[338] A forcible description of Locke may be found in the curious
"Life of Wood," written by himself. I shall give the passage
where Wood acknowledges his after celebrity, at the very
moment the bigotry of his feelings is attempting to degrade
him.
Wood belonged to a club with Locke and others, for the purpose
of hearing chemical lectures. "John Locke of Christchurch was
afterwards a noted writer. This John Locke was a man of a
turbulent spirit, clamorous, and never contented. The club
wrote and took notes from the mouth of their master, who sat
at the upper end of a table, but the said John Locke scorned
to do it; so that while every man besides of the club were
writing, he would be prating and troublesome."
[339] This anecdote deserves preservation. I have drawn it from the
MSS. of Bishop KENNET.
"In the Epitaph on JOHN PHILIPS occurs this line on his metre,
that
'Uni in hoc laudis genere Miltono secundus,
Primoque pene par.'
These lines were ordered to be razed out of the monument by
Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. The word Miltono being, as he
said, not fit to be in a Christian church; but they have since
been restored by Dr. ATTERBURY, who succeeded him as Bishop of
Rochester, and who wrote the epitaph jointly with Dr.
FREIND."--Lansdowne MSS., No. 908, p. 162.
The anecdote has appeared, but without any authority. Dr.
SYMMONS, in his "Life of Milton," observing on what he calls
Dr. Johnson's "biographical libel on Milton," that Dr. Johnson
has mentioned this fact, seems to suspect its authenticity;
for, if true, "it would cover the respectable name of Sprat
with eternal dishonour." Of its truth the above gives
sufficient authority; but at all events the prejudices of
Sprat must be pardoned, while I am showing that minds far
greater than his have shared in the same unhappy feeling. Dr.
Symmons himself bears no light stain for his slanderous
criticism on the genius of THOMAS WARTON, from the motive we
are discussing; though Warton, as my text shows, was too a
sinner! I recollect in my youth a more extraordinary instance
than any other which relates to Milton. A woman of no
education, who had retired from the business of life, became a
very extraordinary reader; accident had thrown into her way a
large library composed of authors who wrote in the reigns of
the two Charleses. She turned out one of the _malignant_
party, and an abhorrer of the Commonwealth's men. Her opinion
of CROMWELL and MILTON may be given. She told me it was no
wonder that the rebel who had been secretary to the usurper
should have been able to have drawn so finished a character of
SATAN, and that the Pandaemonium, with all the oratorical
devils, was only such as he had himself viewed at Oliver's
council-board.
[340] I throw into this note several curious notices respecting
BURNET, and chiefly from contemporaries.
Burnet has been accused, after a warm discussion, of returning
home in a passion, and then writing the character of a person.
But as his feelings were warm, it is probable he might have
often practised the reverse. An anecdote of the times is
preserved in "The Memoirs of Grub-street," vol. ii. p. 291. "A
noble peer now living declares he stood with a very ill grace
in the history, till he had an opportunity put into his hands
of obliging the bishop, by granting a favour at court, upon
which the bishop told a friend, within an hour, that he was
mistaken in such a lord, and must go and alter his whole
character; and so he happens to have a pretty good one." In
this place I also find this curious extract from the MS.
"Memoirs of the M---- of H----." "Such a day Dr. B----t told
me King William was an obstinate, conceited man, that would
take no advice; and on this day King William told me that Dr.
B----t was a troublesome, impertinent man, whose company he
could not endure." These anecdotes are very probable, and lead
one to reflect. Some political tergiversation has been laid to
his charge; Swift accused him of having once been an advocate
for passive obedience and absolute power. He has been
reproached with the deepest ingratitude, for the purpose of
gratifying his darling passion of popularity, in his conduct
respecting the Duke of Lauderdale, his former patron. If the
following piece of secret history be true, he showed too much
of a compliant humour, at the cost of his honour. I find it in
Bishop Kennet's MSS. "Dr. Burnet having _over night_ given in
some important depositions against the Earl of Lauderdale to
the House of Commons, was, _before morning_, by the
intercession of the D----, made king's chaplain and preacher
at the Rolls; so he was bribed to hold the peace."--Lansdowne
MSS., 990. This was quite a politician's short way to
preferment! An honest man cannot leap up the ascent, however
he may try to climb. There was something morally wrong in this
transaction, because Burnet notices it, and acknowledges--"I
was much blamed for what I had done." The story is by no means
refuted by the _naive_ apology.
Burnet's character has been vigorously attacked, with all the
nerve of satire, in "Faction Displayed," attributed to
Shippen, whom Pope celebrates--
----"And pour myself as plain
As honest Shippen or as old Montaigne."
Shippen was a Tory. In "Faction Displayed," Burnet is
represented with his Cabal (so some party nicknames the
other), on the accession of Queen Anne, plotting the
disturbance of her government. "Black Aris's fierceness," that
is Burnet, is thus described:--
"A Scotch, seditious, unbelieving priest,
The brawny chaplain of the calves'-head feast,
Who first his patron, then his prince betray'd,
And does that church he's sworn to guard, invade,
Warm with rebellious rage, he thus began," &c.
