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thackeray's 
 e:n^glish humoueists 
 
THE 
 
 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 A SERIES OF LECTURES 
 
 BY 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY 
 
 [FIRST EDITION 1853 ; SECOND EDITION, REVISED, 1853] 
 
 EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 
 C. B. WHEELER 
 
 OXFORD 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1913 >s. 
 
A 
 
 HENRY FEOWDE 
 
 PT}BL1SHEE TO THE UNIVEESPTY OF OXFOED 
 
 LONDON, EDrUBUIlOH, NDW YORK, TOBONTO 
 
 MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOE 
 
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST 
 Swift .......... 1 
 
 LECTURE THE SECOND 
 
 CONGKEVE AND AdDISON .... .43 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD 
 Steele ..... ... 82 
 
 LECTURE THE FOURTH 
 Pbiob, Gay, and Pope 123 
 
 LECTURE THE FIFTH 
 HoGABTH, Smollett, and Fielding .... 170 
 
 LECTURE THE SIXTH 
 
 Sterne and GtOldsmith . . • 208 
 
 EDITOR'S NOTES . • 249 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The first of Thackeray's Lectures on the English 
 Humourists was given at Willis's Rooms, London, on 
 May 21, 1851. It was attended by a large audience, 
 which included many of his friends, among the number 
 being Carlyle, HaUam, Kinglake, Macaulay, and Mihnan. 
 The last lecture was deHvered on July 3. The, whole 
 series was an unqualified success, so that invitations for 
 a repetition poured in from all over the country. The 
 lectures were accordingly repeated in a number of towns 
 both in England and Scotland for the succeeding twelve 
 months ; and in the autumn of 1852 Thackeray carried 
 them to America. Here he received a warm welcome 
 from a nation that does nothing by halves ; and he 
 travelled from town to town, not merely enjoying the 
 hospitahty of the most hospitable people in the world, 
 but making money faster than he had ever made it 
 before. 
 
 Dr. Johnson could see no good in lectures, except 
 where experiments were to be shown, ' as iu chemistry 
 or the making of shoes.' But here, as in many other 
 cases, the eminent doctor was taking a one-sided view 
 of the question. 'Etoto. the lecturer's point of view a 
 course of lectures may be ten times more profitable than 
 the same amount of time spent in mere pen-work. 
 Thackeray had been trjdng for seventeen years to live 
 by his pen ; and, though he had been moderately 
 successful, he had not been able to make any provision 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 for his own future or that of his daughters. On his 
 lecturing tour at home he made as much as 150Z. for 
 each course, which, as he says, is ' pretty well for six 
 hours ' ; and from America he brought back no less 
 than 2,500Z., so that he felt no further anxiety with 
 regard to money. 
 
 Johnson in his wholesale condemnation of lectures 
 had also failed to take into account the curiosity of 
 the audience, the almost childish love of humanity for 
 personalities. Most people on reading a book which 
 strongly appeals to them are apt to exclaim, 'What 
 a charming writer ! How I wish I knew him ! ' and, 
 failing a private introduction, they will flock in crowds 
 to see him and hear his voice ; though, unless the author 
 has a winning personality — which is found no more com- 
 monly among authors than any other class — the result 
 of their inspection is too often to tone down— quite 
 unfairly — ^their admiration for the author's writings. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the success of Thackeray's 
 lectures was due far more to the interest the public took 
 in the lecturer than to any desire to hear what he had 
 to say about the writers of the eighteenth century. 
 What was Addison to them, or they to Addison ? But 
 Michael Angelo Titmarsh, the white-haired giant in 
 spectacles, who had already forced his way into the 
 front rank of EngUsh writers, who knew how to toiKsh 
 men's hearts by his pathos, to delight them with his 
 humour, and to sting them with his sarcasm — ^he was 
 one whom aU would flock to hear, on whatever topic 
 he chose to speak. 
 
 And Thackeray, who knew his world, was far too 
 wise to suppose that he could interest a general audience 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 in his subject on its purely literary side : to make his 
 lectures a success, he had to feed the public with per- 
 sonalities, to indulge their curiosity as to the lives, 
 habits, loves, and hatreds of the authors who formed 
 his subject ; as he says in his opening sentence, to 
 speak of the men, rather than of their books. 
 
 This decision, however acceptable to ' the general ', 
 is to be regretted by those who prefer to feel sure of 
 the grounds of a discussion : for, while there is com- 
 parative certainty what an author wrote — though con- 
 siderable emphasis must be laid on the ' comparative ' 
 — ^there is not, and there cannot be, for us, any kind 
 of certainty what he was. Put Porster's portrait of 
 Swift alongside of Dr. Johnson's : which is the true 
 likeness ? Is either ? Would one even know them to 
 be pictures of the same man ? But there is no doubt 
 whatever as to the character of Captain Lemuel GulUver. 
 
 Moreover, this personal criticism is hardly fair. 
 Unless, Hke the Roman poet, an author has asked to 
 be judged by his life rather than his writings, the 
 interest of the public ought in common justice to be 
 directed to that which the author has given it, which is 
 presumably the best he had to give, rather than to the 
 more intimate and personal details which he has seen 
 fit to withhold. That Thackeray himself felt this is 
 shown by the wish he expressed that no biography of 
 himself should be written : not that there was anything 
 to be concealed in his eminently upright, kindly, and 
 industrious life, but, as I take it, because he drew an 
 instinctive and altogether right distinction between the 
 public and the private side of a man's character. It is 
 — or it ought to be-^of no possible interest to us that 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 Captain Sir Richard Steele, or His Worship Henry 
 Fielding, Esquire, stipendiary magistrate, was often 
 carried drunk to bed ; actions such as this they never 
 cared to make public in their lives, nor would they 
 readily have had published to posterity ; what concerns 
 us, and what they wished-to concern us, is the behaviour 
 of Sir Roger de Coverley and Tom Jones, of which we 
 should read without dwelling on the infirmities of their 
 creators, even when touched on by the gentle hand of 
 an admirer. 
 
 But even those who deplore this tea-table gossip — 
 whose cessation would relieve the world of an enormous 
 yearly output of books — will be ready to admit that 
 Thackeray has been better than his word, and has 
 diluted his criticism of his authors' lives with so many 
 allusions to their writings that the lover of letters will 
 find more food in these lectures than the lover of scandal. 
 They are, moreover, intensely provocative of appetite, 
 and drive the reader again and again to the bookshelf 
 to make, or to renew, the acquaintance of an author 
 who has been so charmingly and so tantalizingly brought 
 before him. 
 
 There is a felicity of phrase in the selection of the 
 title for the lectures on the English Humourists which 
 is in itself a stroke of genius. It is not easy to think of 
 any other term under which it would have been possible 
 to treat of characters so different as the twelve great 
 men of the eighteenth century whom Thackeray has 
 thus brought together. For what is there in common 
 between the savage irony of Swift, the deep religious 
 feeling of Addison, the terse moral platitudes of Pope, 
 the half-veiled indecencies of Sterne, the rampant 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 coarseness of Smollett, the intense humanity of Gold- 
 smith, and the pregnant delineations of Hogarth — 
 ■what have all these in common, but that they were in 
 each case accompanied by what is, both for the possessor 
 and those around him, one of the best of Fortune's 
 giftfr^a sense of humour ? It would indeed be difficult 
 to find (apart from their common humanity or language) 
 any other bond which would unite together these twelve 
 men, so different in their lives, their aims, their subjects, 
 their styles, their powers — ^in all, in fact, that goes to 
 distinguish man from man. 
 
 But apart from the insight which enabled him to 
 detect, this point of resemblance, Thackeray has brought 
 together in his selection nearly aU the writers of the 
 eighteenth century whose names are familiar to the 
 public of to-day. As the only bond of union among 
 these twelve is their humour, it would seem to be a fair 
 assumption that it is to this they owe their vitality ; 
 that it is this and no other quahty which has acted as 
 a preservative and saved them from the Umbo to which 
 so many of their contemporaries, esteemed great in 
 their day, have been relegated by the judgement of 
 posterity. It does not, of course, follow that no writer 
 wiU live whose works are devoid of humour. There is 
 little, if any, in the pages of Gibbon ; but few will be 
 found to deny him immortaUty on that account. It 
 would indeed be as reasonable to look for humour in 
 Westminster Abbey or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, 
 for it is with such mighty products of human genius 
 that we must rank The Decline and Fall oj the Roman 
 Empire. Boswell, too, may be thought to be a person 
 in whom the sense of humour is somewhat lacking — 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 not that, as the southerners sometimes foolishly assert, 
 his nationality sufficiently debars him from that gift ; 
 for this unjust aspersion of a whole people will hardly 
 outlive a generation which has known Mr. Andrew Lang 
 and Mr. J. M. Barrie. But if Boswell had little original 
 humour — and few hero-worshippers have very much — 
 there is abundance of humour in his pages transcribed 
 from the lips of others ; and who shall say that it is 
 not due, in a measure, to this that he is still popular ? 
 that it is not the Attic salt in his pages which has kept 
 them sweet for posterity ? 
 
 For it would appear that in this country a sense of 
 humour is as desirable in a writer as it is undesirable 
 and even dangerous, in the eyes of the public, when it 
 appears in a politician, or a professional man, or indeed 
 any one engaged in the serious business of Kfe. In the 
 case of any oiie of these we allow an ounce of wit to 
 outweigh a pound of wisdom, and only give our full 
 confidence to those who never make us latigh. But in 
 a writer the case is exactly the reverse— possibly because 
 we do not take letters seriously— and literary critidsm, 
 religious exhortation, political diatribes are aU doomed 
 to an early grave unless they are seasoned with the 
 saving grace of humour. 
 
 If we judge by this standsard, there is little doubt 
 that Thackeray is safely seated among the immortals ; 
 for of all the styles of humour, from the subtly sugges- 
 tive to the broadly roUicking, he was a master. He is 
 the delight at once of the scholar, whose appreciation is 
 only displayed by a deepening of the crinkles round his 
 eyes, and of the schoolboy, whose exp-losive outbursts 
 over The TreTnendous Ad/ventures of Major Gahagan 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 render him for a while unfit for sedate society. In 
 Thackeray's case this humour, no doubt, did but serve 
 to cover the intense feeling, the deep pity with which 
 he surveyed the follies and blunders of men's lives, the 
 irony and mischance of Fate. Like another famous 
 character he needs must laugh to save himself from 
 tears. And this is the man to whom some — chiefly 
 those who have never read him— have chosen to apply 
 the term ' cynic ' ! The last possible definition of a cynic 
 would be ' one who loves his fellow-men ', and that 
 would be almost the first title to be given to Thackeray 
 by one who had not merely read him, but had learnt 
 enough of life to be able to read between his lines. 
 Granted that his love for mankind was not blind, that 
 he looked into men and women and saw them, not as 
 saints and sages, but as very human, very peccable, 
 very blundering strugglers after happiness ; he yet 
 seemed in many cases to possess a power of understand- 
 ing which enabled him to love them for all their imper- 
 fections. Not but that he had his touches of impatience 
 too, proving thereby his own kinship with humanity ; 
 and then it must be owned he was hardly fair to the 
 object of his dislike ; indeed he comes perilously near to 
 the attitude of the ' good hater ' beloved by Dr. John- 
 son. Certain things seem to rouse him to a bitterness 
 of opposition, in which he will admit of no extenuating 
 circumstances, listen to no plea, allow no suggestion 
 that possibly there were faults on both sides ; and on 
 these occasions he pours in caustic and vitriol in a manner 
 which is utterly at variance with his usual kindly 
 placidity. 
 It is more creditable to Thackeray's chivalry than his 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 sense that this feeling is most often aroused by matri- 
 monial differences. Thus in the present work, having 
 made up his mind that Stella was an angel, and that 
 Swift was quite unworthy of her, he can see no virtues 
 whatever in Vanessa, and seems to rejoice with most 
 unchristian exultation when she dies of a broken heart. 
 Sterne, too, falls under the lash, because he was in- 
 genuous enough -to confess after five-and-twenty years 
 of married life that his wife bored him. Surely that 
 was in itself misfortune enough for poor Yorick, without 
 his being held up to the odium and contempt of posterity. 
 If Mrs. Sterne, witk the unrivalled opportunities of 
 making herself indispensable which fall to every wife, 
 chose to go her own way and neglect them, was it solely 
 her husband's fault if he found himself bored in her 
 society ? Thackeray seems to have ignored the perfectly 
 sound maxim that in matrimonial differences there are 
 always faults on both sides ; and in laying the whole 
 blame on Yorick's shoulders and entirely exonerating 
 Mrs. Sterne he betrays more than a trace of mid- Victorian 
 bourgeoisie, which his admirers can only deplore. This 
 is not, of course, intended as a defence of Sterne, the 
 whitewashing of whose character would recLuire an almost 
 superhuman gift of casuistry. His egotism, his incon- 
 stancy, his maudlin sentimentalism, and utter lack of 
 manliness, are enough to disgust the most charitable of 
 readers. Even his stoutest advocate, Mr. Fitzgerald, is 
 almost obliged to give him up in the end and admit that 
 there is not much to be said in his favour. But while 
 admitting aU this, we may yet regret that Thackeray 
 should so signaUy have abandoned the judicial attitude. 
 Sterne has painted himself quite black enough in his 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 Letters ; there was no need for Thackeray to deepen 
 the shadows. 
 
 The truth is that Thackeray was much more an artist 
 than an historian ; he loved strong Ughts and dark shades, 
 broad lines and striking contrasts. Hence came the 
 undue leniency he shows towards his favourites and the 
 ultra-Draconian severity with which he passes judge- 
 ment on those he dislikes. This makes it all the more 
 regrettable that Thackeray should have chosen the 
 personal rather than the Hterary side of his subject. 
 For an artist's criticism of the work of other artists will 
 almost certainly be more valuable than his opinion 
 of their personal characters ; and few will be found 
 to impugn Thackeray's literary judgements in these 
 lectures, while his personal criticism will certainly not 
 meet with any such general acceptance. 
 
 As to the value of the Lectures one can hardly do 
 better than quote what Professor Saintsbury says in his 
 Introduction to Esmond, &c., in the Oxford Thackeray : 
 ' Such another live piece of English criticism of English 
 literature as this I do not know anywhere. . . . Addison 
 may be a little depressed and Steele a little exalted ; 
 but it is necessary to remember that by Macaulay, 
 whose estimate then practically held the field, Steele 
 had been most unduly depressed and Addison rather 
 unduly exalted. You may go about among our critics 
 on the brightest day with the largest lantern and find 
 nothing more brilliant itself than the " Congre^e " 
 article, where the spice of injustice will, again, deceive 
 nobody but a fool. The vividness of the " Addison 
 and Steele " presentation is miraculous. He redresses 
 Johnson on Prior, as he had redressed Macaulay on 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 Steele ; and be is not unjust, as we might have feared 
 that he would be, to Pope.* " Hogarth, SmoUett, and 
 Fielding " is another miracle of appreciation ; and 
 I should like to ask the objectors to " sentimentality " 
 by what other means than an intense sympa,thy (from 
 which it is impossible to exclude something that may 
 be called sentimental) such a study as that of Goldsmith 
 could have been produced ? Now Goldsmith is one of 
 the most difficult persons in the whole range of litera- 
 ture to treat, from the motley of his merits and his 
 weaknesses. Yet Thackeray has achieved the adventure 
 here. In short, throughout the book, he is invaluable 
 as a critic, if not impeccable in criticism. His faults, 
 and the causes of them, are obvious, separable, negligible ; 
 his merits (the chief of them, as usual, the constant 
 shower of happy and illuminative phrase) as rare in 
 quality as they are abundant in quantity.' 
 
 To those who have unsuccessfully tried to admire 
 Thackeray's other works, the Lectures may be hopefully 
 recommended owing to their comparative freedom from 
 those irritating ' parabases ', as Professor Saintsbury 
 calls them, those constantly recurring appeals to the 
 reader to turn his attention to his own or the writer's 
 affairs — appeals which no doubt are designed to point 
 a moral, but most emphatically do not adorn a tale. 
 Weary of his own surroundings — as every one over the 
 age of six must be at one time or another — the reader 
 seizes a book from the shelf and sinks into a chair, 
 murmuring with the poet, 
 
 Out of my country and myself I go ; 
 
 ^ Whose character he regarded in a far more favourable light 
 than is justified by later investigations. — Ed. 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 only to find himself confronted in a few pages with 
 ' And have not you and I, dear reader, &c.', so that 
 he is not a Uttle disgusted at finding himself, hke 
 Mrs. Hardcastle, at the bottom of his own garden 
 after a twenty-mile drive, which he hoped would land 
 him twenty miles from home. 
 
 Despite the disgust which all decent people feel at 
 selections and expurgated editions, I have almost wished 
 at times that some one would edit an edition of Thackeray 
 without these terrible excrescences, or at least relegate 
 them to an appendix for the benefit of the introspective. 
 But were such an edition of the Humourists issued, the 
 appendix would be but a tiny fragment of the whole, 
 so seldom does the author abandon the pen for what 
 our forefathers would have termed ' the ferule '. To all 
 those, therefore, who like ' instruction combined with 
 amusement ', and dislike being preached at, the Humour- 
 ists may confidently be recommended ; the editor only 
 hopes that the reader may derive from his researches 
 some portion of the pleasure which he has found in 
 making them. 
 
 The first edition of the Lectures appeared in 1853, 
 and was followed by a ' second edition, revised ' in 
 the same year. These two are apparently from the same 
 type-setting ; the alterations, which were not very 
 Ulcerous, are indicated in my notes. A third edition 
 in 1858 seems to have ignored the second, and to have 
 followed the first with only trivial differences of typo- 
 graphy. In the footnotes I have not detected any 
 variations in the three editions. 
 
 I have imiformly followed the text of the second 
 edition throughout ; except that in the extracts, with 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 which the Lectures are. so copiously supplied, I have 
 ventured to restore the true reading where — as not 
 infrequently happens — Thackeray has transcribed a 
 passage inaccurately. It is with some hesitation that 
 I have thus tampered with the author's text ; but I felt 
 that it was of more importance to give the reader the 
 actual words used by Swift, Pope, or Goldsmith, than 
 to allow Thackeray's misquotations to stand. I was 
 encouraged in my view by finding that Thackeray's 
 daughter. Lady Ritchie, had adopted the same course 
 in her Biographical Edition, though she has done so 
 with less uniformity than might be desired. 
 
 The footnotes, according to Lady Ritchie, were chiefly 
 written by James Hannay. He was a writer who had 
 made Thackeray's acquaintance in 1849, and was, as 
 he tells us in his Characters and Criticisms, entrusted 
 with the manuscript of the Lectures by Thackeray, when 
 he sailed for Ahierica in October 1852, with the request 
 that he would annotate it during his absence. That the 
 notes are not all Hannay's is certainly rendered probable 
 by the style of some of them ; that they are not aU 
 Thackeray's is proved — apart from other evidence — 
 by the carelessness with which the selection of extracts 
 was sometimes made. Thus in two places Thackeray 
 refers in his lecture to two definite letters, and in the 
 footnotes two others are given in exlenso as the (Stes^ 
 referred to. 
 
 In correcting the extracts given, whether in the text 
 or footnotes, I have trisd as far as possible to use the 
 editions from which the passage was transcribed. Thus 
 Scott's Swijt (1824) and Roscoei's Pope (1824) being 
 referred to several times, I have adopted those as the 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 standard ; more than one passage makes it apparent 
 that Singer's edition of Spence, and not Malone's, was 
 used (though the annotator seems to have confused the 
 two) ; for the Tatler I have mainly followed the edition 
 of 1713, and for the Spectator that of 1712, these being 
 the earHest, apart from the originals, which show 
 numerous shght variations from the collected editions. 
 In the case of many of the works cited the fascinating 
 question of textual selection did not arise — as there was 
 but one edition ; where there were several, I have tried 
 to find authority for the reading given by Thackeray or 
 Hannay, and only altered the extract where I failed to 
 find it. 
 
 I have inserted references in square brackets to all 
 those passages where a reference was not aheady given ; 
 where it was I have verified it, so that I may be held 
 equally responsible for both. 
 
 There have been, so far as I can discover, only two 
 serious attempts to annotate the English Humourists : 
 one by Professor Ernst Regel with German notes, 
 pubfished at Halle in 1885 ; the other by Professor 
 Phelps of Yale, pubhshed in 1900. Both of these I have 
 consulted with profit— rthough I must admit that in 
 the one allusion in the Lectures which I had failed to 
 find I got no help from either. Professor Regel's edition 
 is a monument of German industry and learning ; his 
 prolegomena and appendices are extraordinarily fuU, 
 and show a knowledge of the eighteenth-century EngHsh 
 writers which would put most EngUshmen to the blush. 
 If I have been able to clear up a few points in which he 
 failed, I owe it far more to the good fortune which has 
 directed me — ' by chance ' as we say — to the discovery 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the clue than to any superiority in eradition. At 
 the same time, the occasional errors into which the 
 learned professor has fallen — some of them laughable 
 enough — illustrate the immense difficulties besetting 
 one who tries to comment on a foreign author ; and 
 I . have wondered — and not for the first time — what 
 would be the sensations of a cultured Roman of the 
 Augustan age, or a Greek of the fifth century B.C., on 
 reading the finest efforts of modern classical scholarship. 
 Of my own notes, some are designed for those who 
 have to some degree studied the period, others are for 
 those who have but little acquaintance with it : I would 
 ask members of either class to consider that any note 
 which may be above or beneath their comprehension is 
 intended for the other. 
 
THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST 
 
 SWIFT 
 
 Ik treating of the English humourists of the past age, it 
 is of the men and of their lives, rather than of their books, 
 that I ask permission to speak to you ; and in doing so, 
 you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with 
 
 10 a merely humorous or facetious story. Harlequin with- 
 out his mask is known to present a very sober counten- 
 ance, and was himself, the story goes, the melancholy 
 patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see Harle- 
 quin ^ — a man full of cares and perplexities like the rest 
 
 15 of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under 
 whatever mask, or disguise, or uniform he presents it 
 to the public. And as all of you here must needs be 
 grave when you think of your own past and present, 
 you will not look to find, in the histories of those whose 
 
 20 lives and feelings I am going to try and describe to you, 
 a story that is otherwise than serious, and often very 
 sad. If Humour only meant laughter, you would 
 scarcely feel more interest about humorous writers than 
 about the private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, 
 
 25 who possesses in common with these the power of making 
 you laugh. But the men regarding whose lives and 
 stories your kind presence here shows that you have 
 curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a great number of 
 our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. 
 
 30 ' The anecdote is frequently told of our performer, Bich. 
 1356 B 
 
2 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct 
 your love, your pity, your kindness — ^your scorn for 
 untruth, pretension, imposture — your tenderness for the 
 weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the 
 best of his means and ability he comments on all the 5- 
 ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes 
 upon himself to be the week-day preacher, so to speak. 
 Accordingly, as he finds, and speaks, and feels the truth 
 best, we regard him, esteem him — sometimes love him. 
 And, as his business is to mark other people's lives and lo 
 pecuHarities, we moralize upon his life when he is gone — 
 and yesterday's preacher becomes the text for to-day's 
 sermon. 
 
 Of English parents, and of a good English family of 
 clergymen,! Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, seven is 
 months after the death of his father, who had come to 
 practise there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at 
 Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, 
 where he got a degree with difficulty, and was wild, and 
 witty, and poor. In 1688, by the recommendation of his 20 
 mother. Swift was received into the family of Sir William 
 Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left 
 
 ' He was from a younger branoh of the Swifts of Yorkshire. 
 His grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, Vicar of Goodrich, in 
 Herefordshire, suffered for his loyalty in Charles I's time. That 25 
 gentleman married Elizabeth Dryden, a member of the family 
 of the poet. Sir Walter Scott gives, with his characteristic 
 minuteness in such points, the exact relationship between these 
 famous men. Swift was ' the son of Dryden's second cousin '. 
 Swift, too, was the enemy of Dryden's reputation. Witness the 30 
 Battle of the Books : — ' The difference was greatest among the 
 horse,' says he of the moderns, ' where every private trooper 
 pretended to the chief command, from Tasso and Milton to 
 Dryden and Withers.' And in Poetry, a Bhapsody, he advises 
 the poetaster to — 35 
 
 Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, 
 
 For these our critics much confide in, 
 
 Though merely writ, at first, for filling. 
 
 To raise the volume's price a shilling. 
 ' Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet,' was the phrase of 40 
 Dryden to his kinsman, which remained alive in a memory 
 tenacious of such matters, 
 
SWIFT 3 
 
 his patron in 1693, and the next year took orders in 
 Dublin. But he threw up the small Irish preferment 
 ■which he got and returned to Temple, in whose family 
 he remained until Sir William's death in 1699. His 
 
 5 hopes of advancement in England failing. Swift returned 
 to Ireland, and took the living of Laracor. Hither he 
 invited Hester Johnson,^ Temple's natural daughter, 
 with whom he had contracted a tender friendship, while 
 they were both dependants of Temple's. And with an 
 
 10 occasional visit to England, Swift now passed nine years 
 at home. 
 
 In 1709 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to 
 Ireland, during which he took possession of his deanery 
 of St. Patrick, he now passed five years in England, 
 
 15 taking the most distinguished part in the political 
 transactions which terminated with the death of Queen 
 Arme. After her death, his party disgraced, and his 
 hopes of ambition over, Swift returned to Dublin, where 
 he remained twelve years. In this time he wrote the 
 
 20 famous Drapier's Letters and Gulliver's Travels. He 
 married Hester Johnson (SteUa) and buried Esther 
 Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) who had followed him to Ireland 
 from London, where she had contracted a violent 
 passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, 
 
 25 which he quitted for the last time on hearing of his 
 wife's iUness. SteUa died in January, 1728, and Swift 
 not until 1745, having passed the last five of the seventy- 
 eight years of his life with an impaired intellect and 
 keepers to watch him.^ 
 
 30 ' ' Miss Hetty ' she was called in the family — where her face, 
 
 and her dress, and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the 
 
 real fact about her birth plain enoiigh. Sir William left her 
 
 a thousand pounds. 
 
 " Sometimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking 
 
 35 about the house for many consecutive hours ; sometimes he 
 remained in a kind of torpor. At times, he would seem to 
 struggle to bring into distinct consciousness, and shape into 
 expression, the intellect that lay smothering under gloomy ob- 
 struction in him. A pier-glass, falling by accident, nearly fell 
 
 40 on him. He said, he wished it had ! He once repeated, slowly, 
 several times, ' I am what I am.' The last thing he wrote was 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 You know, of course, that Swift has had many 
 biographers ; his life has been told by the kindest and 
 most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires but 
 can't bring himself to love him ; and by stout old 
 Johnson,! who, forced to admit him into the company s 
 of poets, .receives the famous Irishman, and takes off 
 his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans 
 him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side 
 of the street. Dr. Wilde, of Dublin,^ who has written 
 
 an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms and stores, 10 
 which was pointed out to him as he went abroad diiring his 
 mental disease :— 
 
 Behold a proof of Irish sense : 
 
 Here Irish wit is seen ; 
 When nothing's left that's Worth defence, 15 
 
 We build a magazine ! 
 
 ' Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there 
 is a copious £i/e by Thomas Sheridan (Dr. Johnson's ' Sherry '), 
 father of Richard Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever, 
 Irish Doctor, Thomas Sheridan, Swift's intimate, who lost his 20 
 chaplaincy by so unluckily choosing for a text on the king's 
 birthday, ' Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof ! ' Not to 
 mention less important works, there is also the Bemarks on the 
 Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, by that polite and 
 dignified writer, the Earl of Orrery. His lordship is said to have 25 
 striven for literary renown, chiefly that he might make up for 
 the slight passed on him by his father, who left his library away 
 from him. It is to be feared that the ink he used to wash out 
 that stain only made it look bigger. He had, however, known 
 Swift, and corresponded with people who knew him. His work 30 
 (which appeared in 1752) provoked a good deal of controversy, 
 calling out, among other brochures, the interesting Observations 
 wpon Lord Orrery's Remarks, &c., of Dr. Delany. 
 
 ' Dr. Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains 
 of Swift and Stella being brought to the light of day — a thing 35 
 which happened in 1835, when certain works going on in 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their 
 being examined. One hears with surprise of these skulls ' going 
 the rounds ' of houses, and being made the objects of dilettante 
 curiosity. The larynx of Swift was actually carried oS ! Phreno- 40 
 legists had a low opinion of his intellect, from the observa- 
 tions they took. 
 
 Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed 
 in Kis writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that 
 
SWIFT 5 
 
 a most interesting volume on the closing years of Swift's 
 life, calls Johnson ' the most malignant of his bio- 
 graphers ' : it is not easy for an English critic to please 
 Irishmen — ^perhaps to try and please them. And yet 
 5 Johnson truly admires Swift : Johnson does not quarrel 
 with Swift's change of politics, or doubt his sincerity of 
 religion : about the famous Stella and Vanessa con- 
 troversy the Doctor does Aot bear very hardly on Swift. 
 But he could not give the Dean that honest hand of his ; 
 
 10 the stout old man puts it into his breast, and moves off 
 from him.^ 
 
 Would we have Uked to live with him ? That is a 
 question which, in dealing with these people's works, and 
 thinking of their lives and peculiarities, every reader of 
 
 15 biographies must put to himself. Would you have Uked 
 to be a friend of the great Dean ? I should like to have 
 been Shakespeare's shoeblack — ^just to have lived in his 
 house, just to have worshipped him — ^to have run on his 
 errands, and seen that sweet serene face. I should like, 
 
 20 as a young man, to have lived on Fielding's staircase in 
 the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and 
 opening his door with his latch-key, to have shaken 
 hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and 
 crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. 
 
 26 Who would not give something to pass a night at the club 
 with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James BosweU, Esq., 
 of Auchinleck ? The charm of Addison's companionship 
 and conversation has passed to us by fond tradition — 
 but Swift ? If you had been his inferior in parts (and 
 
 30 that, with a great respect for aU persons present, I fear 
 is only very likely), his equal in mere social station, he 
 would have bullied, scorned, and insulted you ; if, 
 undeterred by his great reputation, you had met him 
 
 the skull gave evidence of ' diseased action ' of tlie brain during 
 35 life — such as would be produced by an increasing tendency to 
 
 ' cerebral congestion ' 
 ' ' He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable 
 
 prejudice against Swift ; for I once took the liberty to ask him 
 
 if Swift had personally offended him, and he told me he had 
 40 not.' — Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. [August 16.] 
 
