To the
indulgent affection of the publick, lord Rochester bore ample testimony
in this remark: "I know not how it is, but lord Buckhurst may do what he
will, yet is never in the wrong.
indulgent affection of the publick, lord Rochester bore ample testimony
in this remark: "I know not how it is, but lord Buckhurst may do what he
will, yet is never in the wrong.
Samuel Johnson - Lives of the Poets - 1
That on the Repairs of St.
Paul's has something vulgar and
obvious; such as the mention of Amphion; and something violent and harsh;
as,
So all our minds with his conspire to grace
The Gentiles' great apostle, and deface
Those state-obscuring sheds, that, like a chain,
Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again:
Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand.
So joys the aged oak, when we divide
The creeping ivy from his injur'd side.
Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the second mean.
His praise of the queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, that
she "saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured by lopping
the limb," presents nothing to the mind but disgust and horrour.
Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say whether it
is intended to raise terrour or merriment. The beginning is too splendid
for jest, and the conclusion too light for seriousness. The versification
is studied, the scenes are diligently displayed, and the images artfully
amplified; but, as it ends neither in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be
read a second time.
The Panegyrick upon Cromwell has obtained from the publick a very liberal
dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to have been unjustly
lavished; for such a series of verses had rarely appeared before in the
English language. Of the lines some are grand, some are graceful, and all
are musical. There is now and then a feeble verse, or a trifling thought;
but its great fault is the choice of its hero.
The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and
striking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding parts
are variegated with better passages and worse. There is something too
far-fetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the English on,
by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakening the lion by
bleating. " The fate of the marquis and his lady, who were burnt in their
ship, would have moved more, had the poet not made him die like the
Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor expressed their affection
and their end, by a conceit, at once, false and vulgar:
Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd,
And now together are to ashes turn'd.
The verses to Charles on his Return were doubtless intended to
counterbalance the Panegyrick on Cromwell. If it has been thought
inferiour to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its
deficience has been already remarked.
The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly. They must be
supposed to have faults and beauties of the same kind with the rest. The
Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard; they were the work of
Waller's declining life, of those hours in which he looked upon the
fame and the folly of the time past with the sentiments which his great
predecessor, Petrarch, bequeathed to posterity, upon his review of that
love and poetry which have given him immortality.
That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much
excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that the
mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced to
confess superiour, is hastening daily to a level with ourselves. By
delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the dead;
and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the
exact time when his genius passed the zenith, which he places at his
fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a small portion.
Intellectual decay is, doubtless, not uncommon; but it seems not to
be universal. Newton was, in his eighty-fifth year, improving his
chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears not, in my
opinion, to have lost, at eighty-two, any part of his poetical power.
His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but before
the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects, his success
would hardly have been better.
It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too
little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been
made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they have very seldom
attained their end, is sufficiently known, and it may not be improper
to inquire, why they have miscarried. Let no pious ear be offended if I
advance, in opposition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot
often please. The doctrines of religion may, indeed, be defended in a
didactick poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will
not lose it because his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty
and the grandeur of nature, the flowers of the spring, and the harvests
of autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of the sky,
and praise the maker for his works, in lines which no reader shall lay
aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but the motives to
piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God.
Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul,
cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of his creator,
and plead the merits of his redeemer, is already in a higher state than
poetry can confer.
The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing
something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topicks of devotion are
few, and, being few, are universally known; but, few as they are, they
can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment,
and very little from novelty of expression.
Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than
things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those
parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel
the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is; suppression and
addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already.
From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always
obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his fancy;
but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion.
Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name
of the supreme being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; infinity cannot
be amplified; perfection cannot be improved. The employments of pious
meditation are faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplication. Faith,
invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations.
Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a
being without passions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt
rather than expressed. Repentance, trembling in the presence of the
judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of
man to man may diffuse itself through many topicks of persuasion; but
supplication to God can only cry for mercy.
Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple
expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power,
because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than
itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the memory, and delight
the ear, and, for these purposes, it may be very useful; but it supplies
nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too simple for
eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestick for ornament; to
recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify, by a concave mirror,
the sidereal hemisphere.
As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness and smoothness
of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute particulars to
which a versifier must attend.
He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who
were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had
attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or
forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might
have studied with advantage the poem of Davies[m86], which, though merely
philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified.
But he was rather smooth than strong; of "the full resounding line,"
which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The
critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham, and of
sweetness to Waller.
His excellence of versification has some abatements. He uses the
expletive _do_ very frequently; and, though he lived to see it almost,
universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his last
compositions than in his first. Praise had given him confidence; and
finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself.
His rhymes are sometimes weak words: _so_ is found to make the rhyme
twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his book.
His double rhymes, in heroick verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips,
who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's Pompey; and more
faults might be found, were not the inquiry below attention.
He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as _waxeth,
affecteth_; and sometimes retains the final syllable of the preterite,
as _amazed, supposed_, of which I know not whether it is not to the
detriment of our language that we have totally rejected them.
Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an
alexandrine he has given no example.
The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He is never
pathetick, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to have had a mind
much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such
as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily
supply. They had, however, then, perhaps, that grace of novelty which
they are now often supposed to want by those who, having already found
them in later books, do not know or inquire who produced them first. This
treatment is unjust. Let not the original author lose by his imitators.
Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author of Waller's
life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythraeus and some
late criticks call alliteration, of using in the same verse many words
beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be its value,
was so frequent among early writers, that Gascoigne, a writer of
the sixteenth century, warns the young poet against affecting it;
Shakespeare, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, is supposed to ridicule it;
and, in another play, the sonnet of Holofernes fully displays it.
He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old
mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets;
the deities which they introduced so frequently, were considered as
realities, so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober
reason might even then determine. But of these images time has tarnished
the splendour. A fiction, not only detected but despised, can never
afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it may furnish a
transient allusion, or slight illustration. No modern monarch can be much
exalted by hearing that, as Hercules had his club, he has his navy.
But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much will
remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to our elegance
of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and to him may be
applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of himself and
Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor Fido, he cried out "if he had
not read Aminta, he had never excelled it. "
As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from
Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work,
which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will, perhaps, not be soon
reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry, the
reader may judge how much he improved it.
1.
Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore
Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene,
Her feeble hand the bridle reines forlore,
Halfe in a swoune she was for feare, I weene;
But her flit courser spared nere the more,
To beare her through the desart woods unseene
Of her strong foes, that chas'd her through the plaine,
And still pursu'd, but still pursu'd in vaine.
2.
Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,
Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,
When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,
No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:
The christian knights so full of shame and ire
Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!
Yet still the fearfull dame fled, swift as winde,
Nor ever staid, nor ever lookt behinde.
3.
Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she drived,
Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,
Her plaints and teares with every thought revived,
She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.
But when the sunne his burning chariot dived
In Thetis wave, and wearie teame untide,
On Jordans sandie bankes her course she staid,
At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid.
4.
Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,
This was her diet that unhappie night:
But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)
To ease the greefes of discontented wight,
Spred foorth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,
In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;
And love, his mother, and the graces kept
Strong watch and warde, while this faire ladie slept.
5.
The birds awakte her with their morning song,
Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,
The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among
The ratling boughes, and leaves, their parts did beare;
Her eies unclos'd beheld the groves along
Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare:
And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent,
Provokte againe the virgin to lament.
6.
Her plaints were interrupted with a sound
That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed,
Some iolly shepheard sung a lustie round,
And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed;
Thither she went, an old man there she found,
(At whose right hand his little flock did feed)
Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among,
That learn'd their father's art, and learn'd his song.
7.
Beholding one in shining armes appeare,
The seelie man and his were sore dismaid;
But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,
Her ventall vp, her visage open laid.
You happie folke, of heau'n beloued deare,
Work on (quoth she) vpon your harmlesse traid,
These dreadfull armes, I beare, no warfare bring
To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes you sing.
8.
But father, since this land, these townes and towres,
Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,
How may it be, unhurt, that you and yours
In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?
My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours
Is euer safe from storme of warlike broile;
This wildernesse doth vs in safetie keepe,
No thundring drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe.
9.
Haply iust heau'n's defence and shield of right,
Doth loue the innocence of simple swaines,
The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,
And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines:
So kings haue cause to feare Bellonaes might,
Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,
Nor ever greedie soldier was entised
By pouertie, neglected and despised.
10.
O pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood,
Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!
No wish for honour, thirst of other's good,
Can moue my hart, contented with my owne:
We quench our thirst with water of this flood,
Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne:
These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates
Giue milke for food, and wooll to make us coates.
11.
We little wish, we need but little wealth,
From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;
These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth
Their father's flocks, nor servants moe I need:
Amid these groues I walke oft for my health,
And to the fishes, birds, and beastes giue heed,
How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,
And their contentment for ensample take.
12.
Time was (for each one hath his doting time,
These siluer locks were golden tresses than)
That countrie life I hated as a crime,
And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,
To Memphis stately pallace would I clime,
And there became the mightie Caliphes man,
And though I but a simple gardner weare,
Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.
13.
Entised on with hope of future gaine,
I suffred long what did my soule displease;
But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,
I felt my native strength at last decrease;
I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,
And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace;
I bod the court farewell, and with content
My later age here have I quiet spent.
