Chapter X: Part 10

'To such provoking stimulations I have owed inducement to retouch, for Mr. Voltaire's use, the characters in his high boasted Merope; and I have done it on a plan as near his own as I could bring it with a safe conscience; that is to say, without distaste to English audiences.

This he likewise dedicated to lord Bolingbroke; and was the last he ever wrote.--There is a melancholy thread of fatal prophecy in the beginning of it; of his own approaching dissolution.

Cover'd in fortune's shade, I rest reclin'd;
My griefs all silent; and my joys resign'd.
With patient eye life's evening gloom survey:
Nor shake th'out-hast'ning sands; nor bid 'em stay--
Yet, while from life my setting prospects fly,
Fain wou'd my mind's weak offspring shun to die.
Fain wou'd their hope some light through time explore;
The name's kind pasport--When the man's no more.

From about the time he was solliciting the bringing on this play, an illness seized him; from the tormenting pains of which he had scarce an hour's intermission; and after making trial of all he thought could be of service to him in medicine; he was desirous to try his native air of London (as that of Plaistow was too moist a one) but he was then past all recovery, and wasted almost to a skeleton, from some internal cause, that had produced a general decay (and was believed to have been an inflamation in the kidneys; which his intense attachment to his studies might probably lay the foundation of.--When in town, he had the comfort of being honoured with the visits of the most worthy and esteemed among his friends; but he was not permitted many weeks to taste that blessing. [Transcriber's note: closing brackets missing in original.]

The same humane and generous Mr. Mallet, who had before aided his Merope, about this time was making interest for its being played again, for the advantage of its author:--His royal highness the prince of Wales; had the great goodness to command it; and Mr. Hill just lived to express his grateful acknowledgments (to those about him) upon hearing of it:--But on the day before it was to be represented he died, in the very minute of the earthquake, February the eighth, 1749, which he seemed sensible of, though then deprived of utterance. Had he lived two days longer, he had been sixty-five years old.--He endur'd a twelve-month's torment of the body with a calmness that confess'd a superiority of soul! He was interred in the same grave with her the most dear to him when living, in the great cloister of Westminster-Abbey; near the lord Godolphin's tomb.

It may be truly said of Mr. Hill, he was a great and general writer; and had he been possest of the estate he was intitled to, his liberality had been no less extensive than his genius. But often do we see misfortune's clouds obscure the brightest sunshine.

Besides his works which here have been enumerated, there are several other; particularly two poems, intitled the Creation, and the Judgment-Day; which were published many years ago.--Another in blank verse he published in the time of his retreat into Essex; it was called, Cleon to Lycidas, a Time Piece; the date not marked by the printer.

Some years before his death, he talked of making a collection of his works for publication; but postponed it for the finishing some pieces, which he did not live to effect.

Since his death, four volumes of them have been published by subscription, for his family. He left one Tragedy, never yet acted; which was wrote originally about 1737, and intitled Cæsar; but since, he has named it the Roman Revenge:--But as the author was avowedly a great admirer of Cæsar's character, not in the light he is generally understood (that of a tyrant) but in one much more favourable, he was advised by several of the first distinction, both in rank and judgment, to make such alterations in it as should adapt it more to the general opinion; and upon that advice he in a manner new wrote the play: But as most first opinions are not easily eradicated, it has been never able to make a public trial of the success; which many of the greatest understanding have pronounced it highly worthy of.--The late lord Bolingbroke (in a letter wrote to the author) has called it one of the noblest drama's, that our language, or any age can boast.

These few little speeches are taken from the part of Cæsar.

'Tis the great mind's expected pain, Calphurnia,
To labour for the thankless.--He who seeks
Reward in ruling, makes ambition guilt;
And living for himself disclaims mankind.

And thus speaking to Mark Anthony;

If man were placed above the reach of insult,
To pardon were no virtue.--Think, warm Anthony,
What mercy is--'Tis, daring to be wrong'd,
Yet unprovok'd by pride, persist, in pity.

This again to Calphurnia.

No matter.--Virtue triumphs by neglect:
Vice, while it darkens, lends but foil to brightness:
And juster times, removing slander's veil,
Wrong'd merit after death is help'd to live.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This was sent us by an unknown hand.

[2] This play he made a present of to the patentee, and had several fine
scenes painted for it, at his own expence: He indeed gave all his
pieces to the stage; never taking any benefit, or gratuity from the
managers, as an author--'till his last piece, Merope, was brought on
the stage; when (unhappy gentleman) he was under the necessity of
receiving his profits of the third nights; which 'till then, his
generosity, and spirit, had ever declined.

[3] Under the name of Georgia.

[4] Savage was of great use to Mr. Pope, in helping him to little
stories, and idle tales, of many persons whose names, lives, and
writings, had been long since forgot, had not Mr. Pope mentioned
them in his Dunciad:--This office was too mean for any one but
inconsistent Savage: Who, with a great deal of absurd pride, could
submit to servile offices; and for the vanity of being thought Mr.
Pope's intimate, made no scruple of frequently sacrificing a regard
to sincerity or truth. He had certainly, at one time, considerable
influence over that great poet; but an assuming arrogance at last
tired out Mr. Pope's patience.

[5] A lame come-off.

* * * * *

Mr. LEWIS THEOBALD.

