the free school in that town, under Mr. Carganven, a man of eminent
character, to whom in gratitude he inscribes one of the Idylliums of
Theocritus, translated by him. His parents circumstances not being
sufficient to bestow a liberal education upon him, colonel Strangeways,
who was himself a man of taste and literature, took notice of the early
capacity of Creech, and being willing to indulge his violent propensity
to learning, placed him at Wadham College in Oxford, in the 16th year
of his age, anno 1675, being then put under the tuition of two of the
fellows. In the year 1683 he was admitted matter of arts, and
soon elected fellow of All-soul's College; at which time he gave
distinguished proofs of his classical learning, and philosophy, before
those who were appointed his examiners. The first work which brought
our author into reputation, was his translation of Lucretius, which
succeeded so well, that Mr. Creech had a party formed for him, who
ventured to prefer him to Mr. Dryden, in point of genius. Mr. Dryden
himself highly commended his Lucretius, and in his preface to the second
volume of Poetical Miscellanies thus characterises it. 'I now call to
mind what I owe to the ingenious, and learned translator of Lucretius.
I have not here designed to rob him of any part of that commendation,
which he has so justly acquired by the whole author, whose fragments
only fall to my portion. The ways of our translation are very different;
he follows him more closely than I have done, which became an
interpreter to the whole poem. I take more liberty, because it best
suited with my design, which was to make him as pleasing as I could. He
had been too voluminous, had he used my method, in so long a work; and
I had certainly taken his, had I made it my business to translate the
whole. The preference then is justly his; and I join with Mr. Evelyn in
the confession of it, with this additional advantage to him, that his
reputation is already established in this poet; mine is to make its
fortune in the world. If I have been any where obscure in following
our common author; or if Lucretius himself is to be condemned, I refer
myself to his excellent annotations, which I have often read, and always
with some pleasure.'
Many poets of the first class, of those times, addressed Mr. Creech in
commendatory verses, which are prefixed to the translation of Lucretius:
but this sudden blaze of reputation was soon obscured, by his failing
in an arduous task, which the success of his Lucretius prompted him to
attempt. This was a translation of the works of Horace, an author more
diversified, and consequently more difficult than Lucretius. Some have
insinuated, that Mr. Dryden, jealous of his rising fame, and willing
to take advantage of his vanity, in order to sink his reputation,
strenuously urged him to this undertaking, in which he was morally
certain Creech could not succeed. Horace is so, various, so exquisite,
and perfectly delightful, that he who culls flowers in a garden so
replenished with nature's productions, must be well acquainted with her
form, and able to delineate her beauties. In this attempt Creech failed,
and a shade was thrown over his reputation, which continued to obscure
it to the end of his life. It is from this circumstance alleged, that
Mr. Creech contracted a melancholy, and moroseness of temper, which
occasioned the disinclination of many towards him, and threw him into
habits of recluseness, and discontent. To this some writers likewise
impute the rash attempt on his own life, which he perpetrated at Oxford,
in 1701. This act of suicide could not be occasioned by want, for Mr.
Jacob tells us, that just before that accident, he had been presented by
the college to the living of Welling in Hertfordshire. Mr. Barnard
in his Nouvelles de la Republiques de Lettres, assigns another cause
besides the diminution of his fame, which might occasion this disastrous
fate. Mr. Creech, though a melancholy man, was yet subject to the
passion of love. It happened that he fixed his affections on a lady who
had either previously engaged hers, or who could not bestow them upon
him; this disappointment, which was a wound to his pride, so affected
his mind, that, unable any longer to support a load of misery, he hanged
himself in his own chamber. Which ever of these causes induced him,
the event was melancholy, and not a little heightened by his being a
clergyman, in whose heart religion should have taken deeper root, and
maintained a more salutary influence, than to suffer him thus to stain
his laurels with his own blood.
Mr. Creech's works, besides his Lucretius already mentioned, are chiefly
these,
The Second Elegy of Ovid's First Book of Elegies. The 6th, 7th, 8th, and
12th Elegies of Ovid's Second Book of Elegies. The 2d and 3d Eclogue of
Virgil. The Story of Lucretia, from Ovid de Fastis. B. ii. The Odes,
Satires, and Epistles of Horace already mentioned, dedicated to John
Dryden, esq; who is said to have held it in great contempt, which gave
such a shock to Mr. Creech's pride. The author in his preface to
this translation has informed us, that he had not an ear capable of
distinguishing one note in music, which, were there no other, was a
sufficient objection against his attempting the most musical poet in any
language.