14.
While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still
His wise discourses heard, with great attention,
His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,
Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;
After much thought reformed was her will,
Within those woods to dwell was her intention,
Till fortune should occasion new afford,
To turne her home to her desired lord.
15.
She said, therefore, O shepherd fortunate!
That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue,
Yet liuest now in this contented state,
Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,
To entertaine me, as a willing mate
In shepherd's life, which I admire and loue;
Within these pleasant groues, perchance, my hart
Of her discomforts may vnload some part.
16.
If gold or wealth, of most esteemed deare,
If iewells rich, thou diddest hold in prise,
Such store thereof, such plentie have I seen,
As to a greedie minde might well suffice:
With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,
Two christall streams fell from her watrie eies;
Part of her sad misfortunes than she told,
And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.
17.
With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,
Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.
The princesse dond a poore pastoraes geare,
A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;
But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)
Were such as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse.
18.
Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide
The heau'nly beautie of her angel's face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace;
Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,
And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,
Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame
Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.
[Footnote 82: Preface to his Fables. Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 83: This speech has been retrieved, from a paper printed at
that time, by the writers of the Parliamentary History. Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 84: Parliamentary History, vol. xii. Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 85: Life of Waller prefixed to an edition of his works,
published in 1773, by Percival Stockdale. C. ]
[Footnote 86: Sir John Davies, entitled, Nosce Teipsum. This oracle
expounded in two elegies; 1. Of Humane Knowledge: 2. Of the Soule of Man
and the Immortalitie thereof, 1599. R. ]
[Footnote 87: It has been conjectured that our poet was either son or
grandson of Charles, third son of sir John Stepney, the first baronet of
that family. See Granger's History, vol. ii. p. 396. Edit. 8vo. 1775. Mr.
Cole says, the poet's father was a grocer. Cole's manuscripts, in Brit.
Mus. C. ]
POMFRET.
Of Mr. John Pomfret nothing is known but from a slight and confused
account, prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he
was the son of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire;
that he was bred at Cambridge[87], entered into orders, and was rector of
Malden, in Bedfordshire, and might have risen in the church; but that,
when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a
living of considerable value, to which he had been presented, he found
a troublesome obstruction raised by a malicious interpretation of some
passage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he considered
happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of
a wife.
This reproach was easily obliterated; for it had happened to Pomfret, as
to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from
his purpose, and was then married.
The malice of his enemies had, however, a very fatal consequence: the
delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the smallpox,
and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.
He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that
class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own
amusement.
His Choice exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal
to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity,
without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in
our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice.
In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth
metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with
ponderous, or entangled with intricate, sentiment. He pleases many; and
he who pleases many must have some species of merit.
[Footnote 87: He was of Queen's college there, and, by the University
Register, took his bachelor's degree in 1684, and master's in 1698. His
father was of Trinity. ]
DORSET.
Of the earl of Dorset the character has been drawn so largely and so
elegantly by Prior, to whom he was familiarly known, that nothing can be
added by a casual hand; and, as its author is so generally read, it would
be useless officiousness to transcribe it.
Charles Sackville was born January 24, 1637. Having been educated under a
private tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned a little before the
restoration. He was chosen into the first parliament that was called, for
East Grimstead, in Sussex, and soon became a favourite of Charles the
second; but undertook no publick employment, being too eager of the
riotous and licentious pleasures, which young men of high rank, who
aspired to be thought wits, at that time imagined themselves entitled to
indulge.
One of these frolicks has, by the industry of Wood, come down to
posterity. Sackville, who was then lord Buckhurst, with sir Charles
Sedley and sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock in Bow street, by
Covent garden, and, going into the balcony, exposed themselves to the
populace in very indecent postures. At last, as they grew warmer, Sedley
stood forth naked and harangued the populace in such profane language,
that the publick indignation was awakened: the crowd attempted to force
the door, and, being repulsed, drove in the performers with stones, and
broke the windows of the house.
For this misdemeanour they were indicted, and Sedley was fined five
hundred pounds: what was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley
employed Killigrew and another to procure a remission from the king;
but (mark the friendship of the dissolute! ) they begged the fine for
themselves, and exacted it to the last groat. In 1665, lord Buckhurst
attended the duke of York, as a volunteer in the Dutch war; and was
in the battle of June 3, when eighteen great Dutch ships were taken,
fourteen others were destroyed, and Opdam, the admiral, who engaged the
duke, was blown up beside him, with all his crew.
On the day before the battle, he is said to have composed the celebrated
song, "To all you ladies now at land," with equal tranquillity of mind
and promptitude of wit. Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. I
have heard from the late earl of Orrery, who was likely to have good
hereditary intelligence, that lord Buckhurst had been a week employed
upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening. But
even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his
courage.
He was soon after made a gentleman of the bedchamber, and sent on short
embassies to France.
In 1674, the estate of his uncle, James Cranfield, earl of Middlesex,
came to him by its owner's death, and the title was conferred on him
the year after. In 1677, he became, by the death of his father, earl of
Dorset, and inherited the estate of his family.
In 1684, having buried his first wife, of the family of Bagot, who
left him no child, he married a daughter of the earl of Northampton,
celebrated both for beauty and understanding.
He received some favourable notice from king James; but soon found it
necessary to oppose the violence of his innovations, and with some other
lords appeared in Westminster hall to countenance the bishops at their
trial.
As enormities grew every day less supportable, he found it necessary to
concur in the revolution. He was one of those lords who sat every day in
council to preserve the publick peace, after the king's departure; and,
what is not the most illustrious action of his life, was employed to
conduct the princess Anne to Nottingham with a guard, such as might alarm
the populace, as they passed, with false apprehensions of her danger.
Whatever end may be designed, there is always something despicable in a
trick.
He became, as may be easily supposed, a favourite of king William, who,
the day after his accession, made him lord chamberlain of the household,
and gave him afterwards the garter. He happened to be among those that
were tossed with the king in an open boat sixteen hours, in very rough
and cold weather, on the coast of Holland. His health afterwards
declined; and, on Jan. 19, 1705-6, he died at Bath.
He was a man whose elegance and judgment were universally confessed,
and whose bounty to the learned and witty was generally known.
To the
indulgent affection of the publick, lord Rochester bore ample testimony
in this remark: "I know not how it is, but lord Buckhurst may do what he
will, yet is never in the wrong. "
If such a man attempted poetry, we cannot wonder that his works were
praised. Dryden, whom, if Prior tells truth, he distinguished by his
beneficence, and who lavished his blandishments on those who are not
known to have so well deserved them, undertaking to produce authors of
our own country superiour to those of antiquity, says, "I would instance
your lordship in satire, and Shakespeare in tragedy. " Would it be
imagined that, of this rival to antiquity, all the satires were little
personal invectives, and that his longest composition was a song of
eleven stanzas?
The blame, however, of this exaggerated praise falls on the encomiast,
not upon the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the
effusions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy. His verses to Howard
show great fertility of mind; and his Dorinda has been imitated by Pope.
STEPNEY.
George Stepney, descended from the Stepneys of Pendegrast, in
Pembrokeshire, was born at Westminster, in 1663. Of his father's
condition or fortune I have no account[88]. Having received the first
part of his education at Westminster, where he passed six years in the
college, he went, at nineteen, to Cambridge[p], where he continued a
friendship begun at school with Mr. Montague, afterwards earl of Halifax.
They came to London together, and are said to have been invited into
publick life by the duke of Dorset[89].
His qualifications recommended him to many foreign employments, so that
his time seems to have been spent in negotiations. In 1692, he was sent
envoy to the elector of Brandenburgh; in 1693, to the imperial court; in
1694, to the elector of Saxony; in 1696, to the electors of Mentz and
Cologne, and the congress at Frankfort; in 1698, a second time to
Brandenburgh; in 1699, to the king of Poland; in 1701, again to the
emperour; and, in 1706, to the States General. In 1697, he was made one
of the commissioners of trade. His life was busy and not long. He died in
1707, and is buried in Westminster Abbey, with this epitaph, which Jacob
transcribed:
H. S. E.
GEORGIUS STEPNEIUS, armiger,
Vir,
Ob ingenii acumen,
Literarum scientiam,
Morum suavitatem,
Rerum usum,
Virorum amplissimorum consuetudinem,
Linguae, styli, ac vitae elegantiam,
Praeclara officia cum Britanniae tum Europae praestita,
Sua aetate multum celebratus,
Apud posteros semper celebrandus;
Plurimas legationes obijt
Ea fide, diligentia, ac felicitate,
Ut augustissimorum principum
Gulielmi et Annae
Spem in illo repositam
Numquam fefellerit,
Haud raro superaverit.
Post longum honorum cursum
Brevi temporis spatio confectum,
Cum naturae parum, famae satis vixerat,
Animam ad altiora aspirantem placide efflavit.
On the left hand,
G. S.
Ex equestri familia Stepneiorum,
De Pendegrast, in comitatu
Pembrochiensi oriundus,
Westmonasterii natus est, A. D. 1663,
Electus in collegium
Sancti Petri Westmonast. A. 1676,
Sancti Trinitatis Cantab. 1682.