This gentleman was born at Sittingburn in Kent, of which place his father, Mr. Peter Theobald, was an eminent attorney. His grammatical learning he received chiefly under the revd. Mr. Ellis, at Isleworth in Middlesex, and afterwards applied himself to the study and practice of the law: but finding that study too tedious and irksome for his genius, he quitted it for the profession of poetry. He engaged in a paper called the Censor, published in Mill's Weekly Journal; and by delivering his opinion with two little reserve, concerning some eminent wits, he exposed himself to their lashes, and resentment. Upon the publication of Pope's Homer, he praised it in the most extravagant terms of admiration; but afterwards thought proper to retract his opinion, for reasons we cannot guess, and abused the very performance he had before hyperbollically praised.

Mr. Pope at first made Mr. Theobald the hero of his Dunciad, but afterwards, for reasons best known to himself, he thought proper to disrobe him of that dignity, and bestow it upon another: with what propriety we shall not take upon us to determine, but refer the reader to Mr. Cibber's two letters to Mr. Pope. He was made hero of the poem, the annotator informs us, because no better was to be had. In the first book of the Dunciad, Mr. Theobald, or Tibbald, as he is there called, is thus stigmatised,

--Dullness her image full exprest,
But chief in Tibbald's monster-breeding breast;
Sees Gods with Daemons in strange league engage,
And Earth, and heav'n, and hell her battles wage;
She eyed the bard, where supperless he sate,
And pin'd unconscious of his rising fate;
Studious he sate, with all his books around,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!
Plung'd for his sense, but found no bottom there;
Then writ, and flounder'd on, in meer despair.
He roll'd his eyes, that witness'd huge dismay,
Where yet unpawn'd much learned lumber lay.

He describes Mr. Theobald as making the following address to Dulness.

--For thee
Old puns restore, lost blunders nicely seek,
And crucify poor Shakespear once a-week.
For thee I dim these eyes, and stuff this head,
With all such reading as was never read;
For thee, supplying in the worst of days,
Notes to dull books, and prologues to dull plays;
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it;
So spins the silk-worm small its slender store,
And labours till it clouds itself all o'er.

In the year 1726 Mr. Theobald published a piece in octavo, called Shakespear Restored: Of this it is said, he was so vain as to aver, in one of Mist's Journals, June the 8th, 'That to expose any errors in it was impracticable;' and in another, April the 27th, 'That whatever care might for the future be taken, either by Mr. Pope, or any other assistants, he would give above five-hundred emendations, that would escape them all.'

During two whole years, while Mr. Pope was preparing his edition, he published advertisements, requesting assistance, and promising satisfaction to any who would contribute to its greater perfection. But this restorer, who was at that time solliciting favours of him, by letters, did wholly conceal that he had any such design till after its publication; which he owned in the Daily Journal of November 26, 1728: and then an outcry was made, that Mr. Pope had joined with the bookseller to raise an extravagant subscription; in which he had no share, of which he had no knowledge, and against which he had publickly advertised in his own proposals for Homer.

Mr. Theobald was not only thus obnoxious to the resentment of Pope, but we find him waging war with Mr. Dennis, who treated him with more roughness, though with less satire. Mr. Theobald in the Censor, Vol. II. No. XXXIII. calls Mr. Dennis by the name of Furius. 'The modern Furius (says he) is to be looked upon as more the object of pity, than that which he daily provokes, laughter, and contempt. Did we really know how much this poor man suffers by being contradicted, or which is the same thing in effect, by hearing another praised; we should in compassion sometimes attend to him with a silent nod, and let him go away with the triumphs of his ill-nature. Poor Furius, where any of his cotemporaries are spoken well of, quitting the ground of the present dispute, steps back a thousand years, to call in the succour of the antients. His very panegyric is spiteful, and he uses it for the same reason as some ladies do their commendations of a dead beauty, who never would have had their good word; but that a living one happened to be mentioned in their company. His applause is not the tribute of his heart, but the sacrifice of his revenge.'

Mr. Dennis in resentment of this representation made of him, in his remarks on Pope's Homer, page 9. 10. thus mentions him. 'There is a notorious idiot, one HIGHT WHACHUM, who from an Under-spur-leather to the law, is become an Under strapper to the play-house, who has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid, by a vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor.' Such was the language of Mr. Dennis, when enflamed by contradiction.

In the year 1729 Mr. Theobald introduced upon the stage a Tragedy called the Double Falsehood; the greatest part of which he asserted was Shakespear's. Mr. Pope insinuated to the town, that it was all, or certainly the greatest part written, not by Shakespear, but Theobald himself, and quotes this line,

None but thyself can be thy parallel.

Which he calls a marvellous line of Theobald, 'unless (says he) the play called the Double Falsehood be (as he would have it thought) Shakespear's; but whether this line is his or not, he proves Shakespear to have written as bad.' The arguments which Mr. Theobald uses to prove the play to be Shakespear's are indeed far from satisfactory;--First, that the MS. was above sixty years old;--Secondly, that once Mr. Betterton had it, or he hath heard so;--Thirdly, that some body told him the author gave it to a bastard daughter of his;--But fourthly, and above all, that he has a great mind that every thing that is good in our tongue should be Shakespear's.

This Double Falsehood was vindicated by Mr. Theobald, who was attacked again in the art of sinking in poetry. Here Mr. Theobald endeavours to prove false criticisms, want of understanding Shakespear's manner, and perverse cavelling in Mr. Pope: He justifies himself and the great dramatic poet, and essays to prove the Tragedy in question to be in reality Shakespear's, and not unworthy of him. We cannot set this controversy in a clearer light, than by transcribing a letter subjoined to the Double Falsehood.

Dear Sir,

You desire to know, why in the general attack which Mr. Pope has lately made against writers living and dead, he has so often had a fling of satire at me. I should be very willing to plead guilty to his indictment, and think as meanly of myself as he can possibly do, were his quarrel altogether upon a fair, or unbiassed nature. But he is angry at the man; and as Juvenal says--

Facit indignatio versum.