The same year he published his Translation of the Idylliums of
Theocritus, with Rapin's Discourse on Pastorals, as also the Life of
Phelopidas, from the Latin of Cornelius Nepos.
In Dryden's Translation of Juvenal and Persius, Mr. Creech did the 13th
Satire of Juvenal, and subjoined Notes. He also translated into English,
the verses before Mr. Quintenay's Compleat Gardiner. The Life of Solon,
from the Greek of Plutarch. Laconic Apophthegms, or Remarkable Sayings
of the Spartans, printed in the first Volume of Plutarch's Morals.
A Discourse concerning Socrates's Dæmon. The two First Books of the
Symposiacs.
These are the works of Mr. Creech: A man of such parts and learning,
according to the accounts of all who have written of him, that, had he
not by the last act of his life effaced the merit of his labours, he
would have been an ornament as well to the clerical profession, as his
country in general. He well understood the ancients, had an unusual
penetration in discovering their beauties, and it appears by his own
translation of Lucretius, how elegantly he could cloath them in an
English attire. His judgment was solid; he was perfectly acquainted with
the rules of criticism, and he had from nature an extraordinary genius.
However, he certainly over-rated his importance, or at lead his friends
deceived him, when they set him up as a rival to Dryden! but if he was
inferior to that great man in judgment, and genius, there were few of
the same age to whom he needed yield the palm. Had he been content to be
reckoned only the second, instead of the first genius of the times, he
might have lived happy, and died regreted and reverenced, but like Cæsar
of old, who would rather be the lord of a little village, than the
second man in Rome, his own ambition overwhelmed him.
We shall present the reader with a few lines from the second Book of
Lucretius, as a specimen of our author's versification, by which it will
be found how much he fell short of Dryden in point of harmony, though he
seems to have been equal to any other poet, who preceded Dryden, in that
particular.
'Tis pleasant, when the seas are rough, to stand,
And view another's danger, safe at land:
Not 'cause he's troubled, but 'tis sweet to see
Those cares and fears, from which our selves are free.
'Tis also pleasant to behold from far
How troops engage, secure ourselves from war.
But above all, 'tis pleasantest to get
The top of high philosophy, and sit
On the calm, peaceful, flourishing head of it:
Whence we may view, deep, wondrous deep below,
How poor mistaken mortals wand'ring go,
Seeking the path to happiness: some aim
At learning, wit, nobility, or fame:
Others with cares and dangers vex each hour
To reach the top of wealth, and sov'reign pow'r:
Blind wretched man! in what dark paths of strife
We walk this little journey of our life!
While frugal nature seeks for only ease;
A body free from pains, free from disease;
A mind from cares and jealousies at peace.
And little too is needful to maintain
The body sound in health, and free from pain:
Not delicates, but such as may supply
Contented nature's thrifty luxury:
She asks no more. What tho' no boys of gold
Adorn the walls, and sprightly tapers hold,
Whose beauteous rays, scatt'ring the gawdy light,
Might grace the feast, and revels of the night:
What tho' no gold adorns; no music's sound
With double sweetness from the roofs rebound;
Yet underneath a loving myrtle's shade,
Hard by a purling stream supinely laid,
When spring with fragrant flow'rs the earth has spread,
And sweetest roses grow around our head;
Envy'd by wealth and pow'r, with small expence
We may enjoy the sweet delights of sense.
Who ever heard a fever tamer grown
In cloaths embroider'd o'er, and beds of down.
Than in coarse rags?
Since then such toys as these
Contribute nothing to the body's ease,
As honour, wealth, and nobleness of blood,
'Tis plain they likewise do the mind no good:
If when thy fierce embattell'd troops at land
Mock-fights maintain; or when thy navies Hand
In graceful ranks, or sweep the yielding seas,
If then before such martial fights as these,
Disperse not all black jealousies and cares,
Vain dread of death, and superstitious fears
Not leave thy mind; but if all this be vain,
If the same cares, and dread, and fears remain,
If Traytor-like they seize thee on the throne,
And dance within the circle of a crown;
If noise of arms, nor darts can make them fly,
Nor the gay sparklings of the purple dye.
If they on emperors will rudely seize,
What makes us value all such things as these,
But folly, and dark ignorance of happiness?
For we, as boys at night, by day do fear
Shadows as vain, and senseless as those are.
Wherefore that darkness, which o'erspreads our fouls,
Day can't disperse; but those eternal rules,
Which from firm premises true reason draws,
And a deep insight into nature's laws.
