with the mighty dead.

He carried the same fierceness into his style, and commits the same ludicrous extravagances in literary composition as in his manners. Was Pope really sore at the Zoilian style? He has himself spared me the trouble of exhibiting Dennis's gross personalities, by having collected them at the close of the Dunciad--specimens which show how low false wit and malignity can get to by hard pains. I will throw into the note a curious illustration of the anti-poetical notions of a mechanical critic, who has no wing to dip into the hues of the imagination.[41]

In life and in literature we meet with men who seem endowed with an obliquity of understanding, yet active and busy spirits; but, as activity is only valuable in proportion to the capacity that puts all in motion, so, when ill directed, the intellect, warped by nature, only becomes more crooked and fantastical. A kind of frantic enthusiasm breaks forth in their actions and their language, and often they seem ferocious when they are only foolish. We may thus account for the manners and style of Dennis, pushed almost to the verge of insanity, and acting on him very much like insanity itself--a circumstance which the quick vengeance of wit seized on, in the humorous "Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris, concerning the Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis, an officer of the Custom-house."[42]

It is curious to observe that Dennis, in the definition of genius, describes himself; he says--"Genius is caused by a _furious joy_ and _pride of soul_ on the conception of an extraordinary hint. Many men have their _hints_ without their motions of _fury and pride of soul_, because they want fire enough to agitate their spirits; and these we call cold writers. Others, who have a great deal of fire, but have not excellent organs, feel the fore-mentioned _motions_, without the extraordinary _hints_; and these we call fustian writers." His _motions_ and his _hints_, as he describes them, in regard to cold or fustian writers, seem to include the extreme points of his own genius.

Another feature strongly marks the race of the Dennises. With a half-consciousness of deficient genius, they usually idolize some chimera, by adopting some extravagant principle; and they consider themselves as original when they are only absurd.

Dennis had ever some misshapen idol of the mind, which he was perpetually caressing with the zeal of perverted judgment or monstrous taste. Once his frenzy ran against the Italian Opera; and in his "Essay on Public Spirit," he ascribes its decline to its unmanly warblings. I have seen a long letter by Dennis to the Earl of Oxford, written to congratulate his lordship on his accession to power, and the high hopes of the nation; but the greater part of the letter runs on the Italian Opera, while Dennis instructs the Minister that the national prosperity can never be effected while this general corruption of the three kingdoms lies open!

Dennis has more than once recorded two material circumstances in the life of a true critic; these are his _ill-nature_ and the _public neglect_.

"I make no doubt," says he, "that upon the perusal of the critical part of these letters, the _old accusation_ will be brought against me, and there will be a _fresh outcry_ among thoughtless people that I am _an ill-natured man_."

He entertained exalted opinions of his own powers, and he deeply felt their public neglect.

"While others," he says in his tracts, "have been _too much encouraged_, I have been _too much neglected_"--his favourite system, that religion gives principally to great poetry its spirit and enthusiasm, was an important point, which, he says, "has been left to be treated by _a person who has the honour of being your lordship's countryman_--your lordship knows that persons _so much and so long oppressed as I have been_ have been always allowed to _say things concerning themselves_ which in others might be offensive."

His vanity, we see, was equal to his vexation, and as he grew old he became more enraged; and, writing too often without Aristotle or Locke by his side, he gave the town pure Dennis, and almost ceased to be read. "The oppression" of which he complains might not be less imaginary than his alarm, while a treaty was pending with France, that he should be delivered up to the Grand Monarque for having written a tragedy, which no one could read, against his majesty.

It is melancholy, but it is useful, to record the mortifications of such authors. Dennis had, no doubt, laboured with zeal which could never meet a reward; and, perhaps, amid his critical labours, he turned often with an aching heart from their barren contemplation to that of the tranquillity he might have derived from an humbler avocation.

It was not literature, then, that made the mind coarse, brutalising the habits and inflaming the style of Dennis. He had thrown himself among the walks of genius, and aspired to fix himself on a throne to which Nature had refused him a legitimate claim. What a lasting source of vexation and rage, even for a long-lived patriarch of criticism!