He has been pleased to reflect on me in a few quotations from a play, which I had lately the good fortune to usher into the world; I am there concerned in reputation to enter upon my defence. There are three passages in his Art of Sinking in Poetry, which he endeavours to bring into disgrace from the Double Falsehood.

One of these passages alledged by our critical examiner is of that stamp, which is certain to include me in the class of profound writers. The place so offensive for its cloudiness, is,

--The obscureness of her birth
Cannot eclipse the lustre of her eyes,
Which make her all one light.

I must own, I think, there needs no great Oedipus to solve the difficulty of this passage. Nothing has ever been more common, than for lovers to compare their mistresses eyes to suns and stars. And what does Henriquez say more here than this, 'That though his mistress be obscure by her birth; yet her eyes are so refulgent, they set her above that disadvantage, and make her all over brightness.' I remember another rapture in Shakespear, upon a painter's drawing a fine lady's picture, where the thought seems to me every whit as magnified and dark at the first glance,

--But her eyes--
How could he see to do them! having done one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfinished.--

This passage is taken from the Merchant of Venice, which will appear the more beautiful, the more it is considered.

Another passage which Mr. Pope is pleased to be merry with, is in a speech of Violante's;

Wax! render up thy trust.--

This, in his English is open the letter; and he facetiously mingles it with some pompous instances, most I believe of his own framing; which in plain terms signify no more than, See, whose there; snuff the candle; uncork the bottle; chip the bread; to shew how ridiculous actions of no consequence are, when too much exalted in the diction. This he brings under a figure, which he calls the Buskin, or Stately. But we'll examine circumstances fairly, and then we shall see which is most ridiculous; the phrase, or our sagacious censurer.

Violante is newly debauched by Henriquez, on his solemn promise of marrying her: She thinks he is returning to his father's court, as he told her, for a short time; and expects no letter from him. His servant who brings the letter, contradicts his master's going for court; and tells her he is gone some two months progress another way, upon a change of purpose. She who knew what concessions she had made to him, declares herself by starts, under the greatest agonies; and immediately upon the servant leaving her, expresses an equal impatience, and fear of the contents of this unexpected letter.

To hearts like mine, suspence is misery.
Wax! render up thy trust,--Be the contents
Prosperous, or fatal, they are all my due.

Now Mr. Pope shews us his profound judgment in dramatical passions; thinks a lady in her circumstances cannot without absurdity open a letter that seems to her as surprize, with any more preparation than the most unconcerned person alive should a common letter by the penny-post. I am aware Mr. Pope may reply, his cavil was not against the action itself of addressing to the wax, but of exalting that action in the terms. In this point I may fairly shelter myself under the judgment of a man, whose character in poetry will vie with any rival this age shall produce.

Mr. Dryden in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, tells us. 'That when from the most elevated thoughts of verse, we pass to those which are most mean, and which are common with the lowest houshold conversation; yet still there is a choice to be made of the best words, and the least vulgar (provided they be apt) to express such thoughts. Our language, says he, is noble, full, and significant; and I know not, why he who is master of it, may not cloath ordinary things in it as decently as the Latin, if we use the same diligence in the choice of words.'

I come now to the last quotation, which in our examiner's handling, falls under this predicament of _being a thought astonishingly out of the way of common sense._

None but himself can be his parallel.

This, he hints, may seem borrowed from the thought of that master of a show in Smithfield, who wrote in large letters over the picture of his Elephant. _This is the greatest Elephant in the world except himself._ I like the pleasantry of the banter, but have no great doubt of getting clear from the severity of it. The lines in the play stand thus.

Is there a treachery like this in baseness,
Recorded any where? It is the deepest;
None but itself can be its parallel.

I am not a little surprized, to find that our examiner at last is dwindled into a word-catcher. Literally speaking, indeed, I agree with Mr. Pope, that nothing can be the parallel to itself; but allowing a little for the liberty of expression, does it not plainly imply, that it is a treachery which stands single for the nature of its baseness, and has not its parallel on record; and that nothing but a treachery equal to it in baseness can parallel it? If this were such nonsense as Pope would willingly have it, it would be a very bad plea for me to alledge, as the truth is, that the line is in Shakespear's old copy; for I might have suppressed it. But I hope it is defensible; at least if examples can keep it in countenance. There is a piece of nonsense of the same kind in the Amphytrio of Plautus: Sofia having survey'd Mercury from top to toe, finds him such an exact resemblance of himself, in dress, shape, and features, that he cries out,

Tam consimil' est, atq; ego.

That is, he is as like me, as I am to myself. Now I humbly conceive, in strictness of expression a man can no more be like himself, than a thing its own parallel. But to confine myself to Shakespear. I doubt not but I can produce some similar passages from him, which literally examined, are stark nonsense; and yet taken with a candid latitude have never appeared ridiculous. Mr. Pope would scarce allow one man to say to another. 'Compare and weigh your mistress with your mistress; and I grant she is a very fair woman; but compare her with some other woman that I could name, and the case will be very much altered.' Yet the very substance of this, is said by Shakespear, in Romeo and Juliet; and Mr. Pope has not degraded it as any absurdity, or unworthy of the author.

Pho! pho! you saw her fair, none else being by;
HERSELF poiz'd with HERSELF in either eye.
But, &c.

Or, what shall we say of the three following quotations.

ROMEO and JULIET.
--Oh! so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.