Consiliariorum quibus Commercii
Cura commissa est 1697.
Chelseiae mortuus, et, comitante
Magna procerum
Frequentia, hue elatus, 1707.
It is reported that the juvenile compositions of Stepney "made grey
authors blush. " I know not whether his poems will appear such wonders to
the present age. One cannot always easily find the reason for which the
world has sometimes conspired to squander praise. It is not very unlikely
that he wrote very early as well as he ever wrote; and the performances
of youth have many favourers, because the authors yet lay no claim to
publick honours, and are, therefore, not considered as rivals by the
distributors of fame.
He apparently professed himself a poet, and added his name to those of
the other wits in the version of Juvenal; but he is a very licentious
translator, and does not recompense his neglect of the author by beauties
of his own. In his original poems, now and then, a happy line may,
perhaps, be found, and, now and then, a short composition may give
pleasure. But there is, in the whole, little either of the grace of wit,
or the vigour of nature.
[Footnote 88: He was entered of Trinity college, and took his master's
degree in 1689. H. ]
[Footnote 89: Earl of Dorset. ]
J. PHILIPS.
John Philips was born on the 30th of December, 1676, at Bampton, in
Oxfordshire; of which place his father, Dr. Stephen Philips, archdeacon
of Salop, was minister. The first part of his education was domestick;
after which he was sent to Winchester, where, as we are told by Dr.
Sewel, his biographer, he was soon distinguished by the superiority of
his exercises; and, what is less easily to be credited, so much endeared
himself to his schoolfellows, by his civility and good nature, that
they, without murmur or ill will, saw him indulged by the master with
particular immunities. It is related, that, when he was at school, he
seldom mingled in play with the other boys, but retired to his chamber;
where his sovereign pleasure was to sit, hour after hour, while his hair
was combed by somebody, whose service he found means to procure. [90]
At school he became acquainted with the poets, ancient and modern, and
fixed his attention particularly on Milton.
In 1694, he entered himself at Christ church; a college, at that time, in
the highest reputation, by the transmission of Busby's scholars to the
care first of Fell, and afterwards of Aldrich. Here he was distinguished
as a genius eminent among the eminent, and for friendship particularly
intimate with Mr. Smith, the author of Phaedra and Hippolytus. The
profession which he intended to follow was that of physick; and he took
much delight in natural history, of which botany was his favourite part.
His reputation was confined to his friends and to the university; till,
about 1703, he extended it to a wider circle by the Splendid Shilling,
which struck the publick attention with a mode of writing new and
unexpected.
This performance raised him so high, that, when Europe resounded with
the victory of Blenheim, he was, probably, with an occult opposition to
Addison, employed to deliver the acclamation of the tories. It is said
that he would willingly have declined the task, but that his friends
urged it upon him. It appears that he wrote this poem at the house of Mr.
St. John.
Blenheim was published in 1705. The next year produced his greatest work,
the poem upon Cider, in two books; which was received with loud praises,
and continued long to be read, as an imitation of Virgil's Georgicks,
which needed not shun the presence of the original.
He then grew probably more confident of his own abilities, and began to
meditate a poem on the Last Day; a subject on which no mind can hope to
equal expectation.
This work he did not live to finish; his diseases, a slow consumption
and an asthma, put a stop to his studies, and on Feb. 15, 1708, at the
beginning of his thirty-third year, put an end to his life.
He was buried in the cathedral of Hereford; and sir Simon Harcourt,
afterwards lord chancellor, gave him a monument in Westminster Abbey.
The inscription at Westminster was written, as I have heard, by Dr.
Atterbury, though commonly given to Dr. Freind.
His epitaph at Hereford:
JOHANNES PHILIPS
Obijt 15 die Feb. Anno Dom. 1708. , Aetat suae 32.
Cujus
Ossa si requiras, hanc urnam inspice:
Si ingenium nescias, ipsius opera consule;
Si tumulum desideras,
Templum adi Westmonasteriense:
Qualis quantusque vir fuerit,
Dicat elegans illa et praeclara,
Quae cenotaphium ibi decorat,
Inscriptio.
Quam interim erga cognatos pius et officiosus,
Testetur hoc saxum
A MARIA PHILIPS matre ipsius pientissima
Dilecti filii memoriae non sine lacrymis dicatum.
His epitaph at Westminster:
Herefordiae conduntur ossa,
Hoc in delubro statuitur imago,
Britanniam omnem pervagatur fama,
JOHANNIS PHILIPS:
Qui viris bonis doctisque juxta charus,
Immortale suum ingenium,
Eruditione multiplici excultum,
Miro animi candore,
Eximia morum simplicitate,
Honestavit.
Litterarum amoeniorum sitim,
Quam Wintoniae puer sentire coeperat,
Inter Aedis Christi alumnos jugiter explevit.
In illo musarum domicilio
Praeclaris aemulorum studiis excitatus,
Optimis scribendi magistris semper intentus,
Carmina sermone patrio composuit
A Graecis Latinisque fontibus feliciter deducta,
Atticis Romanisque auribus omnino digna,
Versuum quippe harmoniam
Rythmo didicerat,
Antiquo illo, libero, multiformi,
Ad res ipsas apto prorsus, et attemperato,
Non numeris in eundem fere orbem redeuntibus,
Non clausularum similiter cadentium sono
Metiri:
Uni in hoc landis genere Miltono secundus,
Primoque poene par.
Res seu tenues, seu grandes, sen mediocres
Ornandas sumserat,
Nusquam, non quod decuit,
Et vidit, et assecutus est,
Egregius, quocunque stylum verteret,
Fandi author, et modorum artifex.
Fas sit huic,
Auso licet a tua metrorum lege discedere,
O poesis Anglicanae pater, atque conditor, Chaucere,
Alterum tibi latus claudere,
Vatum certe cineres tuos undique stipantium
Non dedecebit chorum.
SIMON HAHCOUKT, miles,
Viri bene de se, de litteris meriti,
Quoad viveret fautor,
Post obitum pie memor,
Hoc illi saxum poni voluit.
J. PHILIPS, STEPHANI, S. T. P. Archidiaconi
Salop. filius, natus est Bamptoniae
In agro Oxon. Dec. 30, 1676.
Obijt Herefordiae, Feb. 15, 1708.
Philips has been always praised, without contradiction, as a man modest,
blameless, and pious; who bore narrowness of fortune without discontent,
and tedious and painful maladies without impatience; beloved by those
that knew him, but not ambitious to be known. He was probably not formed
for a wide circle. His conversation is commended for its innocent gaiety,
which seems to have flowed only among his intimates; for I have been
told, that he was in company silent and barren, and employed only upon
the pleasures of his pipe. His addiction to tobacco is mentioned by
one of his biographers, who remarks, that in all his writings, except
Blenheim, he has found an opportunity of celebrating the fragrant fume.
In common life he was probably one of those who please by not offending,
and whose person was loved because his writings were admired. He died
honoured and lamented, before any part of his reputation had withered,
and before his patron St. John had disgraced him. His works are few. The
Splendid Shilling has the uncommon merit of an original design, unless it
may be thought precluded by the ancient Centos. To degrade the sounding
words and stately construction of Milton, by an application to the lowest
and most trivial things, gratifies the mind with a momentary triumph over
that grandeur, which hitherto held its captives in admiration; the words
and things are presented with a new appearance, and novelty is always
grateful where it gives no pain.
But the merit of such performances begins and ends with the first author.
He that should again adapt Milton's phrase to the gross incidents
of common life, and even adapt it with more art, which would not be
difficult, must yet expect but a small part of the praise which Philips
has obtained; he can only hope to be considered as the repeater of a
jest.
"The parody on Milton," says Gildon, "is the only tolerable production of
its author. " This is a censure too dogmatical and violent. The poem of
Blenheim was never denied to be tolerable, even by those who do not
allow its supreme excellence. It is, indeed, the poem of a scholar, "all
inexpert of war;" of a man who writes books from books, and studies the
world in a college. He seems to have formed his ideas of the field of
Blenheim from the battles of the heroick ages, or the tales of chivalry,
with very little comprehension of the qualities necessary to the
composition of a modern hero, which Addison has displayed with so much
propriety. He makes Marlborough behold at a distance the slaughter made
by Tallard, then haste to encounter and restrain him, and mow his way
through ranks made headless by his sword.
He imitates Milton's numbers indeed, but imitates them very
injudiciously. Deformity is easily copied; and whatever there is in
Milton which the reader wishes away, all that is obsolete, peculiar, or
licentious, is accumulated with great care by Philips. Milton's verse was
harmonious, in proportion to the general state of our metre in Milton's
age; and, if he had written after the improvements made by Dryden, it
is reasonable to believe that he would have admitted a more pleasing
modulation of numbers into his work; but Philips sits down with a
resolution to make no more musick than he found; to want all that his
master wanted, though he is very far from having what his master had.
Those asperities, therefore, that are venerable in the Paradise Lost, are
contemptible in the Blenheim.
There is a Latin ode written to his patron St. John, in return for a
present of wine and tobacco, which cannot be passed without notice. It is
gay and elegant, and exhibits several artful accommodations of classick
expressions to new purposes. It seems better turned than the odes of
Hannes[91].