6 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 like a man, he would have quailed before you,^ and not 
 had the pluck to reply, and gone home, and years after 
 written a foul epigram about you — ^watched for you in 
 a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's blow 
 and a dirty bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue 5 
 ribbon, who flattered his vanity, or could help his am- 
 bition, he would have been the most delightful company 
 in the world. He would have been so manly, so sarcastic, 
 so bright, odd, and original, that you might think he had 
 no object in view but the indulgence of his humour, and 10 
 that he was the most reckless, simple creature in the 
 world. How he would have torn your enemies to pieces 
 for you ! and made fun of the Opposition ! His servility 
 was so boisterous that it looked like independence ; ^ he 
 
 ■ Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their 15 
 success was encouraging. One gentleman made a point of asking 
 the Dean, whether his uncle Godwin had not given him his 
 education. Swift, who hated that subject cordially, and, indeed, 
 cared little for his kindred, said, sternly, ' Yes ; he gave me the 
 education of a dog.' ' Then, sir,' cried the other, striking his 20 
 fist on the table, ' you have not the gratitude of a dog ! ' 
 
 Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean 
 pause, even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. 
 But he brought himself into greater danger on a certain occasion, 
 and the amusing circumstances may be once more repeated 25 
 here. He had unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, 
 Mr. Serjeaqt Bettesworth — 
 
 Thus, at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, 
 Though half-a-crown o'er-pays his sweat's worth, 
 Who knows in law nor text nor margent, 3q 
 
 Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant ! 
 
 The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented 
 himself at the-deanery. The Dean asked his name. ' Sir, I am 
 Serjeant Bett-es-worth.' 
 
 ' In what regiment, fray ? ' asked Swift. 35 
 
 A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean 
 at this time. 
 
 ^ ' But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my 
 sentiments from you. I am much inclined to believe that the 
 temper of my friend Swift might occasion his English friends to 40 
 wish him happily and properly promoted at a distance. His 
 spirit, for I would give it the softest name, was ever untraotable. 
 The motions of his genius were often irregular. He assumed 
 
SWIFT 7 
 
 would have done your errands, but with the air of 
 patronizing you, and after fighting your battles masked 
 in the street or the press, would have kept on his hat 
 before your wife and daughters in the drawing-room, 
 
 5 content to take that sort of pay for his tremendous 
 services as a bravo .^ 
 
 He says as much himself in one of his letters to Boling- 
 broke : — ' All my endeavours ... to distinguish myself 
 were only for want of a great title and fortune, that I 
 
 10 might be used like a lord by those who have an opinion 
 of my parts ; whether right or wrong, it is no great 
 matter. And so the reputation of wit or great learning 
 does the office of a blue ribbon or of a coach and six 
 horses.' ^ 
 
 15 more the air of a patron than of a friend. He affected rather 
 to dictate than advise.' — Obbery. [Remarks on the Life, &o., 
 Letter iv.] 
 
 ^ ' .... An anecdote which, though told fcy Mrs. Pilkington, 
 is well attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he 
 
 20 went to dine with the Earl of Burlington, who was then but 
 newly married. The earl, being willing, it is supposed, to have 
 some diversion, did not introduce him to his lady nor mention 
 his name. After dinner said the Dean, " Lady Burlington, I hear 
 you can sing ; sing me a song." The lady looked on this un- 
 
 25 ceremonious manner of asking a favour with distaste, and posi- 
 tively refused. He said, " She should sing, or he would make 
 her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your poor 
 English hedge-parsons ; sing when I bid you." As the earl did 
 nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that 
 
 30 she burst into tears and retired. His first compliment to her 
 when he saw her again was, " Pray, madam, are you as proud 
 and as ill-natured now as when I saw you last 1" To which she 
 answered with great humour, " No, Mr. Dean ; I'll sing for you 
 if you please." Prom which time he conceived great esteem for 
 
 35 her.'— Scoit's £i/e. [Conclusion, p. 470 (1824).] '_•••■ He had 
 not the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was, 
 perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When he was 
 polite, it was in a manner entirely his own. In his friendships 
 he was constant and undisguised. He was the same in his 
 
 40 enmities.' — Oeeeky. [Bemarks, &c., Letter xix.] 
 
 ' ' I make no figure but at Court, where I afiect to turn from 
 a lord to the meanest of my acquaintance.' — Journal to Stella. 
 [Dec. 12, 1712.] 
 
 ' I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send 
 
8 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Could there be a greater candour ? It is an. outlaw, 
 who says, ' These are my brains ; with these I'll win 
 titles and compete with fortune. These are my buUets ; 
 these I'll turn into gold ' ; and he hears the sound of 
 coaches-and-six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes s 
 society stand and dehver. They are aU on their knees 
 before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, and his 
 Grace's blue ribbon, and my lady's brocade petticoat in 
 the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a 
 patent place, the third of a little snug post about theio 
 Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. The 
 great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre 
 and crosier in it, which he intends to have for his share, 
 has been delayed on the way from St. James's ; and he 
 waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners come 15 
 and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, 
 and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with 
 a curse, and rides away into his own country.^ 
 
 me their books and poems, the vilest trash I ever saw ; but 
 I have given their names to my man, never to let them see 20 
 me.' — Journal to Stdla. [Jan. 7, 1712-13.] 
 
 The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a 
 courtier : — 
 
 ' Did I ever tell you that Lord Treasurer hears ill with the 
 left ear just as I do ? .... I dare not tell him that I am so, 25 
 too ; for fear he shovld think I counterfeited to make my court I ' — 
 Journal to Stella. [Sept. 7, 1711.] 
 
 ^ The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and 
 the other ; and the Whig attacks made the ministry Swift served 
 very sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition 30 
 pamphleteers, and bewails their ' factiousness ' in the following 
 letter : — 
 
 ' BOUNGBEOKE TO THE EABL OF STRAPFORD. 
 
 ' Whitehall, July 23rd, 1712. 
 ' It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country 35 
 are too weak to punish effectually those factious scribblers, who 
 presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even 
 scurrilous language to those who are in the first degrees of 
 honour. This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the 
 decayed condition of our Government, and serves to show how 40 
 fatally we mistake licentiousness for liberty. All I could do was 
 to take up Hurt, the printer, to send him to Newgate, and to 
 bind him over upon bail to be prosecuted ; this I have done ; 
 
SWIFT 9 
 
 Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point 
 a moral or adorn a tale of ambition, as any hero's that 
 
 and if I can arrive at legal proof against the author Ridpath, 
 he shall have the same treatment.' 
 5 Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous 
 indignation. In the History of the Four last Years of the Queen, 
 the Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentious- 
 ness of the press and the abusive language of the other party : 
 ' It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers 
 
 10 have been such as to deserve the severest animadversions of the 
 public. . . . The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since 
 their fall, and unanimous in defence of their cause, employ a set 
 of writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics 
 of defamation, and have a style and genius levelled to the 
 
 15 generality of readers. . . . However, the mischiefs of the press 
 were too exorbitant to be cured by such a remedy as a tax upon 
 the smaller papers ; and a bill for a much more effectual regula- 
 tion of it was brought into the House of Commons, but so late 
 in the session that there was no time to pass it, for there has 
 
 20 hitherto always appeared an unwillingness to cramp overmuch 
 the liberty of the press.' 
 
 But to a clause in the proposed bill, that the names of authors 
 should be set to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper, his 
 reverence objects altogether, for, says he, ' beside the objection 
 
 26 to this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in publishing 
 excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, out of 
 an humble Christian spirit, to conceal their names, it is certain 
 that all persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible 
 modesty and suspicion of themselves upon their first sending 
 
 30 their thoughts into the world.' [Book III, Scott's ed. vol. v, 
 p. 149 (1824).] 
 
 This ' invincible modesty ' was no doubt the sole reason which 
 induced the Dean to keep the secret of the Drapier's Letters and 
 a hundred humble Christian works of which he was the author. 
 
 35 As for the Opposition, the Doctor was for dealing severely with 
 them : he writes to Stella : — 
 
 JOURNAL. LETTER XIX. 
 
 ' London, March 25th, 1710-11. 
 
 ' . . . We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing 
 
 40 him pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece ; 
 
 and the fellow that showed would point to his body and [say], 
 
 " See, gentlemen, this is the wound that was given him by his 
 
 Grace the Duke of Ormond ; " and, " This is the wound," &c. ; 
 
 and then the show was over, and another set of rabble came in. 
 
 45 'Tis hard that our laws would not suffer us to hang his body in 
 
10 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 ever lived and failed. But we must remember that the 
 morality was lax — ^that other gentlemen besides himself 
 took the road in his day — that public society was in 
 a strange disordered condition, and the State was ravaged 
 by other condottieri. The Boyne was being fought and 5 
 won, and lost — ^the bells rung in William's victory, in 
 the very same tone with which they would have pealed 
 for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to 
 shift for themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and 
 institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in lo 
 the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble almost everybody 
 gambled ; as in the Railway mania — ^not many centuries 
 ago — almost every one took his unlucky share ; a man 
 of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, 
 could scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, andi5 
 make his spring at his opportunity. His bitterness, his 
 scorn, his rage, his subsequent misanthropy, are ascribed 
 by some panegyrists to a deliberate conviction of man- 
 kind's unworthiness, and a desire to amend them by 
 castigating. His youth was bitter, as that of a great 20 
 genius bound down by ignoble ties, and powerless 
 in a mean dependence ; his age was bitter,^ like that of 
 a great genius that had fought the battle and nearly 
 won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards writhing 
 in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, 25 
 if he likes, what is caused by his own fury, or disappoint- 
 ment, or self-will. What pubhc man — what statesman 
 
 chains, because he was not tried; and in the eye of our law 
 every man is innocent till then.' 
 
 JOURNAL. LETTER XXVII. 3q 
 
 ' London, July 25th, 1711. 
 
 ' I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and 
 helped to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for 
 a rape. The Under-Secretary was willing to save him ; . . . but 
 I told the Secretary he could not pardon him without a favour- 35 
 able report from the judge ; besides he was a fiddler, and con- 
 sequently a rogue, and deserved hanging for something else, and 
 so he shall swing.' 
 
 ' It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day 
 of mourning. 40 
 
SWIFT 11 
 
 projecting a coup — ^what king determined on an invasion 
 of his neighbour — ^what satirist meditating an onslaught 
 on society or an individual, can't give a pretext for his 
 move 1 There was a French general the other day who 
 
 5 proposed to march into this country and put it to sack 
 and pillage, in revenge for humanity outraged by our 
 conduct at Copenhagen — ^there is always some excuse for 
 men of the aggressive turn. They are of their nature 
 warlike, predatory, eager for fight, plunder, dominion.^ 
 
 10 As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck — as strong 
 a wing as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for 
 one, that fate wrested the prey out of his claws, and cut 
 his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not with- 
 out awe and pity, at the , lonely eagle chained behind 
 
 15 the bars. 
 
 That Swift was bom at No. 7, Hoey's Court, Dublin, 
 on the 30th November, 1667, is a certain fact, of which 
 nobody wiU deny the sister island the honour and glory ; 
 but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irishman than 
 
 20 a man bom of EngUsh parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo.^ 
 
 ' ' These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the Flying- 
 Post and Medley in one paper, will not be quiet. They are 
 always mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We 
 have the dog under prosecution, but Bolingbroke is not active 
 25 enough ; but I hope to swinge him. He is a Scotch rogue, one 
 Ridpath. They get out upon bail, and write on. We take them 
 again?"and get fresh bail ; so it goes round.' — Journal to Stdla. 
 [Oct. ^8, 1712.] 
 
 ^ Swift was by no means inclined to forget such oonsidera- 
 30 tions ; and his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, 
 every now and then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope 
 [July 23, 1737] (Scott's Swift, vol. xix, p. 97), he says : — 
 
 ' We have had your volume of letters . . . Some of those who 
 highly esteem you, and a few who know you personally, are 
 35 grieved to find you make no distinction between the English 
 gentry of this kingdom, and the savage old Irish (who are only 
 the vulgar, and some gentlemen who live in the Irish parts o£ 
 the kingdom) ; but the English colonies, who are three parts 
 in four, are much more civilized than many counties in England, 
 40 and speak better English, and are much better bred.' 
 
 And again, in the fourth Bra/pier's Letter, we have the follow- 
 ing: — 
 
 A short pa|)er, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports 
 
12 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Goldsmith was an Irishman, and always an Irishman : 
 Steele was an Irishman, and always an Irishman : Swift's 
 heart was English and in England, his habits English, 
 his logic eminently English ; his statement is elaborately 
 simple ; he shuns tropes and metaphors, and uses his s 
 ideas and words with a wise thrift and economy, as he 
 used his money ; with which he could be generous and 
 splendid upon great occasions, but which he husbanded 
 when there was no need to spend it. He never indulges 
 in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, lo 
 profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with 
 a grave simpUcity and a perfect neatness.^ Dreading 
 
 Mr. Wood to say " that lie wonders at the impudence and in- 
 solence of the Irish, in refusing his coin." . . . Where, by the 
 way, he is mistaken ; for it is the true English people of Ireland 15 
 who refuse it, although we take it for granted that the Irish will do 
 so too whenever they are asked.' — Scott's Swift, vol. vi, p. 453. 
 
 He goes further, in a good-humoured satirical paper. On Bar- 
 barous Denominations in Ireland, where (after abusing, as he was 
 wont, the Scotch cadence, as well as expression), he advances to 20 
 the ' Irish brogue ', and speaking of the ' censure ' which it brings 
 down, says : — 
 
 ' And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad 
 consequence of this opinion afEects those among us who are not 
 the least liable to such reproaches, farther than the misfortune 25 
 of being born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose 
 education has been chiefly in that kingdom.' — Ibid. vol. vii, p. 148. 
 
 But, indeed, if we are to make anything of Race at all, we must 
 call that man an Englishman whose father comes from an old 
 Yorkshire family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one ! 30 
 
 ' ' The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with 
 that of his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one 
 day at a sheriff's feast, who among other toasts called out to 
 him, " Mr. Dean, The trade of Ireland ! " he answered quick : 
 " Sir, I drink no memories ! " . . . 35 
 
 ' Happening to be in company with a petulant young man 
 who prided hunself in saying pert things . . . and who cried out, 
 " You must know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit ! " " Do you 
 so ? " says the Dean. "Then take my advice, and sit down again ! " 
 
 ' At another time, being in a .company, where a lady whisking 40 
 about her long train (long trains were then in fashion) swept 
 down a fine fiddle and broke it ; Swift cried out — 
 
 Mantua vae miserae nimium vioina Cremonae ! ' 
 — Db. Dblaky, Observations upon Lord Orrery's ' Remarks, &c. 
 ofSmft'. London, 1754. [Letter xvi.] 
 
SWIFT 13 
 
 ridicule too, as a man of his humour — above all an 
 Englishman of his humour — certainly would, he is 
 afraid to use the poetical power which he really possesses ; 
 one often fancies in reading him that he dares not be 
 
 6 eloquent when he might ; that he does not speak above 
 his voice, as it were, and the tone of society. 
 
 His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, 
 his knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance with litera- 
 ture even, which he could not have pursued very sedu- 
 
 10 lously during that reckless career at Dublin, Swift got 
 under the roof of Sir William Temple. He was fond of 
 telling in after-life what quantities of books he devoured 
 there, and how King William taught him to out asparagus 
 in the Dutch fashion. It was at Shene and at Moor Park, 
 
 15 with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at the upper 
 servants' table, that this great and lonely Swift passed 
 a ten years' apprenticeship — ^wore a cassock that was only 
 not a livery — ^bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's to 
 supplicate my lady's good graces, or run on his honour's 
 
 20 errands.'- It was here, as he was writing at Temple's 
 table, or following his patron's walk, that he saw and 
 heard the men who had governed the great world — 
 measured himself with them, looking up from his silent 
 comer, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, turned 
 
 25 them, and tried them, and marked them. Ah, what 
 platitudes he must have heard ! what feeble jokes ! what 
 pompous commonplaces ! what small men they must 
 have seemed under their enormous periwigs, to the 
 swarthy, uncouth, silent Irish secretary. I wonder 
 
 30 whether it ever struck Temple that that Irishman was 
 
 his master ? I suppose that dismal conviction did not 
 
 present itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could 
 
 never have lived with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, 
 
 • left the service — ^ate humble pie and came back again ; 
 
 35 and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, swallow- 
 
 ' ' Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir 
 
 William Temple would look cold and out of humour for three 
 
 or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons ? I have 
 
 plucked up my spirit since then, faith ; he spoiled a fine gentle- 
 
 40 man.' — Journal to Stdla. [Apr. 4, 1711.] 
 
14 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 ing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy rage to his 
 fortune. 
 
 Temple's style is the perfection of practised and easy 
 good-breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into 
 a subject, he professes a very gentlemanly acquaintance 5 
 with it ; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the 
 custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman 
 to envelop his head in a periwig and his hands in lace 
 ruffl.es. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he 
 steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never lo 
 hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's 
 train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that 
 grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves 
 it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park ; and 
 lets the King's party, and the Prince of Orange's party is 
 battle it out among themselves. He reveres the Sove- 
 reign (and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty 
 by so elegant a bow) ; he admires the Prince of Orange ; 
 but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves 
 more than all the princes in Christendom, and that 20 
 valuable member of society is himself, GuMelmus Temple, 
 Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat ; between his 
 study-chair and his tulip-beds,^ clipping his apricots and 
 
 1 ' . . . The Epioureatis were more intelligible in their notion, 
 and fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man's 25 
 happiness in the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body ; 
 for while we are composed of both, I doubt both must have 
 a share in the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages 
 say the same things in very different words, so in several ages, 
 countries, constitutions of laws and religion, the same thing 30 
 seems to be meant by very different expressions ; what is called 
 by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion ; by the sceptics, indistur- 
 bance ; by the Molinists, quietism ; by common men, peace of 
 conscience, — seems all to mean but great tranquillity of mind. 
 . . . For this reason Epicurus passed his life wholly in his garden : 35 
 there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philo- 
 sophy ; and, indeed, no other sort of abode seems to contribute 
 so much to both the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, 
 which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of air, the pleasant- 
 ness of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness 40 
 of food, the exercises of working or walking ; but, above all, 
 the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favour 
 
SWIFT 15 
 
 pruning his essays, — the statesman, the ambassador 
 no more ; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine 
 gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene ; 
 where, in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his 
 5 court to the Ciceronian majesty ; or walks a minuet 
 with the Epic Muse ; or dallies by the south wall with 
 the ruddy nymph of gardens. 
 
 Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigi- 
 ous deal of veneration from his household, and to have 
 10 been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people 
 round about him, as delicately as any of the plants 
 which he loved. When he fell ill in 1693, the household 
 was aghast at his indisposition ; mild Dorothea, his wife, 
 the best companion of the best of men — 
 
 15 Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, 
 Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate, 
 
 As for Dorinda, his sister, — 
 
 You that would grief describe, come here and trace 
 Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. 
 
 20 and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of 
 sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of 
 the body and mind. . . . Where Paradise was has been much 
 debated, and little agreed ; but what sort of place is meant by 
 it may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been 
 
 25 a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors men- 
 tion it as what was much in use and delight among the kings 
 of those eastern countries. Strabo describing Jericho, says: 
 " Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt etiam aliae stirpes hor- 
 tenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum centum 
 
 30 totus irriguus : ibi est regia et Balsami paradisus." ' — Essay on 
 the Gardens of E'picurus. [p. 189 (1754), Edinburgh.] 
 
 In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose 
 conduct and prudence he characteristically admires : — 
 
 ' . . . I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends 
 
 35 in Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend 
 no higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfec- 
 tion of plums ; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon 
 them) he has very well succeeded, which he could never have 
 done in attempts upon peaches and grapes ; and a good 'plum 
 
 40 is certainly better than an ill peach.^ [lb. p. 209.] 
 
16 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Thus when Dormda wept, joy every face forsook, 
 And grief flung sables on each menial look. 
 The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul. 
 That furnished spirit and motion through the whole. 
 
 Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the s 
 menials into a mourning hvery, a fine image ? One of the 
 menials wrote it, who did not like that Temple livery nor 
 those twenty-pound wages. Cannot one fancy the im- 
 couth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books and 
 papers Lq hand, following at his Honour's heels in theio 
 garden walk ; or taking his Honour's orders as he stands 
 by the great chair, where Sir WiOiam has the gout, and 
 his feet all bUstered with moxa ? When Sir WUliam has 
 the gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second 
 table ; ^ the Irish secretary owned as much afterwards : is 
 
 ' Swut's Thotjghts on HANOrNG. 
 {Directions to Servants.) 
 
 ' To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all 
 indignities ; therefore, when you find years coming on without 
 hopes of a place at Court, a command in the army, a succession 2o 
 to the stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two 
 last you cannot obtain without reading and writing), or running 
 away with your master's niece or daughter, I d&ectly advise 
 you to go upon the road, which is the only post of honour left 
 you : there you will meet many of your old conu'ades, and live 25 
 a short lite and a merry one, and make a figure at your exit, 
 wherein I will give you some instructions. 
 
 ' The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when 
 you are going to be hanged ; which, either for robbing your 
 master, for housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in 30 
 a drunken quarrel by killing the first man you meet, may very 
 probably be your lot, and is owing to one of these three qualities : 
 either a love of good fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too 
 much vivacity of spirits. Your good behaviour on this article 
 will concern your whole community : deny the fact with all 35 
 solemnity of imprecations : a hundred of your brethren, if they 
 can be admitted, will attend about the bar, and be ready upon 
 demand to give you a character before the Court ; let nothing 
 prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a pardon for dis- 
 covering your comrades : but I suppose all this to lie in vain ; 40 
 for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another day. 
 Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate : 
 
SWIFT 17 
 
 and when he came to dinner, how he must have lashed 
 and growled and torn the household with his gibes and 
 scorn ! What would the steward say about the pride of 
 them Irish schollards — and this one had got no great 
 
 3 credit even at his Irish college, if the truth were known — 
 and what a contempt his Excellency's own gentleman 
 must have had for Parson Teague from Dublin. (The 
 valets and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to 
 say which Swift thought the more contemptible.) And 
 
 10 what must have been the sadness, the sadness and terror, 
 of the housekeeper's little daughter with the curling 
 black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the 
 secretary who teaches her to read and write, and whom 
 she loves and reverences above all things — above 
 
 15 mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous 
 Sir William in his square-toes and periwig, — ^when 
 Mr. Swift comes down from his master with rage in 
 his heart, and has not a kind word even for little 
 Hester Johnson ? 
 
 20 Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's con- 
 descension was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir 
 WiUiam would perpetually quote Latin and the ancient 
 classics a propos of his gardens and his Dutch statues and 
 plates-bandes, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes 
 
 25 Laertius, JuUus Caesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of 
 the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and 
 the Assyrian kings. A propos of beans, he would men- 
 tion Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and 
 that this precept probably meant that wise men should 
 
 30 abstain from public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean ; 
 
 some of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt 
 and white cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon : take 
 leave cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate : mount the cart 
 with courage ; fall on your knees ; lift up your eyes ; hold 
 
 35 a book in your hands, although you cannot read a word ; deny 
 the fact at the gallows ; kiss and forgive the hangman, and so 
 farewell ; you shall be buried in pomp at the charge of the 
 fraternity : the surgeon shall not touch a limb of you ; and 
 your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown 
 
 40 succeeds in your place. . . .' [Chap, iii.] 
 
 1356 C 
 
18 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 he is a Pythagorean philosopher ; he is a wise man — 
 that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so ? One 
 can imagine the downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, 
 and the flash of scorn which they emit. Swift's eyes 
 were as azure as the heavens ; Pope says nobly (as every- 5 
 thing Pope said and thought of his friend was good and 
 noble), ' His eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have 
 a charming archness in them.' And one person in that 
 household, that pompous, stately, kindly Moor Park, 
 saw heaven nowhere else. lo 
 
 But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not 
 agree with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of 
 Shene pippins ; and in a garden-seat which he devised 
 for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily 
 the stock of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo 15 
 and deafness which punished and tormented him through 
 life. He could not bear the place or the servitude. Even 
 in that poem of courtly condolence, from which we have 
 quoted a few lines of mock melancholy, he breaks out 
 of the funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, ao 
 and rushes away crjdng his own grief, cursing his own 
 fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, and 
 even hope. 
 
 I don't know anything more melancholy than the 
 letter to Temple, in which, after having broke from his 25 
 bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteously towards 
 his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He 
 asks for testimonials for orders. ' The particulars 
 expected of me are what relate to morals and learning — 
 and the reasons of quitting your Honour's family — ^that 30 
 is, whether the last was occasioned by any iU actions. 
 They are all left entirely to your Honour's mercy, though 
 in the first I think I cannot reproach myself any farther 
 than for infirmities. This is all I dare beg at present 
 from your Honour, under circumstances of life not worth 35 
 your regard : what is left me to wish (next to the health 
 and prosperity of your Honour and family) is that 
 Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of 
 leaving my acknowledgements at your feet ... I beg 
 my most humble duty and service be presented to my 40 
 
SWIFT 19 
 
 ladies, your Honour's lady and sister.' Can prostration 
 fall deeper ? Could a slave bow lower ? ^ 
 
 Twenty years afterwards, Bishop Kennet, describing 
 the same man, says, ' Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house 
 
 5 and had a bow from everybody but me. When I came 
 to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers 
 Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business. . . . 
 He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his 
 brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a . . . place ... for 
 
 10 ... a clergyman. . . . He was promising Mr. Thorold to 
 undertake, with my Lord Treasm-er, that ... he should 
 obtain a salary of 200i. per annum as minister of the 
 
 ' ' He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death 
 of that great man.' — Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the 
 15 Deas. [Scott, vol. i, p. 511.] 
 
 ' It has since pleased God to take this great and good person 
 to himself.' — ^Preface to Terrvpl^s Letters [1700]. 
 
 On all 'public occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the 
 same tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely 
 20 he remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from 
 the subjoined extracts from the Journal to Stella : — 
 
 ' I called at Mr. Secretary to see what the d ailed him 
 
 on Sunday : I made him a very proper speech ; told him I 
 observed he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he 
 25 would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he was in 
 better ; and one thing I warned him of — ^never to appear cold 
 to me, for I would not be treated like a schoolboy ; that I had 
 felt too much of that in my lite already (meaning Sir William 
 Temple),' &c. &c.—J(mrnai to Stella. [Ap. 3, 1711.] 
 30 ' I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir 
 William Temple because he might have been Secretary of State 
 at fifty ; and here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employ- 
 ment.'— /5irf. [Nov. 11, 1710.] 
 
 ' The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have 
 35 often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about 
 being Secretary of State.' — Ibid. [Nov. 3, 1711.] 
 
 ' Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but 
 
 is now near quite well. I was playing at one-and-thirty with 
 
 him and his family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence 
 
 40 a piece to begin with ; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple.' 
 
 —Ibid. [Oct. 9, 1712.] 
 
 ' I thought I saw Jack Temple [nephew to Sir William] and 
 his wife pass by me to-day in their coach ; but I took no not^e 
 of them. I am glad I have wholly shaken off that family.' — 
 45 Ibid., Sept. [9], 1710. 
 
 02 
 
20 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, 
 Esq., going in with the red bag to the Queen, and told 
 him aloud, he had something to say to him from my Lord 
 Treasurer. He . . . took out his gold watch, and telling . . . 
 the time of the day, complained it was very late. A s 
 gentleman said he was too fast. " How can I help it," 
 says the doctor, " if the courtiers give me a watch that 
 won't go right ? " Then he instructed a young noble- 
 man, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope 
 (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into lo 
 English verse, for which he must have .them all sub- 
 scribe ; " For," says he, " the author shall not begin to 
 print till I have a thousand guineas for him." ^ Lord 
 Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the 
 room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him, — ^both wentis 
 off just before prayers.' There 's a little malice in the 
 Bishop's ' just before prayers.' 
 
 This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is 
 harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing 
 good, and to deserving men too, in the midst of these 20 
 intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand 
 anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough maimers. 
 His hand was constantly stretched out to relieve an 
 honest man — ^he was cautious about his money, but 
 ready. — ^If you were in a strait would you like such 25 
 a benefactor ? I think I would rather have had a potato 
 and a friendly word from Goldsmith than have been 
 beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner.^ He 
 
 ^ ' Swift must be confessed,' says Dr. Johnson, ' to have dic- 
 tated for a time the political opinions of the English nation.' — so 
 [Life ofSmft, p. 411 (1790).] 
 
 A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the 
 Doctor's liveliest sallies. ' One, in particular, praised his Conduct 
 of the Allies. — Johnson : " Sir, his Conduxt of the Allies is a per- 
 formance of very little ability. . . . Why, sir, Tom Davies might 35 
 have written the CondiKt of the Allies ! " ' — Boswell's Life of 
 Johnson, [anno 1768.] 
 
 " ' Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the 
 fijBt time, it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition 
 by some abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. 40 
 If this were well taken, and answered with good humour, he 
 
SWIFT 21 
 
 insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, 
 guests look foolish, bulHed unlucky friends, and flung 
 his benefactions into poor men's faces. No ; the Dean 
 was no Irishman — ^no Irishman ever gave but with a kind 
 
 6 word and a kind heart. 
 
 It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean 
 
 . of St. Patrick's performed his family devotions every 
 morning regularly, but with such secrecy, that the guests 
 in his house were never in the least aware of the ceremony. 
 
 10 There was no need surely why a church dignitary should 
 assemble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he was 
 afraid of heathen persecution. But I think the world 
 was right, and the bishops who advised Queen Anne, 
 when they counselled her not to appoint the author of 
 
 15 the Tale of a Tub to a bishopric, gave perfectly good 
 advice. The man who wrote the arguments and illus- 
 trations in that wild book, could not but be aware what 
 must be the sequel of the propositions which he laid 
 down. The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, 
 
 20 who chose these as the friends of his life, and the recipients 
 of his confidence and affection, must have heard many 
 an argument, and joined in many a conversation over 
 Pope's port, or St. John's burgundy, which would not 
 bear to be repeated at other men's boards. 
 