WINTER'S TALE.
--For _Cogitation_
Resides not in the man _that does not think._

HAMLET.
--Try what repentance can, what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one _cannot repent._

Who does not see at once, the heaviest foot that ever trod cannot wear out the everlasting flint? or that he who does not think has no thoughts in him? or that repentance can avail nothing when a man has not repentance? yet let these passages appear, with a casting weight of allowance, and their absurdity will not be so extravagant, as when examined by the literal touchstone.--

Your's, &c.

LEWIS THEOBALD.

By perusing the above, the reader will be enabled to discern whether Mr. Pope has wantonly ridiculed the passages in question; or whether Mr. Theobald has, from a superstitious zeal for the memory of Shakespear, defended absurdities, and palliated extravagant blunders.

The ingenious Mr. Dodd, who has lately favoured the public with a judicious collection of the beauties of Shakespear, has quoted a beautiful stroke of Mr. Theobald's, in his Double Falsehood, upon music.

--Strike up, my masters;
But touch the strings with a religious softness;
Teach sounds to languish thro' the night's dull ear,
'Till Melancholy start from her lazy couch,
And carelessness grow concert to attention.

ACT I. SCENE III.

A gentleman of great judgment happening to commend these lines to Mr. Theobald, he assured him he wrote them himself, and only them in the whole play.

Mr. Theobald, besides his edition of all Shakespear's plays, in which he corrected, with great pains and ingenuity, many faults which had crept into that great poet's writings, is the author of the following dramatic pieces.

I. The Persian Princess, or the Royal Villain; a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, printed in the year 1715. The author observes in his preface, this play was written and acted before he was full nineteen years old.

II. The Perfidious Brother; a Tragedy acted at the Theatre in Little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1716. This play is written on the model of Otway's Orphan; the scene is in a private family in Brussels.

III. Pan and Syrinx; an Opera of one act, performed on the Theatre in Little Lincoln's Inn-Fields, 1717.

IV. Decius and Paulina, a Masque; to which is added Musical Entertainments, as performed at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, in the Dramatic Opera of Circe.

V. Electra, a Tragedy; translated from the Greek of Sophocles, with notes, printed in the year 1714, dedicated to Joseph Addison, Esq;

VI. Oedipus King of Thebes; a Tragedy translated from Sophocles, with notes, translated in the year 1715, dedicated to the earl of Rockingham.

VII. Plutus, or the World's Idol; a Comedy translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, with notes, printed in the year 1715. The author has to this Translation prefixed a Discourse, containing some Account of Aristophanes, and his two Comedies of Plutus and the Clouds.

VIII. The Clouds, a Comedy; translated from Aristophanes, with notes, printed in the year 1715.

IX. The Rape of Proserpine; a Farce acted at the Theatre-Royal in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1727.

X. The Fatal Secret; a Tragedy acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden, 1725.

XI. The Vocal Parts of an Entertainment, called Apollo and Daphne, or the Burgo Master Trick'd; performed at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1726.

XII. Double Falsehood; which we have already mentioned.

Mr. Theobald's other Works are chiefly these.

The Gentleman's Library, containing Rules for Conduct in all Parts of Life, in 12mo. 1722.

The first Book of Homer's Odyssey translated, with notes, 8vo. 1716.

The Cave of Poverty, written in imitation of Shakespear.

Pindaric Ode on the Union, 1707.

A Poem sacred to the Memory of Queen Anne, Folio 1714.

Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Lives of Antiochus, and Berenice, from the French, 1717.

* * * * *

The Revd. Dr. SAMUEL CROXALL,

The celebrated author of the Fair Circassian, was son of the revd. Mr. Samuel Croxall, rector of Hanworth, Middlesex, and vicar of Walton upon Thames in Surry, in the last of which places our author was born. He received his early education at Eton school, and from thence was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge. Probably while he was at the university, he became enamoured of Mrs. Anna Maria Mordaunt, who first inspired his breast with love, and to whom he dedicates the poem of the Circassian, for which he has been so much distinguished. This dedication is indeed the characteristic of a youth in love, but then it likewise proves him altogether unacquainted with the world, and with that easiness of address which distinguishes a gentleman. A recluse scholar may be passionately in love, but he discovers it by strains of bombast, and forced allusions, of which this dedication is a very lively instance.

'The language of the Fair Circassian, says he, like yours, was natural poetry; her voice music, and the excellent colouring and formation of her features, painting; but still, like yours, drawn by the inimitable pencil of nature, life itself; a pattern for the greatest master, but copying after none; I will not say angels are not cast in the same mould.' And again in another place, 'Pardon, O lovely deity, the presumption of this address, and favour my weak endeavours. If my confession of your divine power is any where too faint, believe it not to proceed from a want of due respect, but of a capacity more than human. Whoever thinks of you can no longer be himself; and if he could, ought to be something above man to celebrate the accomplishment of a goddess. To you I owe my creation as a lover, and in the beams of your beauty only I live, move, and exist. If there should be a suspension of your charms, I should fall to nothing. But it seems to be out of your power to deprive us of their kind influence; wherever you shine they fill all our hearts, and you are charming out of necessity, as the author of nature is good.' We have quoted enough to shew the enthusiasm, or rather phrenzy, of this address, which is written in such a manner as if it were intended for a burlesque on the False Sublime, as the speeches of James I. are upon pedantry.

