Chapter VII: Part 7

Mr. Oldmixon wrote a history of the Stuarts in folio, and a Critical History of England, in two volumes octavo. The former of these pieces was undertaken to blacken the family of the Stuarts. The most impartial writers and candid critics, on both sides, have held this work in contempt, for in every page there breathes a malevolent spirit, a disposition to rail and calumniate: So far from observing that neutrality and dispassionate evenness of temper, which should be carefully attended to by every historian, he suffers himself to be transported with anger: He reviles, wrests particular passages and frequently draws forced conclusions. A history written in this spirit has no great claim to a reader's faith. The reigns of the Stuarts in England were no doubt chequer'd with many evils; and yet it is certainly true, that a man who can fit deliberately down to search for errors only, must have a strong propension to calumny, or at least take delight in triumphing over the weakness of his fellow creatures, which is surely no indication of a good heart.

Mr. Oldmixon, being employ'd by bishop Kennet, in publishing the Historians in his collection, he perverted Daniel's Chronicle in numberless places. Yet this very man, in the preface to the first of these, advanced a particular fact, to charge three eminent persons of interpolating the lord Clarendon's History, which fact has been disproved by the bishop of Rochester, Dr. Atterbury, then the only survivor of them; and the particular part he pretended to be falsifed produced since, after almost ninety years, in that noble author's own hand.

He was all his life a virulent Party-Writer, and received his reward in a small part in the revenue at Liverpool, where he died in an advanced age, but in what year we cannot learn.

Mr. Oldmixon, besides the works we have mentioned, was author of a volume of Poems, published in 1714.

The Life of Arthur Maynwaring, Esq; prefixed to the works of that author, by Mr. Oldmixon.

England's Historical Epistles (Drayton's revived).

The Life of queen Anne.

[Footnote A: See Jacob's Lives of the Poets, p. 197.]

* * * * *

LEONARD WELSTED, Esq;

This gentleman was descended from a very good family in Leicestershire, and received the rudiments of his education in Westminster school. We are informed by major Cleland, author of a Panegyric on Mr. Pope, prefixed to the Dunciad, that he was a member of both the universities.

In a piece said to have been written by Mr. Welsted, called The Characters of the Times, printed in 8vo. 1728, he gives this account of himself; 'Mr. Welsted had in his youth raised so great expectations of his future genius, that there was a kind of struggle between the two universities, which should have the honour of his education; to compound this, he civilly became a member of both, and after having passed some time at the one, he removed to the other. From thence he returned to town, where he became the darling expectation of all the polite writers, whose encouragement he acknowledged in his occasional poems, in a manner that will make no small part of the fame of his protectors. It also appears from his works, that he was happy in the patronage of the most illustrious characters of the present age. Encouraged by such a combination in his favour, he published a book of poems, some in the Ovidian, some in the Horatian manner, in both which the most exquisite judges pronounced he even rivalled his masters. His love verses have rescued that way of writing from contempt. In his translations he has given us the very soul and spirit of his author. His Odes; his Epistles; his Verses; his Love Tales; all are the most perfect things in all poetry.'

If this representation of our author's abilities were just, it would seem no wonder, if the two universities should strive with each other for the honour of his education, but it is certain the world have not coincided with this opinion of Mr. Welsted; who, by the way, can hardly be thought the author of such an extravagant self-approbation, unless it be an irony, which does not seem improbable.

Our author, however, does not appear to have been a mean poet; he had certainly from nature an exceeding fine genius, but after he came to town he became a votary to pleasure, and the applauses of his friends, which taught him to overvalue his talents, perhaps slackened his diligence, and by making him trust solely to nature, flight the assistance of art.

In the year 1718 he wrote the Triumvirate, or a Letter in Verse from Palemon to Celia from Bath, which was meant as a satire against Mr. Pope. He wrote federal other occasional pieces against this gentleman, who, in recompence of his enmity, has mentioned him twice in his Dunciad. In book ii. 1. 200 where he represents the poets flattering their patrons with the fulsome strains of panegyric, in order to procure from them that which they very much wanted, viz. money, he shews Welsted as unsuccessful.

But Welsted most the poet's healing balm,
Strives to extract from his soft giving palm;
Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master,
The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster.

Mr. Welsted was likewise characterised in the Treatise of the Art of Sinking, as a Didapper, and after as an Eel. He was likewise described under the character of another animal, a Mole, by the author of the following simile, which was handed about at the same time.

Dear Welsted, mark in dirty hole
That painful animal a Mole:
Above ground never born to go,
What mighty stir it keeps below?
To make a molehill all this strife!
It digs, pukes, undermines for life.
How proud a little dirt to spread!
Conscious of nothing o'er its head.
'Till lab'ring on, for want of eyes,
It blunders into light--and dies.

But mentioning him once was not enough for Mr. Pope. He is again celebrated in the third book, in that famous Parody upon Benham's Cooper's Hill,

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme;
Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'er flowing full.

Denham.

Which Mr. Pope has thus parodied;

Flow Welsted, flow; like thine inspirer, beer,
Tho' stale, not ripe; tho' thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong; and foaming, tho' not full.