 26 afterwards made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any 
 marks of resentment, from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he 
 dropped all farther intercourse with the party. This will be 
 illustrated by an anecdote of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. 
 After supper, the Dean having decanted a bottle of wine, poured 
 
 30 what remained into a glass, and seeing it was muddy, presented 
 it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. " For," said he, " I always 
 keep some poor parson to drink the foul wine for me." Mr. Pilk- 
 ington, entering into his humour, thanked him, and told him 
 " he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a glass 
 
 35 at any rate." " Why then," said the Dean, " you shan't, for 
 
 I'll drink it myseK. Why, take you, you are wiser than 
 
 a paltry curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago ; 
 for upon my making the same speech to him, he said, he did 
 not understand such usage, and so walked off without his dinner. 
 
 40 By the same token, I told the gentleman who recommended him 
 to me, that the fellow was a blockhead, and I had done with 
 him." '— Shbbidan's Life oj Swift. [Section vii, p. 409 (1784).] 
 
22 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity 
 of Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to 
 turn clergyman, and look out for a seat on the Bench. 
 Gay, the author of The Beggar's Opera — Gay, the wildest 
 of the wits about town — ^it was this man that Jonathan 5 
 Swift advised to take orders — to invest in a cassock and 
 bands — just as he advised him to husband his shillings 
 and put his thousand pounds out at interest.^ The 
 
 ' FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF OASHBLL. 
 
 ' Cashell, May 31st, 1735. lo 
 ' Dear Sir, — 
 
 ' I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that 
 I am resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to 
 be overmatched ; and as I have some reason to hope what is 
 past will be forgotten, I confess I did endeavour in my last to 15 
 put the best colour I could think of upon a very bad cause. 
 My friends judge right of my idleness ; but, in reality, it has 
 hitherto proceeded from a hurry and confusion, arising from 
 a thousand unlucky unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. 
 I have but one troublesome affair now upon my hands, which, 20 
 by the help of the prime serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of ; 
 and then you shall see me a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware 
 has made a very useful collection of the memorable actions of 
 all my predecessors. He tells us, they were born in such a town 
 of England or Ireland ; were consecrated such a year ; and, if 25 
 not translated, were buried in their Cathedral church, either on 
 the north or south side. Whence I conclude, that a good bishop 
 has nothing more to do than to eat, drink, grow fat, rich, and 
 die ; which laudable example I propose for the remainder of my 
 life to follow ; for, to tell you the truth, I have for these four 30 
 or five years past met with so much treachery, baseness, and 
 ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it incum- 
 bent upon any man to endeavour to do good to so perverse 
 a generation. 
 
 ' I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your 35 
 health. Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best 
 remedy you can take to recover your flesh ; and I do not know, 
 except in one stage, where you can choose a road so suited to 
 your circumstances, as from Dublin hither. You have to Kil- 
 kenny a turnpike and good inns at every ten or twelve miles' 40 
 end. lYom lUlkenny hither is twenty long miles, bad road, and 
 no inn at all : but I have an expedient for you. At the foot 
 of a very high hUl, just midway, there lives in a neat thatched 
 cabin, a parson, who is not poor ; his wife is allowed to be the 
 
SWIFT 23 
 
 Queen, and the bishops, and the world, were right in 
 mistrusting the religion of that man. 
 
 I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's rehgious 
 views, except in so far as they influence his literary 
 
 5 character, his life, his humour. The most notorious 
 sinners of all those fellow mortals whom it is our busi- 
 ness to discuss — ^Harry Fielding and Dick Steele — ^were 
 especially loud, and I believe really fervent, in their 
 expressions of belief ; they belaboured freethinkers, and 
 
 10 stoned imaginary atheists on all sorts of occasions, going 
 out of their way to bawl their own creed, and persecute 
 their neighbour's, and if they sinned and stumbled, as 
 they constantly did with debt, with drink, with all sorts 
 of bad behaviour, they got up on their knees, and cried 
 
 15 ' Peccavi ' with a most sonorous orthodoxy. Yes ; poor 
 Harry Fielding and poor Dick Steele were trusty and 
 undoubting Church of England men ; they abhorred 
 Popery, atheism, and wooden shoes, and idolatries in 
 general ; and hiccupped ' Church and State ' with 
 
 20 fervour. 
 
 But Swift ? His mind had had a different schooling, 
 and possessed a very different logical power. He was not 
 
 best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the fattest, 
 and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the parson 
 
 25 has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key, where 
 he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in 
 bottles well corked, upon their side ; and he cleans, and pulls 
 out the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet 
 you with a coach ; if you be tired, you shall stay all night ; if 
 
 30 not, after dinner we will set out about four, and be at Cashell 
 by nine ; and by going through fields and by-ways, which the 
 parson will show us, we shall escape all the rocky and stony 
 roads that lie between this place and that, which are certainly 
 very bad. I hope you will be so kind as to let me know, a post 
 
 35 or two before you set out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, 
 that I may have all things prepared for you. It may be, if you 
 ask him. Cope will come : he will do nothing for me. Therefore, 
 depending upon your positive promise, I shall add no more 
 arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth, 
 
 40 your most faithful and obedient humble servant, 
 
 Thbo. Cashell.' 
 
24 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 bred up in a tipsy guard-room, and did not learn to reason 
 in a Covent Garden tavern. He could conduct an argu- 
 ment from beginning to end. He could see forward with 
 a fatal clearness. In his old age, looking at the Tale of 
 a Tub, when he said, ' Good God, what a genius I had 5 
 when I wrote that book ! ' I think he was admiring not 
 the genius, but the consequences to which the genius 
 had brought him — a vast genius, a magnificent genius, 
 a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and strong, — 
 to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood andio 
 scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden 
 motives, and expose the black thoughts of men, — an 
 aivful, an evil spirit. 
 
 Ah, man ! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's 
 library, you whose friends were Pope and St. John — is 
 what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself 
 to a lifelong hypocrisy before the Heaven which you 
 adored with such real wonder, humility, and reverence ? 
 For Swift's was a reverent, was a pious spirit — ^for Swift 
 could love and could pray. Through the storms and 20 
 tempests of his furious mind, the stars of reUgion and 
 love break out in the blue, shining serenely, though 
 hidden by the driving clouds and the maddened 
 hurricane of his life. 
 
 It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the 25 
 consciousness of his own scepticism, and that he had bent 
 his pride so far down as to put his apostasy out to hire.'^ 
 The paper left behind him, called Thoughts on Religion, 
 is merely a set of excuses for not professing disbelief. He 
 says of his sermons that he preached pamphlets : they 30 
 have scarce a Christian characteristic ; they might be 
 preached from the steps of a synagogue, or the floor of 
 a mosque, or the box of a coffee-house almost. There is 
 little or no cant — he is too great and too proud for that ; 
 
 ^ ' Mr. Swift lived with him (Sir William Temple) some time, 35 
 but resolving to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined 
 to take orders. However, although his fortune was very small, 
 he had a scruple of entering into the Church merely for sup- 
 port.' — Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the Dean. [Scott, 
 vol. i, p. 511.] 40 
 
SWIFT 25 
 
 and, in so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is 
 honest. But having put that cassock on, it poisoned him : 
 he was strangled in his bands. He goes through life, 
 tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah 
 5 in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the 
 Fury, and knows that the night will come and the 
 inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it was ! 
 what a lonely rage and long agony — ^what a vulture that 
 tore the heart of that giant ! ^ It is awful to think of the 
 
 10 great sufferings of this great man. Through life he always 
 seems alone, somehow. Goethe was so. I can't fancy 
 Shakespeare otherwise. The giants must live apart. The 
 kings can have no company. But this man suffered so ; 
 and deserved so to suffer. One hardly reads anywhere 
 
 15 of such a pain. 
 
 The 'saeva indignatio' of which he spoke as laceratiag 
 his heart, and which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone 
 — ^as if the wretch who lay under that stone waiting God's 
 judgement had a right to be angry — ^breaks out from him 
 
 20 in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends 
 him. Against men in office, he having been overthrown ; 
 against men in England, he having lost his chance of 
 preferment there, the furious exile never fails to rage and 
 curse. Is it' fair to call the famous Drapier's Letters 
 
 25 patriotism ? They are masterpieces of dreadful humour 
 and invective : they are reasoned logically enough too, 
 but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous as the 
 Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so 
 great, but there is his enemy — ^the assault is wonderful 
 
 30 for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with 
 a bone in his hand, rushing on his enemies and felling 
 them : one admires not the cause so much as the strength, 
 the anger, the fury of the champion. As is the case with 
 madmen, certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his 
 
 35 ' 'Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his 
 smiles could scarce soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid 
 and serene ; but when that sternness of visage was increased 
 by rage, it is scarce possible to imagine looks or features that 
 carried in them more terror and austerity.' — Orebry. [Remarks, 
 
 40 &o., Letter ix.] 
 
26 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 fits of wrath. Marriage is one of these ; in a hundred 
 passages in his writings he rages against it ; rages against 
 children ; an object of constant satire, even more con- 
 temptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor 
 curate with a large family. The idea of this luckless 5 
 paternity never fails to bring down from him gibes and 
 foul language. Could Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or 
 Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire, have 
 written anything like the Dean's famous ' modest pro- 
 posal ' for eating children 1 Not one of these but melts lo 
 at the thoughts of childhood, fondles and caresses it. 
 Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters the nursery 
 with the tread and gaiety of an ogre.^ ' I have been 
 assured,' says he in the Modest Proposal, ' by a very 
 knowing American of my acquaintance in London, is 
 that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year 
 old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, 
 whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ; and I make 
 no doubt it wiU equally serve in a ragout.' And taking 
 up this pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with 20 
 perfect gravity and logic. He turns and twists this 
 subject in a score of different ways : he hashes it ; and 
 he serves it up cold ; and he garnishes it ; and relishes 
 it always. He describes the little animal as ' dropped 
 from its dam ', advising that the mother should let it 25 
 suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render it 
 plump and fat for a good table ! ' A child,' says his 
 reverence, ' wiU make two dishes at an entertainment for 
 friends ; and when the family dines alone, the fore or 
 hind quarter will make a reasonable dish,' and so on ; 30 
 and, the subject being so delightful that he can't leave 
 it — he proceeds to recommend, in place of venison for 
 squires' tables, ' the bodies of young lads and maidens 
 
 1 ' London, April lOth, 1713. 
 ' Lady Masham's eldest boy is very ill : I doubt he will not 35 
 live ; and sbe stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes 
 us all. She is so excessively fond it makes me mad. She should 
 never leave the Queen, but leave everything, to stick to what is 
 so much the interest of the public, as well as her own. . . .' — 
 Journal to Stella. 40 
 
SWIFT 27 
 
 not exceeding fourteen or under twelve.' Amiable 
 humourist ! laughing castigator of morals ! There was 
 a process well known and practised in the Dean's gay 
 days : when a lout entered the coffee-house, the wags 
 
 5 proceeded to what they called ' roasting ' him. This is 
 roasting a subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a 
 native genius for it. As the Almanack des Gourmands 
 says. On nait rdtisseur. 
 
 And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that 
 
 10 Swift exposed the unreasonableness of loving and having 
 children. In GuUiver, the folly of love and marriage is 
 urged by graver arguments and advice. In the famous 
 LiUiputian kingdom, Swift speaks with approval of the 
 practice of instantly removing children from their parents 
 
 15 and educating them by the State ; and amongst his 
 favourite horses, a pair of foals is stated to be the very 
 utmost a weU-regulated equine couple would permit 
 themselves. In fact, our great satirist was of opinion 
 that conjugal love was unadvisable, and illustrated the 
 
 20 theory by his own practice and example — God help him 
 — which made him about the most wretched being in 
 God's world.i 
 
 The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, 
 as exemplified in the cannibal proposal just mentioned, 
 
 25 is our author's constant method through aU his works of 
 humour. Given a country of people six laches or sixty 
 feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand 
 wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of 
 the calculation. Turning to the first minister who waited 
 
 30 behind him with a white staff near as tall as the main- 
 mast of the Royal Sovereign, the King of Brobdingnag 
 observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, 
 as represented by such a contemptible little creature as 
 Gulliver. ' The Emperor of LiUiput's features are strong 
 
 35 and masculine ' — (what a surprising humour there is in 
 this description !) — ' the Emperor's features,' GuUiver 
 
 ' ' My health ... is somewhat mended, but at best I have 
 an ill head and an aching heart.' — In May, 1719. [Letter to 
 Lord Bolingbroke.] 
 
28 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 says, ' are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip 
 and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance 
 erect, his body and limbs well-proportioned, . . . and his 
 deportment majestic. He is taller by almost the breadth 
 of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough 5 
 to strike an awe into the beholders.' 
 
 What a surprising humour there is in these descrip- 
 tions ! How noble the satire is here ! how just and 
 honest ! How perfect the image ! Mr. Macaulay has 
 quoted the charming lines of the poet, where the king lo 
 of the pygmies is measured by the same standard. We 
 have all read in Milton of the spear that was like ' the 
 mast of some tail amiral ', but these images are surely 
 likely to come to the comic poet originally. The subject 
 is before him. He is turning it in a thousand ways. He is 
 is full of it. The figure suggests itself naturally to him, 
 and comes out of his subject, as in that wonderful 
 passage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped by 
 the eagle into the sea, and Gulliver having been received 
 into the ship's cabin, he calls upon the crew to bring the 20 
 box into the cabin, and put it on the table, the cabin 
 being only a quarter the size of the box. It is the veracity 
 of the blunder which is so admirable. Had a man come 
 from such a country as Brobdingnag he would have 
 blundered so. 25 
 
 But the best stroke of humour, if there be a best in that 
 abounding book, is that where GuUiver, in the unpro- 
 nounceable country, describes his parting from his master 
 the horse.^ ' I took,' he says, ' a second leave of my 
 
 ' Perhaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the 30 
 dreadful book, is the description of the very old people in the 
 Voyage to Laputa. At Lugnag, Gulliver hears of some persons 
 who never die, called the Struldbrugs, and expressing a wish to 
 become acquainted with men who must have so much learning 
 and experience, his colloquist describes the Struldbrugs to him. 35 
 
 ' He said. They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty 
 years old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and 
 dejected, increasing in both tUl they came to fourscore. This 
 he learned from their own confession : for otherwise, there not 
 being above two or three of that species born in an age, they 40 
 were too few to form a general observation by. When they 
 
SWIFT 29 
 
 master, but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss 
 his hoof, he did me the honour to raise it gently to my 
 
 came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of 
 Uving in this country, they had not only all the follies and 
 
 5 infirmities of other old men, but many more, which arose from 
 the dreadful prospect of never dsdng. They were not only 
 opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but 
 incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which 
 never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent 
 
 10 desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against 
 which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the 
 younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the 
 former, they find themselves out off from all possibility of 
 pleasure ; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament, and 
 
 15 repine that others are gone to a harbour of rest, to which they 
 themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance 
 of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth 
 and middle age, and even that is very imperfect. And for the 
 truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common 
 
 20 tradition than upon their best recollections. The least miserable 
 
 among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely 
 
 lose their memories ; these mee^^i with more pity and assistance, 
 
 because they want many bad qualities which abound in others. 
 
 ' If a Struldbrug happen to marry one of his own kind, the 
 
 25 marriage is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, 
 as soon as the younger of the two comes to be fourscore. For 
 the law thinks it a reasonable indulgence that those who are 
 condemned, without any fault of their own, to a perpetual con- 
 tinuance in the world, should not have their misery doubled by 
 
 30 the load of a wife. 
 
 ' As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, 
 they are looked on as dead in law ; their heirs immediately 
 succeed to their estates, only a small pittance is reserved for 
 their support ; and the poor ones are maintained at the public 
 
 35 charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any 
 employment of trust or profit, they cannot purchase lands or 
 take leases, neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any 
 cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers 
 and bounds. 
 
 40 ' At ninety they lose their teeth and hair ; they have at that 
 age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can 
 get without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject 
 to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, 
 they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of 
 
 45 persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and rela- 
 tions. For the same reason, they never can amuse themselves 
 with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them 
 
30 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 mouth. I am not ignorant how much I have been cen- 
 sured for mentioning this last particular. Detractors 
 are pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious 
 a person should descend to give so great a mark of dis- 
 tinction to a creature so inferior as I. Neither have I 5 
 forgotten how apt some travellers are to boast of extra- 
 ordinary favours they have received. But if these 
 censurers were better acquainted with the noble and 
 
 from the beginning of a sentence to the end ; and by this defect 
 they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might 10 
 otherwise be capable. 
 
 ' The language of this country being always upon the flux, 
 the Struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another ; 
 neither are they able, after two hundred years, to hold any 
 conversation (farther than by a few general words) with their 15 
 neighbours, the mortals ; and thus they lie under the disadvan- 
 tage of living like foreigners in their own country. 
 
 ' This was the account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near 
 as I can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different 
 ages, the youngest not above two hundred years old, who were 20 
 brought to me at several times by some of my friends ; but 
 although they were told " that I was a great traveller, and had 
 seen all the world ", they had not the least curiosity to ask me 
 a question ; only desired I would give them slumskudask, or a 
 token of remembrance ; which is a modest way of begging, 25 
 to avoid the law that strictly forbids it, because they are pro- 
 vided for by the public, although indeed with a very scanty 
 allowance. 
 
 ' They are despised and hated by all sorts of people. When 
 one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is 30 
 recorded very particularly ; so that you may know their age by- 
 consulting the register, which, however, has not been kept above 
 a thousand years past, or at least has been destroyed by time 
 or public disturbances. But the usual way of computing how 
 old they are, is, by asking them what kings or great persons 35 
 they can remember, and then consulting history ; for iiSallibly 
 the last prince in their mind did not begin his reign after they 
 were fourscore years old. 
 
 ' They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and 
 the women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual 40 
 deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional 
 ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not 
 to be described ; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished 
 which was the eldest, although there was not above a century 
 or two between them.' — GvUivefs Travels. [Part III, chap, x.] 45 
 
SWIFT , 31 
 
 courteous disposition of the Houyhnhnms they would 
 soon change their opinion.' 
 
 The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial 
 evidence, the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is 
 
 5 not ignorant how much he has been censured, the nature 
 of the favour conferred, and the respectful exultation 
 at the receipt of it, are surely complete ; it is truth topsy- 
 turvy, entirely logical and absurd. 
 
 As for the humour and conduct of this famous fable, 
 
 10 I suppose there is no person who reads but must admire ; 
 as for the moral, I think it horrible, shameful, unmanly, 
 blasphemous ; and giant and great as this Dean is, I say 
 we should hoot him. Some of this audience may not have 
 read the last part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall 
 
 15 the advice of the venerable Mr. Punch to persons about 
 to marry, and say ' Don't '. When GuUiver first lands 
 among the Yahoos, the naked howHng wretches clamber 
 up trees and assault him, and he describes himself as 
 ' almost stifled with the filth which fell about him ' . The 
 
 20 reader of the fourth part of Chdliver's Travels is like the 
 hero himseK in this instance. It is Yahoo language ; 
 a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations 
 against mankind — ^tearing down aU shreds of modesty, 
 past all sense of manliness and shame ; filthy in word, 
 
 as filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene. 
 
 And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the 
 tendency of his creed — the fatal rocks towards which his 
 logic desperately drifted. That last part of Gulliver is 
 only a consequence of what has gone before ; and the 
 
 30 worthlessness of aU mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, 
 pride, imbecility, the general vanity, the foolish preten- 
 sion, the mock greatness, the pompous dullness, the mean 
 aims, the base successes — ^aU these were present to him ; 
 it was with the din of these curses of the world, blas- 
 
 35 phemies against Heaven, shrieking in his ears, that 
 he began to write his dreadful allegory — of which the 
 meaning is that man is utterly wicked, desperate, and 
 imbecile, and his passions are so monstrous, and his 
 boasted powers so mean, that he is and deserves to be the 
 
 40 slave of brutes, and ignorance is better than his vaunted 
 
32 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 reason. What had this man done ? what secret remorse 
 was rankling at his heart ? what fever was boiling in 
 him, that he should see all the world bloodshot 1 We 
 view the world with our own eyes, each of us ; and we 
 make from within us the world we see. A weary heart s 
 gets no gladness out of sunshine ; a selfish man is scep- 
 tical about friendship, as a man with no ear does not care 
 for music. A frightful self -consciousness it must have 
 been, which looked on mankind so darkly through those 
 keen eyes of Swift. lo 
 
 A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, who 
 interrupted Archbishop King and Swift in a conversation 
 which left the prelate in tears, and from which Swift 
 rushed away with marks of strong terror and agitation 
 in his countenance, upon which the archbishop said to 15 
 Delany, ' You have just met the most unhappy man on 
 earth ; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must 
 never ask a question.' 
 
 The most imhappy man on earth ; — Miserrimus — what 
 a character of him ! And at this time all the great wits of 20 
 England had been at his feet. All Ireland had shouted 
 after him, and worshipped him as a Hberator, a saviour, 
 the greatest Irish patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier 
 Bickerstaff GuUiver — ^the most famous statesmen, and 
 the greatest poets of his day, had applauded him, and 25 
 done him homage ; and at this time writing over to 
 Bohngbroke, from Ireland, he says, ' It is time for me 
 to have done with the world, and so I would if I could 
 get into a better before I was called into the best, and 
 not to die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' 30 
 
 We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behaviour 
 to them ; and now it behoves us not to forget that there 
 are certain other persons in the creation who had rather 
 intimate relations with the great Dean.^ Two women 
 
 ' The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by 35 
 those of the famous Stella and Vanessa ; but she had a story 
 of her own to tell about the blue eyes of young Jonathan. One 
 may say that the book of Swift's life opens at places kept by 
 these blighted flowers ! Varina must have a paragraph. 
 
 She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. 40 
 
SWIFT 33 
 
 whom he loved and injured are known by every reader 
 of books so familiarly that if we had seen them, or if 
 they had been relatives of our own, we scarcely could 
 have known them better. Who has not in his mind 
 5 an image of Stella ? Who does not love her ? Fair and 
 tender creature : pure and affectionate heart ! Boots it 
 to you, now that you have been at rest for a hundred 
 and twenty years, not divided in death from the cold 
 heart which caused yours, whilst it beat, such faithful 
 
 10 pangs of love and grief — ^boots it to you now, that the 
 whole world loves and deplores you ? Scarce any man, 
 I believe, ever thought of that grave, that did not cast 
 a flower of pity on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. 
 Gentle lady, so lovely^ so loving, so unhappy ! you have 
 
 15 had countless champions ; millions of manly hearts 
 mourning for you. From generation to generation we 
 take up the fond tradition of your beauty ; we watch 
 and foUow your tragedy, your bright morning love and 
 purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweet martyr- 
 
 20 dom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of 
 the saints of English story. 
 
 And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to 
 contemplate, I wiU say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite 
 of drawbacks, in spite of mysterious separation and union, 
 
 25 of hope delayed and sickened heart — ^in the teeth of 
 Vanessa, and that little episodical aberration which 
 
 In 1696, when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing 
 a love-letter to her, beginning, ' Impatience is the most insepar- 
 able quality of a lover.' But absence made a great difference 
 
 30 in his feelings ; so, four years afterwards, the tone is changed. 
 
 He writes again, a very curious letter, offering to marry her, 
 
 and putting the offer in such a way that nobody could possibly 
 
 accept it. 
 
 After dwelling on his poverty, &c., he says, conditionally, 
 
 36 ' I shall be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding 
 whether your person be beautiful, or your fortune large. Cleanli- 
 ness in the first, and competency in the other, is all I look for ! ' 
 The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in life. One 
 would be glad to know that she met with some worthy partner, 
 
 40 and lived long enough to see her little boys laughing over Lilliput, 
 without any arriere pensee of a sad character about the great 
 Dean ! 
 
 1356 D 
 
34 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 plunged Swift into such woeful pitfalls and quagmires 
 of amorous perplexity — ^in spite of the verdicts of most 
 women, I believe, who, as far as my experience and 
 conversation go, generally take Vanessa's part in the 
 controversy — ^in spite of the tears which Swift caused 5 
 SteUa to shed, and the rooks and barriers which fate 
 and temper interposed, and which prevented the pure 
 course of that true love from running smoothly — ^the 
 brightest part of Swift's story, the pure star in that dark 
 and tempestuous life of Swift's, is his love for Hester lo 
 Johnson. It has been my business, professionally of 
 course, to go through a deal of sentimental reading in my 
 time, and to acquaint myself with love-making, as it has 
 been described in various languages, and at various ages 
 of the world ; and I know of nothing more manly, more is 
 tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these 
 brief notes, written in what Swift calls ' his little 
 language ' in his journal to SteUa.^ He writes to her 
 night and morning often. He never sends away a letter 
 to her but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't 2o 
 bear to let go her kind little hand, as it were. He knows 
 that she is thinkiag of him, and longiag for him far away 
 in Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from under his 
 pillow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with 
 fond epithets and pretty caresses — as he would to the 25 
 sweet and artless creature who loved him. ' Stay,' he 
 writes one morning — ^it is the 14th of Decemher, 1710 — 
 ' stay, I wiU answer some of your letter this morning 
 in bed — ^let me see. Come and appear, little letter ! 
 
 ' A sentimental ChampoUion might find a good deal of matter 30 
 for his art, in expounding the symbols of the ' Little Language '. 
 Usually, Stella is ' M.D.,' but sometimes her companion, Mrs. 
 Dingley, is included in it. Swift is ' Presto ' ; also P.D.P.R. 
 We ha,ve ' Good night, M.D. ; Night, M.D. ; Little M.D. ; 
 Stellakins ; Pretty Stella ; Dear, roguish, impudent, pretty 35 
 M.D. ! ' Every now and then he breaks into rhyme, as — 
 I wish you both a merry new year. 
 Roast beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer. 
 And me a share of your good cheer. 
 That I was there, or you were here, 40 
 
 And you are a little saucy dear. [Jan. 1, 1710-11.] 
 
SWIFT 35 
 
 Here I am, says he, and what say you to Mrs. M. D. 
 this morning fresh and fasting ? And can Stella read 
 this writing without hurting her dear eyes ? ' he goes on, 
 after more kind prattle and fond whispering. The dear 
 
 5 eyes shine clearly upon him then — the good angel of his 
 life is with him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard 
 fate that wrung from them so many tears, and stabbed 
 pitilessly that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate : but 
 would she have changed it ? I have heard a woman say 
 
 10 that she would have taken Swift's cruelty to have had 
 his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst 
 he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone ; 
 of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, 
 with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably 
 
 15 touching ; in contemplation of her goodness his hard 
 heart melts into pathos ; his cold rhyme kindles and 
 glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so 
 to speak, before the angel whose life he had embittered, 
 confesses his own wretchedness and unworthiness, and 
 
 20 adores her with cries of remorse and love : — 
 
 When on my sickly couch I lay, 
 Impatient both of night and day. 
 Lamenting in unmanly strains. 
 Called every power to ease my pains. 
 Then SteUa ran to my relief. 
 With cheerful face and inward grief, 
 And though by Heaven's severe decree 
 She suffers hourly more than me. 
 No cruel master could require 
 From slaves employed for daily hire. 
 What Stella, by her friendship warmed, 
 With vigour and delight performed. 
 My sinking spirits now supplies 
 With cordials in her hands and eyes ; 
 Now, with a soft and silent tread. 
 Unheard she moves about my bed. 
 
 Best pattern of true friends ! beware ; 
 You pay too dearly for your care 
 
 D2 
 
 30 
 
36 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 If, while your tenderness secures 
 
 My life, it must endanger yours : 
 
 For such a fool was never found 
 
 Who pulled a palace to the ground. 
 
 Only to have the ruins made ^ 
 
 Materials for a house decayed. 
 
 One little triumph Stella had in her life — one dear little 
 piece of injustice was performed in her favour, for which 
 I confess, for my part, I can't help thanking fate and the 
 Dean. That other person was sacrificed to her — that — lo 
 that young woman, who lived five doors from Dr. Swift's 
 lodgings in Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made 
 love to him in such an outrageous manner — Vanessa was 
 thrown over. 
 
 Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to i5 
 those he wrote to her.^ He kept Bolingbroke's, and 
 
 The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on 
 the evening of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-8 : 
 
 ' She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of 
 fifteen ; but then grew into perfect health, and was looked 20 
 upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young 
 women in London — only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker 
 than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection. 
 
 ' . . . Properly speaking ' — he goes on with a calmness which, 
 under the circumstances, is terrible — ' she has been dying six 25 
 months ! . . .' 
 
 ' Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, 
 or who more improved them by reading and conversation. . . . 
 All of us who had the happiness of her friendship agreed unani- 
 mously, that in an aftempon or evening's conversation she never 30 
 failed before we parted of delivering the best thing that was said 
 in the company. Some of us have written down several of her 
 sayings, or what the lYenoh call hons mots, wherein she excelled 
 almost beyond belief.' \0n the Death of Mrs. Johnson.'] 
 
 The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper called 35 
 Bona Mots de Stella, scarcely bear out this last part of the 
 panegyric. But the following prove her wit : 
 
 ' A gentleman, who had been very silly and pert in her com- 
 pany, at last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child 
 lately dead. A bishop sitting by comforted him — that he should 40 
 be easy, because " the child was gone to heaven ". " No, my 
 lord," said she ; " that is it which most grieves him, because 
 he is sure never to see his child there." 
 