Mr. Croxall, who was intended for holy orders, and, probably, when he published the Circassian, had really entered into them, was cautious lest he should be known to be the author of this piece, since many divines have esteemed the Song of Solomon, from which it is taken, as an inspired poem, emblematic of the Messiah and the Church. Our author was of another opinion, and with him almost all sensible men join, in believing that it is no more than a beautiful poem, composed by that Eastern monarch, upon some favourite lady in his Seraglio. He artfully introduces it with a preface, in which he informs us, that it was the composition of a young gentleman, his pupil, lately deceased, executed by him, while he was influenced by that violent passion with which Mrs. Mordaunt inspired him. He then endeavours to ascertain who this Eastern beauty was, who had charms to enflame the heart of the royal poet. He is of opinion it could not be Pharaoh's daughter, as has been commonly conjectured, because the bride in the Canticles is characterised as a private person, a shepherdess, one that kept a vineyard, and was ill used by her mother's children, all which will agree very well with somebody else, but cannot, without great straining, be drawn to fit the Egyptian Princess. He then proceeds, 'seeing we have so good reason to conclude that it was not Pharaoh's daughter, we will next endeavour to shew who she was: and here we are destitute of all manner of light, but what is afforded us by that little Arabian manuscript, mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions of Amsterdam, 1558, said to be found in a marble chest among the ruins of Palmyra, and presented to the university of Leyden by Dr. Hermanus Hoffman. The contents of which are something in the nature of Memoirs of the Court of Solomon; giving a sufficient account of the chief offices and posts in his houshold; of the several funds of the royal revenue; of the distinct apartments of his palace there; of the different Seraglios, being fifty two in number in that one city. Then there is an account given of the Sultanas; their manner of treatment and living; their birth and country, with some touches of their personal endowments, how long they continued in favour, and what the result was of the King's fondness for each of them. Among these, there is particular mention made of a slave of more exceeding beauty than had ever been known before; at whose appearance the charms of all the rest vanished like stars before the morning sun; that the King cleaved to her with the strongest affection, and was not seen out of the Seraglio, where she was kept, for about a month. That she was taken captive, together with her mother, out of a vineyard, on the Coast of Circassia, by a Corsair of Hiram King of Tyre, and brought to Jerusalem. It is said, she was placed in the ninth Seraglio, to the east of Palmyra, which, in the Hebrew tongue, is called Tadmor; which, without farther particulars, are sufficient to convince us that this was the charming person, sung with so much rapture by the Royal poet, and in the recital of whose amour he seems so transported. For she speaks of herself as one that kept a vineyard, and her mother's introducing her in one of the gardens of pleasure (as it seems she did at her first presenting her to the King) is here distinctly mentioned. The manuscript further takes notice, that she was called Saphira, from the heavenly blue of her eyes.'

Notwithstanding the caution with which Mr. Croxall published the Fair Circassian, yet it was some years after known to be his. The success it met with, which was not indeed above its desert, was perhaps too much for vanity (of which authors are seldom entirely divested) to resist, and he might be betrayed into a confession, from that powerful principle, of what otherwise would have remained concealed.

Some years after it was published, Mr. Cragg, one of the ministers of the city of Edinburgh, gave the world a small volume of spiritual poems, in one of which he takes occasion to complain of the prostitution of genius, and that few poets have ever turned their thoughts towards religious subjects; and mentions the author of the Circassian with great indignation, for having prostituted his Muse to the purposes of lewdness, in converting the Song of Solomon (a work, as he thought it, of sacred inspiration) into an amorous dialogue between a King and his mistress. His words are,

Curss'd be he that the Circassian wrote,
Perish his fame, contempt be all his lot,
Who basely durst in execrable strains,
Turn holy mysteries into impious scenes.

The revd. gentleman met with some remonstrances from his friends, for indulging so splenetic a temper, when he was writing in the cause of religion, as to wish any man accursed. Of this censure he was not insensible; in the next edition of his poems, he softened the sarcasm, by declaring, in a note, that he had no enmity to the author's person, and that when he wished him accursed, be meant not the man, but the author, which are two very distinct considerations; for an author may be accursed, that is, damned to fame, while the man may be in as fair a way to happiness as any body; but, continues he, I should not have expected such prophanation from a clergyman.

The Circassian, however, is a beautiful poem, the numbers are generally smooth, and there is a tender delicacy in the dialogue, though greatly inferior to the noble original.

Mr. Croxall had not long quitted the university, e'er he was instituted to the living of Hampton in Middlesex; and afterwards to the united parishes of St. Mary Somerset, and St. Mary Mounthaw, in the city of London, both which he held 'till his death. He was also chancellor, prebend, and canon residentiary and portionist of the church of Hereford. Towards the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne he published two original Cantos, in imitation of Spenser's Fairy Queen, which were meant as a satire on the earl of Oxford's administration. In the year 1715 he addressed a poem to the duke of Argyle, upon his obtaining a Victory over the Rebels, and the same year published The Vision, a poem, addressed to the earl of Halifax. He was concerned, with many others, in the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, of which the following were performed by him:

The Story of Nisus and Scylla, from the sixth Book.

The Labyrinth, and Dædalus and Icarus, from the eighth Book.

Part of the Fable of Cyparissus from the tenth Book.

Most part of the eleventh Book, and The Funeral of Memnon, from the thirteenth Book.

He likewise performed an entire Translation of Æsop's Fables.

Subjoined to the Fair Circassian are several Poems addressed to Sylvia; Naked Truth, from the second Book of Ovid's Fastorum; Heathen Priestcraft, from the first Book of Ovid's Fastorum; A Midsummer's Wish; and an Ode on Florinda, seen while she was Bathing. He is also author of a curious work, in one Volume Octavo, entitled Scripture Politics: being a view of the original constitution, and subsequent revolutions in the government of that people, out of whom the Saviour of the World was to arise: As it is contained in the Bible.