Accustomed to suspend the scourge over the heads of the first authors of the age, he could not sit at a table or enter a coffee-house without exerting the despotism of a literary dictator. How could the mind that had devoted itself to the contemplation of masterpieces, only to reward its industry by detailing to the public their human frailties, experience one hour of amenity, one idea of grace, one generous impulse of sensibility?

But the poor critic himself at length fell, really more the victim of his criticisms than the genius he had insulted. Having incurred the public neglect, the blind and helpless Cacus in his den sunk fast into contempt, dragged on a life of misery, and in his last days, scarcely vomiting his fire and smoke, became the most pitiable creature, receiving the alms he craved from triumphant genius.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] It is curious to observe that Kippis, who classifies with the
pomp of enumeration his heap of pamphlets, imagines that, as
Blackmore's Epic is consigned to oblivion, so likewise must be
the criticism, which, however, he confesses he could never
meet with. An odd fate attends Dennis's works: his criticism
on a bad work ought to survive it, as good works have survived
his criticisms.

[38] See in Dennis's "Original Letters" one to Tonson, entitled, "On
the conspiracy against the reputation of Mr. Dryden." It was
in favour of _folly_ against _wisdom_, _weakness_ against
_power_, &c.; _Pope_ against _Dryden_. He closes with a
well-turned period. "Wherever genius runs through a work, I
forgive its faults; and wherever that is wanting, no beauties
can touch me. Being struck by Mr. Dryden's genius, I have no
eyes for his errors; and I have no eyes for his enemies'
beauties, because I am not struck by their genius."

[39] In the narrative of his frenzy (quoted p. 56), his _personnel_
is thus given. "His aspect was furious, his eyes were rather
fiery than lively, which he rolled about in an uncommon
manner. He often opened his mouth as if he would have uttered
some matter of importance, but the sound seemed lost inwardly.
His beard was grown, which they told me he would not suffer to
be shaved, believing the modern dramatic poets had corrupted
all the barbers of the town to take the first opportunity of
cutting his throat. His eyebrows were grey, long, and grown
together, which he knit with indignation when anything was
spoken, insomuch that he seemed not to have smoothed his
forehead for many years."--ED.

[40] There is an epigram on Dennis by Savage, which Johnson has
preserved in his Life; and I feel it to be a very correct
likeness, although Johnson censures Savage for writing an
epigram against Dennis, while he was living in great
familiarity with the critic. Perhaps that was the happiest
moment to write the epigram. The anecdote in the text
doubtless prompted "the fool" to take this fair revenge and
just chastisement. Savage has brought out the features
strongly, in these touches--

"Say what revenge on Dennis can be had,
Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad.
On one so poor you cannot take the law,
On one so old your sword you scorn to draw.
Uncaged then, let the harmless monster rage,
Secure in dulness, madness, want, and age!"

[41] Dennis points his heavy cannon of criticism and thus
bombards that aerial edifice, the "Rape of the Lock." He is
inquiring into the nature of _poetical machinery_, which, he
oracularly pronounces, should be religious, or allegorical,
or political; asserting the "Lutrin" of Boileau to be a
trifle only in appearance, covering the deep political
design of reforming the Popish Church!--With the yard of
criticism he takes measure of the slender graces and tiny
elegance of Pope's aerial machines, as "less considerable
than the _human persons_, which is _without precedent_.
Nothing can be so contemptible as the _persons_ or so
foolish as the understandings of these _hobgoblins_.
Ariel's speech is one continued impertinence. After he has
talked to them of black omens and dire disasters that
threaten his heroine, those bugbears dwindle to the breaking
a piece of china, to staining a petticoat, the losing a
fan, or a bottle of sal volatile--and what makes Ariel's
speech more ridiculous is the _place_ where it is spoken, on
the sails and cordage of Belinda's barge." And then he
compares the Sylphs to the Discord of Homer, whose feet are
upon the earth, and head in the skies. "They are, indeed,
beings so diminutive that they bear the same proportion to
the rest of the intellectual that _Eels in vinegar_ do to
the rest of the material world; the latter are only to be seen
through microscopes, and the former only through the false
optics of a Rosicrucian understanding." And finally, he
decides that "these diminutive beings are only _Sawney_
(that is, Alexander Pope), taking the change; for it is
he, a little lump of flesh, that talks, instead of a little
spirit." Dennis's profound gravity contributes an additional
feature of the burlesque to these heroi-comic poems
themselves, only that Dennis cannot be playful, and will
not be good-humoured.