SWIFT 37 
 
 Pope's, and Harley's, and Peterborough's : but Stella, 
 ' very carefully,' the Lives say, kept Swift's. Of course : 
 that is the way of the world : and so we cannot tell 
 what her style was, or of what sort were the little letters 
 6 which the doctor placed there at night, and bade to 
 appear from under his pillow of a morning. But in 
 Letter IV of that famous collection he describes his 
 lodging in Bury Street, where he has the first floor, 
 a dining-room and bedchamber, at eight shillings a week ; 
 
 10 and in Letter VI he says ' he has visited a lady just 
 come to town ', whose name somehow is not mentioned ; 
 and in Letter VIII he enters a query of Stella's — ' What 
 do you mean " that boards near me, that I dine with now 
 and then ? " What the deuce ! You know whom I have 
 
 15 dined with every day since I left you, better than I do.' 
 Of course she does. Of course Swift has not the sUghtest 
 idea of what she means. But in a few letters more it 
 turns out that the doctor has been to dine ' gravely ' 
 with a Mrs. Vanhomiigh : then that he has been to ' his 
 
 20 neighbour ' : then that he has been unwell, and means 
 to dine for the whole week with his neighbour ! Stella 
 was quite right in her previsions. She saw from the 
 very first hint what was going to happen ; and scented 
 Vanessa in the air.^ The rival is at the Dean's feet. 
 
 25 ' When she was extremely ill, her physician said, " Madam, 
 you are near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavour to 
 get you up again." She answered, " Doctor, I fear I shall be 
 out of breath before I get up to the top." 
 
 ' A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected 
 
 30 smartness and repartees, was asked by some of the company 
 how his nails came to be so dirty. He was at a loss ; but she 
 solved the difficulty, by saying, " the Doctor's nails grew dirty 
 by scratching himself." 
 
 ' A quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked ; it had a broad 
 
 35 brim, and a label of paper about its neck. " What is that ? " — 
 said she — " my apothecary's son ! " The ridiculous resemblance 
 and the suddenness of the question, set us all a-laughing.' — 
 Swiff 8 Works, Scott's ed., vol. ix, 295-6. 
 
 '■ ' I am so hot and lazy after my morning's walk, that I 
 
 40 loitered at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, where my best gown and periwig 
 was, and out of mere lisUesaness dine there, very often ; so I did 
 to-day.'— JoMmoZ to Stella. [May 30, 1711.] 
 
38 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 The pupil and teacher are reading together, and drinking 
 tea together, and going to prayers together, and learn- 
 ing Latin together, and conjugating anw, amas, amavi 
 together. The ' little language ' is over for poor Stella. 
 By the rule of grammar and the course of conjugation, 5 
 doesn't amavi come after amo and amas 'i 
 
 The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa ^ you may peruse in 
 Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's 
 vehement expostulatory verses and letters to him ; she 
 adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him some- 10 
 thing godlike, and only prays to be admitted to lie at 
 his feet.^ As they are bringing him home from church, 
 
 Mrs. Vanhomrigli, Vanessa's mother, was the widow of a Dutch 
 merchant who held lucrative appointments in King William's 
 time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a house 15 
 in Bury Street, St. James's — a street made notable by such 
 residents as Swift and Steele ; and, in our own time, Moore and 
 Crabbe. 
 
 ' ' Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her 
 by Cadenus is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was 20 
 fond of dress ; impatient to be admired ; very romantic in her 
 turn of mind ; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex ; full 
 of pertness, gaiety, and pride ; not without some agreeable 
 accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful or gen- 
 teel ; . . . happy in the thoughts of being reputed Swift's con- as 
 oubine, but still aiming and intending to be his wife.' — Lokd 
 Orbeby. [Remarks, Sec, Letter ix.] 
 
 ^ ' You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you 
 could. You had better have said, as often as you could get the 
 better of your inclinations so much ; or as often as you remem- 30 
 bered there was such a person in the world. If you continue 
 to treat me as you do, you will not be made uneasy by me long. 
 It is impossible to describe what I have suffered since I saw you 
 last : I am sure I could have borne the rack much better than 
 those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved 35 
 to die without seeing you more ; but those resolves, to your 
 misfortune, did not last long ; for there is something in human 
 nature that prompts one so to find relief in this world, I must 
 give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak kindly to 
 me ; for I am sure you would not condemn any one to suffer 40 
 what I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write 
 to you is, because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you ; 
 for when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there 
 is something in your look so awful that it strikes me dumb. 
 Oh ! that you may but have so much regard for me left, that 48 
 
SWIFT 39 
 
 those divine feet of Dr. Swift's are found pretty often in 
 Vanessa's parlour. He likes to be admired and adored. 
 He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste 
 and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He 
 
 5 sees her every day ; he does not tell SteUa about the 
 business : until the impetuous Vanessa becomes too 
 fond of him, until the doctor is quite frightened by the 
 young woman's ardour, and confounded by her warmth. 
 He wanted to marry neither of them — ^that I believe 
 
 10 was the truth ; but if he had not married SteUa, Vanessa 
 would have had him in spite of himself. When he went 
 back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in 
 her isle, pursued the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, 
 he vowed, he soothed, and buUied ; the news of the 
 
 15 Dean's marriage with SteUa at last came to her, and it 
 kiUed her — she died of that passion.^ 
 
 this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little 
 as ever I can ; did you but know what I thought, I am sure 
 it would move you. Forgive me, and believe I cannot help 
 
 20 telling you this and live.' — Vanessa. (1714.) 
 
 " ' If we consider Swift's behaviour, so far only as it relates to 
 women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts 
 than as whole figures.'— Orbbry. [Bemarhs, &c., Letter x.] 
 ' You would have smiled to have found his house a constant 
 
 25 seraglio of very virtuous women, who attended him from morning 
 to night.' — Oebery. [Ibid.] 
 
 A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott's furnished him with the 
 materials on which to found the following interesting passage 
 about Vanessa — after she had retired to cherish her passion in 
 
 30 retreat : — 
 
 ' Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh re- 
 sided, is built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in 
 its external appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by 
 his own account), showed the grounds to my correspondent. He 
 
 35 was the son of Mrs. Vanhomrigh's gardener, and used to work 
 with his father in the garden when a boy. He remembered the 
 unfortunate Vanessa well ; and his account of her corresponded 
 with the usual description of her person, especially as to her 
 etribonpoint. He said she went seldom abroad, and saw little 
 
 40 company ; her constant amusement was reading, or walking in 
 the garden. . . . She avoided company, and was always melan- 
 choly, save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed 
 happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with 
 laurels. The old man said that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected 
 
40 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had 
 written beautifully regarding her, ' That doesn't surprise 
 
 the Dean she always planted with her own hand a laurel or two 
 against his arrival. He showed her favourite seat, still called 
 " Vanessa's bower ". Three or four trees and some laurels 5 
 indicate the spot. . . . There were two seats and a rude table 
 within the bower, the opening of which commanded a view of 
 the Liffey. ... In this sequestered spot, according to the old 
 gardener's account, the Dean and Vanessa used often to sit, 
 with books and writing materials on the table before them.' — 10 
 Scott's 8wift [Sect. 5], vol. i, pp. 246-7. 
 
 ' . . . But Mss Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which 
 she found herself, determined on bringing to a crisis those 
 expectations of an union with the object of her affections — to 
 the hope of which she had clung amid every vicissitude of his 15 
 conduct towards her. The most probable bar was his undefined 
 connexion with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must have been 
 perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long excited her secret 
 jealousy ; although only a single hint to that purpose is to be 
 found in their correspondence, and that so early as 1713, when 20 
 she writes to him — ^then in Ireland — " If you are very happy, 
 it is ill-natured of you not to tell me so, except His what is incon- 
 sistent ivith mine." Her silence and patience under this state of 
 uncertainty for no less than eight years, must have been partly 
 owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak 25 
 state of her rival's health, which, from year to year, seemed to 
 announce speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa's 
 impatience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of 
 writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature 
 of that connexion. Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage 30 
 with the Dean ; and full of the highest resentment against Swift 
 for having given another female such a right in him as Miss 
 Vanhomrigh' s inquiries implied, she sent to him her rival's letter 
 of interrogation, and, without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, 
 retired to the house of Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader 35 
 knows the consequence. Swift, in one of those paroxysms of 
 fury to which he was liable, both from temper and disease, rode 
 instantly to Marley Abbey. As he entered the apartment, the 
 sternness of his countenance, which was peculiarly formed to 
 express the fiercer passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with 40 
 such terror that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit 
 down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table, and, 
 instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to 
 Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only found her 
 own letter to Stella. It was her death warrant. She sunk at 45 
 once under the disappointment of the delayed, yet cherished, 
 hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the 
 
SWIFT 41 
 
 me,' said Mrs. Stella, ' for we all know the Dean could 
 write beautifully about a broomstick.' A woman — a true 
 woman ! Would you have had one of them forgive the 
 other ? 
 
 5 In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend 
 Dr. Tuke, of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed 
 in a paper by Swift, on which are written in the Dean's 
 hand, the words : ' Only a woman's hair.' An instance, 
 says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under 
 
 10 the mask of cynical indifference. 
 
 See the various notions of critics ! Do those words 
 indicate indifference or an attempt to hide feeling ? Did 
 you ever hear or read four words more pathetic 1 Only 
 a woman's hair : only love, only fidelity, only purity, 
 
 16 innocence, beauty ; only the tenderest heart in the world 
 stricken and wounded, and passed away now out of reach 
 of pangs of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless 
 desertion : — only that lock of hair left ; and memory and 
 remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over 
 
 20 the grave of his victim. 
 
 And yet to have had so much love, he must have given 
 some. Treasures of wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, 
 must that man have had locked up in the caverns of his 
 gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he 
 
 25 took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. 
 People did not remain there long, and suffered for having 
 been there .^ He shrank away from aU affections sooner 
 or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near him, and 
 away from him. He had not heart enough to see them 
 
 30 unrestrained wrath of liim for whose sake she had indulged 
 them. How long she survived this last interview is uncertain, 
 but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.' — 
 Scott. [Uf& of Swift, Sect. 5, vol. i, p. 249.] 
 
 ^ ' M. Swfit est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne 
 
 35 compagnie. II n'a pas, a la verite, la gait6 du premier, mais il 
 a toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon gout qui manquent 
 a notre cure de Meudon. Ses vers sont d'un gout singulier, et 
 presque inimitable : la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers 
 et en prose ; mais pour le bien entendre il f aut f aire un petit 
 
 40 voyage dans son pays.' — Voltaikb, Lettres sur les Anglais, 
 Let. 22. 
 
42 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 die. He broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan ; he 
 slunk away from his fondest admirer, Pope. His laugh 
 jars on one's ear after sevenscore years. He was always 
 alone — alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when 
 Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When 5 
 that went, silence and utter night closed over him. An 
 immense genius : an awful downfall and ruin. So great 
 a man he seems to me, that thinking of him is like 
 thinking of an empire falling. We have other great 
 names to mention — ^none greater or so gloomy. i" 
 
LECTURE THE SECOND 
 
 CONGREVE AND ADDISON 
 
 A GREAT number of years ago, before the passing of the 
 Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain 
 
 5 debating club, called the ' Union ' ; and I remember 
 that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates 
 who frequented that renowned school of oratory, that 
 the great leaders of the Opposition and Government had 
 their eyes upon the University Debating Club, and that 
 
 10 if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance 
 of being returned to ParUament as a great nobleman's 
 nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thomson of Trinity, 
 would rise in their might, and draping themselves in 
 their gowns, rally round the monarchy, or hurl defiance 
 
 15 at priests and kings, with the majesty of Pitt or the fire 
 of Mirabeau, fancying all the while that the great noble- 
 man's emissary was listening to the debate from the 
 back benches, where he was sitting with the family seat 
 in his pocket. Indeed, the legend said that one or 
 
 20 two young Cambridge men, orators of the Union, were 
 actually caught up thence, and carried down to Cornwall 
 or old Sarum, and so into ParUament. And many a 
 young feUow deserted the jogtrot University curriculum, 
 to hang on in the dust behind the fervid wheels of the 
 
 25 Parliamentary chariot. 
 
 Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of peers 
 and Members of Parliament in Anne's and George's 
 time ? Were they all in the army, or hunting in the 
 country, or boxing the watch ? How was it that the 
 
 30 young gentlemen from the University got such a prodigi- 
 ous number of places ? A lad composed a neat copy 
 of verses at Christchurch or Trinity, in which the death 
 of a great personage was bemoaned, the French king 
 
44 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 assailed, the Dutch or Prince Eugene complimented, or 
 the reverse ; and the party iu power was presently to 
 provide for the young poet ; and a commissionership, 
 or a post in the Stamps, or the secretaryship of an 
 embassy, or a clerkship in the Treasury, came iuto the 5 
 bard's possession^ A wonderful fruit-bearing rod was 
 that of Busby's. What haye men of letters got in our 
 time ? Think, not only of Swift, a king fit to rule in any 
 time or empire — ^but Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell, 
 Congreve, John Gay, John Dennis, and many others, lo 
 who got public employment, and pretty little pickings 
 out of the public purse .^ The wits of whose names we 
 shall treat in this lecture and two following, aU (save one) 
 touched the King's coin, and had, at some period of their 
 lives, a happy quarter-day comiug round for them. is 
 
 They aU began at school or coUege in the regular way, 
 producing panegyrics upon public characters, what were 
 called odes upon public events, battles, sieges, court 
 
 ' The following is a conspectus of them : — 
 
 Addison. — Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secietary of State ; 20 
 Secretary to the Lord lieutenant of Ireland ; 
 Keeper of the Records in Ireland ; Lord of Trade ; 
 and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, suc- 
 cessively. 
 
 Steele. — Commissioner of the Stamp Office ; Surveyor of the 25 
 Royal Stables at Hampton Coxu't ; and Governor 
 of the Royal Company of Comedians ; Commis- 
 sioner of ' Forfeited Estates in Scotland '. 
 
 Prior. — Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague ; Gentleman 
 
 of the Bedchamber to King William ; Secretary 30 
 to the Embassy in Prance ; Under Secretary of 
 State ; Ambassador to France. 
 
 Tickell. — ^Under Secretary of State ; Secretary to the Lords 
 Justices of Ireland. 
 
 CoNGKEVE. — Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches ; 35 
 Commissioner for Wine Licences ; place in the 
 Pipe-office ; post in the Custom-house ; Secretary 
 of Jamaica. 
 
 Gay. — Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador 
 
 to Hanover). 4q 
 
 John Dennis. — A place in the Custom-house. 
 
 ' En Angleterre . . . les lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici.' — 
 
 Voltaire, LeUres sur les Anglais, Let. 20. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 45 
 
 marriages and deaths, in which the gods of Olympus and 
 the tragic muse were fatigued with invocations, according 
 to the fashion of the time in Prance and in England. 
 ' Aid us Mars, Bacchus, Apollo,' cried Addison, or Con- 
 
 5 greve, singing of Wilham or Marlborough. ' Accourez . . . 
 Ghastes nymphes du Permesse,' says Boileau, celebrating 
 the Grand Monarch. ' Das sons que ma lyre enfante, Ges 
 arbres sont rejouis : Marquez-en bien la cadence ; Et vous, 
 vents, faites silence ! Je vais parler de Louis ! ' School- 
 
 10 boys' themes and foundation exercises are the only relics 
 left now of this scholastic fashion. The Olympians 
 remain quite undisturbed in their mountain. What man 
 of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country 
 newspaper, would now think of writing a congratulatory 
 
 15 ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage 
 of a nobleman ? In the past century the young gentle- 
 men of the Universities all exercised themselves at these 
 queer compositions ; and some got fame, and some 
 gained patrons and places for life, and many more took 
 
 20 nothing by these efforts of what they were pleased to call 
 their muses. 
 
 WOliam Congreve's ^ Pindaric Odes are still to be 
 found in Johnson's Poets, that now unfrequented poets' 
 comer, in which so many forgotten bigwigs have a niche ; 
 
 25 but though he was also voted to be one of the greatest 
 tragic poets of any day, it was Congreve's wit and humour 
 which first recommended him to courtly fortune. And 
 it is recorded, that his first play, The Old Bachelor, 
 brought our author to the notice of that great patron 
 
 30 of English muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax, who 
 being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of 
 ease and tranquithty, instantly made him one of the 
 Commissioners for licensing hackney-coaches, bestowed 
 on him soon after a place in the Pipe-of&ce, and likewise 
 
 35 a post in the Custom-house of the value of 600Z. 
 
 A commissionership of hackney-coaches — a post in the 
 
 ' He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson 
 of Richard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Stafford- 
 shire — a very ancient family. 
 
46 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Custom-house — a place in the Pipe-office, and all for 
 writing a comedy ! Doesn't it sound like a fable, that 
 place in the Pipe-office 1 ^ Ah, Vheureux temps que celui 
 de ces fables ! Men of letters there stiU be : but I doubt 
 whether any Pipe-offices are left. The public has smoked 5 
 those long ago. 
 
 Words, like men, pass current for a while with the 
 pubHc, and being known everywhere abroad, at length 
 take their places in society ; so even the most secluded 
 and refined ladies here present will have heard the phrase lo 
 from their sons or brothers at school, and will permit me 
 to call William Congreve, Esquire, the most eminent 
 literary ' swell ' of his age. In my copy of Johnson's 
 Lives Congreve's wig is the tallest, and put on with the 
 jauntiest air of all the laurelled worthies. ' I am the great is 
 Mr. Congreve,' he seems to say, looking out from his 
 voluminous curls. People called him the great Mr. Con- 
 greve.^ From the beginning, of his career until the end 
 everybody admired him. Having got his education in 
 Ireland, at the same school and college with Swift, he 20 
 
 ^ ' Pipe. — Pipe, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also 
 the great roll. 
 
 ' Pipe -O^ce is an office wherein a person called the Clerk of 
 the Pipe makes out leases of crown lands, by warrant, from the 
 Lord-Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor 25 
 of the Exchequer. 
 
 ' Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c.' — 
 Rebs, Cyclopaed. Art. Pipe. 
 
 ' PrPB-O^ce. — Spelman thinks so called because the papers 
 were kept in a large pipe or cask. 30 
 
 ' These be at last brought into that office of Her Majesty's 
 Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the pipe . . . 
 because the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means 
 of divers small pipes or quills.' — Bacon, The Office of Alienations. 
 
 [We are indebted to Richardson's Dictionary for this fragment 35 
 of erudition. But a modern man of letters can know little on 
 these points — by experience.] 
 
 ' 'It has been observed that no change of Ministries affected 
 him in the least, nor was he ever removed from any post that 
 was given him, excepting to a better. His place in the Custom- 40 
 house, and his office of Secretary in Jamaica, are said to have 
 brought him in upwards of twelve hundred pounds a year.' — 
 Biog. Brit., Art. Congreve. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 47 
 
 came to live in the Middle Temple, London, where he 
 luckily bestowed no attention to the law ; but splendidly 
 frequented the coffee-houses and theatres, and appeared 
 in the side-box, the tavern, the Piazza, and the Mall, 
 
 5 brilliant, beautiful, and victorious from the first. Every- 
 body acknowledged the young chieftain. The great Mr. 
 Dryden ^ declared that he was equal to Shakespeare, and 
 bequeathed to him his own undisputed poetical crown, 
 and writes of him, ' Mr. Congreve has done me the favour 
 
 10 to review the Aeneis, and compare my version with the 
 original. I shall never be ashamed to own that this 
 excellent young man has showed me many faults which 
 I have endeavoured to correct.' 
 
 ' Dryden addressed his twelfth epistle to ' My dear friend 
 15 Mr. Congreve ', on his comedy called The Double Dealer, in which 
 he says — 
 
 Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please ; 
 Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease. 
 In differing talents both adorn' d their age : 
 20 One for the study, t'other for the stage. 
 
 But both to Congreve justly shall submit. 
 
 One match'd in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit. 
 
 In him all beauties of this age we see, &c. &c. 
 
 The Double Dealer, however, was not so palpable a hit as the 
 
 25 Old Bachelor, but, at first, met with opposition. The critics 
 
 having fallen foul of it, our ' swell ' applied the scourge to that 
 
 presumptuous body, in the EpisUe Dedicatory to the ' Right 
 
 Honourable Charles Montague.' [prefixed to the Double Dealer.'] 
 
 ' I was conscious,' said he, ' where a true critic might have 
 
 30 put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, . . . 
 but I have not heard anjrthing said sufficient to provoke an 
 answer.' He goes on — 
 
 ' But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than 
 all the false criticisms that are made upon me ; and that is, 
 
 35 some of the ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it ; for 
 I declare, I would rather disoblige all the critics in the world 
 than one of the fair sex. They are concerned that I have repre- 
 sented some women vicious and affected. How can I help it ? 
 It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies 
 
 40 of human kind. ... I should be very glad of an opportunity 
 to make my compliment to those ladies who are offended. But 
 they can no more expect it in a comedy, than to be tickled by 
 a surgeon when he is letting them blood? 
 
48 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 The ' excellent young man ' was but three- or four-and- 
 twenty when the great Dryden thus spoke of him : the 
 greatest literary chief in England, the veteran field- 
 marshal of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe, 
 and the centre of a school of wits, who daily gathered 5 
 round his chair and tobacco-pipe at Will's. Pope dedi- 
 cated his Iliad to him ; ^ Swift, Addison, Steele, all 
 acknowledge Congreve's rank, and lavish compHments 
 upon him. Voltaire went to wait upon him as on one 
 of the Representatives of Literature — and the man who lo 
 scarce praises any other living person, who flung abuse 
 at Pope, and Swift, and Steele, and Addison — ^the Grub 
 Street Timon, old John Dennis,^ was hat in hand to 
 Mr. Congreve ; and said, that when he retired from the 
 stage, Comedy went with him. is 
 
 Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired 
 in the drawing-rooms as well as the coffee-houses ; as 
 much beloved in the side-box as on the stage. He loved, 
 and conquered, and jilted the beautiful Bracegirdle,* the 
 
 ^ ' Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to my- 20 
 self, ... let me leave behind me a memorial of my friendship, 
 with one of the most valuable men as well as finest writers of 
 my age and country — one who has tried, and knows by his own 
 experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to 
 Homer — and one who, I am sure, seriously rejoices with me at 25 
 the period of my labours. To him, therefore, having brought 
 this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate it, and to 
 have the honour and satisfaction of placing together in this 
 manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of — A. Pope.' — Post- 
 script to Translation of the Iliad of Homer. Mar. 26, 1720. 30 
 
 " ' When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he 
 said, he had much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had 
 a particular friendship for our author, and generously took him 
 under his protection in his high authoritative manner.' — Thos. 
 Davibs, Dramatic Miscellanies. [Vol. iii, p. 381 (1784).] 35 
 
 ' ' Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers, 
 until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. 
 He then quitted that house. The Duchess showed me a diamond 
 necklace (which Lady Di. used afterwards to wear) that cost 40 
 seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money 
 Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to have 
 given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle.' — De. Young (Spence's Anec- 
 dotes), [p. 376, Singer's ed. of 1820.] 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 49 
 
 heroine of all his plays, the favourite of all the town of 
 her day — and the Duchess of Marlborough, Marlborough's 
 daughter, had such an admiration of him, that when he 
 died she had an ivory figure made to imitate him,^ and 
 
 e a large wax doll with gouty feet to be dressed just as the 
 great Congreve's gouty feet were dressed in his great life- 
 time. He saved some money by his Pipe-office, and his 
 Custom-house office, and his Hackney-coach office, and 
 nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle, who wanted it,^ but to 
 
 10 the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't.* 
 
 How can I introduce to you that merry and shameless • 
 Comic Muse who won him such a reputation ? Nell 
 Gwynn's servant fought the other footman for having 
 caUed his mistress a bad name ; and in like manner, and 
 
 15 with pretty like epithets, Jeremy. Collier attacked that 
 
 ^ ' A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was sup- 
 posed to bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what 
 she spoke to it.' — Thos. Davibs, Dramatic Miscellanies. [Vol. iii, 
 p. 382.] 
 
 20 " The sum Congreve left her was 200Z., as is said in the 
 Dramatic Miscellanies of Tom Davies ; where are some parti- 
 culars about this charming actress and beautiful woman. 
 
 She had a ' lively aspect ', says Tom, on the authority of 
 Gibber, and ' such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her 
 
 26 countenance, that she inspired everybody . . . with desire '. 
 ' Scarce an audience saw her that were not half of them her 
 lovers.' [Vol. iii, p. 338.] 
 
 Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. 
 ' In Tamerlane, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla. 
 
 30 . . . Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her 
 Angelica, in Love for Love ; in his Osmyn to her Almeria, in 
 The Mourning Bride ; and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Milla- 
 mant, in The Way of the World. Mirabel, the fine gentleman of 
 the play, is, I believe, not very distant from the real character 
 
 35 of Congreve.' — Dramatic Miacdlanies, vol. iii [p. 337]. 
 
 She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be 
 the public favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year 
 of her age. 
 " Johnson calls his legacy the ' accumulation of attentive par- 
 
 40 simony, which', he continues, 'though to her (the_ Duchess) 
 superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to 
 the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by 
 the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and dis- 
 tress.' [Life of Congreve, p. 56.] 
 1356 S 
 
50 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 godless, reckless Jezebel, the English comedy of his time, 
 and called her what NeU Gwynn's man's fellow-servants 
 called NeU Gwynn's man's mistress. The servants of the 
 theatre, Dryden, Congreve,^ and others, defended them- 
 selves with the same success, and for the same causes 
 which set Nell's lackey fighting. She was a disreputable, 
 daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that Comic 
 Muse. She came over from the continent with Charles 
 (who chose many more of his female friends there) at 
 the Restoration — a wild, dishevelled Lais, with eyes lo 
 bright with wit and wine — a saucy court-favourite that 
 sat at the King's knees, and laughed in his face, and, 
 when she showed her bold cheeks at her chariot-window, 
 had some of the noblest and most famous people of the 
 land bowing round her wheel. She was kind and popular 15 
 enough, that daring Comedy, that audacious poor NeU — 
 she was gay and generous, kind and frank, as such people 
 can afford to be : and the men who lived with her and 
 laughed with her, took her pay and drank her wine, 
 turned out when the Puritans hooted her, to fight and 20 
 
 ' He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called Amendments of 
 Mr. Collier's False and ImTperfect Citations, &c. A specimen or 
 two are subjoined ; — 
 
 ' The greater part of these examples which he has produced, 
 are only demonstrations of his own impurity : they only savour 25 
 of his utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his 
 breath.' [p. 3 (1690).] 
 
 ' Where the expression is unblameable in its own clear and 
 genuine signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil 
 spirit ; he possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow 30 
 forth his own blasphemies.' [p. 4.] 
 
 ' If I d(f not return his civilities in calling him names, it is 
 because I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures. . . . 
 I will only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often 
 as I think he shall deserve it.' [p. 6.] 35 
 
 ' The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour 
 critic' [p. 26.] 
 
 ' Congreve,' says Dr. Johnson, ' a very young man, elated 
 with success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of con- 
 fidence and security. . . . The dispute was protracted through 40 
 ten years ; but at last Comedy grew more modest, and ColUer 
 lived to see the reward of his labour in the reformation of the 
 theatre.' — Life of Congreve. [p. 51.] 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 51 
 
 defend her. But the jade was indefensible, and it is 
 pretty certain her servants knew it. 
 
 There is life and death going on in everything : truth 
 and lies always at battle. Pleasure is always warring 
 
 5 against self-restraint. Doubt is always crying Psha, and 
 sneering. A man in life, a humourist in writing about 
 life, sways over to one principle or the other, and laughs 
 with the reverence for right and the love of truth in his 
 heart, or laughs at these from the other side. Didn't 
 
 10 1 tell you that dancing was a serious business to Harle- 
 quin ? I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over 
 before speaking of him ; and my feelings were rather 
 like those, which I daresay most of us here have had, at 
 Pompeii, looking at the Poet's house and the relics of 
 
 15 an orgy : a dried wine- jar or two, a charred supper-table, 
 the breast of a dancing girl pressed against the ashes, the 
 laughing skuU of a jester, a perfect stillness round about, 
 as the cicerone twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines 
 cahnly over the ruin. The Congreve muse is dead, and 
 
 20 her song choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the 
 skeleton, and wonder at the life which once revelled in 
 its mad veins. We take the skull up, and muse over the 
 frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, 
 with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think 
 
 25 of the glances that allured, the tears that melted, of the 
 bright eyes that shone in those vacant sockets ; and of 
 lips whispering love, and cheeks dimpling with smiles, 
 that once covered yon ghastly yeUow framework. They 
 used to call those teeth pearls once. See ! there's the 
 
 30 cup she drank from, the gold chain she wore on her neck, 
 the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her looking- 
 glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead of a 
 feast we find a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, 
 a few bones. 
 
 35 Reading in these plays now is like shutting your ears 
 and looking at people dancing. What does it mean ? the 
 measures, the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling and retreat- 
 ing, the cavalier seul advancing upon those ladies — ^those 
 ladies and men twirling round at the end in a mad galop, 
 
 40 after which everybody bows and the quaint rite is 
 
 E2 
 
52 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 celebrated. Without the music we can't understand that 
 comic dance of the last century — ^its strange gravity and 
 gaiety, its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of 
 its own quite unlike life ; a sort of moral of its own 
 quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a heathen mystery, 5 
 symbolizing a Pagan doctrine ; protesting, as the 
 Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their theatre 
 and laughing at their games — as the Poet and his friends, 
 and their mistresses protested — crowned with flowers, 
 with cups in their hands, against the new, hard, ascetic, lo 
 pleasure-hating doctrine, whose gaunt disciples, lately 
 passed over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, 
 were for breaking the fair images of Venus, and flinging 
 the altars of Bacchus down. 
 
 I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of Pagan is 
 delights, and mysteries not permitted except among 
 heathens. I fear the theatre carries down that ancient 
 tradition and worship, as masons have carried their 
 secret signs and rites from temple to temple. When the 
 Hbertine hero carries off the beauty in the play, and the 20 
 dotard is laughed to scorn for having the young wife : 
 in the ballad, when the poet bids his mistress to gather 
 roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still 
 a-flying : in the ballet, when honest Corydon courts 
 PhiUis under the treillage of the pasteboard cottage, and 25 
 leers at her over the head of grandpapa in red stockings, 
 who is opportunely asleep ; and when, seduced by the 
 invitations of the rosy youth, she comes forward to the 
 footlights, and they perform on each other's tiptoes that 
 pas which you aU know, and which is only interrupted 3o 
 by old grandpapa awaking from his doze at the paste- 
 board chalet (whither he returns to take another nap in 
 case the young people get an encore) : when Harlequin, 
 splendid in youth, strength, and agility, arrayed in gold 
 and a thousand colours, springs over the heads of 35 
 countless perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered 
 giants, and, daunttess and splendid, dances danger 
 down : when Mr. Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks 
 every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits 
 the lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the 40 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 53 
 
 head, and hangs the hangman — don't you see in the 
 comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the ragged Uttle 
 Punch's puppet-show — ^the Pagan protest ? Doesn't it 
 seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment ? 
 