In consequence of his strong attachment to the Whig interest, he was made archdeacon of Salop 1732, and chaplain in ordinary to his present Majesty.

As late as the year 1750, Dr. Croxall published a poem called The Royal Manual, in the preface to which he endeavours to shew, that it was composed by Mr. Andrew Marvel, and found amongst his MSS. but the proprietor declares, that it was written by Dr. Croxall himself. This was the last of his performances, for he died the year following, in a pretty advanced age. His abilities, as a poet, we cannot better display, than by the specimen we are about to quote.

On FLORINDA, Seen while she was Bathing.

Twas summer, and the clear resplendent moon
Shedding far o'er the plains her full-orb'd light,
Among the lesser stars distinctly shone,
Despoiling of its gloom the scanty night,
When, walking forth, a lonely path I took
Nigh the fair border of a purling brook.

Sweet and refreshing was the midnight air,
Whose gentle motions hush'd the silent grove;
Silent, unless when prick'd with wakeful care
Philomel warbled out her tale of love:
While blooming flowers, which in the meadows grew,
O'er all the place their blended odours threw.

Just by, the limpid river's crystal wave,
Its eddies gilt with Phoebe's silver ray,
Still as it flow'd a glittering lustre gave
With glancing gleams that emulate the day;
Yet oh! not half so bright as those that rise
Where young Florinda bends her smiling eyes.

Whatever pleasing views my senses meet,
Her intermingled charms improve the theme;
The warbling birds, the flow'rs that breath so sweet,
And the soft surface of the dimpled stream,
Resembling in the nymph some lovely part,
With pleasures more exalted seize my heart.

Rapt in these thoughts I negligently rov'd,
Imagin'd transports all my soul employ,
When the delightful voice of her I lov'd
Sent thro' the Shades a sound of real joy.
Confus'd it came, with giggling laughter mixt,
And echo from the banks reply'd betwixt.

Inspir'd with hope, upborn with light desire,
To the dear place my ready footsteps tend.
Quick, as when kindling trails of active fire
Up to their native firmament ascend:
There shrouded in the briers unseen I stood,
And thro' the leaves survey'd the neighb'ring flood.

Florinda, with two sister nymphs, undrest,
Within the channel of the cooly tide,
By bathing sought to sooth her virgin breast,
Nor could the night her dazzling beauties hide;
Her features, glowing with eternal bloom,
Darted, like Hesper, thro' the dusky gloom.

Her hair bound backward in a spiral wreath
Her upper beauties to my sight betray'd;
The happy stream concealing those beneath,
Around her waste with circling waters play'd;
Who, while the fair one on his bosom sported,
Her dainty limbs with liquid kisses courted.

A thousand Cupids with their infant arms
Swam padling in the current here and there;
Some, with smiles innocent, remarked the charms
Of the regardless undesigning fair;
Some, with their little Eben bows full-bended,
And levell'd shafts, the naked girl defended.

Her eyes, her lips, her breasts exactly round,
Of lilly hue, unnumber'd arrows sent;
Which to my heart an easy passage found,
Thrill'd in my bones, and thro' my marrow went:
Some bubbling upward thro' the water came,
Prepar'd by fancy to augment my flame.

Ah love! how ill I bore thy pleasing pain?
For while the tempting scene so near I view'd,
A fierce impatience throb'd in every vein,
Discretion fled and reason lay subdu'd;
My blood beat high, and with its trembling made
A strange commotion in the rustling shade.

Fear seiz'd the tim'rous Naiads, all aghast
Their boding spirits at the omen sink,
Their eyes they wildly on each other cast,
And meditate to gain the farther brink;
When in I plung'd, resolving to asswage
In the cool gulph love's importuning rage.

Ah, stay Florinda (so I meant to speak)
Let not from love the loveliest object fly!
But ere I spoke, a loud combining squeak
From shrilling voices pierc'd the distant sky:
When straight, as each was their peculiar care,
Th' immortal pow'rs to bring relief prepare.

A golden cloud descended from above,
Like that which whilom hung on Ida's brow,
Where Juno, Pallas, and the queen of love,
As then to Paris, were conspicuous now.
Each goddess seiz'd her fav'rite charge, and threw
Around her limbs a robe of azure hue.

But Venus, who with pity saw my flame
Kindled by her own Amorer so bright,
Approv'd in private what she seem'd to blame,
And bless'd me with a vision of delight:
Careless she dropt Florinda's veil aside,
That nothing might her choicest beauties hide.

I saw Elysium and the milky way
Fair-opening to the shades beneath her breast;
In Venus' lap the struggling wanton lay,
And, while she strove to hide, reveal'd the rest.
A mole, embrown'd with no unseemly grace,
Grew near, embellishing the sacred place.

So pleas'd I view'd, as one fatigu'd with heat,
Who near at hand beholds a shady bower,
Joyful, in hope-amidst the kind retreat
To shun the day-star in his noon-tide hour;
Or as when parch'd with droughty thirst he spies
A mossy grot whence purest waters rise.

So I Florinda--but beheld in vain:
Like Tantalus, who in the realms below
Sees blushing fruits, which to increase his pain,
When he attempts to eat, his taste forego.
O Venus! give me more, or let me drink
Of Lethe's fountain, and forget to think.

* * * * *

The Revd. Mr. CHRISTOPHER PITT,

The celebrated translator of Virgil, was born in the year 1699. He received his early education in the college near Winchester; and in 1719 was removed from thence to new college in Oxford. When he had studied there four years, he was preferred to the living of Pimperne in Dorsetshire, by his friend and relation, Mr. George Pitt; which he held during the remaining part of his life. While he was at the university, he possessed the affection and esteem of all who knew him; and was particularly distinguished by that great poet Dr. Young, who so much admired the early displays of his genius, that with an engaging familiarity he used to call him his son.