One hardly suspects the hermit Parnell capable of writing
rather harsh verses, yet stinging satire; they are not in his
works; but he wrote the following lines on a report of a fire
breaking out in Burnet's library, which had like to have
answered the purpose some wished--of condemning the author and
his works to the flames--
"He talks, and writes, that Popery will return,
And we, and he, and all his works will burn;
And as of late he meant to bless the age
With _flagrant prefaces of party rage_,
O'ercome with passion and the subject's weight,
Lolling he nodded in his elbow-seat;
Down fell the candle! Grease and zeal conspire,
Heat meets with heat, and pamphlets burn their sire;
Here crawls a _preface_ on its half-burn'd maggots,
And there an _introduction_ brings its fagots;
Then roars the prophet of the northern nation,
Scorch'd by a flaming speech on moderation."
Thomas Warton smiles at Burnet for the horrors of Popery which
perpetually haunted him, in his "Life of Sir T. Pope," p. 53.
But if we substitute the term arbitrary power for popery, no
Briton will join in the abuse Burnet has received on this
account. A man of Burnet's fervid temper, whose foible was
strong vanity and a passion for popularity, would often rush
headlong into improprieties of conduct and language; his
enemies have taken ample advantage of his errors; but many
virtues his friends have recorded; and the elaborate and
spirited character which the Marquis of Halifax has drawn of
Burnet may soothe his manes, and secure its repose amid all
these disturbances around his tomb. This fine character is
preserved in the "Biographia Britannica." Burnet is not the
only instance of the motives of a man being honourable, while
his actions are frequently the reverse, from his impetuous
nature. He has been reproached for a want of that truth which
he solemnly protests he scrupulously adhered to; yet, of many
circumstances which were at the time condemned as "lies," when
Time drew aside the mighty veil, Truth was discovered beneath.
Tovey, with his visual good humour, in his "Anglia Judaica,"
p. 277, notices "that pleasant copious imagination which will
for ever rank our _English Burnet_ with the _Grecian
Heliodorus_." Roger North, in his "Examen," p. 413, calls him
"a busy Scotch parson." Lord Orford sneers at his hasty
epithets, and the colloquial carelessness of his style, in his
"Historic Doubts," where, in a note, he mentions "_one_
Burnet" tells a ridiculous story, mimicking Burnet's
chit-chat, and concludes surprisingly with, "So the Prince of
Orange mounted the throne."
After reading this note, how would that learned foreigner
proceed, who I have supposed might be projecting the
"Judgments of the Learned" on our English authors? Were he to
condemn Burnet as an historian void of all honour and
authority, he would not want for documents. It would require a
few minutes to explain to the foreigner the nature of
political criticism.
[341] Dryden was very coarsely satirised in the political poems of his
own day; and among the rest, in "The Session of the Poets,"--a
general onslaught directed against the writers of the time,
which furnishes us with many examples of unjust criticism on
these literary men, entirely originating in political feeling.
One example may suffice;
"Then in came Denham, that limping old bard,
Whose fame on _the Sophy_ and _Cooper's-hill_ stands,
And brought many stationers, who swore very hard
That nothing sold better except 'twere his lands.
But Apollo advised him to write something more,
To clear a suspicion which possessed the Court,
That _Cooper's-hill_, so much bragg'd on before,
Was writ by a vicar, who had forty pounds for't."
[342] Dr. Wagstaffe, in his "Character of Steele," alludes to the
rumour which Pope has sent down to posterity in a single
verse: "I should have thought Mr. Steele might have the
example of his _friend_ before his eyes, who _had the
reputation of being the author of The Dispensary_, till, by
two or three unlucky after-claps, he proved himself incapable
of writing it."--WAGSTAFFE'S _Misc. Works_, p. 136.
[343] I know not how to ascertain the degree of political skill which
Steele reached in his new career--he was at least a spirited
Whig, but the ministry was then under the malignant influence
of the concealed adherents to the Stuarts, particularly of
Bolingbroke, and such as Atterbury, whose secret history is
now much better known than in their own day. The terrors of
the Whigs were not unfounded. Steele in the House disappointed
his friends; from his popular Essays, it was expected he would
have been a fluent orator; this was no more the case with him
than Addison. On this De Foe said he had better have continued
the _Spectator_ than the _Tatler_.--LANSDOWNE'S _MSS._ 1097.