* * * * *
ARTHUR MAYNWARING, Esq;
A Gentleman distinguished both for poetry and politics, as well as the
gay accomplishments of life. He was born at Ightfield, in the year 1668,
and educated at the grammar-school at Shrewsbury, where he remained
four or five years; and at about seventeen years of age, was removed to
Christ's Church in Oxford, under the tuition of Mr. George Smalridge,
afterwards bishop of Bristol. After he removed from Oxford, he went
into Cheshire, where he lived several years with his uncle, Mr. Francis
Cholmondley, a gentleman of great integrity and honour; but by a
political prejudice, very averse to the government of William the IIId,
to whom he refused to take the oaths, and instilled anti-revolution
principles into his nephew,[1] who embraced them warmly; and on his
first entry into life, reduced to practice what he held in speculation.
He wrote several pieces in favour of James the IId's party: amongst
which was a Panegyric on that King. He wrote another intitled the King
of Hearts, to ridicule lord Delamere's entry into London, at his first
coming to town after the revolution. This poem was said to be Dryden's,
who was charged with it by Mr. Tonson; but he disowned it, and told him
it was written by an ingenious young gentleman, named Maynwaring, then
about twenty two years of age.
When our author was introduced to the acquaintance of the duke of
Somerset, and the earls of Dorset, and Burlington, he began to entertain
(says Oldmixon) very different notions of politics: Whether from the
force of the arguments made use of by those noblemen; or, from a
desire of preferment, which he plainly saw lay now upon the revolution
interest, cannot be determined; but he espoused the Whig ministry, as
zealously as he had formerly struggled for the exiled monarch.
Our author studied the law till he was five or six and twenty years
old, about which time his father died, and left him an estate of near
eight-hundred pounds a year, but so incumbred, that the interest money
amounted to almost as much as the revenue. Upon the conclusion of the
peace of Ryswick, he went to Paris, where he became acquainted with
Monsieur Boileau, who invited him to his country house, entertained him
very elegantly, and spoke much to him of the English poetry, but all by
way of enquiry; for he affected to be as ignorant of the English Muse,
as if our nation had been as barbarous as the Laplanders.
A gentleman, a friend of Mr. Maynwaring, visiting him some time after,
upon the death of Mr. Dryden 'Boileau, said that he was wonderfully
pleased to see by the public papers, that the English nation had paid so
extraordinary honours to one of their poets, burying him at the public
charge;' and then asked the gentleman who that poet was, with as much
indifference as if he had never heard Dryden's name; which he could no
more be unacquainted with, than our country was with his; for he often
frequented lord Montague's house, when he was embassador in France, and
being also an intimate friend of Monsieur De la Fontaine, who had spent
some time in England, it was therefore impossible he could be ignorant
of the fame of Dryden; but it is peculiar to that nation to hold all
others in contempt. The French would as fain monopolize wit, as the
wealth and power of Europe; but thanks to the arms and genius of
Britain, they have attempted both the one and the other without success.
Boileau's pretending not to know Dryden, to use the words of Milton,
'argued himself unknown.' But perhaps a reason may be assigned, why the
wits of France affected a contempt for Mr. Dryden, which is this. That
poet, in many of his Prefaces and Dedications, has unanswerably shewn,
that the French writers are really deficient in point of genius;' that
the correctness for which they are remarkable, and that even pace which
they maintain in all their dramatic compositions, is a proof that they
are not capable of sublime conceptions; that they never rise to any
degree of elevation, and are in truth uninspired by the muses:--Judgment
they may have to plan and conduct their designs; but few French poets
have ever found the way of writing to the heart. Have they attained the
sublime height of Shakespear, the tenderness of Otway, or the pomp of
Rowe? and yet these are names which a French versifier will pretend,
with an air of contempt, never to have heard of.
The truth is, our poets have lately done the French too much honour, by
translating their pieces, and bringing them on the stage; as if our own
stock was exhausted and the British genius had failed: But it is some
satisfaction that these attempts seem now to be discouraged; we have
seen a late play of theirs (we call it a play, for it was neither a
tragedy nor a comedy) translated by a languid poet of our own, received
with the coolness it deserved.