 5 ' Look how the lovers walk and hold each other's hands 
 and whisper ! ' Sings the chorus — ' There is nothing 
 like love, there is nothing like youth, there is nothing 
 like beauty of your springtime. Look ! how old age tries 
 to meddle with merry sport ! Beat him with his own 
 
 10 crutch, the wrinkled old dotard ! There is nothing like 
 youth, there is nothing like beauty, there is nothing like 
 strength. Strength and valour win beauty and youth. 
 Be brave and conquer. Be young and happy. Enjoy, 
 enjoy, enjoy ! Would you know the segreto per esser 
 
 15 felice ? Here it is, in a smiling mistress and a cup of 
 Falemian.' As the boy tosses the cup and sings his song 
 — ^hark ! what is that chaunt coming nearer and nearer ? 
 What is that dirge which will disturb us ? The lights 
 of the festival bum dim — ^the cheeks turn pale — ^the voice 
 
 20 quavers — and the cup drops on the floor. Who's there ? 
 Death and Fate are at the gate, and they will come in. 
 
 Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round 
 the table, emptying their flaming bowls of drink, and 
 exchanging the wildest jests and ribaldry, sit men and 
 
 25 women, waited on by rascally valets and attendants as 
 dissolute as their mistresses — ^perhaps the very worst 
 company in the world. There doesn't seem to be a pre- 
 tence of morals. At the head of the table sits Mirabel or 
 Belmour (dressed in the French fashion and waited on by 
 
 30 English imitators of Scapin and Frontin). Their caUing 
 is to be irresistible, and to conquer everywhere. Like 
 the heroes of the chivalry story, whose long-winded loves 
 and combats they were sending out of fashion, they are 
 always splendid and triumphant — overcome all dangers, 
 
 35 vanquish all enemies, and win the beauty at the end. 
 Fathers, husbands, usurers are the foes these champions 
 contend with. They are merciless in old age, invariably, 
 and an old man plays the part in the dramas, which the 
 wicked enchanter or the great blundering giant performs 
 
 40 in the chivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles and 
 
54 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 resists — a huge stupid obstacle always overcome by the 
 knight. It is an old man with a money-box : Sir Belmour 
 his son or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. 
 It is an old man with a young wife whom he locks up : 
 Sir Mirabel robs him of his' wife, trips up his gouty old 5 
 heels and leaves the old hunx — ^the old fool, what business 
 has he to hoard his money, or to lock up blushing 
 eighteen ? Money is for youth, love is for youth, away 
 with the old people ! When Millamant is sixty, having 
 of course divorced the first Lady MiUamant, and married lo 
 his friend Doricourt's grand-daughter out of the nursery 
 — it will be his turn ; and young Belmour will make 
 a fool of him. AU this pretty morality you have in 
 the comedies of WiUiam Congreve, Esq. They are full 
 of wit. Such manners as he observes, he observes with is 
 great humour ; but ah ! it's a weary feast that banquet 
 of wit where no love is. It palls very soon ; sad indiges- 
 tions foUow it and lonely blank headaches in the morning. 
 I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Con- 
 greve's plays ^ — ^which are undeniably bright, witty, and 20 
 
 ' The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in Love for Love 
 is a splendid specimen of Congreve's daring manner : — 
 
 Scandal. — And have you given your master a hint of their 
 plot upon him ? 
 
 Jeremy. — Yes, Sir ; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her 25 
 for Angelica. 
 
 Scandal. — It may make us sport. 
 
 Foresight. — ^Mercy on us ! 
 
 Valentine. — Husht — ^interrupt me not — I'll whisper prediction 
 to thee, and thou shalt prophesie ; — I am truth, and can teach 30 
 thy tongue a new trick, — I have told thee what's past — now 
 I'll tell what's to come : — Dost thou know what will happen 
 to-morrow ? Answer me not — for I will tell thee. To-morrow 
 knaves will thrive thro' craft, and fools thro' fortune ; and 
 honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me 35 
 questions concerning to-morrow. 
 
 Scandal. — Ask him, Mr. Foresight. 
 
 Foresight. — Pray what will be done at Court ! 
 
 Valentine. — Scandal will tell you ; — I am truth, I never come 
 there. 40 
 
 Foresight. — In the city ? 
 
 Valentine. — Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the 
 usual hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 55 
 
 daring — any more than I could ask you to hear the 
 dialogue of a witty bargeman and a brilliant fishwoman 
 
 as if religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go 
 
 methodically in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, 
 
 5 and the horn'd herd buzz in the Exchange at two. Husbands 
 
 and wives will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure 
 
 separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of 
 
 smoke and stratagem. And the oropt prentice that sweeps his 
 
 master's shop in the morning, may, ten to one, dirty his sheets 
 
 10 before night. But there are two things, that you will see very 
 
 strange ; which are, wanton wives with their legs at liberty, and 
 
 tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But hold, I must 
 
 examine you before I go further ; you look suspiciously. Are 
 
 you a husband ? 
 
 15 Foresight. — ^I am married. 
 
 Vaientine. — ^Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden 
 Parish ! 
 
 Foresight. — No ; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. 
 
 Valentine. — Alas, poor man ! his eyes are sunk, and his hands 
 
 20 shrivelled ; his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray, 
 
 for a metamorphosis — change thy shape, and shake off age ; get 
 
 thee Medea's kettle and be boiled anew ; come forth with 
 
 lab'ring callous hands, a chine of steel, and Atlas' shoulders. 
 
 Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make 
 
 25 thee pedestals to stand erect upon, and look matrimony in the 
 
 face. Ha, ha, ha ! That a man should have a stomach to 
 
 a wedding supper, when the pigeons ought rather to be laid 
 
 to his feet ! ha, ha, ha ! 
 
 Foresight. — His frenzy is very high now, Mr. Scandal. 
 30 Scandal. — ^I believe it is a spring-tide. 
 
 Foresight. — Very likely — truly ; you understand these matters. 
 Mr. Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these 
 things which he has uttered. His sajdngs are very mysterious 
 and hieroglyphical. 
 35 Valentine. — Oh ! why would Angelica be absent from my eyes 
 so long ? 
 
 Jeremy. — She's here. Sir. 
 Mrs. Foresight. — Now, Sister ! 
 Mrs. Frail. — O Lord ! what must I say ? 
 40 Scandal. — Humour him, Madfim, by all means. 
 
 Valentine. — Where is she ? Oh ! I see her ; she comes, like 
 Riches, Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, 
 and abandoned wretch. Oh — welcome, welcome ! 
 Mrs. Frail.— Ko-w d'ye, Sir ? Can I serve you ? 
 45 Valentine.— B^avk'ee — I have a secret to tell you. Endymion 
 and the moon shall meet us upon Mount Latmos, and we'll be 
 married in the dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen 
 
56 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 exchanging compliments at Billingsgate ; but some of his 
 verses — ^they were amongst the most famous lyrics of the 
 
 shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret ; 
 and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold 
 his ogling tail ; and Argus's hundred eyes be shut — ha ! Nobody 6 
 shall know, but Jeremy. 
 
 Mrs. Frail. — No, no ; we'll keep it secret ; it shall be done 
 presently. 
 
 Valentine. — The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither — 
 closer — that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you 10 
 news ; Angelica is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet 
 we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl 
 and beads, that I may play my part ; for she'll meet me two 
 hours hence in black and white, and a long veil to cover the 
 project, and we won't see one another's faces 'till we have done 15 
 something to be ashamed of, and then we'll blush once for all. . . . 
 
 Enter Tattle and AnaELicA. 
 
 Tatde. — Do you know me, Valentine ? 
 
 Valentine. — You ! — who are you ? No, I hope not. 
 
 Tattle. — I am Jack Tattle, your friend. 20 
 
 Valentine. — My friend ! What to do ? I am no married man, 
 and thou canst not lye with my wife ; I am very poor, and thou 
 canst not borrow money of me. Then, what employment have 
 I for a friend ? 
 
 Tattle. — Hah ! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted 25 
 with a secret. 
 
 Angelica. — Do you know me, Valentine 9 
 
 Valentine. — Oh, very well. 
 
 Angelica.— Who am 1 1 
 
 Valentine. — ^You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave 30 
 beauty when it grafted roses on a briar. You are the reflection 
 of Heaven in a pond ; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You 
 are all white — a sheet of lovely spotless paper — when you first 
 are born ; but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every 
 goose's quill. I know you ; for I loved a woman, and loved her 35 
 so long that I found out a strange thing : I found out what 
 a woman was good for. 
 
 Tattle. — Ay ! pr'ythee, what's that 1 
 
 Valentine. — Why, to keep a secret. 
 
 Tatde.— Lord ! 40 
 
 Valentine. — Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret ; for, though 
 she should tell, yet she is not to be believed. 
 
 Tatde. — Hah ! Good again, faith. 
 
 Valentine. — I would have musiok. Sing me the song that 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 57 
 
 time, and pronounced equal to Horace by his contem- 
 poraries — ^may give an idea of his power, of his grace, of 
 
 I like. — CoNQREVE, Love for Love. [Act iv. So. iii ; in old 
 editions So. xv and xvi.] 
 
 6 There is a Mrs. NicMeby, of the year 1700, in Congreve's 
 comedy of The Double Dealer, in whose character the author 
 introduces some wonderful traits of roguish satire. She is 
 practised on by the gallants of the play, and no more knows 
 how to resist them than any of the ladies above quoted could 
 
 10 resist Congreve. 
 
 Lady Plyant. — Oh, reflect upon the horror of your conduct ! 
 Offering to pervert me [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing 
 the lady for her daughter's hand, not for her own] — perverting 
 me from the road of virtue, in which I have trod thus long, and 
 
 15 never made one trip — not one faux pas. Oh, consider it ; what 
 would you have to answer for, if you should provoke me to 
 frailty ! Alas ! humanity is feeble, Heaven knows ! Very 
 feeble, and unable to support itself. 
 
 Mellefont. — ^Where am I ? Is it day ? and am I awake ? 
 
 20 Madam — 
 
 Lady Plyant. — O Lord, ask me the question ! I'll swear . . . 
 
 I'll deny it — therefore don't ask me : nay, you shan't ask me, 
 
 I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood 
 
 into my face ; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cook ; fie, 
 
 25 cousin Mellefont ! 
 
 Mdlefont. — Nay, madam, hear me ; I mean 
 
 Lady Plyant. — Hear you ? No, no ; I'll deny you first, and 
 
 hear you afterward. For one does not know how one's mind 
 
 may change upon hearing — hearing is one of the senses, and all 
 
 30 the senses are fallible. I won't trust my honour, I assure you ; 
 
 my honour is infallible and unoomatable. 
 
 Mellefont. — For heaven's sake, madam 
 
 Lady Plyant. — Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you 
 talk of Heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart ? 
 35 May be, you don't think it a sin. They say some of you gentle- 
 men don't think it a sin ; . . . but still, my honour, if it were 
 
 no sin . But, then, to marry my daughter for the con- 
 
 venienoy of frequent opportunities — I'll never consent to that : 
 as sure as can be, I'll break the match. 
 40 Mellefont. — Death and amazement ! Madam, upon my 
 knees 
 
 Lady Plyant. — Nay, nay, rise up ; come, you shall see my 
 
 good nature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help 
 
 his passion. 'Tis not your fault ; nor I swear, it is not mine. 
 
 45 How can I help it, if I have charms ? And how can you help 
 
 it, if you are made a captive ? I swear it is pity it should be 
 
58 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 his daring manner, his magnificence in compliment, and 
 his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so accus- 
 tomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his 
 victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he : 
 ' every woman is the same.' He says this in his first 5 
 comedy, which he wrote languidly ^ in iUness, when he 
 was an ' excellent young man ' . Richelieu at eighty 
 could have hardly said a more excellent thing. 
 
 When he advances to make one of his conquests it is 
 with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the lo 
 fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attack- 
 ing the breach of Lerida. 
 
 ' Cease, cease to ask her name,' he writes of a young 
 lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with 
 a magnificent compliment — i5 
 
 Cease, cease to ask her name. 
 The crowned Muse's noblest theme, 
 Whose glory by immortal fame 
 
 Shall only sounded be. 
 But if you long to know, 20 
 
 Then look round yonder dazzling row, 
 Who most does like an angel show 
 
 You may be sure 'tis she. 
 
 Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was 
 
 a fault ; but, my honour. Well, but your honour, too — but the 25 
 , sin ! Well, but the necessity. O Lord, here's somebody coming. 
 I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime ; and 
 strive as much as can be against it — strive, be sure ; but don't 
 be melanoholick— don't despair ; but never think that I'll grant 
 you anything. Lord, no; but be sure you lay aside all thoughts 30 
 of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only 
 as a blind for your passion to me ; yet it will make me jealous. 
 O Lord, what did I say ? Jealous ! No, no, I can't be jealous ; 
 for I must not love you ; therefore don't hope ; but don't 
 despair neither. O, they're coming ; I must fly. — The Double 35 
 Dealer, Act II, Scene i ; [in old editions So. v]. 
 
 ' ' There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of 
 appearing to have done everything by chance. The Old Bachelor 
 was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. 
 Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dia- 40 
 logue, and incessant ambition of wit.' — Johnson {Life of Con- 
 greve, p. 44]. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 59 
 
 not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating 
 her — 
 
 When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, 
 With eyes so bright and with that awful air, 
 5 I thought my heart which durst so high aspire 
 As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. 
 But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke. 
 Forth from her coral lips such folly broke ; 
 Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound, 
 10 And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound. 
 Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, 
 but the poet does not seem to respect one much more 
 than the other; and describes both with exquisite 
 satirical humour — 
 15 Fair Amoret is gone astray, 
 
 Pursue and seek her every lover ; 
 I'U teU the signs by which you may 
 
 The wandering shepherdess discover. 
 Coquet and coy at once her air, 
 20 Both studied, though both seem neglected ; 
 
 Careless she is with artful care. 
 Affecting to seem unaffected. 
 With skiU her eyes dart every glance, 
 
 Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them ; 
 25 For she'd persuade they wound by chance, 
 
 Though certain aim and art direct them. 
 She likes herself, yet others hates 
 
 For that which in herself she prizes 
 And, while she laughs at them, forgets 
 30 She is the thing which she despises. 
 
 What could Amoret have done to bring down such 
 
 shafts of ridicule upon her ? Could she have resisted the 
 
 irresistible Mr. Congreve ? Could anybody 1 Could 
 
 Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing 
 
 35 under her window ? See, he writes — 
 
 See ! see, she wakes — Sabina wakes ! 
 
 And now the sun begins to rise : 
 Less glorious is the mom, that breaks 
 
 From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. 
 
60 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 With light united, day they give ; 
 
 But different fates ere night fulfil : 
 How many by his warmth will live ! 
 
 How many will her coldness kill ! 
 
 Are you melted ? Don't you think him a divine man ? s 
 If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout 
 Selinda : — 
 
 Pious Selinda goes to prayers, 
 
 If I but ask the favour ; 
 And yet the tender fool's in tears, lo 
 
 When she beUeves I'll leave her. 
 Would I were free from this restraint. 
 
 Or else had hopes to win her : 
 Would she could make of me a saint. 
 
 Or I of her a sinner ! is 
 
 What a conquering air there is about these ! What an 
 irresistible Mr. Congreve it is ! Sinner ! of course he will 
 be a sinner, the delightful rascal ! Win her ! of course 
 he wiU win her, the victorious rogue ! He knows he will : 
 he must — ^with such a grace, with such a fashion, with 20 
 such a splendid embroidered suit — ^you see him with red- 
 heeled shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled 
 hand through his dishevelled periwig, and delivering 
 a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina ? 
 What a comparison that is between the nymph and the 25 
 sun ! The sun gives Sabina the pas, and does not venture 
 to rise before her ladyship : the morn's bright beams are 
 less glorious than her fair eyes : but before night every- 
 body will be frozen by her glances : everybody but one 
 lucky rogue who shall be nameless ! Louis Quatorze in 3o 
 all his glory is hardly more splendid than our Phoebus 
 ApoUo of the Mall and Spring Garden.^ 
 
 ^ ' Among those by whom it (" Will's ") was frequented, 
 Southerne and Congreve were principally distinguished by 
 Dryden's friendship. . . . But Congreve seems to have gained 35 
 yet farther than Southerne upon iSyden's friendship. He was 
 introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated Old Bachelor 
 being put into the poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 61 
 
 When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the 
 latter rather afEected to despise his literary reputation, 
 and in this perhaps the great Congreve was not far 
 wrong.i A touch of Steele's tenderness is worth all his 
 5 finery — a flash of Swift's lightning — a beam of Addison's 
 pure sunshine, and his tawdry play-house taper is 
 invisible. But the ladies loved him, and he was 
 undoubtedly a pretty feUow.^ 
 
 making a few alterations to fit it for the stage, returned it to 
 
 10 the author with the high and just commendation, that it was 
 the best first play he had ever seen.' — Scott's Dryden, vol. i, 
 p. 369. [Sect. 7, second edition 1821.] 
 
 ^ It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), 
 that Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life. 
 
 15 The anecdote in the text, relating to his saying that he wished 
 ' to be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led 
 a life of plainness and simplicity ', is common to all writers on 
 the subject of Congreve, and appears in the English version of 
 Voltaire's Letters concerning the English Nation, published in 
 
 20 London, 1733 [in Letter 19, immediately after the extract given 
 below], as also in Goldsmith's Memoir of Voltaire. But it is 
 worthy of remark, that it does not appear in the text of the 
 same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's (Euvres Completes in 
 the Pantheon Litteraire. Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.) 
 
 25 ' Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porte le plus loin la gloire du 
 theatre comique est feu M. Congreve. II n'a fait que peu de 
 pieces, mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre. . . . Vous 
 y voyez partout le langage des honnetes gens avec des actions 
 de fripon ; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et 
 
 30 qu'U vivait dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie.' — 
 VoLTAlBE, Lettres aur les Anglais, Let. 19. 
 
 " On the death of Queen Mary, he published a Pastoral — 
 ' The Mourning Muse of Alexis.' Alexis and Menalcas sing 
 alternately in the orthodox way. The Queen is called Pastoea. 
 
 35 ' I mourn Pastoba dead, let Albion mourn. 
 
 And sable clouds her chalky clifis adorn,' 
 
 says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that — 
 With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound. 
 And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground, — 
 
 40 (a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that 
 period !) . . . It continues — 
 
 [See the Great Shepherd, chief of all the swains,] 
 Lord of these woods and wide extended plains, 
 
62 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose 
 truth frightens one, and whose laughter makes one melan- 
 
 Stretoh'd on the ground and close to earth his face, 
 Scalding with tears the akeady faded grass. 
 
 To dust must all that heaven of beauty come ? 5 
 
 And must Pastora moulder in the tomb ? 
 
 Ah Death ! more fierce and unrelenting far, 
 
 Than wildest wolves or savage tigers are ; 
 
 With lambs and sheep their hungers are appeased. 
 
 But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized. lo 
 
 This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death 
 eats a shepherdess ; that figure of the ' Great Shepherd ', lying 
 speechless on his stomach, in a state of despair, which neither 
 winds nor floods nor air can exhibit, are to be remembered in 
 poetry surely? and this style was admired in its time by the 15 
 admirers of the great Congreve ! 
 
 In the ' Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas ' (the young Lord 
 Blandford, the great Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis 
 represents Sarah Duchess ! 
 
 The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, 20 
 come into work here again. At the sight of her grief — 
 
 Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forgo. 
 And dumb distress and new compassion show. 
 
 Nature herself attentive silence kept, 
 
 And motion seemed suspended while she wept ! 25 
 
 And Pope dedicated the Iliad to the author of these lines — and 
 Dryden wrote to him in his great hand : 
 
 Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, 
 
 But Genius must be born and never can be taught. 
 
 This is your portion, this your native store ; 30 
 
 Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, 
 
 To Shakbspbabe gave as much, she could not give him more. 
 
 Maintain your Post : that's all the fame you need. 
 For 'tis impossible you should proceed ; 
 
 Already I am worn with cares and age, 35 
 
 And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage : 
 Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence, 
 I live a Rent-charge on his Providence : 
 But you whom every Muse and Grace adorn. 
 Whom I foresee to better fortune born, 40 
 
 Be kind to my remains, and oh defend 
 Against your Judgement your departed Friend ! 
 Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue ; 
 But shade those Laurels which descend to You : 
 
CONGEEVE AND ADDISON 63 
 
 choly. We have had in Congreve a humorous observer 
 of another school, to whom the world seems to have no 
 moral at all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that 
 we should eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go 
 
 5 to the deuce (if there be a deuce) when the time comes. 
 We come now to a humour that flows from quite a differ- 
 ent heart and spirit — a wit that makes us laugh and 
 leaves us good and happy ; to one of the kindest bene- 
 factors that society has ever had, and I believe you have 
 
 10 divined already that I am about to mention Addison's 
 honoured name. 
 
 From reading over his writings, and the biographies 
 which we have of him, amongst which the famous article 
 in the Edinburgh Review ^ may be cited as a magnificent 
 
 15 And take for Tribute what these Lines express ; 
 
 You merit more, nor could my Love do less. 
 
 This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own 
 day. In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors 
 of their time, when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's 
 
 20 arms, with ' Jack, Jack, I must buss thee ' ; or, ' Fore George, 
 
 Harry, I must kiss thee, lad'. And in a similar manner the 
 
 poets saluted their brethren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss 
 
 now ; I wonder if they love each other better. 
 
 Steele calls Congreve ' Great Sir ' and ' Great Author ' ; says 
 
 25 ' Well-dressed barbarians knew his awful name ', and addresses 
 him as if he were a prince ; and speaks of Pastora as one of the 
 most famous tragic compositions. 
 
 ^ ' To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much 
 like affection as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one 
 
 30 who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in West- 
 minster Abbey. . . . After full inquiry and impartial reflection 
 we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love 
 and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm and 
 erring race.' — Macatjlay. [Essay on Addison.'] 
 
 35 ' Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it 
 is reasonable to believe that Addison's professions and practice 
 were at no great variance ; since, amidst that storm of faction 
 in which most of his life was passed, though his station made 
 him conspicuous, and his activity made him formidable, the 
 
 40 character given him by his friends was never contradicted by 
 his enemies. Of those with whom interest or opinion united 
 him, he had not only the esteem but the kindness ; and of 
 others, whom the violence of opposition drove against him, 
 though he might lose the love, he retained the reverence.' — 
 
 15 Johnson. [Ldfe of Addison, p. 386.] 
 
64 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 statue of the great writer and moralist of the last age, 
 raised by the love and the marvellous skiU and genius of 
 one of the most illustrious artists of our own ; looking 
 at that calm, fair face, and clear countenance — ^those 
 chiselled features pure and cold, I can't but fancy that s 
 this great man, in this respect, Uke him of whom we 
 spoke in the last lecture, was also one of the lonely ones 
 of the world. Such men have very few equals, and they 
 don't herd with those. It is in the nature of such lords 
 of intellect to be solitary — they are in the world butio 
 not of it ; and our minor struggles, brawls, successes, 
 pass under them. 
 
 Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not tried 
 beyond easy endurance, his affections not much used, for 
 his books were his family, and his society was in public ; is 
 admirably wiser, wittier, cahner, and more instructed 
 than almost every man with whom he met, how could 
 Addison suffer, desire, admire, feel much ? I may 
 expect a child to admire me for being taUer or writing 
 more cleverly than she ; but how can I ask my superior 20 
 to say that I am a wonder when he knows better than I ? 
 In Addison's days you could scarcely show him a literary 
 performance, a sermon, or a poem, or a piece of literary 
 criticism, but he felt he could do better. His justice must 
 have made him indifferent. He didn't praise, because 25 
 he measiu-ed his compeers by a higher standard than 
 common people have.^ How was he who was so taU to 
 look up to any but the loftiest genius ? He must have 
 stooped to put himself on a level with most men. By 
 that profusion of graciousness and smiles, with which so 
 Goethe or Scott, for instance, greeted almost every 
 literary beginner, every small literary adventurer who 
 came to his court and went away charmed from the great 
 king's audience, and cuddling to his heart the com- 
 pliment which His Literary Majesty had paid him — each 35 
 
 ' ' Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and 
 had something more charming in his conversation than I ever 
 knew in any other man ; but with any mixture of strangers, and 
 sometimes only with one, he seemed to preserve his dignity much, 
 with a stiff sort of silence.' — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 50.] 10 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 65 
 
 of the two good-natured potentates of letters brought 
 his star and ribbon into discredit. Everybody had his 
 Majesty's orders. Everybody had his Majesty's cheap 
 portrait, on a box surrounded with diamonds worth 
 5 twopence apiece. A very great and just and wise man 
 ought not to praise indiscriminately, but give his idea 
 of the truth. Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Pinketh- 
 man : Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Doggett the 
 actor, whose benefit is coming off that night : Addison 
 
 10 praises Don Saltero : Addison praises Milton with all his 
 heart, bends his knee and frankly pays homage to that 
 imperial genius.^ But between those degrees of his 
 men his praise is very scanty. I don't think the great 
 Mr. Addison Uked young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much; 
 
 15 1 don't think he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's 
 men abused Mr. Pope, I don't think Addison took his 
 pipe out of his mouth to contradict them.^ 
 
 Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in 
 Wiltshire, and rose in the Church.^ His famous son never 
 
 20 lost his clerical training and scholastic gravity, and was 
 
 '■ ' Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excel- 
 lence lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of 
 the moderns, who rival him in every other part of poetry ; but 
 in the greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, 
 25 both modern and ancient. Homer alone excepted. It is impos- 
 sible for the imagination of man to distend itself with greater 
 ideas than those which he has laid together in his first, second, 
 and sixth books.' — Spectator, No. 279. 
 
 ' If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these 
 30 arts of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for 
 one.'— Ibid., No. 417. 
 
 These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's Spectator, 
 from January 5 to May 3, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, 
 we may place those he did to Sacred Music. 
 35 ' ' Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy 
 afterwards.' — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 47.] 
 
 ' " Leave him as soon as you can," said Addison to me, 
 speaking of Pope ; "he will certainly play you some devilish 
 trick else : he has an appetite to satire." ' — Lady Wobtlby 
 40 Montagu {Spencers Anecdotes), [p. 237.] 
 
 ' Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot 
 Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of 
 Lichfield and Archdeacon of Coventry. 
 
 1356 F 
 
66 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 called ' a parson in a tye-wig ' ^ in London afterwards at 
 a time when tye-wigs were only worn by the laity, and 
 the fathers of theology did not think it decent to appear 
 except in a full bottom. Having been at school at Salis- 
 bury and the Charterhouse, in 1687, when he was fifteen 6 
 years old, he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he 
 speedily began to distinguish himself by the making of 
 Latin verses. The beautiful and fanciful poem of The 
 Pigmies and the Grants is still read by lovers of that sort 
 of exercise ; and verses are extant in honour of King lo 
 WiUiam, by which it appears that it was the loyal youth's 
 custom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple 
 Lyaeus ; and many more works are in the Collection, 
 including one on the Peace of Ryswiok, in 1697, which 
 was so good that Montague got him a pension of 300?. is 
 a year, on which Addison set out on his travels. 
 
 During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply 
 imbued himself with the Latin poetical literature, and 
 had these poets at his fingers' ends when he travelled in 
 Italy .^ His patron went out of office, and his pension was 20 
 
 ' ' The remark of Mandeville, who, when he hadpassed an evening 
 in his company, declared that he was " a parson in a tye-wig ", 
 can detract little from his character. He was always reserved to 
 strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character 
 like that of Mandeville.' — Johnson. \IAfe of Addison, p. 384.] 25 
 
 ' Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison : he had a quarrel 
 with him, and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used fre- 
 quently to say of him — " One day or other you'll see that man a 
 bishop — I'm sure he looks that way ; and indeed I ever thought 
 him a priest in his heart." ' — Pope (Spencers Anecdotes), [p. 200.] 30 
 
 ' Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise 
 as early as between two and three in the height of summer, and 
 lie abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. 
 He was untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful: some- 
 times so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and 3S 
 stayed five minutes there before he has known anything of it. 
 He had his masters generally at supper with him ; kept very 
 little company beside ; and had no amour whilst here that 
 I know of ; and I think I should have known it, if he had had 
 any.' — Abbe Phiuppeattx of Blois {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 184.] 40 
 
 " ' His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and 
 Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact 
 and profound.' — ^Macatjlay. [Essay on Addison.] 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 67 
 
 unpaid : and hearing that this great scholar, now 
 eminent and known to the literati of Europe (the great 
 Boileau/ upon perusal of Mr. Addison's elegant hexa- 
 meters, was first made aware that England was not 
 
 5 altogether a barbarous nation) — shearing that the cele- 
 brated Mr. Addison, of Oxford, proposed to travel as 
 governor to a young gentleman on the grand tour, the 
 great Duke of Somerset proposed to Mr. Addison to 
 accompany his son, Lord Hartford. 
 
 10 Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his Grace and 
 his lordship, his Grace's son, and expressed himself ready 
 to set forth. 
 
 His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one 
 of the most famous scholars of Oxford and Europe that 
 
 15 it was his gracious intention to allow my Lord Hartford's 
 tutor one hundred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison 
 wrote back that his services were his Grace's, but he by 
 no means found his account in the recompense for them. 
 The negotiation was broken ofE. They parted with a 
 
 20 profusion of congees on one side and the other. 
 