On the same tasteless principle he decides on the improbability
of that incident in the "Conscious Lovers" of Steele, raised
by Bevil, who, having received great obligations from his
father, has promised not to marry without his consent. On this
Dennis, who rarely in his critical progress will stir a foot
without authority, quotes four formidable pages from Locke's
"Essay on Government," to prove that, at the age of
discretion, a man is free to dispose of his own actions! One
would imagine that Dennis was arguing like a special pleader,
rather than developing the involved action of an affecting
drama. Are there critics who would pronounce Dennis to be a
very _sensible_ brother? It is here too he calls Steele "a
twopenny author," alluding to the price of the "Tatlers"--but
this cost Dennis dear!

[42] "The narrative of the frenzy of Mr. John Dennis," published in
the Miscellanies of Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, and said to
have been written by Pope, is a grave banter on his usual
violence. It professes to be the account of the physician who
attended him at the request of a servant, who describes the
first attack of his madness coming on when "a poor simple
child came to him from the printers; the boy had no sooner
entered the room, but he cried out 'the devil was come!'" The
constant idiosyncrasy he had that his writings against France
and the Pope might endanger his liberty, is amusingly hit off;
"he perpetually starts and runs to the window when any one
knocks, crying out ''Sdeath! a messenger from the French King;
I shall die in the Bastile!'"--ED.

DISAPPOINTED GENIUS

TAKES A FATAL DIRECTION BY ITS ABUSE.

How the moral and literary character are reciprocally influenced, may be traced in the character of a personage peculiarly apposite to these inquiries. This worthy of literature is ORATOR HENLEY, who is rather known traditionally than historically.[43] He is so overwhelmed with the echoed satire of Pope, and his own extravagant conduct for many years, that I should not care to extricate him, had I not discovered a feature in the character of Henley not yet drawn, and constituting no inferior calamity among authors.

Henley stands in his "gilt tub" in the Dunciad; and a portrait of him hangs in the picture-gallery of the Commentary. Pope's verse and Warburton's notes are the pickle and the bandages for any Egyptian mummy of dulness, who will last as long as the pyramid that encloses him. I shall transcribe, for the reader's convenience, the lines of Pope:--

Embrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands;
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson, preach in vain.
Oh! great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once, and Zany of thy age![44]

It will surprise when I declare that this buffoon was an indefatigable student, a proficient in all the learned languages, an elegant poet, and, withal, a wit of no inferior class. It remains to discover why "the Preacher" became "the Zany."

Henley was of St. John's College, Cambridge, and was distinguished for the ardour and pertinacity of his studies; he gave evident marks of genius. There is a letter of his to the "Spectator," signed _Peter de Quir_, which abounds with local wit and quaint humour.[45] He had not attained his twenty-second year when he published a poem, entitled "Esther, Queen of Persia,"[46] written amid graver studies; for three years after, Henley, being M.A., published his "Complete Linguist," consisting of grammars of ten languages.

The poem itself must not be passed by in silent notice. It is preceded by a learned preface, in which the poet discovers his intimate knowledge of oriental studies, with some etymologies from the Persic, the Hebrew, and the Greek, concerning the name and person of Ahasuerus, whom he makes to be Xerxes. The close of this preface gives another unexpected feature in the character of him who, the poet tells us, was "embrowned with _native_ bronze"--an unaffected modesty! Henley, alluding to a Greek paraphrase of Barnes, censures his faults with acrimony, and even apologises for them, by thus gracefully closing the preface: "These can only be alleviated by one plea, the youth of the author, which is a circumstance I hope the candid will consider in favour of the present writer!"

The poem is not destitute of imagination and harmony.

The pomp of the feast of Ahasuerus has all the luxuriance of Asiatic splendour; and the circumstances are selected with some fancy.

The higher guests approach a room of state,
Where tissued couches all around were set
Labour'd with art; o'er ivory tables thrown,
Embroider'd carpets fell in folds adown.
The bowers and gardens of the court were near,
And open lights indulged the breathing air.