But to return to Mr. Maynwaring. Upon his arrival in England, from
France, he was made one of the commissioners of the customs, in which
post he distinguished himself by his skill and fidelity. Of the latter
of these qualities we have an instance, in his treatment of a man, who
sollicited to be a tide-waiter: Somebody had told him that his best way
to succeed would be to make a present. The advice had been perhaps
good enough if he had not mistaken his man. For understanding that
Mr. Maynwaring had the best interest at the board of any of the
commissioners, with the lords of the treasury; he sent him a letter,
with a purse of fifty-guineas, desiring his favour towards obtaining the
place he sollicited: Afterwards he delivered a petition to the board,
which was read, and several of the commissioners having spoke to it, Mr.
Maynwaring took out the purse of fifty guineas, and the letter, telling
them that as long as he could prevent it, that man should never have
this, or any other place in the revenue[2].
Mr. Maynwaring was admitted a member of the Kit-Kat Club, and was
considered as one of the chief ornaments of it, by his pleasantry and
wit.
In the beginning of queen Anne's reign, lord treasurer Godolphin,
engaged Mr. Donne, to quit the office of auditor of the imprests, his
lordship paying him several thousand pounds for his doing it, and he
never let Mr. Maynwaring know what he was doing for him, till he made
him a present of a patent for that office, worth about two-thousand
pounds a year in time of business. In the Parliament which met in 1705,
our author was chosen a burgess for Preston in Lancashire[3].
He had a considerable share in the Medley, and was author of several
other pieces, of which we shall presently give some account.
He died at St. Albans, November the 13th, 1712, having some time before
made his will; in which he left Mrs. Oldfield, the celebrated actress
his executrix, by whom he had a son, named Arthur Maynwaring. He divided
his estate pretty equally between that child, Mrs. Oldfield, and his
sister; Mr. Oldmixon tells us, that Mr. Maynwaring loved this actress,
for nine or ten years before his death, with the strongest passion:
It was in some measure owing to his instructions that she became so
finished a player; for he understood the action of the stage as well
as any man, and took great pleasure to see her excell in it. He wrote
several Prologues and Epilogues for her, and would always hear her
rehearse them in private, before she spoke them on the stage. His
friends of both sexes quarrelled with him for his attachment to her, and
so much resented it, that Mrs. Oldfield frequently remonstrated to him,
that it was for his honour and interest to break off the intrigue: which
frankness and friendship of hers, did, as he often confessed, but engage
him the more firmly; and all his friends at last gave over importuning
him to leave her, as she gained more and more upon him.
In honour of our author, Mr. Oldmixon observes, that he had an
abhorrence of those that swore, or talked profanely in conversation.
He looked upon it as a poor pretence to wit, and never excused it in
himself or others.--I have already observed, that our author had a
share in the Medley, a paper then set up in favour of the Hanoverian
succession, in which he combats the Examiner, who wrote on the opposite,
or, at least, the High-Church Interest.
He also wrote the following pieces.
1. Remarks on a late Romance, intitled the Memorial of the Church of
England, or the History of the Ten Champions.
2. A Translation of the second Ode, of the first book of Horace.
3. A Translation of the fifth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
4. A Character of the new Ministers, 1710.
5. Several Songs, Poems, Prologues and Epilogues.
6. There was a Manuscript given him to peruse, which contained Memoirs
of the duke of Marlborough's famous march to Blenheim: It was written by
a chaplain of the duke's, with great exactness as to the incidents, but
was defective in form. Mr. Maynwaring was desired to alter and improve
it, which he found too difficult a task; but being greatly pleased with
the particular account of all that pass'd in that surprizing march,
he resolved that it should not be lost, and to give it a new and more
perfect form himself, by reducing a kind of diary into a regular
history. These papers fell into the hands of Sir Richard Steel.
7. A Translation of part of Tully's Offices.
8. Four Letters to a Friend in North-Britain, written upon the
publishing Dr. Sacheveral's Trial.
9. The History of Hannibal, and Hanno, from the best authors: In this
piece he is supposed to intend by Hannibal, the duke of Marlborough; by
Hanno, the lord treasurer Oxford, by Valerius Flaccus, count Tallard,
and by Asdrubal, Dr. Robinson, bishop of Bristol.
10. The Speech of Alcibiades to the Athenians, printed in the
Whig-Examiner, Numb. 3.
11. The French King's Promise to the Pretender.
12. A Short Account, and Defence of the Barrier Treaty.
13. Remarks upon the present Negotiation of Peace, begun between
Great-Britain and France.
14. The Bewdley Cafe.
15. He had a considerable hand in a Letter to a High-Churchman.
16. He revived and published a treatise called Bouchain, in a Dialogue
between the Medley and the Examiner, about the management of the war in
1711.
17. He wrote a Letter to the Free-holders, a little before the election
of the new Parliament.