Amongst the first of Mr. Pitt's performances which saw the light, were a panegyric on lord Stanhope, and a poem on the Plague of Marseilles: But he had two large Folio's of MS. Poems, very fairly written out, while he was a school-boy, which at the time of election were delivered to the examiners. One of these volumes contained an entire translation of Lucan; and the other consisted of Miscellaneous pieces. Mr. Pitt's Lucan has never been published; perhaps from the consideration of its being the production of his early life, or from a consciousness of its not equalling the translation of that author by Rowe, who executed this talk in the meridian of his genius. Several of his other pieces were published afterwards, in his volume of Miscellaneous Poems.

The ingenious writer of the Student hath obliged the world by inferring in that work several original pieces by Mr. Pitt; whose name is prefixed to them.

Next to his beautiful Translation of Virgil, Mr. Pitt gained the greatest reputation by rendering into English, Vida's Art of Poetry, which he has executed with the strictest attention to the author's sense, with the utmost elegance of versification, and without suffering the noble spirit of the original to be lost in his translation.

This amiable poet died in the year 1748, without leaving one enemy behind him. On his tombstone were engraved these words,

"He lived innocent, and died beloved."

Mr. Auditor Benson, who in a pamphlet of his writing, has treated Dryden's translation of Virgil with great contempt, was yet charmed with that by Mr. Pitt, and found in it some beauties, of which he was fond even to a degree of enthusiasm. Alliteration is one of those beauties Mr. Benson so much admired, and in praise of which he has a long dissertation in his letters on translated verse. He once took an opportunity, in conversation with Mr. Pitt, to magnify that beauty, and to compliment him upon it. Mr. Pitt thought this article far less considerable than Mr. Benson did; but says he, 'since you are so fond of alliteration, the following couplet upon Cardinal Woolsey will not displease you,

'Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred,
How high his honour holds his haughty head.

Benson was no doubt charmed to hear his favourite grace in poetry so beautifully exemplified, which it certainly is, without any affectation or stiffness. Waller thought this a beauty; and Dryden was very fond of it. Some late writers, under the notion of imitating these two great versifiers in this point, run into downright affectation, and are guilty of the most improper and ridiculous expressions, provided there be but an alliteration. It is very remarkable, that an affectation of this beauty is ridiculed by Shakespear, in Love's Labour Lost, Act II. where the Pedant Holofernes says,

I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.--
The praiseful princess pierced, and prickt.--

Mr. Upton, in his letter concerning Spencer, observes, that alliteration is ridiculed too in Chaucer, in a passage which every reader does not understand.

The Ploughman's Tale is written, in some measure, in imitation of Pierce's Ploughman's Visions; and runs chiefly upon some one letter, or at least many stanza's have this affected iteration, as

A full sterne striefe is stirr'd now,--
For some be grete grown on grounde.

When the Parson therefore in his order comes to tell his tale, which reflected on the clergy, he says,

--I am a southern man,
I cannot jest, rum, ram, riff, by letter,
And God wote, rime hold I but little better.

Ever since the publication of Mr. Pitt's version of the Aeneid, the learned world has been divided concerning the just proportion of merit, which ought to be ascribed to it. Some have made no scruple in defiance of the authority of a name, to prefer it to Dryden's, both in exactness, as to his author's sense, and even in the charms of poetry. This perhaps, will be best discovered by producing a few shining passages of the Aeneid, translated by these two great masters.

In biographical writing, the first and most essential principal is candour, which no reverence for the memory of the dead, nor affection for the virtues of the living should violate. The impartiality which we have endeavoured to observe through this work, obliges us to declare, that so far as our judgment may be trusted, the latter poet has done most justice to Virgil; that he mines in Pitt with a lustre, which Dryden wanted not power, but leisure to bestow; and a reader, from Pitt's version, will both acquire a more intimate knowledge of Virgil's meaning, and a more exalted idea of his abilities.--Let not this detract from the high representations we have endeavoured in some other places to make of Dryden. When he undertook Virgil, he was stooping with age, oppressed with wants, and conflicting with infirmities. In this situation, it was no wonder that much of his vigour was lost; and we ought rather to admire the amazing force of genius, which was so little depressed under all these calamities, than industriously to dwell on his imperfections.

Mr. Spence in one of his chapters on Allegory, in his Polymetis, has endeavoured to shew, how very little our poets have understood the allegories of the antients, even in their translations of them; and has instanced Mr. Dryden's translation of the Aeneid, as he thought him one of our most celebrated poets. The mistakes are very numerous, and some of them unaccountably gross. Upon this, says Mr. Warton, "I was desirous to examine Mr. Pitt's translation of the same passages; and was surprized to find near fifty instances which Mr. Spence has given of Dryden's mistakes of that kind, when Mr. Pitt had not fallen into above three or four." Mr. Warton then produces some instances, which we shall not here transcribe, as it will be more entertaining to our readers to have a few of the most shining passages compared, in which there is the highest room for rising to a blaze of poetry.

There are few strokes in the whole Aeneid, which have been more admired than Virgil's description of the Lake of Avernus, Book VI.

Spelunca alta fuit, vastoque immanis hiatu,
Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro, nemorumque tenebris;
Quam super haud ullæ poterant impune volantes.
Tendere iter pennis; talis sese halitus atris,
Faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat:
Unde locum Graii dixerunt nomine Aornon.
Quatuor hic primum nigrantes terga juvencos
Constituit, frontique invergit vina sacerdos;
Et, summas carpens media inter cornua setas,
Ignibus imponit sacris libarmina prima,
Voce vocans Hecaten, cæloque ereboque potentem.