How far Mr. Pope's insinuation is true, that Mr. Welsted owed his inspiration to beer, they who read his works may determine for themselves. Poets who write satire often strain hard for ridiculous circumstances, in order to expose their antagonists, and it will be no violence to truth to say, that in search of ridicule, candour is frequently lost.

In the year 1726 Mr. Welsted brought upon the stage a comedy called The Dissembled Wantons or My Son get Money. He met with the patronage of the duke of Newcastle, who was a great encourager of polite learning; and we find that our author had a very competent place in the Ordnance-Office.

His poetical works are chiefly these,

The Duke of Marlborough's Arrival, a Poem printed in fol. 1709, inscribed to the Right Hon the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex.

A Poem to the Memory of Mr. Philips, inscribed to Lord Bolingbroke, printed in fol. 1710.

A Discourse to the Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole; to which is annexed Proposals for Translating the whole Works of Horace, with a Specimen of the Performance, viz. Lib. Ist. Ode 1, 3, 5 and 22, printed in 4to. 1727.

An Ode to the Hon. Major General Wade, on Occasion of his disarming the Highlands, imitated from Horace.

To the Earl of Clare, on his being created Duke of Newcastle. An Ode on the Birth-Day of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. To the Princess, a Poem. Amintor and the Nightingale, a Song. These four were printed together in 1716.

Of False Fame, an Epistle to the Right Hon. the Earl of Pembroke, 8vo. 1732.

A Letter to his Grace the Duke of Chandois.

To the Duke of Buckingham, on his Essay on Poetry.

Several small pieces in the Free Thinker.

Epistles, Odes, &c. written on several Subjects; with a Disseration concerning the Perfection of the English Language.

Mr. Welsted has translated Longinus's Treatise on the Sublime.

* * * * *

JAMES MORE SMYTH, Esq;

This gentleman was son of Arthur More, esq; one of the lords commissioners of trade, in the reign of Queen Anne; his mother was the daughter of Mr. Smyth, a man of considerable fortune, who left this his grandson a handsome estate, on which account he obtained an Act of Parliament to change his name to Smyth.

Our author received his education at Oxford, and while he remained at the university he wrote a comedy called The Rival Modes, his only dramatic performance. This play was condemned in the representation, but he printed it in 1727, with the following motto, which the author of the Notes to the Dunciad, by way of irony, calls modest.

Hic coestus, artemque repono.

Upon the death of our author's grandfather, he enjoyed the place of paymaster to the band of gentlemen-pensioners, in conjunction with his younger brother, Arthur More; of this place his mother procured the reversion from his late Majesty during his father's lifetime. Being a man of a gay disposition, he insinuated himself into the favour of his grace the duke of Wharton, and being, like him, destitute of prudence, he joined with that volatile great man in writing a paper called the Inquisitor, which breathed so much the spirit of Jacobitism, that the publisher thought proper to sacrifice his profit to his safety, and discontinue it.

By using too much freedom with the character of Pope, he provoked that gentleman, who with great spirit stigmatized him in his Dunciad. In his second book Mr. Pope places before the eyes of the dunces the phantom of a poet. He seems willing to give some account of the possibility of dulness making a wit, which can be done no otherwise than by chance. The lines which have relation to Mr. More are so elegantly satyric, that it probably will not displease our readers to find them inserted here.

A poet's form she plac'd before their eyes,
And bad the nimblest racer seize the prize;
No meagre muse-rid mope, adult and thin,
In a dun night gown of his own loose skin,
But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,
Twelve starv'ling bards of these degenerate days.
All as a partridge plump, full-fed, and fair,
She form'd this image of well-bodied air,
With pert, slat eyes, she window'd well its head,
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead,
And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!
Never was dash'd out at one lucky hit,
A fool so just a copy of a wit;
So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,
A wit it was, and call'd the phantom More.

Though these lines of Pope are sufficiently satirical, yet it seems they very little affected Mr. More. A gentleman intimately acquainted with him informs us, that he has heard Mr. More several times repeat those lines, without discovering any chagrin; and he used to observe, that he was now secure of being transmitted to posterity: an honour which, says he, I could never have arrived at, but by Pope's means. The cause of the quarrel between this gentleman and that great poet seems to have been this.

In a letter published in the Daily Journal March 18, 1728, written by Mr. More, he has the following words, 'Upon reading the third volume of Pope's Miscellanies, I found five lines which I thought excellent, and happening to praise them, a gentleman produced a modern comedy, the Rival Modes, published last year, where were the same verses to a tittle. These gentlemen are undoubtedly the first plagiaries that pretend to make a reputation, by stealing from a man's works in his own life-time, and out of a public print.' But it is apparent from the notes to the Dunciad, that Mr. More himself borrowed the lines from Pope; for in a letter dated January 27, 1726, addressed to Mr. Pope, he observes, 'That these verses which he had before given him leave to insert in the Rival Modes, would be known for his, some copies being got abroad. He desires, nevertheless, that since the lines in his comedy have been read to several, Mr. Pope would not deprive it of them.'

As a proof of this circumstance, the testimony of lord Bolingbroke is adduced, and the lady of Hugh Bethel, esq; to whom the verses were originally addressed, who knew them to be Mr. Pope's long before the Rival Modes was composed.