18. He had a great hand in a pamphlet, entitled the British Academy,
wherein he rallied Dr. Swift's Letter to the lord treasurer Oxford,
about altering the English language.
19. The Letter from Doway, was written by him, or some friend of his,
with his assistance.
These are chiefly the works of Maynwaring, who was a gentleman of
genius, and appears to have been a good-natur'd honest man. His moral
life has only been blamed for his intrigue with Mrs. Oldfield; but I
am persuaded when the accomplishments of that lady are remembered, (so
bright) is employed in the composition of one book, a bookseller may
publish twenty; so that in the very nature of things, a bookseller
without oppression, a crime which by unsuccessful writers is generally
imputed to them, may grow rich, while the most industrious and able
author can arrive at no more than a decent competence: and even to that,
many a great genius has never attained.
No sooner had Mr. Head a little recovered himself, than we find him
cheated again by the syren alurements of pleasure and poetry, in the
latter of which, however, it does not appear he made any proficiency.
He failed a second time, in the world, and having recourse to his pen,
wrote the first part of the English Rogue, which being too libertine,
could not be licensed till he had expunged some of the most luscious
descriptions out of it.
Mr. Winstanley, p. 208, has informed us, that at the coming out of this
first part, he was with him at the Three Cup tavern in Holborn drinking
a glass of Rhenish, and made these verses upon him,
What Gusman, Buscan, Francion, Rablais writ,
I once applauded for most excellent wit;
But reading thee, and thy rich fancy's store,
I now condemn, what I admir'd before.
Henceforth translations pack away, be gone,
No Rogue so well writ, as the English one.
We cannot help observing, that Winstanley has a little ridiculously
shewn his vanity, by informing the world, that he could afford to drink
a glass of Rhenish; and has added nothing to his reputation by the
verses, which have neither poetry nor wit in them.
[Footnote 1: Oldmixon's Life of Maynwaring.]
[Footnote 2: Life, p. xviii. xix.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. xxii.]
* * * * *
The HON. Mrs. MONK.
This Lady was the daughter of the Right Hon. the Lord Molesworth, a
nobleman of Ireland, and wife of George Monk, Esq; By the force of her
natural genius, she learnt the Latin, Italian, and Spanish tongues, and
by a constant reading of the best authors in those languages, became so
great a proficient, especially in poetry, that she wrote many pieces
that were deemed worthy of publication, and soon after her death, were
printed and published with the following title, Marinda. Poems, and
Translations upon several occasions, printed in London, 1716. The book
is addressed to her Royal Highness Carolina Princess of Wales, in a
long dedication, dated March 26, 1716, written by her father, who thus
affectionately speaks of the poems and their author.
'Most of them (says he) are the product of the leisure hours of a young
gentlewoman lately deceased; who in a remote country retirement, without
omitting the daily care due to a large family, not only perfectly
acquired the several languages here made use of; but the good morals and
principles contained in those books, so as to put them in practice, as
well during her life and languishing sickness, as the hour of her death;
in short she died not only like a Christian, but a Roman lady, and so
became at once the object of the grief, and comfort of her relations. As
much as I am obliged to be sparing in commending what belongs to me, I
cannot forbear thinking some of these circumstances uncommon enough to
be taken notice of: I loved her more, because she deserved it, than
because she was mine, and I cannot do greater honour to her memory, than
by consecrating her labours, or rather diversion to your Royal Highness,
as we found most of them in her escrutore, after her death, written with
her own hand, little expecting, and as little desiring the public should
have any opportunity, either of applauding or condemning them.'
Mr. Jacob tells us, that these Poems and Translations, shew the true
spirit, and numbers of poetry, a delicacy of turn, and justness of
thought and expression. They consist of Ecclogues; the Masque of the
Virtues against Love, from Guarini; some translations from the French
and Italians; Familiar Epistles, Odes and Madrigals.
Her poetry has great warmth, and tenderness of sentiment. The following
Epitaph on a lady of pleasure, was written by her,
O'er this marble drop a tear,
Here lies fair Rosalinde,
All mankind was pleas'd with her,
And she with all mankind.
And likewise this Epigram upon another lady of the same character.
Chloe, her gossips entertains,
With stories of her child-bed pains,
And fiercely against Hymen rails:
But Hymen's not so much to blame;
She knows, unless her memory fails,
E'er she was wed, 'twas much the same.
The following verses, which breathe a true spirit of tenderness, were
written by her, on her death-bed at Bath, when her husband was in
London,