DRYDEN.

Deep was the cave; and downward as it went,
From the wide mouth, a rocky wide descent;
And here th'access a gloomy grove defends;
And there th'innavigable lake extends.
O'er whose unhappy waters, void of light,
No bird presumes to steer his airy flight;
Such deadly stenches from the depth arise,
And steaming sulphur that infects the skies.
From hence the Grecian bards their legends make,
And give the name Aornus to the lake.
Four fable bullocks in the yoke untaught,
For sacrifice, the pious hero brought.
The priestess pours the wine betwixt their horns:
Then cuts the curling hair, that first oblation burns,
Invoking Hecate hither to repair;
(A powerful name in hell and upper air.)

PITT.

Deep, deep, a cavern lies, devoid of light,
All rough with rocks, and horrible to sight;
Its dreadful mouth is fenc'd with sable floods,
And the brown horrors of surrounding woods.
From its black jaws such baleful vapours rise,
Blot the bright day, and blast the golden skies,
That not a bird can stretch her pinions there,
Thro' the thick poisons, and incumber'd air,
But struck by death, her flagging pinions cease;
And hence Aornus was it call'd by Greece.
Hither the priestess, four black heifers led,
Between their horns the hallow'd wine she shed;
From their high front the topmost hairs she drew,
And in the flames the first oblations threw.
Then calls on potent Hecate, renown'd
In Heav'n above, and Erebus profound.

The next instance we shall produce, in which, as in the former, Mr. Pitt has greatly exceeded Dryden, is taken from Virgil's description of Elysium, which says Dr. Trap is so charming, that it is almost Elysium to read it.

His demum exactis, perfecto munere divæ,
Devenere locos lætos, & amoena vireta
Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas.
Largior hic campos æther & lumine vestit
Purpureo; solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.
Pars in gramineis exercent membra palæstris,
Contendunt ludo, & fulva luctanter arena:
Pars pedibus plaudunt choreas, & carmina dicunt.
Necnon Threicius longa cum veste sacerdos
Obloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum:
Jamque eadem digitis, jam pectine pulsat eburno.

PITT.

These rites compleat, they reach the flow'ry plains,
The verdant groves, where endless pleasure reigns.
Here glowing Æther shoots a purple ray,
And o'er the region pours a double day.
From sky to sky th'unwearied splendour runs,
And nobler planets roll round brighter suns.
Some wrestle on the sands, and some in play
And games heroic pass the hours away.
Those raise the song divine, and these advance
In measur'd steps to form the solemn dance.
There Orpheus graceful in his long attire,
In seven divisions strikes the sounding lyre;
Across the chords the quivering quill he flings,
Or with his flying fingers sweeps the strings.

DRYDEN.

These holy rites perform'd, they took their way,
Where long extended plains of pleasure lay.
The verdant fields with those of heav'n may vie;
With Æther veiled, and a purple sky:
The blissful seats of happy souls below;
Stars of their own, and their own suns they know.
Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,
And on the green contend the wrestlers prize.
Some in heroic verse divinely sing,
Others in artful measures lead the ring.
The Thracian bard surrounded by the rest,
There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest.
His flying fingers, and harmonious quill,
Strike seven distinguish'd notes, and seven at once they fill.

In the celebrated description of the swiftness of Camilla in the VIIth Aeneid, which Virgil has laboured with so much industry, Dryden is more equal to Pitt than in the foregoing instances, tho' we think even in this he falls short of him.

Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret
Gramina, nec teneras curfu læsisset aristas:
Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti
Ferret iter; celeres nec tingeret æquore plantas.

DRYDEN.

--The fierce virago fought,--
Outstrip'd the winds, in speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain:
She swept the seas, and as she skim'd along,
Her flying feet, unbath'd, on billows hung.

PITT.

She led the rapid race, and left behind,
The flagging floods, and pinions of the wind;
Lightly she flies along the level plain,
Nor hurts the tender grass, nor bends the golden grain;
Or o'er the swelling surge suspended sweeps,
And smoothly skims unbath'd along the deeps.

We shall produce one passage of a very different kind from the former, that the reader may have the pleasure of making the comparison. This is the celebrated simile in the XIth Book, when the fiery eagerness of Turnus panting for the battle, is resembled to that of a Steed; which is perhaps one of the most picturesque beauties in the whole Aeneid.

Qualis, ubi abruptis fugit præsepia vinc'lis,
Tandem liber equus, campoque potitus aperto;
Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,
Aut assuetus aquæ perfundi flumine noto
Emicat; arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte
Luxurians, luduntque jubæ per colla, per armos.

DRYDEN.

Freed from his keepers, thus with broken reins,
The wanton courser prances o'er the plains:
Or in the pride of youth, o'erleaps the mounds,
And snuffs the females in forbidden grounds.
Or seeks his wat'ring in the well-known flood,
To quench his thirst, and cool his fiery blood:
He swims luxuriant in the liquid plain;
And o'er his shoulders flows his waving main.
He neighs, he snorts, he bears his head on high;
Before his ample chest, the frothy waters fly.

PITT.

So the gay pamper'd steed with loosen'd reins,
Breaks from the stall, and pours along the plains;
With large smooth strokes he rushes to the flood,
Bathes his bright sides, and cools his fiery blood;
Neighs as he flies, and tossing high his head,
Snuffs the fair females in the distant mead;
At every motion o'er his neck reclin'd,
Plays his redundant main, and dances in the wind.