Our author further charges Mr. Pope with being an enemy to the church and state. 'The Memoirs of a Parish Clerk, says he, was a very dull, and unjust abuse of the bishop of Sarum (who wrote in defence of our religion and constitution) who has been dead many years.' 'This also, continues the author of the Notes to the Dunciad, is likewise untrue, it being known to divers, that these Memoirs were written at the seat of the lord Harcourt in Oxfordshire, before the death of bishop Burnet, and many years before the appearance of that history, of which they are pretended to be an abuse. Most true it is that Mr. More had such a design, and was himself the man who pressed Dr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Pope to assist him therein; and that he borrowed those Memoirs of the latter, when that history came forth, with intent to turn them to such abuse, but being able to obtain from Pope but one single hint, and either changing his mind, or having more mind than ability, he contented himself to keep the said Memoirs, and read them as his own to all his acquaintance. A noble person there is, into whose company Pope once chanced to introduce him, who well remembered the conversation of Mr. More to have turned upon the contempt he had for that reverend prelate, and how full he was of a design he declared himself to have of exposing him; this noble person is the earl of Peterborough.'

Thus Mr. Pope was obliged to represent this gentleman as a plagiary, or to pass for one himself. His case indeed, as the author of the notes to the Dunciad observes, was like that of a man who, as he was sitting in company, perceived his next neighbour had stolen his handkerchief. 'Sir, said the thief, finding himself detected, do not expose me, I did it for mere want; be so good but to take it privately out of my pocket again, and say nothing.' The honest man did so, but the other cried out, See, gentlemen! what a thief we have among us! look, he is stealing my handkerchief.' The plagiarism of this person gave occasion to the following epigram;

More always smiles whenever he recites;
He smiles (you think) approving what he writes;
And yet in this no vanity is shown;
A modest man may like what's not his own.

The smaller pieces which we have heard attributed to this author, are, An Epigram on the Bridge at Blenheim, by Dr. Evans; Cosmelia, by Mr. Pitt, Mr. Jones, &c. The Saw-Pit, a Simile, by a Friend; and some unowned Letters, Advertisements, and Epigrams against Mr. Pope in the Daily Journal. He died in the year 1734, and as he wrote but one comedy unsuccessfully, and no other pieces of his meeting with any applause, the reader will probably look upon him as a man of little genius; he had a power however of rendering his conversation agreeable by a facetious and gentleman-like manner, without any of the stiffness of the scholar, or the usual petulance of a poet. He always lived in affluent circumstances, and by mixing with genteel company, his habit of elegance was never lost, a fate which too frequently happens to those, who, notwithstanding the brightest parts, are excluded the circle of politeness by the oppressions of poverty. In this light Mr. Pope must have considered him, or he, who was one of the politest men of the age, as well as the greatest poet, would never have introduced him to the earl of Peterborough. It does not appear that Mr. More had parts otherwise sufficient to entitle him to the notice of Pope, and therefore he must have considered him only as a gentleman. Had he possessed as much prudence, as politeness, he would have avoided by all means incurring the displeasure of Pope, who, as he was the warmest friend, was likewise a very powerful and implacable enemy. In this controversy, however, it is evident enough that Mr. Moore was the aggressor, and it is likewise certain that his punishment has been equal to his offence.

He died October 18, 1734, at Whister, near Isleworth in Middlesex, for which county he was a justice of peace.

* * * * *

Mr. JOHN DENNIS,

This celebrated critic was born in London in the year 1657, his father being a Sadler, and an eminent citizen[A].

He received his early education at Harrow on the Hill, under the pious and learned Dr. William Horn, having for his schoolfellows many young noblemen, who afterwards made a considerable figure in the state. He removed from Harrow to Caius College in Cambridge, where he was admitted January 13, 1675, in the 18th year of his age. In due time Mr. Dennis took the degree of bachelor of arts, and after quitting the university he indulged a passion which he had entertained for travelling, and set out for France and Italy. In the course of his travels he, no doubt, made such observations upon the government and genius of the people whom he visited, as enabled him to make a just comparison between foreign states and his own country. In all probability, while he was in France and Italy, he conceived an abhorrence of despotic government, the effects of which he then had an opportunity more intimately to discern; for he returned home still more confirmed in Whig principles, by which his political conduct was ever governed.

Our author in his early years became acquainted with some of the brightest geniuses which then illuminated the regions of wit, such as Dryden, Wycherly, Congreve, and Southern. Their conversation was in itself sufficient to divert his mind from the acquisition of any profitable art, or the exercise of any profession. He ranked himself amongst the wits, and from that moment held every attainment in contempt, except what related to poetry, and taste.