[344] Wagstaffe's "Miscellaneous Works," 1726, have been collected
into a volume. They contain satirical pieces of humour,
accompanied by some Hogarthian prints. His "Comment upon the
History of Tom Thumb," ridicules Addison's on the old ballad
of "Chevy Chase," who had declared "it was full of the
majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the
ancient poets," and quoted passages which he paralleled with
several in the AEneid. Wagstaffe tells us he has found "in the
library of a schoolboy, among other undiscovered valuable
authors, one more proper to adorn the shelves of Bodley or the
Vatican than to be confined to the obscurity of a private
study." This little Homer is the chanter of Tom Thumb. He
performs his office of "a true commentator," proving the
congenial spirit of the poet of Thumb with that of the poet of
AEneas. Addison got himself ridiculed for that fine natural
taste, which felt all the witchery of our ballad-Enniuses,
whose beauties, had Virgil lived with Addison, he would have
inlaid into his mosaic. The bigotry of classical taste, which
is not always accompanied by a natural one, and rests securely
on prescribed opinions and traditional excellence, long
contemned our vernacular genius, spurning at the minstrelsy of
the nation; Johnson's ridicule of "Percy's Reliques" had its
hour, but the more poetical mind of Scott has brought us back
to home feelings, to domestic manners, and eternal nature.
[345] I shall content myself with referring to "The Character of
Richard St--le, Esq.," in Dr. Wagstaffe's Miscellaneous Works,
1726. Considering that he had no personal knowledge of his
victim, one may be well surprised at his entering so deeply
into his private history; but of such a character as Steele,
the private history is usually too public--a mass of scandal
for the select curious. Poor Steele, we are told, was
"arrested for the maintenance of his bastards, and afterwards
printed a _proposal_ that the public should take care of
them;" got into the House "not to be arrested;"--"his _set_
speeches there, which he designs to get _extempore_ to speak
in the House." For his literary character we are told that
"Steele was a jay who borrowed a feather from the peacock,
another from the bullfinch, and another from the magpye; so
that _Dick_ is made up of borrowed colours; he borrowed his
humour from Estcourt, criticism of Addison, his poetry of
Pope, and his politics of Ridpath; so that his qualifications
as a man of genius, like Mr. T----s, as a member of
Parliament, _lie in thirteen parishes_." Such are the pillows
made up for genius to rest its head on!
Wagstaffe has sometimes delicate humour; Steele, who often
wrote in haste, necessarily wrote incorrectly. Steele had this
sentence: "And ALL, as one man, will join in a common
indignation against ALL who would perplex our obedience:" on
which our pleasant critic remarks--"Whatever contradiction
there is, as some suppose, in _all joining against all_, our
author has good authority for what he says; and it may be
proved, in spite of Euclid or Sir Isaac, that everything
consists of _two alls_, that these _alls_ are capable of being
divided and subdivided into as many _alls_ as you please, and
so _ad infinitum_. The following lines may serve for an
illustration:--
'Three children sliding on the ice
Upon a summer's day;
As it fell out, they all fell in;
The rest they ran away.'
"Though this polite author does not directly say there are
_two alls_, yet he implies as much; for I would ask any
_reasonable_ man what can be understood by _the rest they ran
away_, but the _other all_ we have been speaking of? The world
may see that I can exhibit the beauties, as well as quarrel
with the faults, of his composition, but I hope he will not
value himself on his _hasty productions_."
Poor Steele, with the best humour, bore these perpetual
attacks, not, however, without an occasional groan, just
enough to record his feelings. In one of his wild, yet
well-meant projects, of the invention of "a Fish-pool, or
Vessel for Importing Fish Alive," 1718, he complains of
calumnies and impertinent observations on him, and seems to
lay some to the account of his knighthood:--"While he was
pursuing what he believed might conduce to the common good, he
gave the syllables _Richard Steele_ to the publick, to be used
and treated as they should think fit; he must go on in _the
same indifference_, and allow the TOWN _their usual liberty
with his name_, which I find they think they have much more
room to sport with than formerly, as it is lengthened with the
monosyllable SIR."
[346] "Rehearsal Transprosed," p. 45.
[347] The late Gilbert Wakefield is an instance where the political
and theological opinions of a recluse student tainted his pure
literary works. Condemned as an enraged Jacobin by those who
were Unitarians in politics, and rejected because he was a
Unitarian in religion by the orthodox, poor Wakefield's
literary labours were usually reduced to the value of
waste-paper. We smile, but half in sorrow, in reading a
letter, where he says, "I meditate a beginning, during the
winter, of my criticisms on all the ancient Greek and Latin
authors,_ by small piecemeals, on the cheapest possible paper,
and at the least possible expense of printing_. As I can never
do more than barely indemnify myself, I shall print only 250
copies." He half-ruined himself by his splendid edition of
Lucretius, which could never obtain even common patronage from
the opulent friends of classical literature. Since his death
it has been reprinted, and is no doubt now a marketable
article for the bookseller; so that if some authors are not
successful for themselves, it is a comfort to think how
useful, in a variety of shapes, they are made so to others.
Even Gilbert's "contracted scheme of publication" he was
compelled to abandon! Yet the classic erudition of Wakefield
was confessed, and is still remembered. No one will doubt that
we have lost a valuable addition to our critical stores by
this literary persecution, were it only in the present
instance; but examples are too numerous!