To the poem on Cider, written in imitation of the Georgicks, may be given
this peculiar praise, that it is grounded in truth; that the precepts
which it contains are exact and just; and that it is, therefore, at once,
a book of entertainment and of science. This I was told by Miller, the
great gardener and botanist, whose expression was, that "there were many
books written on the same subject in prose, which do not contain so much
truth as that poem. "
In the disposition of his matter, so as to intersperse precepts relating
to the culture of trees with sentiments more generally alluring, and in
easy and graceful transitions from one subject to another, he has very
diligently imitated his master; but he, unhappily, pleased himself with
blank verse, and supposed that the numbers of Milton, which impress the
mind with veneration, combined as they are with subjects of inconceivable
grandeur, could be sustained by images which, at most, can rise only to
elegance.
Contending angels may shake the regions of heaven in blank verse; but the
flow of equal measures, and the embellishment of rhyme, must recommend
to our attention the art of engrafting, and decide the merit of the
redstreak and pearmain.
What study could confer, Philips had obtained; but natural deficience
cannot be supplied. He seems not born to greatness and elevation. He is
never lofty, nor does he often surprise with unexpected excellence: but,
perhaps, to his last poem may be applied what Tully said of the work of
Lucretius, that "it is written with much art, though with few blazes of
genius. "
* * * * *
The following fragment, written by Edmund Smith, upon the works of
Philips, has been transcribed from the Bodleian manuscripts.
"A Prefatory Discourse to the Poem on Mr. Philips, with a character of
his writings.
"It is altogether as equitable some account should be given of those who
have distinguished themselves by their writings, as of those who are
renowned for great actions. It is but reasonable they, who contribute
so much to the immortality of others, should have some share in it
themselves; and since their genius only is discovered by their works, it
is just that their virtues should be recorded by their friends. For no
modest men (as the person I write of was in perfection) will write
their own panegyricks; and it is very hard that they should go without
reputation, only because they the more deserve it. The end of writing
Lives is for the imitation of the readers. It will be in the power of
very few to imitate the duke of Marlborough: we must be content with
admiring his great qualities and actions, without hopes of following
them. The private and social virtues are more easily transcribed. The
life of Cowley is more instructive, as well as more fine, than any we
have in our language. And it is to be wished, since Mr. Philips had so
many of the good qualities of that poet, that I had some of the abilities
of his historian. The Grecian philosophers have had their lives written,
their morals commended, and their sayings recorded. Mr. Philips had
all the virtues to which most of them only pretended, and all their
integrity, without any of their affectation.
"The French are very just to eminent men in this point; not a learned
man nor a poet can die, but all Europe must be acquainted with his
accomplishments. They give praise and expect it in their turns: they
commend their Patrus and Molieres, as well as their Condes and Turennes;
their Pellisons and Racines have their elogies, as well as the prince
whom they celebrate; and their poems, their mercuries, and orations, nay,
their very gazettes are filled with the praises of the learned.
"I am satisfied, had they a Philips among them, and known how to value
him; had they one of his learning, his temper, but above all of that
particular turn of humour, that altogether new genius, he had been an
example to their poets, and a subject of their panegyricks, and, perhaps,
set in competition with the ancients, to whom only he ought to submit.
"I shall, therefore, endeavour to do justice to his memory, since nobody
else undertakes it. And, indeed, I can assign no cause why so many of his
acquaintance, that are as willing and more able than myself to give an
account of him, should forbear to celebrate the memory of one so dear to
them, but only that they look upon it as a work entirely belonging to me.
"I shall content myself with giving only a character of the person and
his writings, without meddling with the transactions of his life, which
was altogether private: I shall only make this known observation of his
family, that there was scarce so many extraordinary men in any one. I
have been acquainted with five of his brothers, of which three are still
living, all men of fine parts, yet all of a very unlike temper and
genius. So that their fruitful mother, like the mother of the gods, seems
to have produced a numerous offspring, all of different, though uncommon
faculties. Of the living, neither their modesty, nor the humour of the
present age, permits me to speak; of the dead, I may say something.
"One of them had made the greatest progress in the study of the law of
nature and nations, of any one I know. He had perfectly mastered, and
even improved, the notions of Grotius, and the more refined ones of
Puffendorf. He could refute Hobbes with as much solidity as some of
greater name, and expose him with as much wit as Echard. That noble
study, which requires the greatest reach of reason and nicety of
distinction, was not at all difficult to him. 'Twas a national loss to be
deprived of one who understood a science so necessary, and yet so unknown
in England. I shall add only, he had the same honesty and sincerity as
the person I write of, but more heat: the former was more inclined to
argue, the latter to divert: one employed his reason more; the other his
imagination: the former had been well qualified for those posts, which
the modesty of the latter made him refuse. His other dead brother would
have been an ornament to the college of which he was a member. He had a
genius either for poetry or oratory; and, though very young, composed
several very agreeable pieces. In all probability he would have wrote as
finely, as his brother did nobly. He might have been the Waller, as the
other was the Milton of his time. The one might celebrate Marlborough,
the other his beautiful offspring. This had not been so fit to describe
the actions of heroes, as the virtues of private men. In a word, he had
been fitter for my place; and, while his brother was writing upon the
greatest men that any age ever produced, in a style equal to them, he
might have served as a panegyrist on him.
"This is all I think necessary to say of his family. I shall proceed to
himself and his writings; which I shall first treat of, because I know
they are censured by some out of envy, and more out of ignorance.
"The Splendid Shilling, which is far the least considerable, has the more
general reputation, and, perhaps, hinders the character of the rest. The
style agreed so well with the burlesque, that the ignorant thought it
could become nothing else. Every body is pleased with that work. But to
judge rightly of the other, requires a perfect mastery of poetry and
criticism, a just contempt of the little turns and witticisms now in
vogue, and, above all, a perfect understanding of poetical diction and
description.
"All that have any taste of poetry will agree, that the great burlesque
is much to be preferred to the low. It is much easier to make a great
thing appear little, than a little one great: Cotton and others of a very
low genius have done the former; but Philips, Garth, and Boileau, only
the latter.
"A picture in miniature is every painter's talent; but a piece for a
cupola, where all the figures are enlarged, yet proportioned to the eye,
requires a master's hand.
"It must still be more acceptable than the low burlesque, because the
images of the latter are mean and filthy, and the language itself
entirely unknown to all men of good breeding. The style of Billingsgate
would not make a very agreeable figure at St. James's. A gentleman would
take but little pleasure in language, which he would think it hard to be
accosted in, or in reading words which he could not pronounce without
blushing. The lofty burlesque is the more to be admired, because, to
write it, the author must be master of two of the most different talents
in nature. A talent to find out and expose what is ridiculous, is very
different from that which is to raise and elevate. We must read Virgil
and Milton for the one, and Horace and Hudibras for the other. We know
that the authors of excellent comedies have often failed in the grave
style, and the tragedian as often in comedy. Admiration and laughter
are of such opposite natures, that they are seldom created by the same
person. The man of mirth is always observing the follies and weaknesses,
the serious writer the virtues or crimes, of mankind; one is pleased with
contemplating a beau, the other a hero: even from the same object they
would draw different ideas: Achilles would appear in very different
lights to Thersites and Alexander. The one would admire the courage and
greatness of his soul; the other would ridicule the vanity and rashness
of his temper. As the satirist says to Hannibal:
"I, curre per Alpes,
Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias.
"The contrariety of style to the subject pleases the more strongly,
because it is more surprising; the expectation of the reader is
pleasantly deceived, who expects an humble style from the subject, or a
great subject from the style. It pleases the more universally, because
it is agreeable to the taste both of the grave and the merry; but more
particularly so to those who have a relish of the best writers, and the
noblest sort of poetry. I shall produce only one passage out of this
poet, which is the misfortune of his galligaskins:
"My galligaskins, which have long withstood
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued (what will not time subdue! )
"This is admirably pathetical, and shows very well the vicissitudes of
sublunary things. The rest goes on to a prodigious height; and a man in
Greenland could hardly have made a more pathetick and terrible complaint.
Is it not surprising that the subject should be so mean, and the verse so
pompous; that the least things in his poetry, as in a microscope, should
grow great and formidable to the eye? especially considering that, not
understanding French, he had no model for his style? that he should have
no writer to imitate, and himself be inimitable? that he should do all
this before he was twenty? at an age which is usually pleased with a
glare of false thoughts, little turns, and unnatural fustian? at an
age, at which Cowley, Dryden, and I had almost said Virgil, were
inconsiderable? So soon was his imagination at its full strength, his
judgment ripe, and his humour complete.
"This poem was written for his own diversion, without any design of
publication. It was communicated but to me; but soon spread, and fell
into the hands of pirates. It was put out, vilely mangled, by Ben.
Bragge; and impudently said to be corrected by the author. This grievance
is now grown more epidemical; and no man now has a right to his own
thoughts, or a title to his own writings. Xenophon answered the Persian,
who demanded his arms: 'We have nothing now left but our arms and our
valour: if we surrender the one, how shall we make use of the other? '
Poets have nothing but their wits and their writings; and if they are
plundered of the latter, I don't see what good the former can do them.