Mr. Dennis, by the instances of zeal which he gave for the Protestant succession in the reign of King William, and Queen Anne, obtained the patronage of the duke of Marlborough, who procured him the place of one of the Queen's waiters in the Custom-house, worth 120 l. per annum, which Mr. Dennis held for six years. During the time he attended at the Custom-house, he lived so profusely, and managed his affairs with so little economy, that in order to discharge some pressing demands, he was obliged to dispose of his place. When the earl of Hallifax, with whom he had the honour of being acquainted, heard of Mr. Dennis's design, he sent for him, and in the most friendly manner, expostulated with him upon the folly, and rashness of disposing of his place, by which (says his lordship) you will soon become a beggar. Mr. Dennis represented his exigences, and the pressing demands that were then made upon him: which did not however satisfy his lordship, who insisted if he did sell it, it should be with some reversion to himself for the space of forty years, a term which the earl had no notion Mr. Dennis could exceed. But he was mistaken in his calculation upon our poet's constitution, who out-lived the term of forty years stipulated when he sold his place, and fulfilled in a very advanced age, what his lordship had prophesied would befal him. This circumstance our author hints at in his dedication of his poem on the Battle of Ramellies, to lord Hallifax, 'I have lately, says he, had very great obligations to your lordship, you have been pleased to take some care of my fortune, at a time when I most wanted it, and had the least reason to expect it from you.' This poem on the Battle of Ramellies is a cold unspirited performance; it has neither fire, nor elevation, and is the true poetical sister of another poem of his, on the Battle of Blenheim, addressed to Queen Anne, and for which the duke of Marlborough rewarded him, says Mr. Coxeter, with a present of a hundred guineas. In these poems he has introduced a kind of machinery; good and bad angels interest themselves in the action, and his hero, the duke of Marlborough, enjoys a large share of the celestial protection.

Mr. Dennis had once contracted a friendship[B] with Sir Richard Steele, whom he afterwards severely attacked. Sir Richard had promised that he would take some opportunity of mentioning his works in public with advantage, and endeavour to raise his reputation. When Sir Richard engaged in a periodical paper, there was a fair occasion of doing it, and accordingly in one of his Spectators he quotes the following couplet, which he is pleased to call humorous, but which however is a translation from Boileau.

One fool lolls his tongue out at another,
And shakes his empty noddle at his brother.

The citation of this couplet Mr. Dennis imagined, was rather meant to affront him, than pay a compliment to his genius, as he could discover nothing excellent in the lines, and if there was, they being only a translation, in some measure abated the merit of them. Being fired with resentment at this affront, he immediately, in a spirit of fury, wrote a letter to the Spectator, in which he treated him with very little ceremony, and informed him, that if he had been sincere in paying a compliment to him, he should have chosen a quotation from his poem on the Battle of Ramellies; he then points out a particular passage, of which he himself had a very high opinion, and which we shall here insert as a specimen of that performance.

A coelestial spirit visits the duke of Marlborough the night before the battle, and after he has said several other things to him, goes on thus,

A wondrous victory attends thy arms,
Great in itself, and in its sequel vast;
Whose ecchoing sound thro' all the West shall run,
Transporting the glad nations all around,
Who oft shall doubt, and oft suspend their joy,
And oft imagine all an empty dream;
The conqueror himself shall cry amaz'd,
'Tis not our work, alas we did it not;
The hand of God, the hand of God is here!
For thee, so great shall be thy high renown,
That same shall think no music like thy name,
Around the circling globe it shall be spread,
And to the world's last ages shall endure;
And the most lofty, most aspiring man,
Shall want th' assurance in his secret prayers
To ask such high felicity and fame,
As Heav'n has freely granted thee; yet this
That seems so great, so glorious to thee now,
Would look how low, how vile to thy great mind,
If I could set before th' astonished eyes,
Th' excess of glory, and th' excess of bliss
That is prepar'd for thy expiring soul,
When thou arriv'st at everlasting day.

The quotation by Mr. Dennis is longer, but we are persuaded the reader will not be displeased that we do not take the trouble to transcribe the whole, as it does not improve, but rather grows more languid. How strangely are people deceived in their own productions! In the language of sincerity we cannot discover a poetical conception, one striking image, or one animated line in the above, and yet Mr. Dennis observes to Sir Richard Steele, that these are the lines, by quoting which, he would really have done him honour.

But Mr. Dennis's resentment did not terminate here; he attempted to expose a paper in the Spectator upon dramatic conduct, in which the author endeavours to shew that a poet is not always obliged to distribute poetical justice on this very reasonable account, that good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave. To this proposition our critic objects, 'that it is not only a very false, but a dangerous assertion, that we neither know what men really are, nor what they suffer. Besides, says he, let it be considered, that a man is a creature, who is created immortal, and a creature consequently that will find a compensation in futurity, for any seeming inequality in his destiny here; but the creatures of a poetical creator, are imaginary, and transitory; they have no longer duration than the representation of their respective fables, and consequently if they offend, they must be punished during that representation, and therefore we are very far from pretending, that poetical justice is an equal representation of the justice of the Almighty.' In support of this opinion our critic produces the example of Euripides, and the best poets amongst the ancients, who practised it, and the authority of Aristole, who established the rule. But nature, or Shakespear, which is another word for nature, is by no means in favour of this equal distribution. No character can be represented in tragedy absolutely perfect, as no such character exists; but a character which possesses more virtues than vices, may be upon the whole amiable, and yet with the strictest propriety may be made the chief sufferer in the drama. If any passion strongly predominates in the heart of man, it will often expose him to such snares, entangle him in such difficulties, and oppress him with such wants, that in the very nature of things, he must sink under the complicated weight of misery. This may happen to a character extremely amiable, the passion which governs him may be termed unhappy, but not guilty, or if it should partake the nature of guilt, fallible creatures cannot always combat with success against guilty passions.