 Addison^.femained abroad for some time, living in the 
 best society of Europe. How could he do otherwise ? He 
 must have been one of the finest gentlemen the world ever 
 saw : at all moments of life serene and courteous, cheer- 
 
 25 ful and calm.^ He could scarcely ever have had a degrad- 
 ing thought. He might have omitted a virtue or two, 
 or many, but could not have had many faults committed 
 for which he need blush or turn pale. When warmed 
 into confidence, his conversation appears to have been 
 
 30 so delightful that the greatest wits sat rapt and charmed 
 to listen to him. No man bore poverty and narrow 
 fortune with a more lofty cheerfulness. His letters to his 
 
 ' ' Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur 
 Boileau first conceived an opinion of the English genius for 
 35 poetry, by perusing the present he made him of the Musae 
 Anglicanae.^ — Tiokbll (Preface to Addison's Works). 
 
 ', ' It was my fate to be much with the wits ; my father was 
 
 acquainted with all of them. Addison was the best company in 
 
 the world. I never knew anybody that had so much wit as 
 
 40 Congreve.' — Lady Wortley Montagu {Spence's Anecdotes). 
 
 [p. 232.] 
 
 F2 
 
68 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 friends at this period of his life, when he had lost his 
 Government pension and given up his college chances, 
 are full of courage and a gay confidence and philosophy : 
 and they are none the worse in my eyes, and I hope 
 not in those of his last and greatest biographer (though 5 
 Mr. Macaulay is bound to own and lament a certain 
 weakness for^ wine, which the great and good Joseph 
 Addison notoriously possessed, in common with coimtless 
 gentlemen of his time), because some of the letters are 
 written when his honest hand was shaking a little inio 
 the morning after libations to purple Lyaeus overnight. 
 He was fond of drinking the healths of his friends : he 
 writes to Wyche,^ of Hamburgh, gratefully remembering 
 
 ' mr. addison to mr. wyche. 
 ' Dear Sir, is 
 
 ' My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for 
 a letter, so that the properest use I can put it to is to thank 
 y« honest gentleman that set it a shaking. I have had this 
 morning a desperate design in my head to attack you in verse, 
 which I should certainly have done could I have found out 20 
 a rhime to rummer. But though you have escaped for y^ 
 present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a little recover 
 my talent at Crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I write to 
 you, it will bei impossible for me to express y« deep sense I have 
 of ys many favours you have lately shown me. I shall only tell 25 
 you that Hambourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met 
 with in my travails. If any of my friends wonder at me for 
 living so long in that place, I dare say it will be thought a very 
 good excuse when I tell 'em. Mr. Wyohe was there. As your 
 company made our stay at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has 30 
 given us all y^ satisfaction that we have found in our journey 
 through Westphalia. If drinking your health will do you any 
 good, you may expect to be as long lived as Methuselah, or, to 
 use a more familiar instance, as y^ oldest hoc in y' cellar. I hope 
 ya two pair of legs that we left a swelling behind us are by this 35 
 time come to their shapes again. I can't forbear troubling you 
 with my hearty respects to y^ owners of 'em, and desiring you 
 to believe me always, 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Yours, &c. 40 
 
 ' To Mr. Wyche, Her Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, 
 ' May, 1703.' 
 
 — Erom The Life of Addison, by Miss Aikin, vol. i, p. 146. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 69 
 
 Wyche's 'hoc'. 'I have been drinking your health 
 to-day with Sir Richard Shirley,' he writes to Bathurst. 
 ' I have lately had the honour to meet my Lord Effing- 
 ham at Amsterdam, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's 
 
 5 health a hundred times in excellent champagne,' he 
 writes again. Swift ^ describes him over his cups, when 
 Joseph yielded to a temptation which Jonathan resisted. 
 Joseph was of a cold nature, and needed perhaps the 
 fire of wine to warm his blood. If he was a parson, he 
 
 10 wore a tye-wig, recollect. A better and more Christian 
 man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If 
 he had not that little weakness for wine — ^why, we could 
 
 '■ It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift 
 
 and Addison was, on the whole, satisfactory, from first to last. 
 
 15 The value of Swift's testimony, when nothing personal inflamed 
 
 his vision or warped his judgement, can be doubted by nobody. 
 
 ' Sept. 10, 1710. — I sat tUl ten in the jvening with Addison 
 and Steele. 
 
 ' 11. — ^Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and 
 20 I sat with him part of this evening. 
 
 ' 18. — To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's 
 retirement near Chelsea. ... I will get what good offices I can 
 from Mr. Addison. 
 
 '27. — To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, 
 25 with Steele and Addison, too. 
 
 ' 29. — I dined with Mr. Addison,' &c. — Journal to Stella. 
 
 Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his Travds ' To 
 
 Dr. Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest 
 
 friend, and the greatest genius of his age.' — Scott. [Life of 
 
 30 Swift, Sect. 2, p. 92.] TVom the information of Mr. Theophilus 
 
 Swift. 
 
 ' Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent 
 person ; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my 
 credit to set him right in his notions of persons and things.' — 
 35 Letter {to Archbishop King, Jan. 6, 1708-9]. 
 
 ' I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why 
 
 I write to you now, beside that great love and esteem I have 
 
 always had for you. I have nothing to ask you either for any 
 
 friend or for myself.'— Swift to Addison [July 9,] (1717), Scott's 
 
 40 Smft, vol. xix, p. 274. 
 
 Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly com- 
 munications. Time renewed them ; and Tiokell enjoyed Swift's 
 friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is 
 so honourably connected. 
 
70 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have 
 liked him as we do.^ 
 
 At thirty-three years of age, this most distinguished 
 wit, scholar, and gentleman was without a profession and 
 an income. His books of Travels had failed : his Dia- 5 
 logues on Medals had had no particular success : his 
 Latin verses, even though reported the best since Virgil, 
 or Statius at any rate, had not brought him a Govern- 
 ment place, and Addison was living up two shabby pair 
 of stairs in the Haymarket (in a poverty over which lo 
 old Samuel Johnson rather chuckles), when in these 
 shabby rooms an emissary from Government and Fortune 
 came and found him.^ A poem was wanted about the 
 Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim. Would 
 Mr. Addison write one ? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord is 
 Carleton, took back the reply to the Lord Treasurer 
 Godolphin, that Mr. Addison would. When the poem 
 had reached a certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin; 
 and the last lines which he read were these : 
 
 But my muse ! what numbers wilt thou find ao 
 To sing the furious troops in battle join'd ? 
 Methiaks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound. 
 The victors' shouts and dying groans confound, 
 The dreadful bvirst of cannon rend the skies. 
 And all the thunder of the battle rise. as 
 
 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was 
 
 proved. 
 That, ru the shock of charging hosts unmoved. 
 Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, 
 Examined all the dreadful scenes of war : so 
 
 ' ' Addison usually studied all the morning ; then met his 
 party at Button's ; dined there, and stayed five or six hours, 
 and sometimes far into the night. I was of the company for 
 about a year, but found it too much for me : it hurt my health, 
 and so I quitted it.' — ^Popb (Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 286.] 35 
 
 ^ ' When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness 
 of appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which 
 he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, 
 and was, therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation 
 of his mind.' — Johnson. [Life of Addison, p. 338.] 40 
 
CONGREJi^E AND ADDISON 71 
 
 In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, 
 To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, 
 Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, 
 And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 
 
 5 So when an angel by divine command, 
 With rising tempests shakes a guilty land 
 (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed). 
 Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 
 And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, 
 
 10 Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm. 
 
 Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was 
 pronoimced to be of the greatest ever produced in poetry. 
 That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, 
 and landed him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals 
 
 15 — ^vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the 
 following year, Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord 
 Halifax, and the year after was made Under-Secretary 
 of State. angel visits ! you come few and far between 
 to literary gentlemen's lodgings ! Your wings seldom 
 
 20 quiver at second-floor windows now ! 
 
 You laugh ? You think it is in the power of few 
 writers nowadays to call up such an angel ? Well, 
 perhaps not ; but permit us to comfort ourselves by 
 pointing out that there are in the poem of The Campaign 
 
 25 some as bad lines as heart can desire : and to hint that 
 Mr. Addison did very wisely in not going further with 
 my Lord Godolphin than that angelical simile. Do 
 allow me, just for a little harmless mischief, to read you 
 some of the lines which foUow. Here is the interview 
 
 30 between the Duke and the King of the Romans after 
 the battle : — 
 
 Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway 
 Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, 
 Whose boasted ancestry so high extends 
 35 That in the pagan gods his lineage ends. 
 Comes from afar, in gratitude to own 
 The great supporter of his father's throne. 
 What tides of glory to his bosom ran, 
 Clasped in th' embraces of the godUke man ! 
 
n ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt, 
 To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt ! 
 Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, 
 So tum'd and finished for the camp or court ! 
 
 How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's school s 
 of Charterhouse could write as well as that now ? The 
 Campaign has blunders, triumphant as it was ; and 
 weak points like all campaigns.^ 
 
 In the year 1713 Cato came out. Swift has left 
 a description of the first night of the performance. All lo 
 the laurels of Europe were scarcely sufficient for the 
 author of this prodigious poem.^ Laudations of Whig 
 
 ^ ' Mr. Addison wrote very fluently ; but he was sometimes 
 very slow and scrupulous in correcting. He would show his 
 verses to several friends ; and would alter almost everything 15 
 that any of them hinted at as wrong. He seemed to be too 
 diffident of himself ; and too much concerned about his character 
 as a poet ; or (as he worded it) too solicitous for that kind of 
 praise, which, God knows, is but a very little matter after all ! ' 
 — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 49.] 20 
 
 ' ' As to poetical affairs,' says Pope, in 1713, 'I am content at 
 
 present to be a bare looker-on Cato was not so much the wonder 
 
 of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours ; and though all 
 the foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought 
 a party play, yet what the author once said of another may the 25 
 most properly in the world be applied to him on this occasion : — 
 ' Envy itself is dumb — in wonder lost ; 
 And factions strive who shall applaud him most. 
 
 ' The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the 
 one side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the 30 
 other ; while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern 
 to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than the 
 head. ... I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses 
 of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, 
 who played Cato, into the box, . . . and presented him with 35 
 fifty guineas, in acknowledgement (as he expressed it) for de- 
 fending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator.' 
 —Pope's Letter to Sir W. TrumbvU. [Ap. 30, 1713.] 
 
 Cato ran for thirty-five nights without interruption. Pope 
 wrote the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue. 40 
 
 It is worth noticing how many things in Cato keep their 
 ground as habitual quotations, e. g. : — 
 
 ' . . . big with the fate 
 Of Cato and of Rome.' 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 73 
 
 and Tory chiefs, popular ovations, complimentary gar- 
 lands from literary men, translations in all languages, 
 delight and homage from all — save from John Dennis 
 in a mmority of one — ^Mr. Addison was caUed the great 
 5 Mr. Addison after this. The Coffee-house Senate saluted 
 him Divus : it was heresy to question that decree. 
 
 Meanwhile he was writing political papers and ad- 
 vancing in the political profession. He went Secretary 
 to Ireland. He was appointed Secretary of State in 
 
 10 1717. And letters of his are extant, bearing date some 
 year or two before, and written to young Lord Warwick, 
 in which he addresses him as ' my dearest lord ', and 
 asks affectionately about his studies, and writes very 
 prettily about nightingales, and birds' -nests, which he 
 
 16 has found at Fulham for his lordship. Those nightingales 
 were intended to warble in the ear of Lord Warwick's 
 mamma. Addison married her ladyship in 1716 ; and 
 died at Holland House three years after that splendid 
 but dismal union .^ 
 
 so ' 'Tis not in mortals to command success. 
 
 But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it.' 
 ' Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.' 
 ' I think the Romans call it Stoicism.' 
 ' My voice is still for war.' 
 25 ' When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, 
 
 The post of honour is a private station.' 
 Not to mention : — 
 
 ' The woman that deliberates is lost,' 
 And the eternal : — 
 3" ' Plato, thou reasonest well,' 
 
 which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play ! 
 
 ' ' The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like 
 
 those on which a "Turkish princess is espoused — to whom the 
 
 Sultan is reported to pronounce, " Daughter, I give thee this 
 
 35 man for thy slave." The marriage, ^if uncontradicted report 
 
 can be credited, made no addition to his happiness ; it neither 
 
 found them, nor made them, equal. . . . Rowe's ballad of The 
 
 Despairing Shepherd is said to have been written, either before 
 
 or after marriage, upon this memorable pair.' — Db. Johnson. 
 
 40 [lAfe of Addison, p. 567.] 
 
 I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary 
 of State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was 
 
74 ENGLISH . HUMOURISTS 
 
 But it is not for his reputation as the great author of 
 Cato and The Campaign, or for his merits as Secretary 
 of State, or for his rank and high distinction as my Lady 
 Warwick's husband, or for his eminence as an Examiner 
 of political questions on the Whig side, or a Guardian of s 
 British liberties, that we admire Joseph Addison. It is 
 as a Tatler of smaU talk and a Spectator of mankind, 
 that we cherish and love him, and owe as much pleasure 
 to him as to any human being that ever wrote. He came 
 in that artificial age, and began to speak with his noble, lo 
 natural voice. He came, the gentle satirist, who hit no 
 unfair blow ; the kind judge who castigated only in 
 smiling. While Swift went about, hanging and ruthless 
 — a literary Jeffreys — in Addison's kind court only 
 minor cases were tried : only peccadilloes and small sins is 
 against society : only a dangerous libertinism in tuckers 
 
 almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and 
 I really believe that he would have done well to have declined 
 it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, 
 do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is 20 
 asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily 
 glad to resign them both.' — Lady Wobtley Montagu to Pope. 
 [Sep. 1, 1717.] Works, Lord Wharncliffe's ed., vol. ii, p. 111. 
 
 'Aie issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, 
 who inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near 25 
 Rugby, which her father had purchased, and died, unmarried, 
 at an advanced age. She was of weak intellect. 
 
 Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his 
 courtship, for his Collection contains ' Stanzas to Lady Warwick, 
 on Mr. Addison's going to Ireland ', in which her ladyship is 30 
 called ' Chloe ', and Joseph Addison, ' Lycidas ' ; besides the 
 ballad mentioned by the doctor, and which is entitled Colin's 
 Complaint. But not even the interest attached to the name of 
 Addison could induce the reader to peruse this composition, 
 though one stanza may serve as a specimen : — 35 
 
 What though I have skill to complain — 
 
 Though the Muses my temples have crowned ; 
 
 What though, when they hear my soft strain. 
 The virgins sit weeping around. 
 
 Ah, Colin ! thy hopes are in vain ; 40 
 
 Thy pipe and thy laurel resign ; 
 Thy false one inclines to a swain 
 
 Whose music is sweeter than thine. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 75 
 
 and hoops ; ^ or a nuisance in the abuse of beaux' 
 
 ' One of the most humorous of these is the paper on Hoops, 
 which, the Spectatcyr tells us, particularly pleased his friend 
 Sir Roger : 
 
 5 ' Mr. Spectator — 
 
 ' You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the 
 expense of the country ; it is now high time that you should 
 give the country their revenge. Since yoiu: withdrawing from 
 this place, the fair sex axe run into great extravagances. Their 
 
 10 petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, 
 are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every 
 day more and more ; in short, sir, since our women know them- 
 selves to be out of the eye of the Spectator, they will be kept 
 within no compass. You praised them a little too soon, for the 
 
 15 modesty of their headdresses ; for as the humour of a sick 
 person is often driven out of one limb into another, their super- 
 fluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely banished, seems 
 only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. What they 
 have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary to 
 
 20 all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time 
 that they shorten the superstructure. . . . 
 
 ' The women give out, in defence of these wide bottoms, that 
 they are airy and very proper for the season ; but this I look 
 upon to be only a pretence and a piece of art, for it is well 
 
 25 known we have not had a more moderate summer these many 
 years, so that it is certain the heat they complain of cannot be 
 in the weather ; besides, I would fain ask these tender-oonstitu- 
 tioned ladies, why they should require more cooling than their 
 mothers before them ? 
 
 30 ' I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex 
 has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat 
 is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that 
 a woman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this 
 manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks 
 
 35 and lines of circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in 
 whalebone is suffioently secured against the approaches of an ill- 
 bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etheridge's 
 way of making love in a tub as in the midst of so many hoops. 
 ' Among these various conjectures, there are men of super- 
 
 40 stitious tempers who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of 
 prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfall of the 
 French king, and observe, that the farthingale appeared in 
 England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others 
 are of opinion that it foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe 
 
 45 it of the same prognostication as the tail of a blazing star. For 
 my part, I am apt to think it is a sign that multitudes are 
 coming into the world rather than going out of it,' &c. &c. — 
 Spectator, No. 127. 
 
76 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 canes and snuff-boxes. It may be a lady is tried for 
 breaking the peace of our sovereign lady Queen Anne, 
 and ogling too dangerously from the side-box : or a 
 Templar for beating the watch, or breaking Priscian's 
 head : or a citizen's wife for caring too much for the s 
 puppet-show, and too little for her husband and children : 
 every one of the little sinners brought before him is 
 amusing, and he dismisses each with the pleasantest 
 penalties and the most charming words of admonition. 
 
 Addison wrote his papers as gaily as if he was going lo 
 out for a holiday. When Steele's Tatler first began his 
 prattle, Addison, then in Ireland, caught at his friend's 
 notion, poured in paper after paper, and contributed the 
 stores of his mind, the sweet fruits of his reading, the 
 delightful gleanings of his daily observation, with a is 
 wonderful profusion, and as it seemed an almost endless 
 fecundity. He was six-and-thirty years old : fuU and 
 ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his brain, 
 manuring hastily, subsoiling indifferently, cutting and 
 sowing and cutting again, like other luckless cultivators 20 
 of letters. He had not done much as yet ; a few Latin 
 poems — graceful prolusions ; a polite book of travels ; 
 a dissertation on medals, not very deep ; four acts of a 
 tragedy, a great classical exercise ; and The Campaign, 
 a large prize poem that won an enormous prize. But 25 
 with his friend's discovery of the Tatler, Addison's 
 caUing was found, and the most delightful talker in the 
 world began to speak. He does not go very deep : let 
 gentlemen of a profound genius, critics accustomed to 
 the plunge of the bathos, console themselves by thinking 30 
 that he couldn't go very deep. There are no traces of 
 suflEering in his writing. He was so good, so honest, 
 so healthy, so cheerfully selfish, if I must use the word. 
 There is no deep sentiment. I doubt, until after his 
 marriage, perhaps, whether he ever lost his night's rest 35 
 or his day's tranquillity about any woman in his life : ^ 
 
 ' ' Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can 
 hear of, and must even be reduced, like a poorer and a better 
 poet, Spenser, to make his own.' — Pope. Letter [to Lady M. W. 
 Montagu, 1716]. 10 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 77 
 
 whereas poor Dick Steele had capacity enough to melt, 
 and to languish, and to sigh, and to cry his honest old 
 eyes out, for a dozen. His writings do not show insight 
 into or reverence for the love of women, which I take 
 5 to be, one the consequence of the other. He walks about 
 the world watching their pretty humours, fashions, 
 follies, flirtations, rivalries ; and noting them with the 
 most charming archness. He sees them in public, in 
 the theatre, or the assembly, or the puppet-show ; or 
 
 10 at the toy-shop higgling for gloves and lace ; or at the 
 auction, battling together over a blue porcelain dragon, 
 or a darling monster in japan ; or at church, eyeing the 
 width of their rivals' hoops, or the breadth of their 
 laces, as they sweep down the aisles. Or he looks out 
 
 15 of his window at the ' Garter ' in St. James's Street, at 
 Ardelia's coach, as she blazes to the Drawing-room with 
 her coronet and six footmen ; and, remembering that 
 her father was a Turkey merchant in the City, calculates 
 how many sponges went to purchase her ear-ring, and 
 
 20 how many drums of figs to build her coach-box ; or he 
 demurely watches behind a tree in Spring Garden as 
 Saccharissa (whom he knows under her mask) trips out 
 of her chair to the alley where Sir Fopling is waiting. 
 He sees only the public life of women. Addison was one 
 
 25 of the most resolute club-men of his day. He passed 
 many hours daily in those haunts. Besides drinking, 
 which, alas ! is past praying for ; it must be owned, 
 ladies, that he indulged in that odious practice of 
 smoking. Poor fellow ! He was a man's man, remem- 
 
 30 ber. The only woman he did know, he didn't write 
 about. I take it there would not have been much 
 humour in that story. 
 
 He likes to go and sit in the smoking-room at the 
 ' Grecian ', or the ' Devil ' ; to pace 'Change and the 
 
 35 Mall ^ — ^to mingle in that great club of the world — sitting 
 
 ' I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with 
 
 pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a 
 
 fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; 
 
 with other particulars of the like nature, ^that conduce very 
 
 40 much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this 
 
78 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 alone in it somehow : having goodwill and kindness for 
 every single man and woman in it — ^having need of some 
 
 curiosity, wMoh is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and 
 my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings ; and 
 shall give some account in them of the several persons that are 5 
 engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digest- 
 ing, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do myself the 
 justice to open the work with my own history. . . . There runs 
 a story in the family, that when my mother was gone with child 
 of me about three months, she dreamt that she was brought to 10 
 bed of a judge. Whether this might proceed from a lawsuit 
 which was then depending in the family, or my father's being 
 a justice of the peace, I cannot determine ; for I am not so vain 
 as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in 
 my future life, though that was the interpretation which the 15 
 neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at 
 my very first appearance in the world, and all the time that 
 I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream ; for, as she has 
 often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months 
 old, and would not make use of my coral till they had taken 20 
 away the bells from it. 
 
 ' As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it 
 remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during 
 my nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was 
 always a favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that 25 
 my parts were solid and would wear well. I had not been long 
 at the university before I distinguished myself by a most pro- 
 found silence ; for during the space of eight years, excepting in 
 the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity 
 of an hundred words ; and, indeed, do not remember that I ever 30 
 spoke three sentences together in my whole life. . . . 
 
 ' I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am fre- 
 quently seen in most public places, though there are not above 
 half a dozen of my select friends that know me. . . . There is 
 no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my 35 
 appearance ; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a 
 round of politicians at Will's, and hstening with great attention 
 to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. 
 Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, and whilst I seem attentive 
 to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every 40 
 table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's 
 Coffee-house ; and sometimes join the little committee of politics 
 in the inner room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. 
 My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the " Cocoa- 
 Tree ", and in the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Hay- 45 
 market. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange 
 for above these ten years ; and sometimes pass for a Jew in 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 79 
 
 habit and custom binding him to some few j never doing 
 any man a wrong (unless it be a wrong to hint a little 
 doubt about a man's parts, and to damn him with faint 
 praise) ; and so he looks on the world and plays with 
 
 5 the ceaseless humours of all of us — ^laughs the kindest 
 laugh — ^points our neighbour's foible or eccentricity out 
 to us with the most good-natured, smiling confidence ; 
 and then, turning over his shoulder, whispers our 
 foibles to our neighbour. What would Sir Roger de 
 
 10 Coverley be without his follies and his charming little 
 brain-cracks ? ^ If the good knight did not call out 
 to the people sleeping in church, and say ' Amen ' with 
 such a delightful pomposity : if he did not make a speech 
 in the assize-court a promos de bottes, and merely to 
 
 15 show his dignity to Mr. Spectator : ^ if he did not 
 
 the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever 
 I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never 
 open my lips but in my own club. 
 
 ' Thus I live in the world rather as a " Spectator " of mankind 
 
 20 than as one of the species ; by which means I have made myself 
 a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without 
 ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well 
 versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern 
 the errors in the economy, business, and diversion of others, 
 
 25 better than those who are engaged in them — as standers-by 
 discover blots which are apt to escape those who are in the 
 game. ... In short, I have acted, in all the parts of my life, as 
 a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this 
 paper.' — Spectator, No. 1. 
 
 30 ' ' So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery 
 
 which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his 
 
 time, the open violation of decency has always been considered 
 
 among us as the mark of a fool.' — MlcArLAY. [Essay on AMison.l 
 
 " ' The Court was sat before Sir Roger came ; but, notwith- 
 
 35 standing all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, 
 they made room for the old knight at the head of them ; who 
 for his reputation in the country took occasion to whisper in 
 the judge's ear that he was glad his lordship had met with so 
 much good weather in his circuit. I was listening to the pro- 
 
 40 ceedings of the Court with much attention, and infinitely pleased 
 with that great appearance and solemnity which so properly 
 accompanies such a public administration of our laws ; when, 
 after about an hour's sitting, I observed to my great surprise, 
 in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting 
 
80 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 mistake Madam Doll Tearsheet for a lady of quality 
 in Temple Garden : if he were wiser than he is : if 
 he had not his humour to salt his life, and were but 
 a mere EngUsh gentleman and game-preserver — of what 
 worth were he to us ? We love him for his vanities as 6 
 much as his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful 
 in him ; we are so fond of him because we laugh at him 
 so. And out of that laughter, and out of that sweet 
 weakness, and out of those harmless eccentricities and 
 follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of thatio 
 honest manhood and simplicity — ^we get a result of 
 happiness, goodness, tenderness, pity, piety ; such as, 
 if my audience will think their reading and hearing 
 over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune 
 to inspire. And why not ? Is the glory of Heaven to 15 
 be sung only by gentlemen in black coats ? Must the 
 truth be only expounded in gown and surplice, and out 
 of those two vestments can nobody preach it ? Commend 
 me to this dear preacher without orders — ^this parson in 
 the tye-wig. When this man looks from the world 20 
 whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the 
 Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy 
 a human face lighted up with a more serene rapture : 
 a human intellect thrilling with a purer love and adora- 
 tion than Joseph Addison's. Listen to him : from your 25 
 childhood you have known the verses ; but who can 
 hear their sacred music without love and awe ? — 
 Soon as the evening shades prevail. 
 The moon takes up the wondrous tale. 
 And nightly to the listening earth 30 
 
 Repeats the story of her birth ; 
 
 up to speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he had 
 acquitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much 
 business and great intrepidity. 
 
 ' Upon his first rising, the Court was hushed, and a general 35 
 whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger was up. 
 The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall 
 nob trouble my readers with an account of it, and I believe was 
 not so much designed by the knight himself to inform the Court, 
 as to give him a figure in my eye, and keep up his credit in the 40 
 country.' — Spectator, No. 122. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 81 
 
 Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
 And all the planets in their turn, 
 Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
 And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
 5 What though, in solemn silence, all 
 
 Move round the dark terrestrial ball ? 
 What though nor real voice nor sound 
 Amid their radiant orbs be found ? 
 In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
 10 And utter forth a glorious voice. 
 
 For ever singing as they shine, 
 ' The hand that made us is divine.' 
 It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They 
 shine out of a great deep calm. When he turns to Heaven, 
 15 a Sabbath comes over that man's mind : and his face 
 lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer. 
 His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In 
 the fields, in the town : looking at the birds in the trees : 
 at the children in the streets : in the morning or in 
 20 the moonlight : over his books in his own room : in 
 a happy party at a country merry-making or a town 
 assembly, goodwill and peace to God's creatures, and 
 love and awe of Him who made them, fiU his pure heart 
 and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most 
 25 wretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. 
 A life prosperous and beautiful — a calm death — an 
 immense fame and affection afterwards for his happy 
 and spotless name.^ 
 
 '■ ' Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) 
 30 on his death-bed, to ask him whether the Christian religion was 
 true.' — Dr. Yotjitg {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 2.] 
 
 ' I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter 
 I consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth 
 is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those 
 35 are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are 
 subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy : on the con- 
 trary, cheerfulness, though it doeff not give the mind such an 
 exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of 
 sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through 
 40 a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment ; cheerfulness 
 keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady 
 and perpetual serenity.' — Addison, Spectator, No. 381. 
 1356 ' G 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD 
 
 ^STEELE 
 
 What do we look for in studying the history of a past 
 age ? Is it to learn the political transactions and 
 characters of the leading public men ? Is it to make 
 ourselves acquainted with the life and being of the time 1 
 If we set out with the former grave purpose, where is 
 the truth, and who believes that he has it entire ? What 
 character of what great man is known to you ? You can 
 but make guesses as to character more or less happy, lo 
 In common life don't you often judge and misjudge 
 a man's whole conduct, setting out from a wrong im- 
 pression ? The tone of a voice, a word said in joke, 
 or a trifle in behaviour, the cut of his hair or the tie of 
 his neckcloth, may disfigure him in your eyes, or poison is 
 your good opinion ; or at the end of years of intimacy 
 it may be your closest friend says something, reveals 
 something which had previously been a secret, which 
 alters all yoiu: views about him, and shows that he 
 has been acting on quite a different motive to that which 20 
 you fancied you knew. And if it is so with those you 
 know, how much more with those you don't know 1 
 Say, for example, that I want to understand the character 
 of the Duke of Marlborough. I read Swift's history 
 of the times in which he took a part ; the shrewdest of 25 
 observers and initiated, one would think, into the politics 
 of the age — ^he hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, 
 and even of doubtful military capacity : he speaks of 
 Walpole as a contemptible boor, and scarcely mentions, 
 except to flout it, the great intrigue of the Queen's latter 30 
 days, which was to have ended in bringing back the 
 Pretender. Again, I read Marlborough's life by a copious 
 archdeacon, who has the command of immense papers. 
 