To pirate, and publickly own it, to prefix their names to the works they
steal, to own and avow the theft, I believe, was never yet heard of but
in England.
obvious; such as the mention of Amphion; and something violent and harsh;
as,
So all our minds with his conspire to grace
The Gentiles' great apostle, and deface
Those state-obscuring sheds, that, like a chain,
Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again:
Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand.
So joys the aged oak, when we divide
The creeping ivy from his injur'd side.
Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the second mean.
His praise of the queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, that
she "saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured by lopping
the limb," presents nothing to the mind but disgust and horrour.
Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say whether it
is intended to raise terrour or merriment. The beginning is too splendid
for jest, and the conclusion too light for seriousness. The versification
is studied, the scenes are diligently displayed, and the images artfully
amplified; but, as it ends neither in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be
read a second time.
The Panegyrick upon Cromwell has obtained from the publick a very liberal
dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to have been unjustly
lavished; for such a series of verses had rarely appeared before in the
English language. Of the lines some are grand, some are graceful, and all
are musical. There is now and then a feeble verse, or a trifling thought;
but its great fault is the choice of its hero.
The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and
striking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding parts
are variegated with better passages and worse. There is something too
far-fetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the English on,
by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakening the lion by
bleating. " The fate of the marquis and his lady, who were burnt in their
ship, would have moved more, had the poet not made him die like the
Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor expressed their affection
and their end, by a conceit, at once, false and vulgar:
Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd,
And now together are to ashes turn'd.
The verses to Charles on his Return were doubtless intended to
counterbalance the Panegyrick on Cromwell. If it has been thought
inferiour to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its
deficience has been already remarked.
The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly. They must be
supposed to have faults and beauties of the same kind with the rest. The
Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard; they were the work of
Waller's declining life, of those hours in which he looked upon the
fame and the folly of the time past with the sentiments which his great
predecessor, Petrarch, bequeathed to posterity, upon his review of that
love and poetry which have given him immortality.
That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much
excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that the
mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced to
confess superiour, is hastening daily to a level with ourselves. By
delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the dead;
and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the
exact time when his genius passed the zenith, which he places at his
fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a small portion.
Intellectual decay is, doubtless, not uncommon; but it seems not to
be universal. Newton was, in his eighty-fifth year, improving his
chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears not, in my
opinion, to have lost, at eighty-two, any part of his poetical power.
His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but before
the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects, his success
would hardly have been better.
It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too
little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been
made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they have very seldom
attained their end, is sufficiently known, and it may not be improper
to inquire, why they have miscarried. Let no pious ear be offended if I
advance, in opposition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot
often please. The doctrines of religion may, indeed, be defended in a
didactick poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will
not lose it because his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty
and the grandeur of nature, the flowers of the spring, and the harvests
of autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of the sky,
and praise the maker for his works, in lines which no reader shall lay
aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but the motives to
piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God.
Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul,
cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of his creator,
and plead the merits of his redeemer, is already in a higher state than
poetry can confer.
The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing
something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topicks of devotion are
few, and, being few, are universally known; but, few as they are, they
can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment,
and very little from novelty of expression.
Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than
things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those
parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel
the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is; suppression and
addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already.
From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always
obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his fancy;
but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion.
Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name
of the supreme being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; infinity cannot
be amplified; perfection cannot be improved. The employments of pious
meditation are faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplication. Faith,
invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations.
Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a
being without passions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt
rather than expressed. Repentance, trembling in the presence of the
judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of
man to man may diffuse itself through many topicks of persuasion; but
supplication to God can only cry for mercy.
Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple
expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power,
because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than
itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the memory, and delight
the ear, and, for these purposes, it may be very useful; but it supplies
nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too simple for
eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestick for ornament; to
recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify, by a concave mirror,
the sidereal hemisphere.
As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness and smoothness
of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute particulars to
which a versifier must attend.
He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who
were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had
attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or
forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might
have studied with advantage the poem of Davies[m86], which, though merely
philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified.
But he was rather smooth than strong; of "the full resounding line,"
which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The
critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham, and of
sweetness to Waller.
His excellence of versification has some abatements. He uses the
expletive _do_ very frequently; and, though he lived to see it almost,
universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his last
compositions than in his first. Praise had given him confidence; and
finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself.
His rhymes are sometimes weak words: _so_ is found to make the rhyme
twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his book.
His double rhymes, in heroick verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips,
who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's Pompey; and more
faults might be found, were not the inquiry below attention.
He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as _waxeth,
affecteth_; and sometimes retains the final syllable of the preterite,
as _amazed, supposed_, of which I know not whether it is not to the
detriment of our language that we have totally rejected them.
Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an
alexandrine he has given no example.
The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He is never
pathetick, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to have had a mind
much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such
as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily
supply. They had, however, then, perhaps, that grace of novelty which
they are now often supposed to want by those who, having already found
them in later books, do not know or inquire who produced them first. This
treatment is unjust. Let not the original author lose by his imitators.
Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author of Waller's
life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythraeus and some
late criticks call alliteration, of using in the same verse many words
beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be its value,
was so frequent among early writers, that Gascoigne, a writer of
the sixteenth century, warns the young poet against affecting it;
Shakespeare, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, is supposed to ridicule it;
and, in another play, the sonnet of Holofernes fully displays it.
He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old
mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets;
the deities which they introduced so frequently, were considered as
realities, so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober
reason might even then determine. But of these images time has tarnished
the splendour. A fiction, not only detected but despised, can never
afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it may furnish a
transient allusion, or slight illustration. No modern monarch can be much
exalted by hearing that, as Hercules had his club, he has his navy.
But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much will
remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to our elegance
of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and to him may be
applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of himself and
Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor Fido, he cried out "if he had
not read Aminta, he had never excelled it. "
As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from
Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work,
which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will, perhaps, not be soon
reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry, the
reader may judge how much he improved it.
1.
Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore
Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene,
Her feeble hand the bridle reines forlore,
Halfe in a swoune she was for feare, I weene;
But her flit courser spared nere the more,
To beare her through the desart woods unseene
Of her strong foes, that chas'd her through the plaine,
And still pursu'd, but still pursu'd in vaine.
2.
Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,
Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,
When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,
No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:
The christian knights so full of shame and ire
Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!
Yet still the fearfull dame fled, swift as winde,
Nor ever staid, nor ever lookt behinde.
3.
Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she drived,
Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,
Her plaints and teares with every thought revived,
She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.
But when the sunne his burning chariot dived
In Thetis wave, and wearie teame untide,
On Jordans sandie bankes her course she staid,
At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid.
4.
Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,
This was her diet that unhappie night:
But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)
To ease the greefes of discontented wight,
Spred foorth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,
In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;
And love, his mother, and the graces kept
Strong watch and warde, while this faire ladie slept.
5.
The birds awakte her with their morning song,
Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,
The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among
The ratling boughes, and leaves, their parts did beare;
Her eies unclos'd beheld the groves along
Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare:
And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent,
Provokte againe the virgin to lament.
6.
Her plaints were interrupted with a sound
That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed,
Some iolly shepheard sung a lustie round,
And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed;
Thither she went, an old man there she found,
(At whose right hand his little flock did feed)
Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among,
That learn'd their father's art, and learn'd his song.
7.
Beholding one in shining armes appeare,
The seelie man and his were sore dismaid;
But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,
Her ventall vp, her visage open laid.
You happie folke, of heau'n beloued deare,
Work on (quoth she) vpon your harmlesse traid,
These dreadfull armes, I beare, no warfare bring
To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes you sing.
8.
But father, since this land, these townes and towres,
Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,
How may it be, unhurt, that you and yours
In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?
My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours
Is euer safe from storme of warlike broile;
This wildernesse doth vs in safetie keepe,
No thundring drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe.
9.
Haply iust heau'n's defence and shield of right,
Doth loue the innocence of simple swaines,
The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,
And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines:
So kings haue cause to feare Bellonaes might,
Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,
Nor ever greedie soldier was entised
By pouertie, neglected and despised.
10.
O pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood,
Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!
No wish for honour, thirst of other's good,
Can moue my hart, contented with my owne:
We quench our thirst with water of this flood,
Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne:
These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates
Giue milke for food, and wooll to make us coates.
11.
We little wish, we need but little wealth,
From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;
These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth
Their father's flocks, nor servants moe I need:
Amid these groues I walke oft for my health,
And to the fishes, birds, and beastes giue heed,
How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,
And their contentment for ensample take.
12.
Time was (for each one hath his doting time,
These siluer locks were golden tresses than)
That countrie life I hated as a crime,
And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,
To Memphis stately pallace would I clime,
And there became the mightie Caliphes man,
And though I but a simple gardner weare,
Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.
13.
Entised on with hope of future gaine,
I suffred long what did my soule displease;
But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,
I felt my native strength at last decrease;
I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,
And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace;
I bod the court farewell, and with content
My later age here have I quiet spent.
14.
While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still
His wise discourses heard, with great attention,
His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,
Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;
After much thought reformed was her will,
Within those woods to dwell was her intention,
Till fortune should occasion new afford,
To turne her home to her desired lord.
