John Oldmixon's _Essay on Criticism_, like his _Reflections on Dr.
Swift's Letter to the Earl of Oxford, about the English Tongue_,[1]
provides evidence to support Dr. Johnson's description of its author as
a "scribbler for a party," and indicates that Oldmixon must have been
devoted to gathering examples of what appeared to him to be the good and
bad in literature.
The story of the appearance of the _Essay on Criticism_ in 1728 should
begin in 1724, when Oldmixon published in one volume his _Critical
History of England, Ecclesiastical and Civil_. Dr. Zachary Grey's
criticism of this book was answered by Oldmixon in 1725 in _A Review of
Dr. Zachary Grey's Defence of our Ancient and Modern Historians_. In
1726 a two-volume edition of the _Critical History of England_ appeared
with the 1725 edition of the _Review of Dr. Zachary Grey's Defence_
appended to the first volume. In the preface to the second volume of the
_Critical History_ Oldmixon referred to the _Essay on Criticism_,
stating that it was ready for the press, but that since it would have
made the second volume too large, it would be published at a later date.
The _Essay_, he stated, was to prepare the public for his translation of
Abbe Bouhours' _La Manière De Bien Penser_. It was not, however, until
1728 that the _Essay_ reached the public. Besides appearing separately,
it was appended, in place of the now removed answer to Dr. Grey, to the
"third" edition of the _Critical History_.[2] There is no reference to
the addition of the _Essay_ in the preface to the first volume, but its
appearance and addition is referred to in the preface to the second
volume.
Oldmixon seems to have had more than one purpose for writing the
_Essay_; one of them is made quite clear in the second paragraph:
I shall not, in this _Essay_, enter into the philosophical Part
of Criticism which _Corneille_ complains of, and that
_Aristotle_ and his Commentators have treated of Poetry, rather
as _Philosophers_ than Poets. I shall not attempt to give
Reasons why Thoughts are _sublime_, _noble_, _delicate_,
_agreeable_, and the like, but content my self with producing
Examples of every Kind of right Thinking, and leave it to
Authors of more Capacity and Leisure, to treat the Matter _à
Fond_, and teach us to imitate our selves what we admire in
others.
The remarks concerning the English need for guidance in "right thinking"
are obviously intended to prepare a public for Oldmixon's translation of
Bouhours' _La Manière De Bien Penser_. Following the method of Bouhours,
who was in turn following Longinus, Oldmixon gives examples from English
literature of the various divisions of "right thinking" and, also like
Bouhours, he includes specimens of failures in this art. The bad
examples he presents provide ample evidence that the Essay was also
serving a Whig polemical purpose, for they are drawn from such writers
as Clarendon, Pope and, in particular, Laurence Echard. The tone and
nature of Oldmixon's remarks on Echard, whose History he had already
criticized at length in the second volume of the _Critical History_, can
be seen in this explanation of his general treatment of that author:
I must sincerely acknowledge, that it was not for Want of Will,
that I did not mention what is beautiful in our Historian, but
for Want of Opportunity.
Oldmixon's remarks on Pope's _Homer_ are sometimes laudatory, but more
often patronizing; the criticism of Pope's _Essay on Criticism_ is quite
pointed:
I dare not say any Thing of the last _Essay on Criticism_ in
Verse, but that if any more curious Reader has discovered
in it something new, which is not in Dryden's _Prefaces_,
_Dedications_, and his _Essay on Dramatick Poetry_, not to
mention the _French_ Criticks, I should be very glad to have
the Benefit of the Discovery.
The rift between Pope and Oldmixon can perhaps be dated from the
publication by the latter in 1714 of the "Receipt to make a cuckold"
with great apologies for its indecency. Oldmixon continued to tempt
satiric fate in the ensuing years, and one wonders if, when seeking a
substitute for the _Dunciad_ in the "last" _Miscellany_ of 1728, Pope
may not have remembered Oldmixon's announcement in 1726 of his intention
to publish an _Essay on Criticism_ which was to be written after the
manner of Bouhours. It is not impossible that this was one of many
influences acting upon Pope to organize the "high flights of poetry" he
had been collecting over the years for a Scriblerian project. Oldmixon
appears, with Gildon and Dennis, among the porpoises in Chapter VI of
_Peri Bathous_, and the presentation of some of the material in the
_Bathous_, although more directly indebted to Longinus, does bring
Oldmixon's _Essay_ to mind.
It would seem that Oldmixon felt that more than the porpoises referred
to him, for in his translation and adaptation of Bouhours' _La Manière
De Bien Penser_, which he published under the title of _The Arts of
Logic and Rhetorick_ later in 1728, the references to Pope are much
harsher, and Swift also comes under more pointed attack. _Gulliver's
Travels_, _A Tale of A Tub_ (already censured by Oldmixon in his
_Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter_), the _Essay on Criticism_, _Windsor
Forest_ and the _Homer_ are the objects of bitter criticism. In the
concluding pages of _The Arts of Logic and Rhetorick_ Oldmixon wrote:
This delicate Author [Pope] has written a _rhiming Essay on
Criticism_, and made himself merry with his Brethren in a
notable Treatise call'd the _Art of Sinking_, to which he and
his Partner S----t, have contributed, more than all the rest of
their contemporary writers, if _Trifling_ and _Grimace_ are not
in the high Parts of Writing.... What a Precipice is it from
Locke's Human Understanding to Swift's Lilliput and
Profundity!... there might have been Hopes of rising again; but
we sink now like Ships laden with Lead, and must despair of
ever recovering the Height from which we have fallen.[3]
As we move from Oldmixon's _Essay on Criticism_ to Pope's _Peri Bathous_
and on to _The Arts of Logic and Rhetorick_, we perhaps hear the
stretching of the spring on a trap, that snapped in the 1735 edition of
the _Dunciad_, in which Oldmixon replaced Dennis as the "Senior" diver
"Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher."[4]
The _Essay on Criticism_ is, however, more than an example of the
inter-relation of literature and politics in the eighteenth century; and
it is more than a step on the way to its author's immortalizing in
lead. It presents, albeit not very imaginatively, a statement of many
of the literary theories and attitudes of the Augustan period. However
brief and incomplete, the remarks about the language of poetry and upon
the effects of certain literary passages are of interest as imperfect
exercises in a type of practical criticism. The material used by
Oldmixon and the literary references he makes indicate, as do many of
his other writings, that, although he was a "scribbler for a party," he
was a man of some literary sense, taste and intelligence.
Robert Madden, C.S.B.
St. Michael's College
University of Toronto