The drama being an imitation of nature, the poet causes a composition of characters formed in his imagination to be represented by players; these characters charm, or displease, not only for what they do; during the representation of the fable, but we love, or hate them for what they have done before their appearance; and we dread, or warmly expect the consequences of their resolutions after they depart the stage. The illusion would not be sufficiently strong, if we did not suppose the dramatic persons equally accountable to the powers above us, as we are ourselves. This Shakespear has taken care forcibly to impress upon his audience, in making the ghost of the murthered king of Denmark, charge his son not to touch his mother's life, but leave her to heaven; and the reflexions of her own conscience to goad and sting her.

Mr. Dennis's reasoning, upon the whole amounts to this, that no perfect character should suffer in the drama; to which it may be answered, that no perfect character ever did suffer in the drama; because no poet who draws from nature, ever introduced one, for this very good reason, that there are none in existence.

Mr. Dennis, who was restless in attacking those writers, who met with success, levelled some more criticisms against the Spectators; and amongst the rest endeavoured to expose Mr. Addison's Illustrations of the Old Ballad, called Chevy Chace; of which we shall only say, that he performed this talk more successfully than he executed his Animadversions upon Poetical Justice.

We have already taken notice of the warm attachment Mr. Dennis always had to the Whig-Interest, and his particular zeal for the Hanoverian succession. Ht wrote many letters and pamphlets, for the administration of the earl of Godolphin, and the duke of Marlborough, and never failed to lash the French with all the severity natural to him.

When the peace (which the Whigs reckoned the most inglorious that ever was made) was about to be ratified, Mr. Dennis, who certainly over-rated his importance, took it into his imagination, that when the terms of peace should be stipulated, some persons, who had been most active against the French, would be demanded by that nation as hostages; and he imagined himself of importance enough to be made choice of, but dreaded his being given up to the French, as the greatest evil that could befall him. Under the influence of this strong delusion, he actually waited on the duke of Marlborough, and begg'd his grace's interposition, that he might not be sacrificed to the French, for says he, 'I have always been their enemy.' To this strange request, his grace very gravely replied, 'Do not fear, Mr. Dennis, you shall not be given up to the French; I have been a greater enemy to them than you, and you see I am not afraid of being sacrificed, nor am in the least disturbed.' Mr. Dennis upon this retired, well satisfied with his grace's answer, but there still remained upon his spirits a dread of his becoming a prey to some of the enemies of Great Britain.

He soon after this retired into the country, to spend some time at a friend's house. While he was walking one day by the sea side, he saw a ship in full sail approaching towards the shore, which his distracted imagination dictated, was a French ship sent to carry him off. He hurried to the gentleman's house with the utmost precipitation, upbraided him with treachery, as being privy to the attempts of the French against his life, and without ceremony quitted his house, and posted to London, as fast as he could.

Mr. Dennis, who never cared to be an unconcerned spectator, when any business of a public or important nature was in agitation, entered the lists with the celebrated Mr. Sacheverel, who in the year 1702 published at Oxford a piece called the Political Union, the purport of which was to shew, that the Church and the State are invariably connected, and that the one cannot subsist without the other. Mr. Dennis in answer to this, in a letter to a member of parliament, with much zeal, force of argument, and less ferocity than usual, endeavours to overthrow the proposition, and shew the danger of priestcraft, both to religion and government.

In this letter he very sensibly observes, 'That since the very spirit of the christian religion, is the spirit of union and charity, it follows by consequence, that a spirit of division, is a spirit of malice, and of the Devil. A true son of the church, is he who appears most for union, who breathes nothing but charity; who neglects all worldly greatness to bear his master's yoke; and, who has learned of him to be meek and lowly of heart.'

He shews that the moderate part of the Church of England are the truest church; and that violent party which differs from the moderate ought to be called Dissenters, because they are at a greater distance from charity, which is the characteristic of a true church, than any Dissenters. By which, says he, 'It appears that Mr. Sacheverel has made a rod to whip himself, for if only the true Church of England is to remain, and if the moderate part is the true church, the most violent ought the least to be tolerated, because they differ from charity; and consequently are more ready to disturb the public peace.'

In 1703 he published proposals for putting a speedy end to the war, by ruining the commerce of the French and Spaniards, and securing our own without any additional expence to the nation. This was thought a very judicious, and well designed plan.

In 1706 our author published an Essay on the Italian Opera, in which, with an irresistable force, he shews the extreme danger that a generous nation is exposed to, by too much indulging effeminate music. In the preface he quotes a passage from Boileau, in which that satirist expresses himself with much severity against emasculating diversions; and the Italian music in particular.

He observes, 'That the modern Italians have the very same sun and soil with the antient Romans, and yet are their manners directly opposite. Their men are neither virtuous, wise, or valiant, and they who have reason to know their women, never trust them out of their sight. 'Tis impossible to give any reason for so great a difference between the ancient Romans, and the modern Italians, but only luxury; and the reigning luxury of modern Italy, is that soft and effeminate music, which abounds in the Opera.'