15.
She said, therefore, O shepherd fortunate!
That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue,
Yet liuest now in this contented state,
Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,
To entertaine me, as a willing mate
In shepherd's life, which I admire and loue;
Within these pleasant groues, perchance, my hart
Of her discomforts may vnload some part.
16.
If gold or wealth, of most esteemed deare,
If iewells rich, thou diddest hold in prise,
Such store thereof, such plentie have I seen,
As to a greedie minde might well suffice:
With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,
Two christall streams fell from her watrie eies;
Part of her sad misfortunes than she told,
And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.
17.
With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,
Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.
The princesse dond a poore pastoraes geare,
A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;
But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)
Were such as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse.
18.
Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide
The heau'nly beautie of her angel's face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace;
Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,
And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,
Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame
Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.
[Footnote 82: Preface to his Fables. Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 83: This speech has been retrieved, from a paper printed at
that time, by the writers of the Parliamentary History. Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 84: Parliamentary History, vol. xii. Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 85: Life of Waller prefixed to an edition of his works,
published in 1773, by Percival Stockdale. C. ]
[Footnote 86: Sir John Davies, entitled, Nosce Teipsum. This oracle
expounded in two elegies; 1. Of Humane Knowledge: 2. Of the Soule of Man
and the Immortalitie thereof, 1599. R. ]
[Footnote 87: It has been conjectured that our poet was either son or
grandson of Charles, third son of sir John Stepney, the first baronet of
that family. See Granger's History, vol. ii. p. 396. Edit. 8vo. 1775. Mr.
Cole says, the poet's father was a grocer. Cole's manuscripts, in Brit.
Mus. C. ]
POMFRET.
Of Mr. John Pomfret nothing is known but from a slight and confused
account, prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he
was the son of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire;
that he was bred at Cambridge[87], entered into orders, and was rector of
Malden, in Bedfordshire, and might have risen in the church; but that,
when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a
living of considerable value, to which he had been presented, he found
a troublesome obstruction raised by a malicious interpretation of some
passage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he considered
happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of
a wife.
This reproach was easily obliterated; for it had happened to Pomfret, as
to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from
his purpose, and was then married.
The malice of his enemies had, however, a very fatal consequence: the
delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the smallpox,
and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.
He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that
class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own
amusement.
His Choice exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal
to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity,
without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in
our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice.
In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth
metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with
ponderous, or entangled with intricate, sentiment. He pleases many; and
he who pleases many must have some species of merit.
[Footnote 87: He was of Queen's college there, and, by the University
Register, took his bachelor's degree in 1684, and master's in 1698. His
father was of Trinity. ]
DORSET.
Of the earl of Dorset the character has been drawn so largely and so
elegantly by Prior, to whom he was familiarly known, that nothing can be
added by a casual hand; and, as its author is so generally read, it would
be useless officiousness to transcribe it.
Charles Sackville was born January 24, 1637. Having been educated under a
private tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned a little before the
restoration. He was chosen into the first parliament that was called, for
East Grimstead, in Sussex, and soon became a favourite of Charles the
second; but undertook no publick employment, being too eager of the
riotous and licentious pleasures, which young men of high rank, who
aspired to be thought wits, at that time imagined themselves entitled to
indulge.
One of these frolicks has, by the industry of Wood, come down to
posterity. Sackville, who was then lord Buckhurst, with sir Charles
Sedley and sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock in Bow street, by
Covent garden, and, going into the balcony, exposed themselves to the
populace in very indecent postures. At last, as they grew warmer, Sedley
stood forth naked and harangued the populace in such profane language,
that the publick indignation was awakened: the crowd attempted to force
the door, and, being repulsed, drove in the performers with stones, and
broke the windows of the house.
For this misdemeanour they were indicted, and Sedley was fined five
hundred pounds: what was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley
employed Killigrew and another to procure a remission from the king;
but (mark the friendship of the dissolute! ) they begged the fine for
themselves, and exacted it to the last groat. In 1665, lord Buckhurst
attended the duke of York, as a volunteer in the Dutch war; and was
in the battle of June 3, when eighteen great Dutch ships were taken,
fourteen others were destroyed, and Opdam, the admiral, who engaged the
duke, was blown up beside him, with all his crew.
On the day before the battle, he is said to have composed the celebrated
song, "To all you ladies now at land," with equal tranquillity of mind
and promptitude of wit. Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. I
have heard from the late earl of Orrery, who was likely to have good
hereditary intelligence, that lord Buckhurst had been a week employed
upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening. But
even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his
courage.
He was soon after made a gentleman of the bedchamber, and sent on short
embassies to France.
In 1674, the estate of his uncle, James Cranfield, earl of Middlesex,
came to him by its owner's death, and the title was conferred on him
the year after. In 1677, he became, by the death of his father, earl of
Dorset, and inherited the estate of his family.
In 1684, having buried his first wife, of the family of Bagot, who
left him no child, he married a daughter of the earl of Northampton,
celebrated both for beauty and understanding.
He received some favourable notice from king James; but soon found it
necessary to oppose the violence of his innovations, and with some other
lords appeared in Westminster hall to countenance the bishops at their
trial.
As enormities grew every day less supportable, he found it necessary to
concur in the revolution. He was one of those lords who sat every day in
council to preserve the publick peace, after the king's departure; and,
what is not the most illustrious action of his life, was employed to
conduct the princess Anne to Nottingham with a guard, such as might alarm
the populace, as they passed, with false apprehensions of her danger.
Whatever end may be designed, there is always something despicable in a
trick.
He became, as may be easily supposed, a favourite of king William, who,
the day after his accession, made him lord chamberlain of the household,
and gave him afterwards the garter. He happened to be among those that
were tossed with the king in an open boat sixteen hours, in very rough
and cold weather, on the coast of Holland. His health afterwards
declined; and, on Jan. 19, 1705-6, he died at Bath.
He was a man whose elegance and judgment were universally confessed,
and whose bounty to the learned and witty was generally known.
To the
indulgent affection of the publick, lord Rochester bore ample testimony
in this remark: "I know not how it is, but lord Buckhurst may do what he
will, yet is never in the wrong. "
If such a man attempted poetry, we cannot wonder that his works were
praised. Dryden, whom, if Prior tells truth, he distinguished by his
beneficence, and who lavished his blandishments on those who are not
known to have so well deserved them, undertaking to produce authors of
our own country superiour to those of antiquity, says, "I would instance
your lordship in satire, and Shakespeare in tragedy. " Would it be
imagined that, of this rival to antiquity, all the satires were little
personal invectives, and that his longest composition was a song of
eleven stanzas?
The blame, however, of this exaggerated praise falls on the encomiast,
not upon the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the
effusions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy. His verses to Howard
show great fertility of mind; and his Dorinda has been imitated by Pope.
STEPNEY.
George Stepney, descended from the Stepneys of Pendegrast, in
Pembrokeshire, was born at Westminster, in 1663. Of his father's
condition or fortune I have no account[88]. Having received the first
part of his education at Westminster, where he passed six years in the
college, he went, at nineteen, to Cambridge[p], where he continued a
friendship begun at school with Mr. Montague, afterwards earl of Halifax.
They came to London together, and are said to have been invited into
publick life by the duke of Dorset[89].
His qualifications recommended him to many foreign employments, so that
his time seems to have been spent in negotiations. In 1692, he was sent
envoy to the elector of Brandenburgh; in 1693, to the imperial court; in
1694, to the elector of Saxony; in 1696, to the electors of Mentz and
Cologne, and the congress at Frankfort; in 1698, a second time to
Brandenburgh; in 1699, to the king of Poland; in 1701, again to the
emperour; and, in 1706, to the States General. In 1697, he was made one
of the commissioners of trade. His life was busy and not long. He died in
1707, and is buried in Westminster Abbey, with this epitaph, which Jacob
transcribed:
H. S. E.
GEORGIUS STEPNEIUS, armiger,
Vir,
Ob ingenii acumen,
Literarum scientiam,
Morum suavitatem,
Rerum usum,
Virorum amplissimorum consuetudinem,
Linguae, styli, ac vitae elegantiam,
Praeclara officia cum Britanniae tum Europae praestita,
Sua aetate multum celebratus,
Apud posteros semper celebrandus;
Plurimas legationes obijt
Ea fide, diligentia, ac felicitate,
Ut augustissimorum principum
Gulielmi et Annae
Spem in illo repositam
Numquam fefellerit,
Haud raro superaverit.
Post longum honorum cursum
Brevi temporis spatio confectum,
Cum naturae parum, famae satis vixerat,
Animam ad altiora aspirantem placide efflavit.
On the left hand,
G. S.
Ex equestri familia Stepneiorum,
De Pendegrast, in comitatu
Pembrochiensi oriundus,
Westmonasterii natus est, A. D. 1663,
Electus in collegium
Sancti Petri Westmonast. A. 1676,
Sancti Trinitatis Cantab. 1682.
Consiliariorum quibus Commercii
Cura commissa est 1697.
Chelseiae mortuus, et, comitante
Magna procerum
Frequentia, hue elatus, 1707.