Pillars of marble bore a silken sky,
While cords of purple and fine linen tie
In silver rings, the azure canopy.
Distinct with diamond stars the blue was seen,
And earth and seas were feign'd in emerald green;
A globe of gold, ray'd with a pointed crown,
Form'd in the midst almost a real sun.

Nor is Henley less skilful in the elegance of his sentiments, and in his development of the human character. When Esther is raised to the throne, the poet says--

And Esther, though in robes, is Esther still.

And then sublimely exclaims--

The heroic soul, amidst its bliss or woe,
Is never swell'd too high, nor sunk too low;
Stands, like its origin above the skies,
Ever the same great self, sedately wise;
Collected and prepared in every stage
To scorn a courting world, or bear its rage.

But wit which the "Spectator" has sent down to posterity, and poetry which gave the promise of excellence, did not bound the noble ambition of Henley; ardent in more important labours, he was perfecting himself in the learned languages, and carrying on a correspondence with eminent scholars.

He officiated as the master of the free-school at his native town in Leicestershire, then in a declining state; but he introduced many original improvements. He established a class for public elocution, recitations of the classics, orations, &c.; and arranged a method of enabling every scholar to give an account of his studies without the necessity of consulting others, or of being examined by particular questions. These miracles are indeed a little apocryphal; for they are drawn from that pseudo-gospel of his life, of which I am inclined to think he himself was the evangelist. His grammar of ten languages was now finished; and his genius felt that obscure spot too circumscribed for his ambition. He parted from the inhabitants with their regrets, and came to the metropolis with thirty recommendatory letters.

Henley probably had formed those warm conceptions of patronage in which youthful genius cradles its hopes. Till 1724 he appears, however, to have obtained only a small living, and to have existed by translating and writing. Thus, after persevering studies, many successful literary efforts, and much heavy taskwork, Henley found he was but a hireling author for the booksellers, and a salaried "Hyp-doctor" for the minister; for he received a stipend for this periodical paper, which was to cheer the spirits of the people by ridiculing the gloomy forebodings of Amhurst's "Craftsman." About this time the complete metamorphosis of the studious and ingenious John Henley began to branch out into its grotesque figure; and a curiosity in human nature was now about to be opened to public inspection. "The Preacher" was to personate "The Zany." His temper had become brutal, and he had gradually contracted a ferocity and grossness in his manners, which seem by no means to have been indicated in his purer days. His youth was disgraced by no irregularities--it was studious and honourable. But he was now quick at vilifying the greatest characters; and having a perfect contempt for all mankind, was resolved to live by making one half of the world laugh at the other. Such is the direction which disappointed genius has too often given to its talents.

He first affected oratory, and something of a theatrical attitude in his sermons, which greatly attracted the populace; and he startled those preachers who had so long dozed over their own sermons, and who now finding themselves with but few slumberers about them, envied their Ciceronian brothers.

Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.

It was alleged against Henley, that "he drew the people too much from their parish churches, and was not so proper for a London divine as a rural pastor." He was offered a rustication, on a better living; but Henley did not come from the country to return to it.

There is a narrative of the life of Henley, which, subscribed by another person's name, he himself inserted in his "Oratory Transactions."[47] As he had to publish himself this highly seasoned biographical morsel, and as his face was then beginning to be "embrowned with bronze," he thus very impudently and very ingeniously apologises for the panegyric:--

"If any remark of the writer appears favourable to myself, and be judged apocryphal, it may, however, weigh in the opposite scale to some things less obligingly said of me; false praise being as pardonable as false reproach."[48]

In this narrative we are told, that when at college--

"He began to be uneasy that he had not the liberty of thinking, without incurring the scandal of heterodoxy; he was impatient that systems of all sorts were put into his hands ready carved out for him; it shocked him to find that he was commanded to believe against his judgment, and resolved some time or other to enter his protest against any person being bred like a slave, who is born an Englishman."

