THE life of the Earl of Halifax was properly that of an artful and active
statesman, employed in balancing parties, contriving expedients, and
combating opposition, and exposed to the vicissitudes of advancement and
degradation; but in this collection poetical merit is the claim to
attention; and the account which is here to be expected may properly be
proportioned, not to his influence in the State, but to his rank among
the writers of verse.
Charles Montague was born April 16, 1661, at Horton, in Northamptonshire,
the son of Mr. George Montague, a younger son of the Earl of Manchester.
He was educated first in the country, and then removed to Westminster,
where, in 1677, he was chosen a King’s Scholar, and recommended himself
to Busby by his felicity in extemporary epigrams. He contracted a very
intimate friendship with Mr. Stepney; and in 1682, when Stepney was
elected at Cambridge, the election of Montague being not to proceed till
the year following, he was afraid lest by being placed at Oxford he might
be separated from his companion, and therefore solicited to be removed to
Cambridge, without waiting for the advantages of another year.
It seemed indeed time to wish for a removal, for he was already a
schoolboy of one-and-twenty.
His relation, Dr. Montague, was then Master of the college in which he
was placed a Fellow-Commoner, and took him under his particular care.
Here he commenced an acquaintance with the great Newton, which continued
through his life, and was at last attested by a legacy.
In 1685 his verses on the death of King Charles made such an impression
on the Earl of Dorset that he was invited to town, and introduced by that
universal patron to the other wits. In 1687 he joined with Prior in “The
City Mouse and the Country Mouse,” a burlesque of Dryden’s “Hind and
Panther.” He signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, and sat in
the Convention. He about the same time married the Countess Dowager of
Manchester, and intended to have taken Orders; but, afterwards altering
his purpose, he purchased for £1,500 the place of one of the clerks of
the Council.
After he had written his epistle on the victory of the Boyne, his patron
Dorset introduced him to King William with this expression, “Sir, I have
brought a _mouse_ to wait on your Majesty.” To which the King is said to
have replied, “You do well to put me in the way of making a _man_ of
him;” and ordered him a pension of £500. This story, however current,
seems to have been made after the event. The King’s answer implies a
greater acquaintance with our proverbial and familiar diction than King
William could possibly have attained.
In 1691, being member of the House of Commons, he argued warmly in favour
of a law to grant the assistance of counsel in trials for high treason;
and in the midst of his speech falling into some confusion, was for a
while silent; but, recovering himself, observed, “how reasonable it was
to allow counsel to men called as criminals before a court of justice,
when it appeared how much the presence of that assembly could disconcert
one of their own body.”
After this he rose fast into honours and employments, being made one of
the Commissioners of the Treasury, and called to the Privy Council. In
1694 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the next year engaged in
the great attempt of the recoinage, which was in two years happily
completed. In 1696 he projected the _general fund_ and raised the credit
of the Exchequer; and after inquiry concerning a grant of Irish Crown
lands, it was determined by a vote of the Commons that Charles Montague,
Esq., _had deserved his Majesty’s favour_. In 1698, being advanced to
the first Commission of the Treasury, he was appointed one of the regency
in the King’s absence: the next year he was made Auditor of the
Exchequer, and the year after created Baron Halifax. He was, however,
impeached by the Commons; but the Articles were dismissed by the Lords.
At the accession of Queen Anne he was dismissed from the Council; and in
the first Parliament of her reign was again attacked by the Commons, and
again escaped by the protection of the Lords. In 1704 he wrote an answer
to Bromley’s speech against occasional conformity. He headed the inquiry
into the danger of the Church. In 1706 he proposed and negotiated the
Union with Scotland; and when the Elector of Hanover received the Garter,
after the Act had passed for securing the Protestant Succession, he was
appointed to carry the ensigns of the Order to the Electoral Court. He
sat as one of the judges of Sacheverell, but voted for a mild sentence.
Being now no longer in favour, he contrived to obtain a writ for
summoning the Electoral Prince to Parliament as Duke of Cambridge.
At the Queen’s death he was appointed one of the regents; and at the
accession of George I. was made Earl of Halifax, Knight of the Garter,
and First Commissioner of the Treasury, with a grant to his nephew of the
reversion of the Auditorship of the Exchequer. More was not to be had,
and this he kept but a little while; for on the 19th of May, 1715, he
died of an inflammation of his lungs.
Of him, who from a poet became a patron of poets, it will be readily
believed that the works would not miss of celebration. Addison began to
praise him early, and was followed or accompanied by other poets; perhaps
by almost all, except Swift and Pope, who forbore to flatter him in his
life, and after his death spoke of him—Swift with slight censure, and
Pope, in the character of Bufo, with acrimonious contempt.
He was, as Pope says, “fed with dedications;” for Tickell affirms that no
dedication was unrewarded. To charge all unmerited praise with the guilt
of flattery, and to suppose that the encomiast always knows and feels the
falsehoods of his assertions, is surely to discover great ignorance of
human nature and human life. In determinations depending not on rules,
but on experience and comparison, judgment is always in some degree
subject to affection. Very near to admiration is the wish to admire.
Every man willingly gives value to the praise which he receives, and
considers the sentence passed in his favour as the sentence of
discernment. We admire in a friend that understanding that selected us
for confidence; we admire more, in a patron, that judgment which, instead
of scattering bounty indiscriminately, directed it to us; and, if the
patron be an author, those performances which gratitude forbids us to
blame, affection will easily dispose us to exalt.
To these prejudices, hardly culpable, interest adds a power always
operating, though not always, because not willingly, perceived. The
modesty of praise wears gradually away; and perhaps the pride of
patronage may be in time so increased that modest praise will no longer
please.
Many a blandishment was practised upon Halifax which he would never have
known had he no other attractions than those of his poetry, of which a
short time has withered the beauties. It would now be esteemed no
honour, by a contributor to the monthly bundles of verses, to be told
that, in strains either familiar or solemn, he sings like Montague.