In this Essay Mr. Dennis remarks, that entertainments entirely made up of music can never instruct the mind, nor promote one excellent purpose in human nature. 'Perhaps, says he, the pride and vanity that is in mankind, may determine the generality to give into music, at the expence of poetry. Men love to enjoy their pleasures entirely, and not to have them restrained by awe, or curbed by mortification. Now there are but few judicious spectators at our dramatic representations, since none can be so, but who with great endowments of nature have had a very generous education; and the rest are frequently mortified, by passing foolish judgments: But in music the case is vastly different; to judge of that requires only use, and a fine ear, which the footman oft has a great deal finer than his master. In short, a man without common sense may very well judge of what a man writes without common sense, and without common sense composes.' He then inquires what the consequence will be if we banish poetry, which is, that taste, politeness, erudition and public spirit will fall with it, and all for a Song. The declension of poetry in Greece and Rome was soon followed by that of liberty and empire; according to Roscommon in his Essay on Translated Verse.

True poets are the guardians of a state,
And when they fail, portend approaching fate:
For that which Rome to conquest did inspire,
Was not the Vestal, but the Muses fire;
Heav'n joins the blessings, no declining age
E'er felt the raptures of poetic rage.

In 1711 Mr. Dennis published an Essay upon Public Spirit, being a satire in prose, upon the Manners and Luxury of the Times, the chief sources of our present Parties and Divisions. This is one of the most finished performances of our author; the intention is laudable, and the execution equal to the goodness of the design. He begins the Essay, with a definition, of the love of our country, shews how much the phrase has been prostituted, and how seldom understood, or practised in its genuine sense. He then observes how destructive it is to indulge an imitation of foreign fashions; that fashions are often followed by the manners of a people from whom they are borrowed; as in the beginning of king Charles the IId's reign. After the general distraction which was immediately consequent upon the Restoration, lord Halifax informs us, the people began to shake off their slavery in point of dress, and to be ashamed of their servility in that particular; 'and that they might look the more, says his lordship, like a distinct people, they threw off their fashions, and put on vests: The French did not like this independence, this slight shewn to their taste, as they thought it portended no good to their politics, considering that it is a natural introduction, first to make the world their asses, that they may afterwards make them their slaves. They sent over the duchess of Portsmouth, who, besides many other commissions, bore one to laugh us out of our vests, which she performed so effectually, that in a moment we were like so many footmen, who had quitted their masters livery, we took it again, and returned to our old service. So that the very time of doing this gave a very critical advantage to France, since it looked like an evidence or returning to their interests, as well as their fashions.'

After giving this quotation from the marquis of Halifax, he proceeds to inveigh against the various kinds of luxury, in which people of fashion indulge themselves.

He observes that luxury has in a particular manner been destructive to the ladies: 'That artificial dainties raise in their constitutions fierce ebullitions, and violent emotions, too rude for the delicate texture of their fibres; and for half the year together, they neither take any air, nor use any exercise to remove them. From hence distempers of body and mind; from hence an infinity of irregular desires, unlawful amours, intrigues, vapours, and whimsies, and all the numerous, melancholy croud of deep hysterical symptoms; from hence it comes to pass that the fruit of their bodies lie in them like plants in hot-beds; from hence it proceeds that our British maids, who in the time of our Henrys, were not held marriageable till turned of twenty, are now become falling ripe at twelve, and forced to prematureness, by the heat of adventitious fire. Nor has luxury only changed our natures, but transformed our sexes: We have men that are more soft, more languid, and more passive than women. On the other side we have women, who, as it were in revenge, are masculine in their desires, and masculine in their practices.'

In a pretty advanced age Mr. Dennis, who then laboured under severe necessities, published two volumes of Letters, by subscription, which are by far the most entertaining part of his writings. They have more sprightliness and force in them than, from reading his other works, we would be disposed to imagine. They are addressed to persons distinguished by their fortune, genius, and exalted station; the duke of Marlborough, the Lord Lansdowne, earl of Godolphin, earl of Halifax, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Prior, Mr. Wycherley, Henry Cromwel, Esq; Walter Moyle, Esq; and Sir Richard Blackmore. He entitles them Letters, Moral and Critical. The Critical are chiefly imployed upon Mr. Addison's Cato, which he censures in some places with great justice, and critical propriety: In other places he only discovers spleen, and endeavours to burlesque noble passages, merely from resentment to the author.

There is likewise published amongst these letters, an enquiry into the genius and writings of Shakespear. He contends for Shakespear's ignorance of the ancients, and observes, that it would derogate much from his glory to suppose him to have read, or understood them, because if he had, his not practicing their art, and not restraining the luxuriance of his imagination would be a reproach to him. After bestowing the highest panegyric upon Shakespear, he says, 'That he seems to have been the very original of our English tragical harmony; that is the harmony of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trisyllable terminations. For that diversity distinguishes it from heroic harmony, and bringing it nearer to common use, makes it more proper to gain attention, and more fit for action, and dialogue. Such verses we make when we are writing prose, we make such verse in common conversation.'