This is all very decorous, and nothing can be objected to the first cry of this reforming patriot but a reasonable suspicion of its truth. If these sentiments were really in his mind at college, he deserves at least the praise of retention: for fifteen years were suffered to pass quietly without the patriotic volcano giving even a distant rumbling of the sulphurous matter concealed beneath. All that time had passed in the contemplation of church preferment, with the aerial perspective lighted by a visionary mitre. But Henley grew indignant at his disappointments, and suddenly resolved to reform "the gross impostures and faults that have long prevailed in the received _institutions_ and _establishments_ of _knowledge_ and _religion_"--simply meaning that he wished to pull down the _Church_ and the _University_!

But he was prudent before he was patriotic; he at first grafted himself on Whiston, adopting his opinions, and sent some queries by which it appears that Henley, previous to breaking with the church, was anxious to learn the power it had to punish him. The Arian Whiston was himself, from pure motives, suffering expulsion from Cambridge, for refusing his subscription to the Athanasian Creed; he was a pious man, and no buffoon, but a little crazed. Whiston afterwards discovered the character of his correspondent, he then requested the Bishop of London.

"To summon Mr. Henley, the orator, whose vile history I knew so well, to come and tell it to the church. But the bishop said he could do nothing; since which time Mr. Henley has gone on for about twenty years without control every week, as an ecclesiastical mountebank, to abuse religion."

The most extraordinary project was now formed by Henley; he was to teach mankind universal knowledge from his lectures, and primitive Christianity from his sermons. He took apartments in Newport market, and opened his "Oratory." He declared,

"He would teach more in one year than schools and universities did in five, and write and study twelve hours a-day, and yet appear as untouched by the yoke, as if he never bore it."

In his "Idea of what is intended to be taught in the _Week-days' Universal Academy_," we may admire the fertility, and sometimes the grandeur of his views. His lectures and orations[49] are of a very different nature from what they are imagined to be; literary topics are treated with perspicuity and with erudition, and there is something original in the manner. They were, no doubt, larded and stuffed with many high-seasoned jokes, which Henley did not send to the printer.

Henley was a charlatan and a knave; but in all his charlatanerie and his knavery he indulged the reveries of genius; many of which have been realised since; and, if we continue to laugh at Henley, it will indeed be cruel, for we shall be laughing at ourselves! Among the objects which Henley discriminates in his general design, were, to supply the want of a university, or universal school, in this capital, for persons of all ranks, professions, and capacities;--to encourage a literary correspondence with great men and learned bodies; the communication of all discoveries and experiments in science and the arts; to form an amicable society for the encouragement of learning, "in order to cultivate, adorn, and exalt the genius of Britain;" to lay a foundation for an English Academy; to give a standard to our language, and a digest to our history; to revise the ancient schools of philosophy and elocution, which last has been reckoned by Pancirollus among the _artes perditae_. All these were "to bring all the parts of knowledge into the narrowest compass, placing them in the clearest light, and fixing them to the utmost certainty." The religion of the Oratory was to be that of the primitive church in the first ages of the four first general councils, approved by parliament in the first year of the reign of Elizabeth. "The Church of England is really with us; we appeal to her own principles, and we shall not deviate from her, unless she deviates from herself." Yet his "Primitive Christianity" had all the sumptuous pomp of popery; his creeds and doxologies are printed in the red letter, and his liturgies in the black; his pulpit blazed in gold and velvet (Pope's "gilt tub"); while his "Primitive Eucharist" was to be distributed with all the ancient forms of celebrating the sacrifice of the altar, which he says, "are so noble, so just, sublime, and perfectly harmonious, that the change has been made to an unspeakable disadvantage." It was restoring the decorations and the mummery of the mass! He assumed even a higher tone, and dispersed medals, like those of Louis XIV., with the device of a sun near the meridian, and a motto, _Ad summa_, with an inscription expressive of the genius of this new adventurer, _Inveniam viam aut faciam_! There was a snake in the grass; it is obvious that Henley, in improving literature and philosophy, had a deeper design--to set up a new sect! He called himself "a Rationalist," and on his death-bed repeatedly cried out, "Let my notorious enemies know I die a Rational."[50]