STEELE 83 
 
 of sonorous language, of what is called the best informa- 
 tion ; and I get little or no insight into this secret 
 motive which, I believe, influenced the whole of Marl- 
 borough's career, which caused his turnings and windings, 
 
 5 his opportune fidelity and treason, stopped his army 
 almost at Paris gate, and landed him finally on the 
 Hanoverian side — ^the winning side ; I get, I say, no 
 truth, or only a portion of it, in the narrative of either 
 writer, and believe that Coxe's portrait or Swift's 
 
 10 portrait is quite unlike the real Churchill. I take this 
 as a single instance, prepared to be as sceptical about 
 any other, and say to the Muse of History, ' venerable 
 daughter of Mnemosyne, I doubt every single statement 
 you ever made since your ladyship was a Muse ! For 
 
 15 aU your grave airs and high pretensions, you are not 
 a whit more trustworthy than some of your Ughter 
 sisters on whom your partisans look down. You bid 
 me listen to a general's oration to his soldiers : Non- 
 sense ! He no more made it than Turpin made his 
 
 20 dying speech at Newgate. You pronounce a panegyric 
 of a hero : I doubt it, and say you flatter outrageously. 
 You utter the condemnation of a loose character : I 
 doubt it, and think you are prejudiced and take the side 
 of the Dons. You offer me an autobiography : I doubt 
 
 26 aU autobiographies I ever read except those, perhaps, 
 of Mr. Robinson Crusoe, Mariner, and writers of his 
 class. These have no object in setting themselves right 
 with the pubHc or their own consciences ; these have no 
 motive for concealment or half truths ; these call for no 
 
 30 more confidence than I can cheerfully give, and do not 
 force me to tax my credulity or to fortify it by evidence. 
 I take up a volume of Dr. SmoUett, or a volume of the 
 Spectator, and say the fiction carries a greater amount 
 of truth in solution than the volume which purports to 
 
 35 be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get the expression 
 of the life of the time ; of the manners, of the move- 
 ment, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules 
 of society — ^the old times live again, and I travel in 
 the old country of England. Can the heaviest historian 
 
 40 do more for me ? ' 
 
 02 
 
84 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 As we read in these delightful volumes of the Tatler 
 and Spectator, the past age returns, the England of our 
 ancestors is revivified. The Maypole rises in the Strand 
 again in London ; the churches are crowded with 
 daily worshippers ; the beaux are gathering in the 6 
 coffee-houses ; the gentry are going to the Drawing-room ; 
 the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops ; the chairmen 
 are jostling in the streets ; the footmen are running 
 with links before the chariots, or fighting round the 
 theatre doors. In the country I see the young Squire lo 
 riding to Eton with his servants behind him, and WiU 
 Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him safe. To 
 make that journey from the Squire's and back, WiU 
 is a week on horseback. The coach takes five days 
 between London and Bath. The judges and the bans 
 ride the circuit. If my lady comes to town in her post- 
 chariot, her people carry pistols to fire a salute on 
 Captain Macheath if he should appear, and her couriers 
 ride ahead to prepare apartments for her at the great 
 caravanserais on the road ; Boniface receives her under 20 
 the creaking sign of the ' Bell ' or the ' Ram ', and he 
 and his chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the 
 state-apartments, whilst her carriage rumbles into the 
 courtyard, where the Exeter Fly is housed that performs 
 the joiumey in eight days, God willing, having achieved as 
 its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its passengers 
 for supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in 
 the kitchen, where the Captain's man — Shaving hung 1 
 up his master's half-pike — is at his bacon and eggs, 
 bragging of RamiUies and Malplaquet to the townsfolk, 30 
 who have their club in the chimney-corner. The 
 Captain is ogling the chambermaid in the wooden 
 gallery, or bribing her to know who is the pretty young 
 mistress that has come in the coach ? The pack-horses 
 are in the great stable, and the drivers and ostlers 36 
 carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. Landlady's bar, 
 over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman of 
 military appearance, who travels with pistols, as all 
 the rest of the world does, and has a rattling grey mare 
 in the stables which will be saddled and away with its 40 
 
STEELE 85 
 
 owner half an hour before the Ply sets out on its last 
 day's flight. And some five miles on the road, as the 
 Exeter Ply comes jingling and creaking onwards, it will 
 suddenly be brought to a halt by a gentleman on a grey 
 
 5 mare, with a black vizard on his face, who thrusts a 
 long pistol into the coach window, and bids the company 
 to hand out their purses. ... It must have been no 
 small pleasure even to sit in the great kitchen in those 
 days and see the tide of humankind pass by. We arrive 
 
 10 at places now, but we travel no more. Addison talks 
 jocularly of a difference of manner and costume being 
 quite perceivable at Staines, where there passed a young 
 fellow ' with a very tolerable periwig ', though, to be 
 sure, his hat was out of fashion, and had a Ramillies 
 
 15 cock. I would have liked to travel in those days (being 
 of that class of travellers who are proverbially pretty 
 easy coram latronibus) and have seen my friend with the 
 grey mare and the black vizard. Alas ! there always came 
 a day in the life of that warrior when it was the fashion 
 
 20 to accompany him as he passed — without his black 
 mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, accompanied by 
 halberdiers and attended by the sheriff, — ^in a carriage 
 without springs, and a clergyman jolting beside him, to 
 a spot close by Cumberland Gate and the Marble Arch, 
 
 25 where a stone still records that here Tyburn turnpike 
 stood. What a change in a century ; in a few years ! 
 Within a few yards of that gate the fields began : the 
 fields of his exploits, behind the hedges of which he 
 lurked and robbed. A great and wealthy city has 
 
 30 grown over those meadows. Were a man brought to die 
 there now, the windows would be closed and the inhabi-^ 
 tants keep their houses in sickening horror. A hundred 
 years back, people crowded to see that last act of a high- 
 wayman's life, and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at 
 
 35 him, grimly advising him to provide a Holland shirt 
 and white cap crowned with a crimson or black ribbon for 
 his exit, to mount the cart cheerfully — shake hands with 
 the hangman, and so — farewell. Gay wrote the most 
 delightful ballads and made merry over the same 
 
 40 hero. Contrast these with the writings of our present 
 
86 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 humourists ! Compare those morals and ours — ^those 
 manners and ours I 
 
 We can't tell — ^you would not bear to be told the whole 
 truth regarding those men and manners. You could no 
 more suffer in a British drawing-room, under the reign of 5 
 Queen Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady of Queen 
 Anne's time, or hear what they heard and said, than you 
 would receive an ancient Briton. It is as one reads 
 about savages, that one contemplates the wild ways, 
 the barbarous feasts, the terrific pastimes, of the men 10 
 of pleasure of that age. We have our fine gentlemen, 
 and our ' fast men ' ; permit me to give you an idea of 
 one particularly fast nobleman of Queen Anne's days, 
 whose biography has been preserved to us by the law 
 reporters. 15 
 
 In 1691, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord 
 Mohun was tried by his peers for the murder of WUliam 
 Mountford, comedian. In Howell's State. Trials, the 
 reader will find not only an edifying account of this 
 exceedingly fast nobleman, but of the times and manners 20 
 of those days. My lord's friend, a Captain HiU, smitten 
 with the charms of the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and 
 anxious to marry her at all hazards, determined to carry 
 her off, and for this purpose hired a hackney-coach with 
 six horses, and a half-dozen of soldiers, to aid him in 25 
 the storm. The coach with a pair of horses (the four 
 leaders being in waiting elsewhere) took its station 
 opposite my Lord Craven's house in Drury Lane, by 
 which door Mrs. Bracegirdle was to pass on her way from 
 the theatre. As she passed in company of her mamma 30 
 and a friend, Mr. Page, the Captain seized her by the 
 hand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked him 
 sword in hand, and Captain HiU and his noble friend 
 endeavoured to force Madam Bracegirdle into the coach. 
 Mr. Page called for help : the population of Drury 35 
 Lane rose : it was impossible to effect the capture ; 
 and bidding the soldiers go about their business, and the 
 coach to drive off, Hill let go of his prey sulkily, and 
 he waited for other opportunities of revenge. The man 
 of whom he was most jealous was Will Mountford, 40 
 
STEELE 87 
 
 the comedian ; Will removed, he thought Mrs. Bracegirdle 
 might be his : and accordingly the Captain and his 
 lordship lay that night in wait for Will, and as he 
 was coming out of a house in Norfolk Street, while 
 
 6 Mohun engaged him in talk, Hill, in the words of the 
 Attorney-General, ' made a pass and ran him clean 
 through the body.' 
 
 Sixty-one of my lord's peers finding him not guilty 
 of murder, while but fourteen found him guilty, this very 
 
 10 fast nobleman was discharged : and made his appearance 
 seven years after in another trial for murder — ^when he, 
 my Lord Warwick, and three gentlemen of the military 
 profession were concerned in the fight which ended in 
 the death of Captain Coote. 
 
 15 This jolly company were drinking together at Locket's 
 in Charing Cross, when angry words arose between 
 Captain Coote and Captain French ; whom my Lord 
 Mohun and my lord the Earl of Warwick ^ and Holland 
 endeavoured to pacify. My Lord Warwick was a dear 
 
 20 friend of Captain Coote, lent him a hundred pounds to 
 buy his commission in the Guards ; once when the captain 
 was arrested for 13?. by his tailor, my lord lent him five 
 guineas, often paid his reckoning for him, and showed 
 him other of&ces of friendship. On this evening the 
 
 25 disputants, French and Coote, being separated whilst 
 
 ' The husband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, 
 and the father of the young earl, who was brought to his step- 
 father's bed to see ' how a Christian could die '. He was amongst 
 the wildest of the nobility of that day ; and in the curious 
 
 30 collection of Chap-Books at the British Museum, I have seen 
 more than one anecdote of the freaks of the gay lord. He was 
 popular in London, as such daring spirits have been in our time. 
 The anecdotists speak very kindly of his practical jokes. Mohun 
 was scarcely out of prison for his second homicide, when he 
 
 35 went on Lord Macclesfield's embassy to the Elector of Hanover, 
 when Queen Anne sent the garter to H.B. Highness. The 
 chronicler of the expedition speaks of his lordship as an amiable 
 young man, who had been in bad company, but was quite 
 repentant and reformed. He and Macartney afterwards mur- 
 
 40 dered the Duke of Hamilton between them, in which act Lord 
 Mohun died. This amiable baron's name was Charles, and not 
 Henry, as a recent novelist has christened him. 
 
88 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 they were upstairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale 
 again at the bar of Locket's. The row began afresh — 
 Coote lunged at French over the bar, and at last all 
 six called for chairs, and went to Leicester Fields, where 
 they fell to. Their lordships engaged on the side of 5 
 Captain Coote. My Lord of Warwick was severely 
 wounded in the hand ; Mr. French also was stabbed, 
 but honest Captain Coote got a couple of wounds — one 
 especially, ' a wound in the left side just under the 
 short ribs, and piercing through the dia,phragma,' lo 
 which did for Captain Coote. Hence the trials of iny 
 Lords Warwick and Mohun : hence the assemblage of 
 peers, and the report of the transaction, in which these 
 defunct fast men still live for the observation of the 
 curious. My Lord of Warwick is brought to the bar by i5 
 the Deputy Governor of the Tower of London, having 
 the axe carried before him by the gentleman gaoler, 
 who stood with it at the bar at the right hand of the 
 prisoner, turning the edge from him ; the prisoner, at 
 his approach, making three bows, one to his Grace the 20 
 Lord High Steward, the other to the peers on each hand ; 
 and his Grace and the peers return the salute. And 
 besides these great personages, august in periwigs, and 
 nodding to the right and left, a host of the small come up 
 out of the past and pass before us — ^the jolly captains 25 
 brawling in the tavern, and laughing and cursing over 
 their cups — ^the drawer that serves, the bar-girl that 
 waits, the bailiffs on the prowl, the chairmen trudging 
 through the black lampless streets, and smoking their 
 pipes by the railings, whilst swords are clashing in the 30 
 garden within. ' Help there ! a gentleman is hurt ! ' 
 the chairmen put up their pipes, and help the gentleman 
 over the railings, and carry him,_ ghastly and bleeding, 
 to the bagnio in Long Acre, where they knock up the 
 surgeon — a pretty tall gentleman — ^but that wound 85 
 under the short ribs has done for him. Surgeon, 
 lords, captains, bailiffs, chairmen, and gentleman 
 gaoler with your axe, where be you now ? The 
 gentleman axeman's head is off his own shoulders ; 
 the lords and judges can wag theirs no longer; the 40 
 
STEELE 89 
 
 bailiff's writs have ceased to run ; the honest chairmen's 
 pipes are put out, and with their brawny calves they 
 have walked away into Hades — all as irrecoverably 
 done for as Will Mountford or Captain Coote. The 
 6 subject of our night's lecture saw all these people — ^rode 
 in Captain Coote's company of the Guards very probably 
 — ^wrote and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy 
 in many a chair, after many a bottle, in many a tavern — 
 fled from many a bailiff. 
 
 10 In 1709, when the publication of the Tatler began, 
 our great-great-grandfathers must have seized upon that 
 new and delightful paper with much such eagerness 
 as lovers of light literature in a later day exhibited when 
 the Waverley novels appeared, upon which the public 
 
 15 rushed, forsaking that feeble entertainment of which 
 the Miss Porters, the Anne of Swanseas, and worthy Mrs. 
 Radcliffe herself, with her dreary castles and exploded 
 old ghosts, had had pretty much the monopoly. I 
 have looked over many of the comic books with which 
 
 20 our ancestors amused themselves, from the novels of 
 Swift's coadjutrix, Mrs. Manley, the delectable author 
 of The New Atalantis, to the facetious productions of 
 Tom Durfey, and Tom Brown, and Ned Ward, writer of 
 The London Spy and several other volumes of ribaldry. 
 
 25 The slang of the taverns and ordinaries, the wit of the 
 bagnios, form the strongest part of the farrago of which 
 these libels are composed. In the excellent newspaper 
 collection at the British Museum, you may see, besides 
 the Craftsmen and Post Boys, specimens, and queer 
 
 30 specimens they are, of the lighter literature of Queen 
 Anne's time. Here is an abstract from a notable 
 journal bearing date, Wednesday, October 13th, 1708, 
 and entitled The British Apollo ; or, Curious Amuse- 
 ments for the Ingenious, by a Society of Gentlemen. The 
 
 35 British Apollo invited and professed to answer questions 
 upon all subjects of wit, morality, science, and even 
 rehgion ; and two out of its four pages are filled with 
 queries and replies much like some of the oracular penny 
 prints of the present time. 
 
 40 One of the first querists, referring to the passage that 
 
90 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 a bishop should be the husband of one wife, argues that 
 polygamy is justifiable in the laity. The society of 
 gentlemen conducting the British Apollo are posed by 
 this casuist, and promise to give him an answer. Celinda 
 then wishes to know from ' the gentlemen ', concerning 5 
 the souls of the dead, whether, they shall have the 
 satisfaction to know those whom they most valued in 
 this transitory life! The gentlemen of the Apollo give 
 but cold cornfort to poor Celinda. They are inclined 
 to think not.: for, say they, since every inhabitant of lo 
 those regions wiU be infinitely dearer than here are our 
 nearest relatives — what have we to do with a partial 
 friendship in that happy place ? Poor CeHnda ! it may 
 have been a child or a lover whom she had lost, and 
 was pining after, when the oracle of British Apollo gave is 
 her this dismal answer. She has solved the question 
 for herself by this time, and knows quite as well as the 
 society of gentlemen. 
 
 From theology we come to physics, and Q. asks, 
 ' Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold ? ' Apollo 20 
 replies, ' Hot water cannot be said to freeze sooner than 
 cold, but water once heated and cold, may be more 
 subject to freeze than cold water which never was 
 heated by reason of the evaporation of the spirituous 
 parts, which renders it less able to withstand the power 25 
 of frosty weather.' 
 
 The next query is rather a delicate one. ' You, Mr. 
 Apollo, who are said to be the Grod of Wisdom, pray 
 give us the reason why kissing is so much in fashion : 
 what benefit one receives by it, and who was the inventor, 30 
 and you wiU oblige Corinna.' To this queer demand 
 the lips of Phoebus, smiling, answer : ' Pretty, innocent 
 Corinna ! Apollo owns that he was a little surprised 
 by your kissing question, particularly at that part of 
 it where you desire to know the benefit you receive by ss 
 it. Ah ! madam, had you a lover, you would not come 
 to Apollo for a solution ; since there is no dispute but 
 the kisses of mutual lovers give infinite satisfaction. As 
 to its invention, 'tis certain nature was its author, and 
 it began with the first courtship.' 40 
 
STEELE 91 
 
 After a column more of questions, follow nearly two 
 pages of poems, signed by Philander, Armenia, and the 
 like, and chiefly on the tender passion ; and the paper 
 winds up with a letter from Leghorn, an account of the 
 
 6 Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene before Lille, and 
 proposals for publishing "two-^heets on the present state 
 of Aethiopia, by Mr. HiU ; all of which is printed for 
 the authors by J. Mayo, at the Printing Press against 
 Water Lane in Fleet Street. What a change it must 
 
 10 have been — ^how Apollo's oracles must have been struck 
 dumb, when the Toifer appeared, and scholars, gentlemen, 
 men of the world, men of genius, began to speak ! 
 
 Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young 
 Swift had begun to make acquaintance with English 
 
 15 Court manners and EngUsh servitude, in Sir William 
 Temple's family, another Irish youth was brought to 
 learn his humanities at the old school of Charterhouse, 
 near Smithfield ; to which foundation he had been 
 appointed by James Duke of Ormond, a governor of 
 
 20 the House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy 
 was an orphan, and described, twenty years after, with 
 a sweet pathos and simpUoity, some of the earliest recol- 
 lections of a lite which was destined to be chequered by 
 a strange variety of good and evil fortune. 
 '26 I am afraid no good report could be given by his 
 masters and ushers of that thick-set, square-faced, 
 black-eyed, soft-hearted little Ixish. boy. He was very 
 idle. He was whipped deservedly a great number of 
 times. Though he had very good parts of his own, he got 
 
 30 other boys to do his lessons for him, and only took just 
 as much trouble as should enable him to souffle through his 
 exercises, and by good fortune escape the flogging block. 
 One hundred and fifty years after, I havejmyself inspected , 
 but only as an amateur, that instrument of righteous 
 
 35 torture still existing, and in occasional use, in a secluded 
 private apartment of the old Charterhouse School ; and 
 have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if not the ancient 
 and interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick Steele 
 submitted himself to the tormentors. 
 
 40 Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this 
 
92 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 boy went invariably into debt with the tart- woman ; 
 ran out of bounds, and entered into pecuniary, or rather 
 promissory, engagements with the neighbouring lollipop - 
 vendors and piemen — exhibited an early fondness and 
 capacity for drinking mum and sack, and borrowed s 
 from all his comrades who had money to lend. I have 
 no sort of authority for the statements here made of 
 Steele's early life ; but if the child is father of the man, 
 the father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford 
 without taking a degree, and entered the Life Guards — lo 
 the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got 
 his company through the patronage of my Lord Cutts — 
 the father of Mr. Steele the Commissioner of Stamps, 
 the editor of the Gazette, the Tatler, and Spectator, the 
 expelled Member of Parliament, and the author of The is 
 Tender Husband and The Conscious Lovers ; if man and 
 boy resembled each other, Dick Steele the schoolboy 
 must have been one of the most generous, good-for- 
 nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated 
 the verb tupto, I beat, tuptomai, I am whipped, in any 20 
 school in Great Britain. 
 
 Almost every gentleman who does me the honour to 
 hear me wiU remember that the very greatest character 
 which he has seen in the course of his life, and the person, 
 to whom he has looked up with the greatest wonder and 25 
 reverence, was the head boy at his school. The school- 
 master himself hardly inspires such an awe. The head 
 boy construes as well as the schoolmaster himself. When 
 he begins to speak the hall is hushed, and every little boy 
 listens. He writes off copies of Latin verses as melodi- 30 
 ously as Virgil. He is good-natured, and, his own 
 masterpiece achieved, pours out other copies of verses 
 for other boys with an astonishing ease and fluency ; 
 the idle ones only trembling lest they should be dis- 
 covered on giving in their exercises, and whipped 35 
 because their poems are too good. I have seen great 
 men in my time, but never such a great one as that 
 head boy of my childhood : we all thought he must be 
 Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting him 
 in after-life to find he was no more than six feet high. 40 
 
STEELE 93 
 
 Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted 
 such an admiration in the years of his childhood, and 
 retained it faithfully through his life. Through the 
 school and through the world, whithersoever his strange 
 6 fortune led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, 
 Joseph Addison was always his head boy. Addison 
 wrote his exercises. Addison did his best themes. He 
 ran on Addison's messages : fagged for him and blacked 
 his shoes : to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest 
 
 10 pleasure ; and he took a sermon or a caning from his 
 monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, 
 and affection .1 
 
 Steele found Addison a stately college Don at Oxford, 
 and himself did not make much figure at this place. He 
 
 15 wrote a comedy, which, by the advice of a friend, the 
 humble feUow burned there ; and some verses, which 
 I dare say are as sublime as other gentlemen's composi- 
 tions at that age ; but being smitten with a sudden love 
 for military glory, he threw up the cap and gown for 
 
 20 the saddle and bridle, and rode privately in the Horse 
 Guards, in the Duke of Ormond's troop — ^the second — 
 and, probably, with the rest of the gentlemen of his 
 troop, ' all mounted on black horses with white feathers 
 in their hats, and scarlet coats richly laced,' marched 
 
 25 by King William, in Hyde Park, in November, 1699, and 
 a great show of the nobility, besides twenty thousand 
 people, and above a thousand coaches. ' The Guards 
 had just got their new cloathes,' the London Post said : 
 ' they are extraordinary grand, and thought to be the 
 
 sofinist body of horse in the world.' But Steele could 
 hardly have seen any actual service. He who wrote 
 about himself, his mother, his wife, his loves, his debts, 
 
 '■ ' Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used 
 
 to show it, in all companies, in a particular manner. Addison, 
 
 35 now and then, used to play a little upon him ; but he always 
 
 took it well.'^ — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 197.] 
 
 _ 'Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the 
 
 world : even in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire 
 
 nothing but to please and be pleased.' — Db. Young (Spence's 
 
 10 Anecdotes), [p. 335.] 
 
94 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 his friends, and the wine he drank, would have told 
 us of his battles if he had seen any. His old patron, 
 Ormond, probably got him his oometcy in the Guards, 
 from which he was promoted to be a captain in Lucas's 
 FusiUers, getting his company through the patronage of s 
 Lord Cutts, whose secretary he was, and to whom he 
 dedicated his work called The Christian Hero. As poor 
 Dick, whilst writing this ardent devotional work, was 
 deep in debt, in drink, and in aU the foUies of the town, , 
 it is related that the officers of Lucas's, and the gentlemenjo 
 of the Guards, laughed at Diok.^ And in truth a theo- 
 
 ' The gaiety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little 
 scene between two brilliant sisters, from his comedy, The Funeral, 
 or Cfrief a la Mode. Dick wrote this, he said, from ' a necessity 
 of enlivening his character ', which, it seemed, the Christiann 
 Hero had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respect- 
 able in the eyes of readers of that pious piece. 
 
 [Scene draws, and discovers Lady Charlotte, reading at a table, — 
 Lady Habeibt, playing at a glass, to and fro, and vieioing 
 herself.] 2a 
 
 L. Ha. — Nay, good sage sister, you may as well talk to me 
 [looking at herself as she speaks] as sit staring at a book which 
 I know you can't attend. — Good Dr. Lucas may have writ there 
 what he pleases, but there's no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, 
 now Earl of Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent 25 
 from your eyes. Do but look on me, now, and deny it if you can. 
 
 L. Ch. — You are the maddest girl [smiling]. 
 
 L. Ha. — Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear 
 laughing [looking over Charlotte]. — Oh ! I see his name as plain 
 as you do — F — r — a — n, Fran, — c — i — s, cis, Francis, 'tis in 30 
 every line of the book. 
 
 L. Oh. [rising] — It 's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such 
 impertinent company — but granting 'twere as you say, as to my 
 Lord Hardy — 'tis more excusable to admire another than oneself. 
 
 L. Ha. — ^No, I think not, — yes, I grant you, than really to 35 
 be vain at one's person, but I don't admire myself — Pish ! 
 I don't believe my eyes to have that softness. [Looking in the 
 glass.] They an't so piercing : no, 'tis only stuff, the men will 
 be talking.— Some people are such admirers of teeth — Lord, 
 what sigrufies teeth ! [Shmving her teeth.] A very blaok-a-moor4o 
 has as white teeth as I. — No, sister, I don't aduure myself, but 
 I've a spirit of contradiction in me : I don't know I'm in love 
 with myself, only to rival the men. 
 
STEELE ■ 95 
 
 logian in liquor is not a respectable object, and a hermit, 
 though he may be out at elbows, must not be in debt to 
 the tailor. Steele says of himself that he was always 
 simiing and repenting. He beat his breast and cried most 
 5 piteously when he did repent : but as soon as. crying had 
 made him thirsty, he fell to sinning again. In that 
 charming paper in the TaU&r, in which he records his 
 father's death, his mother's griefs, his own most solemn 
 and tender emotions, he says he is interrupted by the 
 
 10 L. Ch. — Aye, but Mr. Campley will gain ground eVn of that 
 rival of his, your dear seU. 
 
 L. Ha. — Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name 
 that insolent intruder ? A confident, opinionative fop. No, 
 indeed, if I am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung, 
 15 of both sexes 
 
 The public envy and the public care, 
 I shan't be so easily catched — I thank him — I want but to be 
 sure, I should heartily torment him by banishing him, and then 
 consider whether he should depart this life or not. 
 20 L. Ch. — ^Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in 
 your humoiu: does not at all become you. 
 
 L. Ha. — Vanity ! All the matter is, we gay people are more 
 sincere than you wise folks ; all your life's an art. — Speak your 
 soul. — Look you there. — [Hauling her to the glass.'] Are you not 
 25 struck with a secret pleasure when you view that bloom in your 
 look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude of your 
 mien ? 
 
 L. Ch. — Well, simpleton, if I am at first so silly as to be 
 a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to 
 30 correct it. 
 
 L. Ha. — Pshaw ! Pshaw ! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. 
 Fardingale, 'tis too soon for me to think at that rate. 
 
 i. Ch. — They that think it too soon to understand themselves 
 will very soon find it too late. — But tell me honestly, don't you 
 35 like Campley ? 
 
 L. Ha. — The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing 
 
 did not think of getting me so easily. — Oh, I hate a heart I can't 
 
 break when I please. — What makes the value of dear china, but 
 
 that 'tis BO brittle ? — were it not for that, you might as well 
 
 40 have stone mugs in your closet. — The Fwneral, Act II, So. ii. 
 
 ' We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings 
 [Steele's] ; there being scarcely a comedian of merit in our 
 whole company whom his Tatters had not made better by his 
 recommendation of them.'— Cibbee. [Apology, Chap, xv.] 
 
96 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 arrival of a hamper of wine, the same as is to be sold at 
 Garraway's, next week, upon the receipt of which he 
 sends for three friends, and they fall to instantly, 
 drinking two bottles apiece, with great benefit to them- 
 selves, and not separating tiU two o'clock in the morning. 5 
 
 His life was so. Jack the drawer was always inter- 
 rupting it, bringing him a bottle from the ' Rose ', or 
 inviting him over to a bout there with Sir Plume and 
 Mr. Diver ; and Dick wiped his eyes, which were 
 whimpering over his papers, took down his laced hat, lo 
 put on his sword and wig, kissed his wife and children, 
 told them a lie about pressing business, and went off 
 to the ' Rose ' to the jolly fellows. 
 
 While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came 
 home in rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence is 
 in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain 
 Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of 
 his classical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin 
 Walk. Could not some painter give an interview 
 between the gallant captain of Lucas's, with his hat 20 
 cocked, and his lace, and his face too, a trifle tarnished 
 with drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, 
 proud, and poor, his friend and monitor of schooldays, 
 of all days ? How Dick must have bragged about his 
 chances and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, 25 
 and the charms of the reigning toasts and popular 
 actresses, and the number of bottles that he and my 
 lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked over- 
 night at the ' Devil ', or the ' Garter ' ! Cannot one 
 fancy Joseph Addison's cahn smile and cold grey eyes so 
 following Dick for an instant, as he struts down the 
 Mall, to dine with the Guard at St. James's, before he 
 turns, with his sober pace and threadbare suit, to walk 
 back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs ? Steele's 
 name was down for promotion, Dick always said himselE, 35 
 in the glorious, pious, and immortal WiUiam's last table- 
 book. Jonathan Swift's name had been written there 
 by the same hand too. 
 
 Our worthy friend, the author of the Christian Hero, 
 continued to make no small figure about town by the use 40 
 
STEELE 97 
 
 of his wits.^ He was appointed Gazetteer : he wrote, 
 in 1703, The Tender Husband, his second play, in which 
 there is some delightful farcical writing, and of which he 
 fondly owned in after-life, and when Addison was no 
 6 more, that there were ' many applauded strokes ' from 
 Addison's beloved hand.^ Is it not a pleasant partner- 
 ship to remember ? Can't one fancy Steele full of spirits 
 and youth, leaving his gay company to go to Addison's 
 lodging, where his friend sits in the shabby sitting-room, 
 10 quite serene, and cheerful, and poor ? In 1704, Steele 
 came on the town with another comedy, and behold it 
 was so moral and religious, as poor Dick insisted, so 
 dull the town thought, that the Lying Lover was damned. 
 Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able 
 15 to help our friend, the ' Christian Hero ', in such a way, 
 that, if there had been any chance of keeping that poor 
 tipsy champion upon his legs, his fortune was safe, and 
 his competence assured. Steele procured the place of 
 Commissioner of Stamps : he wrote so richly, so grace- 
 so fully often, so kindly always, with such a pleasant wit 
 and easy frankness, with such a gush of good spirits and 
 
 ^ ' There is not now in his sight that excellent man, whom 
 Heaven made his friend and superior, to be, at a certain place, 
 in pain for what he should say or do. I will go on in his further 
 25 encouragement. The best woman that ever man had cannot 
 now lament and pine at his neglect of himself.' — Steele [of 
 himself]. The Theatre, No. 12, Feb. [9th], 1719-20. 
 
 ' The Funeral supplies an admirable stroke of humour, — one 
 which Sydney Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty 
 30 in his Lectures. 
 
 The undertaker is talking to his employes about their duty. 
 
 Sahle. — Ha, you ! — A little more upon the dismal Iforming 
 their ccmntenances] ; this fellow has a good mortal look, — place 
 him near the corpse : that wainscot-face must be o' top of the 
 35 stairs ; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were 
 full of some strange misery) at the entrance of the hall. So — 
 But I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any 
 provocation. Look yonder, — ^that hale, well-looking puppy ! 
 You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of 
 40 a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving 
 wages ? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty shillings 
 a week to be sorrowfid ? — and the more I give you I think the 
 gladder you are ! [Act I, So. i.] 
 
 1356 H 
 
98 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 good humour, that his early papers may be compared 
 to Addison's own, and are to be read, by a male reader 
 at least, with quite an equal pleasure.^ 
 
 ' ' Prom my own Apartment, Nov. 16. 
 