One of the reasons Mr. Dennis assigns for Shakespear's want of learning, is, that Julius Cæsar, in the play which goes by his name, makes but a third rate figure, and had he (says the author) consulted the Latin writers, he could not have been guilty of such an error; but this is far from being conclusive, which might us well be owing to his having a contempt for Cæsar's character, and an enthusiastic admiration for those of Brutus and Cassius.

Another prose Essay of Mr. Dennis's, which does him very great honour, is his Grounds of Criticism in Poetry. Amongst many masterly things, which he there advances, is the following. 'The antient poets (says he) derived that advantage which they have over the moderns, to the constituting their subjects after a religious manner; and from the precepts of Longinus, it appears that the greatest sublimity is to be derived from religious ideas.'

Mr. Dennis then observes, that one of the principal reasons, that has made the modern poetry so contemptible, is that by divesting itself of religion, it is fallen from its dignity, and its original nature and excellence; and from the greatest production in the mind of man, it is dwindled to an extravagant, and vain amusement. When subjects are in themselves great, the ideas of the writer must likewise be great; and nothing is in its nature so dignified as religion. This he illustrates by many examples from Milton, who when he raises his voice to heaven, and speaks the language of the divinity, then does he reach the true sublime; but when he descends to the more trifling consideration of human things, his wing is necessarily depressed, and his strains are less transporting. We shall now take a view of Mr. Dennis, in that part of his life and writings, in which he makes a less considerable figure, by exposing himself to the resentment of one so much his superior; and who, after a long provocation, at last, let loose his rage against him, in a manner that no time can obliterate. Mr. Dennis we have already observed, waged a perpetual war with successful writers, except those few who were his friends; but never engaged with so much fury, and less justice, against the writings of any poet, as those of Mr. Pope.

Some time after the death of Dryden, when Pope's reputation began to grow, his friends who were sanguine in his interest, were imprudent enough to make comparisons, and really assert, that Pope was the greatest poet of the two: Dennis, who had made court to Dryden, and was respected by him, heard this with indignation, and immediately exerted all the criticism and force of which he was master, to reduce the character of Pope. In this attempt he neither has succeeded, nor did he pursue it like a gentleman.

In his reflexions on Pope's Essay on Criticism, he uses the following unmannerly epithets. 'A young squab, short gentleman, whose outward form tho' it should be that of a downright monkey, would not differ so much from human shape, as his unthinking, immaterial part does from human understanding.--He is as stupid and as venomous as an hunch-backed toad.--A book through which folly and ignorance, those brethren so lame, and impotent, do ridiculously look very big, and very dull, and strut, and hobble cheek by jowl, with their arms on kimbo, being led, and supported, and bully-backed, by that blind Hector impudence.' The reasons which our critic gives for this extraordinary fury are equally ridiculous. 'I regard him (says he) as an enemy, not so much to me, as to my king, to my country, and to my religion. The epidemic madness of the times has given him reputation, and reputation is power; and that has made him dangerous. Therefore I look on it as my duty to king George, and to the liberties of my country, more dear than life to me, of which I have now been 40 years a constant assertor, &c. I look upon it as my duty I say to do,--Reader observe what,--To pull the lion's skin from this little ass, which popular error has thrown round him, and shew that this little author, who has been lately so much in vogue, has neither sense in his thoughts, nor English in his expressions. See his Remarks on Homer, Pref. p. 2. and p. 91.

Speaking of Mr. Pope's Windsor-Forrest, he says, 'It is a wretched rhapsody, impudently writ in emulation of Cooper's-Hill. The author of it is obscure, is ambiguous, is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous.'

After these provocations, it is no wonder that Pope should take an opportunity of recording him in his Dunciad; and yet he had some esteem for our author's learning and genius. Mr. Dennis put his name to every thing he wrote against him, which Mr. Pope considered as a circumstance of candour. He pitied him as a man subject to the dominion of invidious passions, than which no severer sensations can tear the heart of man.

In the first Book of his Dunciad. line 103, he represents Dullness taking a view of her sons; and thus mentions Dennis,

She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page,
And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.

He mentions him again slightly in his second Book, line 230, and in his third Book, line 165, taking notice of a quarrel between him and Mr. Gildon, he says,

Ah Dennis! Gildon ah! what ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?
Blockheads, with reason, wicked wits abhor,
But fool with fool, is barbr'ous civil war,
Embrace, embrace, my sons! be foes no more!
Nor glad vile poets, with true critic's gore.

Our author gained little by his opposition to Pope, in which he must either have violated his judgment, or been under the influence of the strongest prejudice that ever blinded the eyes of any man; for not to admire the writings of this excellent poet, is an argument of a total deprivation of taste, which in other respects does not appear to be the case of Mr. Dennis.