His address to the town[51] excited public curiosity to the utmost; and the floating crowds were repulsed by their own violence from this new paradise, where "The Tree of Knowledge" was said to be planted. At the succeeding meeting "the Restorer of Ancient Eloquence" informed "persons in chairs that they must come sooner." He first commenced by subscriptions to be raised from "persons eminent in Arts and Literature," who, it seems, were lured by the seductive promise, that, "if they had been virtuous or penitents, they should be commemorated;" an oblique hint at a panegyrical puff. In the decline of his popularity he permitted his door-keeper, whom he dignifies with the title of _Ostiary_, to take a shilling! But he seems to have been popular for many years; even when his auditors were but few, they were of the better order;[52] and in notes respecting him which I have seen, by a contemporary, he is called "the reverend and learned." His favourite character was that of a Restorer of Eloquence; and he was not destitute of the qualifications of a fine orator, a good voice, graceful gesture, and forcible elocution. Warburton justly remarked, "Sometimes he broke jests, and sometimes that bread which he called the Primitive Eucharist." He would degenerate into buffoonery on solemn occasions. His address to the Deity was at first awful, and seemingly devout; but, once expatiating on the several sects who would certainly be damned, he prayed that the Dutch might be _undamm'd_! He undertook to show the ancient use of the petticoat, by quoting the Scriptures where the mother of Samuel is said to have made him "_a little coat_," ergo, a PETTI-_coat_![53] His advertisements were mysterious ribaldry to attract curiosity, while his own good sense would frequently chastise those who could not resist it; his auditors came in folly, but they departed in good-humour.[54] These advertisements were usually preceded by a sort of motto, generally a sarcastic allusion to some public transaction of the preceding week.[55] Henley pretended to great impartiality; and when two preachers had animadverted on him, he issued an advertisement, announcing "A Lecture that will be a challenge to the Rev. Mr. Batty and the Rev. Mr. Albert. Letters are sent to them on this head, and _a free standing-place_ is there to be had _gratis_." Once Henley offered to admit of a disputation, and that he would impartially determine the merits of the contest. It happened that Henley this time was overmatched; for two Oxonians, supported by a strong party to awe his "marrow-boners," as the butchers were called, said to be in the Orator's pay, entered the list; the one to defend the _ignorance_, the other the _impudence_, of the Restorer of Eloquence himself. As there was a door behind the rostrum, which led to his house, the Orator silently dropped out, postponing the award to some happier day.[56]

This age of lecturers may find their model in Henley's "Universal Academy," and if any should aspire to bring themselves down to his genius, I furnish them with hints of anomalous topics. In the second number of "The Oratory Transactions," is a diary from July 1726, to August 1728. It forms, perhaps, an unparalleled chronicle of the vagaries of the human mind. These archives of cunning, of folly, and of literature, are divided into two diaries; the one "The Theological or Lord's days' subjects of the Oratory;" the other, "The Academical or Week-days' subjects." I can only note a few. It is easy to pick out ludicrous specimens; for he had a quaint humour peculiar to himself; but among these numerous topics are many curious for their knowledge and ingenuity.

"The last Wills and Testaments of the Patriarchs."

"An Argument to the Jews, with a proof that they ought to be Christians, for the same reason which they ought to be Jews."

"St. Paul's Cloak, Books, and Parchments, left at Troas."

"The tears of Magdalen, and the joy of angels."

"New Converts in Religion." After pointing out the names of "Courayer and others, the D---- of W----n, the Protestantism of the P----, the conversion of the Rev. Mr. B----e, and Mr. Har----y," he closes with "Origen's opinion of Satan's conversion; with the choice and balance of Religion in all countries."

There is one remarkable entry:--

"Feb. 11. This week all Mr. Henley's writings were seized, to be examined by the State. _Vide Magnam Chartam_, and _Eng Lib._"

It is evident by what follows that the _personalities_ he made use of were one means of attracting auditors.

"On the action of Cicero, and the beauty of Eloquence, and on living characters; of action in the Senate, at the Bar, and in the Pulpit--of the Theatrical in all men. The manner of my Lord ----, Sir ----, Dr. ----, the B. of ----, being a proof how all life is playing something, but with different action."

In a Lecture on the History of Bookcraft, an account was given

"Of the plenty of books, and dearth of sense; the advantages of the Oratory to the booksellers, in advertising for them; and to their customers, in making books useless; with all the learning, reason, and wit more than are proper for one advertisement."