It is reported that the juvenile compositions of Stepney "made grey
authors blush. " I know not whether his poems will appear such wonders to
the present age. One cannot always easily find the reason for which the
world has sometimes conspired to squander praise. It is not very unlikely
that he wrote very early as well as he ever wrote; and the performances
of youth have many favourers, because the authors yet lay no claim to
publick honours, and are, therefore, not considered as rivals by the
distributors of fame.
He apparently professed himself a poet, and added his name to those of
the other wits in the version of Juvenal; but he is a very licentious
translator, and does not recompense his neglect of the author by beauties
of his own. In his original poems, now and then, a happy line may,
perhaps, be found, and, now and then, a short composition may give
pleasure. But there is, in the whole, little either of the grace of wit,
or the vigour of nature.
[Footnote 88: He was entered of Trinity college, and took his master's
degree in 1689. H. ]
[Footnote 89: Earl of Dorset. ]
J. PHILIPS.
John Philips was born on the 30th of December, 1676, at Bampton, in
Oxfordshire; of which place his father, Dr. Stephen Philips, archdeacon
of Salop, was minister. The first part of his education was domestick;
after which he was sent to Winchester, where, as we are told by Dr.
Sewel, his biographer, he was soon distinguished by the superiority of
his exercises; and, what is less easily to be credited, so much endeared
himself to his schoolfellows, by his civility and good nature, that
they, without murmur or ill will, saw him indulged by the master with
particular immunities. It is related, that, when he was at school, he
seldom mingled in play with the other boys, but retired to his chamber;
where his sovereign pleasure was to sit, hour after hour, while his hair
was combed by somebody, whose service he found means to procure. [90]
At school he became acquainted with the poets, ancient and modern, and
fixed his attention particularly on Milton.
In 1694, he entered himself at Christ church; a college, at that time, in
the highest reputation, by the transmission of Busby's scholars to the
care first of Fell, and afterwards of Aldrich. Here he was distinguished
as a genius eminent among the eminent, and for friendship particularly
intimate with Mr. Smith, the author of Phaedra and Hippolytus. The
profession which he intended to follow was that of physick; and he took
much delight in natural history, of which botany was his favourite part.
His reputation was confined to his friends and to the university; till,
about 1703, he extended it to a wider circle by the Splendid Shilling,
which struck the publick attention with a mode of writing new and
unexpected.
This performance raised him so high, that, when Europe resounded with
the victory of Blenheim, he was, probably, with an occult opposition to
Addison, employed to deliver the acclamation of the tories. It is said
that he would willingly have declined the task, but that his friends
urged it upon him. It appears that he wrote this poem at the house of Mr.
St. John.
Blenheim was published in 1705. The next year produced his greatest work,
the poem upon Cider, in two books; which was received with loud praises,
and continued long to be read, as an imitation of Virgil's Georgicks,
which needed not shun the presence of the original.
He then grew probably more confident of his own abilities, and began to
meditate a poem on the Last Day; a subject on which no mind can hope to
equal expectation.
This work he did not live to finish; his diseases, a slow consumption
and an asthma, put a stop to his studies, and on Feb. 15, 1708, at the
beginning of his thirty-third year, put an end to his life.
He was buried in the cathedral of Hereford; and sir Simon Harcourt,
afterwards lord chancellor, gave him a monument in Westminster Abbey.
The inscription at Westminster was written, as I have heard, by Dr.
Atterbury, though commonly given to Dr. Freind.
His epitaph at Hereford:
JOHANNES PHILIPS
Obijt 15 die Feb. Anno Dom. 1708. , Aetat suae 32.
Cujus
Ossa si requiras, hanc urnam inspice:
Si ingenium nescias, ipsius opera consule;
Si tumulum desideras,
Templum adi Westmonasteriense:
Qualis quantusque vir fuerit,
Dicat elegans illa et praeclara,
Quae cenotaphium ibi decorat,
Inscriptio.
Quam interim erga cognatos pius et officiosus,
Testetur hoc saxum
A MARIA PHILIPS matre ipsius pientissima
Dilecti filii memoriae non sine lacrymis dicatum.
His epitaph at Westminster:
Herefordiae conduntur ossa,
Hoc in delubro statuitur imago,
Britanniam omnem pervagatur fama,
JOHANNIS PHILIPS:
Qui viris bonis doctisque juxta charus,
Immortale suum ingenium,
Eruditione multiplici excultum,
Miro animi candore,
Eximia morum simplicitate,
Honestavit.
Litterarum amoeniorum sitim,
Quam Wintoniae puer sentire coeperat,
Inter Aedis Christi alumnos jugiter explevit.
In illo musarum domicilio
Praeclaris aemulorum studiis excitatus,
Optimis scribendi magistris semper intentus,
Carmina sermone patrio composuit
A Graecis Latinisque fontibus feliciter deducta,
Atticis Romanisque auribus omnino digna,
Versuum quippe harmoniam
Rythmo didicerat,
Antiquo illo, libero, multiformi,
Ad res ipsas apto prorsus, et attemperato,
Non numeris in eundem fere orbem redeuntibus,
Non clausularum similiter cadentium sono
Metiri:
Uni in hoc landis genere Miltono secundus,
Primoque poene par.
Res seu tenues, seu grandes, sen mediocres
Ornandas sumserat,
Nusquam, non quod decuit,
Et vidit, et assecutus est,
Egregius, quocunque stylum verteret,
Fandi author, et modorum artifex.
Fas sit huic,
Auso licet a tua metrorum lege discedere,
O poesis Anglicanae pater, atque conditor, Chaucere,
Alterum tibi latus claudere,
Vatum certe cineres tuos undique stipantium
Non dedecebit chorum.
SIMON HAHCOUKT, miles,
Viri bene de se, de litteris meriti,
Quoad viveret fautor,
Post obitum pie memor,
Hoc illi saxum poni voluit.
J. PHILIPS, STEPHANI, S. T. P. Archidiaconi
Salop. filius, natus est Bamptoniae
In agro Oxon. Dec. 30, 1676.
Obijt Herefordiae, Feb. 15, 1708.
Philips has been always praised, without contradiction, as a man modest,
blameless, and pious; who bore narrowness of fortune without discontent,
and tedious and painful maladies without impatience; beloved by those
that knew him, but not ambitious to be known. He was probably not formed
for a wide circle. His conversation is commended for its innocent gaiety,
which seems to have flowed only among his intimates; for I have been
told, that he was in company silent and barren, and employed only upon
the pleasures of his pipe. His addiction to tobacco is mentioned by
one of his biographers, who remarks, that in all his writings, except
Blenheim, he has found an opportunity of celebrating the fragrant fume.
In common life he was probably one of those who please by not offending,
and whose person was loved because his writings were admired. He died
honoured and lamented, before any part of his reputation had withered,
and before his patron St. John had disgraced him. His works are few. The
Splendid Shilling has the uncommon merit of an original design, unless it
may be thought precluded by the ancient Centos. To degrade the sounding
words and stately construction of Milton, by an application to the lowest
and most trivial things, gratifies the mind with a momentary triumph over
that grandeur, which hitherto held its captives in admiration; the words
and things are presented with a new appearance, and novelty is always
grateful where it gives no pain.
But the merit of such performances begins and ends with the first author.
He that should again adapt Milton's phrase to the gross incidents
of common life, and even adapt it with more art, which would not be
difficult, must yet expect but a small part of the praise which Philips
has obtained; he can only hope to be considered as the repeater of a
jest.
"The parody on Milton," says Gildon, "is the only tolerable production of
its author. " This is a censure too dogmatical and violent. The poem of
Blenheim was never denied to be tolerable, even by those who do not
allow its supreme excellence. It is, indeed, the poem of a scholar, "all
inexpert of war;" of a man who writes books from books, and studies the
world in a college. He seems to have formed his ideas of the field of
Blenheim from the battles of the heroick ages, or the tales of chivalry,
with very little comprehension of the qualities necessary to the
composition of a modern hero, which Addison has displayed with so much
propriety. He makes Marlborough behold at a distance the slaughter made
by Tallard, then haste to encounter and restrain him, and mow his way
through ranks made headless by his sword.
He imitates Milton's numbers indeed, but imitates them very
injudiciously. Deformity is easily copied; and whatever there is in
Milton which the reader wishes away, all that is obsolete, peculiar, or
licentious, is accumulated with great care by Philips. Milton's verse was
harmonious, in proportion to the general state of our metre in Milton's
age; and, if he had written after the improvements made by Dryden, it
is reasonable to believe that he would have admitted a more pleasing
modulation of numbers into his work; but Philips sits down with a
resolution to make no more musick than he found; to want all that his
master wanted, though he is very far from having what his master had.
Those asperities, therefore, that are venerable in the Paradise Lost, are
contemptible in the Blenheim.
There is a Latin ode written to his patron St. John, in return for a
present of wine and tobacco, which cannot be passed without notice. It is
gay and elegant, and exhibits several artful accommodations of classick
expressions to new purposes. It seems better turned than the odes of
Hannes[91].