We shall now take a view of our author in the light of a dramatist. In the year 1697 a comedy of his was acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, called A Plot and No Plot, dedicated to the Earl of Sunderland. The scope of this piece is to ridicule the credulity and principles of the Jacobites, the moral of which is this, 'That there are in all parties, persons who find it their interest to deceive the rest, and that one half of every faction makes a property in fee-simple of the other, therefore we ought never to believe any thing will, or will not be, because it is agreeable, or contrary to our humours, but because it is in itself likely, or improbable. Credulity in men, engaged in a party, proceeds oftner from pride than weakness, and it is the hardest thing in the world to impose upon a humble man.' In 1699 a tragedy called Rinaldo and Armida was acted at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, dedicated to the Duke of Ormond. Scene the top of a mountain in the Canaries. The hint of the chief characters is owing to Tasso's Gierusalemme, but the manners of them being by our author thought unequal in that great Italian, he has taken the liberty to change them, and form his characters more agreeable to the subject. The reasons for doing it are expressed in the preface and prologue to the play.

Our author's next tragedy was upon the subject of Iphigenia, daughter to Agamemnon King of Argos, acted at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn 1704. Iphigenia was to have been sacrificed by her father, who was deluded by the fraud of Calchas, who proclaimed throughout the Grecian fleet, that the offended gods demanded of Agamemnon the sacrifice of his daughter to Lucina, and till, that oblation was offered, the fleet would remain wind-bound. Accordingly, under pretence of marrying her to Achilles, she was betrayed from Argos, but her mother, Clytemnestra, discovering the cheat, by a stratagem prevented its execution, and effected her rescue without the knowledge of any one but her husband Agamemnon. A Grecian virgin being sacrificed in her place, Iphigenia is afterwards wrecked on the Coast of Scythia, and made the Priestess of Diana. In five years time her brother Orestes, and his friend Pylades, are wrecked on the same shore, but saved from slaughter by the Queen of Scythia, because she loved Orestes. Orestes, on the other hand, falls in love with the Priestess of Diana; they attempt an escape, and to carry off the image of the Goddess, but are prevented. The Queen then dooms Orestes to the altar, but Pylades, from his great friendship, personates Orestes, and disconcerts the design. The story and incidents of this play are interesting and moving, but Mr. Dennis has not wrought the scenes much in the spirit of a tragedian: This was a subject admirably suited for the talents of Otway. The discovery of Orestes's being the brother of Iphigenia is both surprizing and natural, and though the subject is not well executed, yet is this by far the most affecting tragedy of our author; it is almost impossible to read it without tears, though it abounds with bombast.

The fourth play introduced upon the stage by Mr. Dennis, 1704, was, a tragedy called Liberty Asserted, dedicated to Anthony Henley, esq; to whom he says he was indebted for the happy hint upon which it was formed. Soon after this he wrote another tragedy upon the story of Appius and Virginia, which Mr. Maynwaring, in a letter to Mr. Dennis, calls one of our best modern tragedies; it is dedicated to Sidney Earl of Godolphin.

He altered Shakespear's Merry Wives of Windsor, and brought it on the stage under the title of The Comical Gallant. Prefixed to this, is a large account of Taste in Poetry, and the Causes of its Degeneracy addressed to the Hon. George Granville, Esq; afterwards Lord Lansdowne.

Our author's next dramatic production was Coriolanus, the Invader of his Country, or the Fatal Resentment, a Tragedy; altered from Shakespear, and acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. This piece met with some opposition the first night; and on the fourth another play was given out. The second night's audience was very small, though the play was exceedingly well acted. The third night had not the charges in money; the fourth was still worse, and then another play was given out, not one place being taken in the boxes for any ensuing night. The managers were therefore obliged to discontinue it.

This usage Mr. Dennis highly resented; and in his dedication to the duke of Newcastle, then lord chamberlain, he makes a formal complaint against the managers. To this play Mr. Colley Cibber took the pains to write an epilogue, which Mrs. Oldfield spoke with universal applause, and for which poor peevish, jealous Dennis, abused them both.

Mr. Dennis happened once to go to the play, when a tragedy was acted, in which the machinery of thunder was introduced, a new artificial method of producing which he had formerly communicated to the managers. Incensed by this circumstance, he cried out in a transport of resentment, 'That is my thunder by G--d; the villains will play my thunder, but not my plays.' This gave an alarm to the pit, which he soon explained. He was much subject to these kind of whimsical transports, and suffered the fervor of his imagination often to subdue the power of his reason; an instance of which we shall now relate.

After he was worn out with age and poverty, he resided within the verge of the court, to prevent danger from his creditors. One Saturday night he happened to saunter to a public house, which he discovered in a short time was out of the verge. He was sitting in an open drinking room, and a man of a suspicious appearance happened to come in. There was something about the man which denoted to Mr. Dennis that he was a Bailiff: this struck him with a panic; he was afraid his liberty was now at an end; he sat in the utmost solicitude, but durst not offer to stir, lest he should be seized upon. After an hour or two had passed in this painful anxiety, at last the clock struck twelve, when Mr. Dennis, in an extasy, cried out, addressing himself to the suspected person, 'Now sir, Bailiff, or no Bailiff, I don't care a farthing for you, you have no power now.' The man was astonished at this behaviour, and when it was explained to him, he was so much affronted with the suspicion, that had not Mr. Dennis found his protection in age, he would have smarted for his mistaken opinion of him.

In the year 1705 a comedy of Mr. Dennis's called Gibraltar, or The Spanish Adventure, was acted unsuccessfully at Drury-Lane Theatre. He was also author of a masque called Orpheus and Euridice.