[80] I draw my information from a very singular manuscript in the
Lansdowne collection, which I think has been mistaken for a boy's
ciphering book, of which it has much the appearance, No. 741, fo.
57, as it stands in the auctioneer's catalogue. It appears to be a
collection closely written, extracted out of Anthony Wood's papers;
and as I have discovered in the manuscript numerous notices not
elsewhere preserved, I am inclined to think that the transcriber
copied them from that mass of Anthony Wood's papers, of which more
than one sackful was burnt at his desire before him when dying. If
it be so, this MS. is the only register of many curious facts.
Ben Jonson has been too freely censured for his own free censures,
and particularly for one he made on Sir Walter Rawleigh, who, he
told Drummond, "esteemed more fame than conscience. _The best wits
in England were employed in making his History_; Ben himself had
written a piece to him of the Punic War, which he altered and set in
his book." Jonson's powerful advocate, Mr. Gifford, has not alleged
a word in the defence of our great bard's free conversational
strictures; the secret history of Rawleigh's great work had never
been discovered; on this occasion, however, Jonson only spoke what
he knew to be true--and there may have been other truths, in those
conversations which were set down at random by Drummond, who may
have chiefly recollected the satirical touches.
[81] I find this quotation in a sort of polemical work of natural
philosophy, entitled "Saggio di Storia Litteraria Fiorentina del
Secolo XVII. da Giovanne Clemente Nelli," Lucca, 1759, p. 58. Nelli
also refers to what he had said on this subject in his _Piante ad
alzati di S.M. del Fiore_, p. vi. e vii.; a work on architecture.
See Brunet; and Haym, _Bib. Ital. de Libri rari_.
[82] MR. PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, in his recent biography of Sir
Walter Rawleigh, a work of vigorous research and elegant
composition, has dedicated to me a supernumerary article in his
Appendix, entitled _Mr. D'Israeli's Errors_!
He has inferred from the present article, that I denied that
Rawleigh was the writer of his own great work!--because I have shown
how great works may be advantageously pursued by the aid of
"Literary Union." It is a monstrous inference! The chimera which
plays before his eyes is his own contrivance; he starts at his own
phantasmagoria, and leaves me, after all, to fight with his shadow.
Mr. Tytler _has not contradicted a single statement of mine_. I have
carefully read his article and my own, and I have made no
alteration.
I may be allowed to add that there is much redundant matter in the
article of Mr. Tytler; and, to use the legal style, there is much
"impertinence," which, with a little candour and more philosophy, he
would strike his pen through, as sound lawyers do on these
occasions.