To the poem on Cider, written in imitation of the Georgicks, may be given
this peculiar praise, that it is grounded in truth; that the precepts
which it contains are exact and just; and that it is, therefore, at once,
a book of entertainment and of science. This I was told by Miller, the
great gardener and botanist, whose expression was, that "there were many
books written on the same subject in prose, which do not contain so much
truth as that poem. "
In the disposition of his matter, so as to intersperse precepts relating
to the culture of trees with sentiments more generally alluring, and in
easy and graceful transitions from one subject to another, he has very
diligently imitated his master; but he, unhappily, pleased himself with
blank verse, and supposed that the numbers of Milton, which impress the
mind with veneration, combined as they are with subjects of inconceivable
grandeur, could be sustained by images which, at most, can rise only to
elegance.
Contending angels may shake the regions of heaven in blank verse; but the
flow of equal measures, and the embellishment of rhyme, must recommend
to our attention the art of engrafting, and decide the merit of the
redstreak and pearmain.
What study could confer, Philips had obtained; but natural deficience
cannot be supplied. He seems not born to greatness and elevation. He is
never lofty, nor does he often surprise with unexpected excellence: but,
perhaps, to his last poem may be applied what Tully said of the work of
Lucretius, that "it is written with much art, though with few blazes of
genius. "
* * * * *
The following fragment, written by Edmund Smith, upon the works of
Philips, has been transcribed from the Bodleian manuscripts.
"A Prefatory Discourse to the Poem on Mr. Philips, with a character of
his writings.
"It is altogether as equitable some account should be given of those who
have distinguished themselves by their writings, as of those who are
renowned for great actions. It is but reasonable they, who contribute
so much to the immortality of others, should have some share in it
themselves; and since their genius only is discovered by their works, it
is just that their virtues should be recorded by their friends. For no
modest men (as the person I write of was in perfection) will write
their own panegyricks; and it is very hard that they should go without
reputation, only because they the more deserve it. The end of writing
Lives is for the imitation of the readers. It will be in the power of
very few to imitate the duke of Marlborough: we must be content with
admiring his great qualities and actions, without hopes of following
them. The private and social virtues are more easily transcribed. The
life of Cowley is more instructive, as well as more fine, than any we
have in our language. And it is to be wished, since Mr. Philips had so
many of the good qualities of that poet, that I had some of the abilities
of his historian. The Grecian philosophers have had their lives written,
their morals commended, and their sayings recorded. Mr. Philips had
all the virtues to which most of them only pretended, and all their
integrity, without any of their affectation.
"The French are very just to eminent men in this point; not a learned
man nor a poet can die, but all Europe must be acquainted with his
accomplishments. They give praise and expect it in their turns: they
commend their Patrus and Molieres, as well as their Condes and Turennes;
their Pellisons and Racines have their elogies, as well as the prince
whom they celebrate; and their poems, their mercuries, and orations, nay,
their very gazettes are filled with the praises of the learned.
"I am satisfied, had they a Philips among them, and known how to value
him; had they one of his learning, his temper, but above all of that
particular turn of humour, that altogether new genius, he had been an
example to their poets, and a subject of their panegyricks, and, perhaps,
set in competition with the ancients, to whom only he ought to submit.
"I shall, therefore, endeavour to do justice to his memory, since nobody
else undertakes it. And, indeed, I can assign no cause why so many of his
acquaintance, that are as willing and more able than myself to give an
account of him, should forbear to celebrate the memory of one so dear to
them, but only that they look upon it as a work entirely belonging to me.
"I shall content myself with giving only a character of the person and
his writings, without meddling with the transactions of his life, which
was altogether private: I shall only make this known observation of his
family, that there was scarce so many extraordinary men in any one. I
have been acquainted with five of his brothers, of which three are still
living, all men of fine parts, yet all of a very unlike temper and
genius. So that their fruitful mother, like the mother of the gods, seems
to have produced a numerous offspring, all of different, though uncommon
faculties. Of the living, neither their modesty, nor the humour of the
present age, permits me to speak; of the dead, I may say something.
"One of them had made the greatest progress in the study of the law of
nature and nations, of any one I know. He had perfectly mastered, and
even improved, the notions of Grotius, and the more refined ones of
Puffendorf. He could refute Hobbes with as much solidity as some of
greater name, and expose him with as much wit as Echard. That noble
study, which requires the greatest reach of reason and nicety of
distinction, was not at all difficult to him. 'Twas a national loss to be
deprived of one who understood a science so necessary, and yet so unknown
in England. I shall add only, he had the same honesty and sincerity as
the person I write of, but more heat: the former was more inclined to
argue, the latter to divert: one employed his reason more; the other his
imagination: the former had been well qualified for those posts, which
the modesty of the latter made him refuse. His other dead brother would
have been an ornament to the college of which he was a member. He had a
genius either for poetry or oratory; and, though very young, composed
several very agreeable pieces. In all probability he would have wrote as
finely, as his brother did nobly. He might have been the Waller, as the
other was the Milton of his time. The one might celebrate Marlborough,
the other his beautiful offspring. This had not been so fit to describe
the actions of heroes, as the virtues of private men. In a word, he had
been fitter for my place; and, while his brother was writing upon the
greatest men that any age ever produced, in a style equal to them, he
might have served as a panegyrist on him.
"This is all I think necessary to say of his family. I shall proceed to
himself and his writings; which I shall first treat of, because I know
they are censured by some out of envy, and more out of ignorance.
"The Splendid Shilling, which is far the least considerable, has the more
general reputation, and, perhaps, hinders the character of the rest. The
style agreed so well with the burlesque, that the ignorant thought it
could become nothing else. Every body is pleased with that work. But to
judge rightly of the other, requires a perfect mastery of poetry and
criticism, a just contempt of the little turns and witticisms now in
vogue, and, above all, a perfect understanding of poetical diction and
description.
"All that have any taste of poetry will agree, that the great burlesque
is much to be preferred to the low. It is much easier to make a great
thing appear little, than a little one great: Cotton and others of a very
low genius have done the former; but Philips, Garth, and Boileau, only
the latter.
"A picture in miniature is every painter's talent; but a piece for a
cupola, where all the figures are enlarged, yet proportioned to the eye,
requires a master's hand.
"It must still be more acceptable than the low burlesque, because the
images of the latter are mean and filthy, and the language itself
entirely unknown to all men of good breeding. The style of Billingsgate
would not make a very agreeable figure at St. James's. A gentleman would
take but little pleasure in language, which he would think it hard to be
accosted in, or in reading words which he could not pronounce without
blushing. The lofty burlesque is the more to be admired, because, to
write it, the author must be master of two of the most different talents
in nature. A talent to find out and expose what is ridiculous, is very
different from that which is to raise and elevate. We must read Virgil
and Milton for the one, and Horace and Hudibras for the other. We know
that the authors of excellent comedies have often failed in the grave
style, and the tragedian as often in comedy. Admiration and laughter
are of such opposite natures, that they are seldom created by the same
person. The man of mirth is always observing the follies and weaknesses,
the serious writer the virtues or crimes, of mankind; one is pleased with
contemplating a beau, the other a hero: even from the same object they
would draw different ideas: Achilles would appear in very different
lights to Thersites and Alexander. The one would admire the courage and
greatness of his soul; the other would ridicule the vanity and rashness
of his temper. As the satirist says to Hannibal:
"I, curre per Alpes,
Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias.
"The contrariety of style to the subject pleases the more strongly,
because it is more surprising; the expectation of the reader is
pleasantly deceived, who expects an humble style from the subject, or a
great subject from the style. It pleases the more universally, because
it is agreeable to the taste both of the grave and the merry; but more
particularly so to those who have a relish of the best writers, and the
noblest sort of poetry. I shall produce only one passage out of this
poet, which is the misfortune of his galligaskins:
"My galligaskins, which have long withstood
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued (what will not time subdue! )
"This is admirably pathetical, and shows very well the vicissitudes of
sublunary things. The rest goes on to a prodigious height; and a man in
Greenland could hardly have made a more pathetick and terrible complaint.
Is it not surprising that the subject should be so mean, and the verse so
pompous; that the least things in his poetry, as in a microscope, should
grow great and formidable to the eye? especially considering that, not
understanding French, he had no model for his style? that he should have
no writer to imitate, and himself be inimitable? that he should do all
this before he was twenty? at an age which is usually pleased with a
glare of false thoughts, little turns, and unnatural fustian? at an
age, at which Cowley, Dryden, and I had almost said Virgil, were
inconsiderable? So soon was his imagination at its full strength, his
judgment ripe, and his humour complete.
"This poem was written for his own diversion, without any design of
publication. It was communicated but to me; but soon spread, and fell
into the hands of pirates. It was put out, vilely mangled, by Ben.
Bragge; and impudently said to be corrected by the author. This grievance
is now grown more epidemical; and no man now has a right to his own
thoughts, or a title to his own writings. Xenophon answered the Persian,
who demanded his arms: 'We have nothing now left but our arms and our
valour: if we surrender the one, how shall we make use of the other? '
Poets have nothing but their wits and their writings; and if they are
plundered of the latter, I don't see what good the former can do them.
To pirate, and publickly own it, to prefix their names to the works they
steal, to own and avow the theft, I believe, was never yet heard of but
in England.