 ' There are several persons who have many pleasures and 5 
 entertainments in their possession, which they do not enjoy ; 
 it is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with 
 their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances 
 of their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in 
 the married state often want such a monitor ; and pine away lo 
 their days by looking upon the same condition in anguish and 
 murmur, which carries with it, in the opinion of others, a com- 
 plication of all the pleasures of hfe, and a retreat from its 
 inquietudes. 
 
 ' I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend 15 
 who was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, 
 with his family, for the winter ; and yesterday morning sent 
 me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at 
 home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their 
 well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is to be 20 
 met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. 
 The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think 
 it is I that am knocking at the door ; and that child which 
 loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is 
 Mr. BiokerstafE. This day I was led in by a pretty girl that we 25 
 all thought must have forgot me ; for the family has been out 
 of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty 
 subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance ; 
 after which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little 
 stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one 30 
 of my neighbour's daughters ; upon which, the gentleman, my 
 friend, said, " Nay ; if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any 
 of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the preference : 
 there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine 
 a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well ; he is 35 
 so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in 
 our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern 
 beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home 
 in a day to refresh your countenance and dress when Teraminta 
 reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated 40 
 to my wife some of your verses on her." With such reflections 
 on little passages wMch happened long ago, we passed our time 
 during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady left 
 the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, 
 he took me by the hand : " Well, my good friend," says he, 45 
 " I am heartily glad to see thee ; I was afraid you would never 
 
STEELE 99 
 
 After the Tatler, in 1711, the famous Spectator made 
 its appearance, and this was followed, at various inter- 
 have seen all the company that dined with you to-day again. 
 Do not you think the good woman of the house a little altered 
 5 since you followed her from the playhouse to find out who she 
 was for me ? " I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he 
 spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, 
 I said, " She is not, indeed, quite that creature she was when 
 she returned me the letter I carried from you, and told me, 
 
 10 ' She hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no 
 more to trouble her, who had never offended me ; but would 
 be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from 
 a pursuit which he could never succeed in.' You may remember 
 I thought her in earnest, and you were forced to employ your 
 
 15 cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for 
 you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen." " Fifteen ! " 
 replied my good friend. " Ah ! you little understand — you, that 
 have lived a bachelor — how great, how exquisite a pleasure there 
 is in being really beloved ! It is impossible that the most 
 
 20 beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas 
 as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her 
 countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my 
 fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to 
 have carried her off last winter. I tell you, sincerely, I have 
 
 25 so many obligations to her that I cannot, with any sort of 
 moderation, think of her present state of health. But, as to 
 what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond 
 what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I was 
 in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me 
 
 30 fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her 
 prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much 
 more beautiful than when I first saw it ; there is no decay in 
 any feature which I cannot trace from the very instant it was 
 occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. 
 
 35 Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards 
 her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what 
 she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion 
 commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons 
 is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh, she is an 
 
 40 inestimable jewel ! In her examination of her household afiairs, 
 she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her 
 servants obey her like children ; and the meanest we ^ve has 
 an ingenuous shame for an offence not always to be seen in 
 children inother famiUes. I speak freely to you, my old friend ; 
 
 45 ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy 
 before turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in 
 the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am 
 
 h2 
 
100 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 vals, by many periodicals under the same editor — the 
 OvMrdian — ^the Englishman — ^the Lover, whose love was 
 
 considering what they must do should they lose their mother 
 in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling 
 my boy stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about 5 
 the disposal of her baby, and the gossipping of it, is turned into 
 inward reflection and melancholy." 
 
 ' He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good 
 lady entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her coun- 
 tenance, told us " she had been searching her closet for some- 10 
 thing very good, to treat such an old friend as I was". Her 
 husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her 
 countenance ; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The 
 lady observing something in our looks which showed we had 
 been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive is 
 her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately 
 guessed at what we had been talking of ; and applying herself 
 to me, said, with a smile, " Mr. BiokerstafF, do not believe 
 a word of what he tells you ; I shall stiU live to have you for 
 my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more 20 
 care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You 
 must know he tells me, that he finds London is a much more 
 healthy place than the country ; for he sees several of his old 
 acquaintance and schoolfellows are here — young fellows with fair, 
 fvll -bottomed perirngs. I could scarce keep him this morning 25 
 from going out open-breasted." My friend, who is always ex- 
 tremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down 
 with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women 
 of sense ; and to keep up the good humour she had brought 
 in with her, turned her raillery upon me. " Mr. Biokerstaff, 30 
 you remember you followed me one night from the playhouse ; 
 suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead 
 me into the front box." This put us into a long field of dis- 
 course about the beauties who were mothers to the present, and 
 shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, " I was glad 36 
 she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not 
 question but her eldest daughter was withia half a year of being 
 a toast." 
 
 ' We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment 
 of the young lady, when, on a sudden, we were alarmed with 40 
 the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson 
 to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and 
 chiding, would have put him out of the room ; but I would not 
 part with him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though 
 he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent 45 
 parts, and was. a great master of all the learning on the other 
 side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in 
 
STEELE 101 
 
 rather insipid — the Reader, of whom the public saw no 
 more after his second appearance — ^the Theatre, under the 
 pseudonym of Sir John Edgar, which Steele wrote, 
 while Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, 
 5 to which post, and to that of Surveyor of the Royal 
 Stables at Hampton Court, and to the Commission of 
 the Peace for Middlesex, and to the honour of knight- 
 hood, Steele had been ]preferred soon after the accession 
 of George I, whose cause honest Dick had nobly fought, 
 
 10 through disgrace and danger, against the most formid- 
 able enemies, against traitors and bullies, against 
 BoUngbroke and Swift in the last reign. With the arrival 
 of the King, that splendid conspiracy broke up ; and 
 a golden opportunity came to Dick Steele, whose hand, 
 
 15 alas, was too careless to grip it. 
 
 Aesop's Fables ; but he frankly declared to me his mind, " that 
 he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe 
 they were true ; " for which reason I found he had very much 
 turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives 
 
 20 and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, 
 the Seven Champions, and other historians of that age. I could 
 not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forward- 
 ness of his son ; and that these diversions might turn to some 
 profit, I found the boy had made remarks which might be of 
 
 25 service to hinn during the course of his whole life. He would 
 tell you the mismanagements of John Hiokerthrift, find fault 
 with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved 
 St. George for being the champion of England ; and by this 
 means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of 
 
 30 discretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplish- 
 ments, when the mother told me, " that the little girl who led 
 me in this morning was, in her way, a better scholar than he. 
 Betty," says she, " deals chiefly in fairies and sprites ; and 
 sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her 
 
 35 accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed." 
 
 ' I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, 
 sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, 
 which gives the only true rehsh to all conversation, a sense that 
 every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the 
 
 40 different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor ; 
 and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, 
 that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In 
 this pensive mood I returned to my family ; that is to say, to 
 my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or 
 
 45 worse for what happens tome.' — The Tatter. [No. 95.] 
 
102 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Steele married twice ; and outlived his places, his 
 schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost 
 everything but his kind heart. That ceased to trouble 
 him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost forgotten 
 by his contemporaries, in Wales, where he had the s 
 remnant of a property. 
 
 Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature ; 
 all women especially are bound t6 be grateful to Steele, 
 as he was the first of our writers who reaUy seemed to 
 admire and respect them. Congreve the Great, who lo 
 aUudes to the low estimation in which women were held 
 in Elizabeth's time, as a reason why the women of 
 Shakespeare make so small a figure in the poet's dialogues, 
 though he can himself pay splendid compliments to 
 women, yet looks on them as mere instruments of gal- is 
 lantry, and destined, like the joaost consummate fortifica- 
 tions, to faU, after a certain time, before the arts and 
 bravery of the besieger, man. There is a letter of 
 Swift's, entitled Advice to a very Young Married Lady, 
 which shows the Dean's opinion of the female society 20 
 of his day, and that if he despised man he utterly 
 scorned women too. No lady of our time could be 
 treated by any man, were he ever so much' a wit or 
 Dean, in such a tone of insolent patronage and vulgar 
 protection. In this performance, Swift hardly takes 25 
 paias to hide his opinion that a woman is a fool : teUs 
 her to read books, as if reading was a novel accomplish- 
 ment ; and informs her that ' not one gentleman's 
 daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or 
 understand her own natural tongue'. Addison laughs so 
 at women equally ; but, with the gentleness and 
 politeness of his nature, smiles at them and watches 
 them, as if they were harmless, half-witted, amusing, 
 pretty creatures, only made to be men's playthings. 
 It was Steele who first began to pay a manly homage 35 
 to their goodness and understanding, as well as to their 
 tenderness and beauty .^ In his comedies, the heroes 
 
 ' ' As to the pursuits after afieotion and esteem, the fair sex 
 are happy in this particular, that with them the one is much 
 
STEELE 103 
 
 do not rant and rave about the divine beauties of 
 Gloriana or Statira, as the characters were made to do 
 in the ohivahy romances and the high-flown dramas 
 just going out of vogue, but Steele admires women's 
 
 s virtue, acknowledges their sense, and adores their 
 purity and beauty, with an ardour and strength which 
 should win the goodwill of all women to their hearty and 
 respectful champion. It is this ardour, this respect, 
 this manliness, which makes his comedies so pleasant 
 
 10 and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finest 
 compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. 
 Of one woman, whom Congreve had also admired and 
 celebrated, Steele says, that ' to have loved her was 
 a liberal education '. ' How often,' he says, dedicating 
 
 15 a volume to his wife, ' how often has your tenderness 
 removed pain from my sick head, how often anguish from 
 my afflicted heart ! ... If there are such beings as 
 guardian angels, thus are they employed ; I wiU no 
 more believe one of them more good in its inclinations, 
 
 20 than I can conceive it more charming in its form than 
 my wife.' His breast seems to warm and his eyes to 
 kindle when he meets with a good and beautiful woman, 
 and it is with his heart as well as with his hat that he 
 salutes her. About children, and aU that relates to home, 
 
 25 he is not less tender, andmore than once speaks in apology 
 of what he calls his softness. He would have been 
 nothing without that delightful weakness. It is that 
 which gives his works their worth and his style its charm. 
 It, like his life, is full of faults and careless blunders ; 
 
 30 more nearly related to the other than in men. The love of 
 a woman is inseparable from some esteem of her ; and as she 
 is naturally the object of afieotion, the woman who has your 
 esteem has also some degree of your love. A man that dotes 
 on a woman for her beauty, will whisper his friend, " that 
 
 35 creature has a great deal of wit when you are well acquainted 
 with her." And if you examine the bottom of your esteem for 
 a woman, you will find you have a greater opinion of her beauty 
 than anybody else. As to us men, I design to pass most of my 
 time with the facetious Harry BickerstafE ; but William Bicker- 
 
 40 staff, the most prudent man of our family, shall be my executor.' 
 —TaUer, No. 206. 
 
104 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 and redeemed, like that, by his sweet and compassionate 
 nature. 
 
 We possess of poor Steele's wild and chequered life 
 some of the most curious memoranda that ever were left 
 of a man's biography.^ Most men's letters, from Cicero s 
 
 ' The Correspondence of Steele passed after his death into 
 the possession of his daughter Elizabeth, by his second wife, 
 Miss Scurlook, of Carmarthenshire. She married the Hon. John, 
 afterwards third Lord Trevor. At her death, part of the letters 
 passed to Mr. Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of lo 
 Steele's ; and part to Lady Trevor's next of kin, Mr. Scurlock. 
 They were published by the learned Nichols — from whose later 
 edition of them, in 1809, our specimens are quoted. 
 
 Here we have him, in his courtship — which was not a very 
 long one. 15 
 
 TO MKS. sctjrlock;. 
 
 ' Aug. 30, 1707. 
 
 ' Madam, — 
 ' I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced 
 to write from a cofiee-house, where I am attending about busi- 20 
 ness. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, talking 
 of money ; while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love ! Love, 
 which animates my heart, sweetens my humour, enlarges my 
 soul, and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely 
 charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are continually affixed 25 
 to my words and actions ; it is the natural efiect of that generous 
 passion to create in the admirer some similitude of the object 
 admired. Thus, my dear, am I every day to improve from so 
 sweet a companion. Look up, my fair" one, to that Heaven 
 which made thee such ; and join with me to implore its influ- 30 
 ence on our tender innocent hours, and beseech the Author of 
 love to bless the rites He has ordained — and mingle with our 
 happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resigna- 
 tion to His will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady 
 endeavour to please Him and each other. 35 
 
 ' I am for ever your faithful servant, 
 
 ' Rich. Steele.' 
 
 Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlook 
 received the next one — obviously written later in the day ! 
 
 ' Saturday night (Aug. 30, 1707). *" 
 ' Dbae, Lovely Mrs. Scurlock, — 
 
 ' I have been in very good company, where your health, 
 under the character of the woman I loved heat, has been often 
 drunk ; so that I may say I am dead drunk for your sake, which 
 is more than / die far you. 45 
 
 ' Rich. Steele.' 
 
STEELE 105 
 
 down to Walpole, or down to the great men of our own 
 time, if you will, are doctored compositions, and written 
 
 TO MRS. SCTTBLOOK. 
 
 ' Sept. 1, 1707. 
 s ' Madam, — 
 
 ' It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet 
 attend business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, 
 and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. 
 ' A gentleman asked me this morning, " What news from 
 10 Lisbon ? " and I answered, " She is exquisitely handsome." 
 Another desired to know " when I had been last at Hampton 
 Court ? " I replied, " It will be on Tuesday come se'nnight." 
 Pr'ythee allow me at least to kiss your hand before that day, 
 that my mind may be in some composure. O Love ! 
 ^^ ' A thousand torments dwell about thee. 
 
 Yet who would live, to live without thee ? 
 ' Methinks I could write a volume to you ; but all the language 
 on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what dis- 
 interested passion, 
 20 ' I am ever yours, 
 
 ' Rich. Steele.' 
 
 Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances 
 and prospects to the young lady's mamma. He dates from 
 ' Lord Sunderland's office, Whitehall ' ; and states his clear in- 
 
 25 come at 1,025Z. per annum. ' I promise myself,' says he, ' the 
 pleasure of an industrious and virtuous life, in studying to do 
 things agreeable to you.' 
 
 They were married according to the most probable conjectures 
 about the 7th inst. There are traces of a tiff about the middle 
 
 30 of the next month ; she being prudish and fidgety, as he was 
 impassioned and reckless. General progress, however, may be 
 seen from the following notes. The ' house in Bury Street, 
 St. James's ', was now taken. 
 
 TO MBS. STEELE. 
 
 35 ' Oct. 16, 1707. 
 
 ' Deakest Being on Eabth, — 
 
 ' Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven o'clock, having 
 met a schoolfellow from India, by whom I am to be informed 
 in things this night which concern extremely your obedient 
 40 husband, 
 
 ' RioH. Steele.' 
 
 TO MES. STEELE. 
 
 ' Bight o'clock. Fountain Tavern, 
 ' Oct. 22, 1707. 
 45 ' My Dbae, — 
 
 ' I beg of you not to be uneasy ; for I have done a great 
 
106 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 with an eye suspicious towards posterity. That dedica- 
 tion of Steele's to his wife is an artificial performance, 
 
 deal of business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or 
 two about my Gazette.'' 
 
 ' Dec. 22, 1707. S 
 ' My deae, dear Wife, — 
 ' I write to let you know I do not come home to dinner, 
 being obliged to attend some business abroad, of which I shall 
 give you an account (when I see you in the evening), as becomes 
 your dutiful and obedient husband.' 10 
 
 ' Devil Tavern, Temple Bar, Jan. 3, 1707-8. 
 ' Deab Pbue, — 
 
 ' I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and inclose 
 two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come 
 home to dinner. I languish for your welfare, and will never be is 
 a moment careless more. ' Your faithful husband,^ &c. 
 
 ' Jan. 14, 1707-8. 
 ' Deae Wife, — 
 ' Mr. Edgecomb, Ned Ash, and Mr. Lumley, have desired 
 me to sit an hour with them at the George in Pall Mall, for 20 
 which I desire your patience till twelve o'clock, and that you 
 will go to bed,' &c. 
 
 ' Gray's Inn, Feb. 3, 1708. 
 ' Dear Pexjb, — 
 ' If the man who has my shoemaker's bill calls, let him be 25 
 answered that I shall call on him as I come home. I stay here 
 in order to get Tonson to discount a bill for me, and shall dine 
 with him for that end. He is expected at home every minute. 
 ' Your most humble, obedient servant,' &o. 
 
 ' Tennis Court Coffee-house, May 5, 1708, so 
 
 ' Deae Wife, — 
 ' I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to you ; 
 in the meantime shall lie this night at a barber's, one Leg, over 
 against the Devil Tavern, at Charing Cross. I shall be ahle to 
 confront the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall have the 35 
 satisfaction to see thee cheerful and at ease. 
 
 ' If the printer's boy be at home, send him hither ; and let 
 Mrs. Todd send by the boy my night-gown, slippers, and clean 
 linen. You shall hear from me early in the morning,' &c. 
 
 Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little 40 
 parcels of tea, or walnuts, &c. In 1709 the TaUer made its 
 appearance. The following curious note dates April 7, 1710 : — 
 
 ' I inclose to you [" Dear Prue "] a receipt for the saucepan 
 and spoon, and a note of 231. of Lewis's, which will make up 
 the 501. I promised for your ensuing occasion. 4B 
 
STEELE 107 
 
 possibly ; at least, it is written with that degree of artifice 
 which an orator uses in arranging a statement for the 
 House, or a poet employs in preparing a sentiment in verse 
 or for the stage. But there are some 400 letters of Dick 
 
 5 Steele's to his wife, which that thrifty woman preserved 
 accurately, and which could have been written but for 
 her and her alone. They contain details of the business, 
 pleasures, quarrels, reconciliations of the pair ; they 
 have all the genuineness of conversation ; they are as 
 
 10 artless as a child's prattle, and as confidential as a 
 curtain-lecture. Some are written from the printing- 
 office, where he is waiting for the proof sheets of his 
 Gazette, or his Taller ; some are written from the 
 tavern, whence he promises to come to his wife ' within 
 
 15 a prat, of wine ', and where he has given a rendezvous 
 to a friesid, or a money-lender : some are composed in 
 a high state of vinous excitement, when his head is 
 flustered mth burgundy, and his heart abounds with 
 amorous warmth for his darling Prue : some are under 
 
 20 the influence of the dismal headache and repentance 
 next morning : some, alas, are from the look-up house, 
 where the lawyers have impounded him, and where he 
 is waiting for bail. You trace many years of the poor 
 fellow's career in these letters. In September, 1707, 
 
 25 from which day she began to save the letters, he married 
 the beautiful Mistress Scurlock. You have his passionate 
 protestations to the lady ; his respectful proposals 
 to her mamma ; his private prayer to Heaven when the 
 union so ardently desired was completed ; his fond 
 
 30 professions of contrition and promises of amendment, 
 
 ' I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable 
 to the pleasure I have in your person and society. I only beg 
 of you to add to your other charms a f earfulness to see a man 
 that loves you in pain and uneasiness, to make me as happy 
 35 as it is possible to be in this life. Eising a little in a morning, 
 and being disposed to a cheerfulness . . . would not be amiss.' 
 
 In another, he is found excusing his coming home, being 
 ' invited to supper to Mr. Boyle's '. ' Dear Prue,' he says on 
 this occasion, do not send after me, for I shall be ridiculous.' 
 40 [ietter *270.] 
 
108 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 when, immediately after his marriage, there began to 
 be just cause for the one and need for the other. 
 
 Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their 
 marriage, ' the third door from Germain Street, left 
 hand of Berry Street,' and the next year he presented 5 
 his wife with a comitry house at Hampton. It appears 
 she had a chariot and pair, and sometimes four horses : 
 he himself enjoyed a little horse for his own riding. 
 He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fifty pounds 
 a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a lo 
 large black-buckled periwig, that must have cost some- 
 body fifty guineas. He was rather a well-to-do gentle- 
 man. Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in 
 Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as 
 writer of the Gazette, and his office of gentleman waiter is 
 to his Royal Highness Prince George. His second 
 wife brought him a fortune too. But it is melancholy 
 to relate, that with these houses and chariots and horses 
 and iacome, the Captain was constantly in want of money, 
 for which his beloved bride was asking as constantly. 20 
 In the course of a few pages we begin to find the shoe- 
 maker calliag for money, and some directions from the 
 Captaia, who has not thirty pounds to spare. He sends 
 his wife, ' the beautifuUest object in. the world,' as he 
 calls her, and evidently in reply to appHcations of her 25 
 own, which have gone the way of aU waste paper, and 
 lighted Dick's pipes, which were smoked a hundred 
 and forty years ago — ^he sends his wife now a guinea, 
 then a half-guinea, then a couple of guineas, then half 
 a pound of tea ; and again no money and no tea at all, 30 
 but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some in 
 a day or two : or a request, perhaps, that she will send 
 over his nightgown and shaving-plate to the temporary 
 lodging where the nomadic captain is lying, hidden 
 from the bailifis. Oh that a Christian hero and late 35 
 captain in Lucas's should be afraid of a dirty sheriff's 
 officer ! That the pink and pride of chivalry should 
 turn pale before a writ ! It stands to record in poor 
 Dick's own handwriting — ^the queer collection is pre- 
 served at the British Museum to this present day — ^that 40 
 
STEELE 109 
 
 the rent of the nuptial house in Jermyn Street, sacred 
 to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three doors 
 from Bury Street, was not paid until after the landlord 
 had put in an execution on Captain Steele's furniture. 
 B Addison sold the house and furniture at Hampton, 
 and, after deducting the sum in which his incorrigible 
 friend was indebted to him, handed over the residue 
 of the proceeds of the sale to poor Dick, who wasn't in 
 the least angry at Addison's summary proceeding, and 
 
 xo I dare say was very glad of any sale or execution, the 
 result of which was to give him a little ready money. 
 Having a small house in Jermyn Street for which he 
 could not pay, and a country house at Hampton on which 
 he had borrowed money, nothing must content Captain 
 
 15 Dick but the taking, in 1712, a much finer, larger, and 
 grander house, in Bloomsbury Square ; where his 
 unhappy landlord got no better satisfaction than his 
 friend in St. James's, and where it is recorded that 
 Dick, giving a grand entertainment, had a half-dozen 
 
 20 queer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon his noble 
 guests, and confessed that his servants were bailiffs to 
 a man. ' I fared like a distressed prince,' the kindly 
 prodigal writes, generously complimenting Addison for 
 his assistance in the Taller, — ' I fared like a distressed 
 
 25 prince, who caUs in a powerful neighbour to his aid. 
 I was undone by my auxiliary ; when I had once called 
 him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.' 
 Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury ! think of him in 
 his palace, with his aUies from Chancery Lane ominously 
 
 30 guarding him. 
 
 All sorts of stories are told indicative of his reckless- 
 ness and his good humour. One narrated by Dr. Hoadly 
 is exceedingly characteristic ; it shows the life of the 
 time : and our poor friend very weak, but very kind both 
 
 35 in and out of his cups. 
 
 ' My father ' (says Dr. John Hoadly, the bishop's son) 
 — ' when bishop of Bangor, was, by invitation, present 
 at one of the Whig meetings, held at the " Trumpet ", 
 in Shire Lane, where Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather 
 
 40 exposed himself, having the double duty of the day 
 
no ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 upon him, as well to celebrate the immortal memory 
 of King WilUam, it being the 4th of November, as to 
 drink his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whose 
 phlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society 
 by that time Steele was not fit for it. Two remark- s 
 able circumstances happened. John Sly, the hatter, of 
 facetious memory, was in the house ; and, when pretty 
 meUow, took it into his head to come into the company 
 on his knees, with a tankard of ale in his hand to drink 
 off to the immortal memory, and to retire in the sameio 
 manner. Steele, sitting next my father, whispered him 
 — " Do laugh. It is humanity to laugh." Sir Richard, in 
 the evening, being too much in the same condition, was 
 put into a chair, and sent home. Nothing would serve 
 him but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as 15 
 it was. However, the chairmen carried him home, 
 and got him upstairs, when his great complaisance would 
 wait on them downstairs, which he did, and then was 
 got quietly to bed.' ^ 
 
 There is another amusing story which, I believe, that 20 
 renowned collector, Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, 
 have incorporated into their work. Sjr Richard Steele, 
 at a time when he was much occupied with theatrical 
 affairs, built himself a pretty private theatre, and, before 
 it was opened to his friends and guests was anxious to 25 
 try whether the hall was well adapted for hearing. 
 Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote part 
 of the gaUery, and begged the carpenter who had built 
 the house to speak up from the stage. The man at first 
 said that he was unaccustomed to public speaking, so 
 and did not know what to say to his honour ; but the 
 good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever 
 was uppermost ; and, after a moment, the carpenter 
 began, in a voice perfectly audible : ' Sir Richard 
 Steele ! ' he said, ' for three months past me and my 35 
 men has been a- working in this theatre, and » we've 
 
 ' Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote : — 
 
 Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits. 
 
 All faults he pardons, though he none commits. 
 
STEELE 111 
 
 never seen the colour of your honour's money ; we will 
 be very much obliged if you'll pay it directly, for until 
 you do we won't drive in another nail.' Sir Richard 
 said that his friend's elocution was perfect, but that he 
 
 5 didn't like his subject much. 
 
 The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. 
 He wrote so quickly and carelessly, that he was forced to 
 make the reader his confidant, and had not the time to 
 deceive him. He had a small share of book-learning, but 
 
 10 a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known 
 men and taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with 
 troopers, with gentleman ushers of the Court, with men 
 and women of fashion ; with authors and wits, with the 
 inmates of the spunging-houses, and with the frequenters 
 
 15 of all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town. He was 
 liked in all company because he liked it ; and you like 
 to see his enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a box 
 fuU of children at the pantomime. He was not of those 
 lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them 
 
 20 to be soUtary ; on the contrary, he admired, I think, 
 more than any man who ever wrote ; and, full of hearty 
 applause and sympathy, wins upon you by calling you to 
 share his delight and good humour. His laugh rings 
 through the whole house. He must have been invaluable 
 
 25 at a tragedy, and have cried as much as the most tender 
 young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for beauty 
 and goodness wherever he meets it. He admired 
 Shakespeare affectionately, and more than any man of 
 his time ; and, according to his generous expansive 
 
 30 nature, called upon aU his company to like what he 
 liked himself. He did not damn with faint praise : he 
 was in the world and of it ; and his enjoyment of life 
 presents the strangest contrast to Swift's savage indigna- 
 tion and Addison's lonely serenity.^ Permit me to read 
 
 35 ' Here we have some of his later letters : — 
 
 TO LADY STEELE. 
 
 ' Hampton Court, March 16, 1716-17. 
 ' Deae Pkue, — 
 
 ' If you have written anything to me which I should have 
 40 received last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer till 
 
112 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 to you a passage from each writer, curiously indicative 
 of his peculiar humour : the subject is the same, and the 
 
 the next post. . . . Your son at the present writing is mighty 
 well employed in tumbling on the floor of the room and sweeping 
 the sand with a feather. He grows a most delightful child, and 5 
 very full of play and spirit. He is also a very great scholar : 
 he can read his primer ; and I have brought down my Virgil. 
 He makes most shrewd remarks upon the pictures. We are 
 very intimate friends and playfellows. He begins to be very 
 ragged ; and I hope I shall be pardoned i£ I equip him with 10 
 new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall think 
 for his service.' 
 
 TO LADY STEELE. 
 
 [Undated.] 
 ' You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure 15 
 you J know no one who deserves so much commendation as 
 yourself, and to whom saying the best things would be so little 
 like flattery. The thing speaks [for] itself, considering you as 
 a very handsome woman that loves retirement — one who does 
 not want wit, and yet is extremely sincere ; and so I could go 20 
 through all the vices which attend the good qualities of other 
 people, of which you are exempt. But, indeed, though you 
 have every perfection, you have one extravagant fault, which 
 almost frustrates the good in you to me ; and that is, that you 
 do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my request, 26 
 and to make me proud of you, or rather to indulge the pride 
 I have that you are mine. ... 
 
 ' Your most affectionate, obsequious husband, 
 
 ' Rich. Steele. 
 ' A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are 30 
 perfectly well.' [Letter 340.] 
 
 to lady STEELE. 
 
 ' March 26, 1717. 
 
 ' My dearest Pktje, 
 
 ' I have received yours, wherein you give me the sensible 35 
 affliction of letting me know of the continual pain in your 
 head. . . . When I lay in your place, and on your pillow, I assure 
 you I fell into tears last night, to think that my charming little 
 insolent might be then awake and in pain ; and took it to be 
 a sin to go to sleep. 40 
 
 ' For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented 
 that your Prueship will condescend to call yourself my well- 
 wisher . . .' 
 
 At the time when the above later letters were written. Lady 
 Steele was in Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, 45 
 about this time, was much occupied with a project for con- 
 
STEELE 113 
 
 mood the very gravest. We have said that upon all the 
 actions of man, the most trifling and the most solemn, 
 the humoiirist takes upon himself to comment. All 
 readers of our old masters know the terrible lines of 
 s Swift, in which he hints at his philosophy and describes 
 the end of mankind ; — ^^ 
 
 Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, 
 
 The world stands trembling at Jove's throne ; 
 
 While each pale sinner hung his head, 
 
 10 Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said : 
 
 ' Offending race of human kind, 
 
 By nature, reason, learning, blind ; 
 
 You who through frailty stepped aside. 
 
 And you who never fell from pride ; 
 
 15 You who in different sects were shamm'd. 
 And come to see each other danm'd ; 
 (So some folk told you, but they knew 
 No more of Jove's designs than you ;) 
 The world's mad business now is o'er, 
 
 20 And I resent these pranks no more ; 
 / to such blockheads set my wit, 
 I damn such fools — ^go, go, you're bit ! ' 
 
 Addison, speaking on the very same theme, but with 
 how different a voice, says, in his famous paper on West- 
 
 25 minster Abbey (Spectator, No. 26) : — ' For my own part, 
 though I am always serious, I do not know what it is 
 to be melancholy, and can therefore take a view of 
 nature in her deep and solemn scenes with the same 
 pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones . . . 
 
 30 When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion 
 of envy dies in me ; when I read the epitaphs of the 
 beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out ; when I 
 
 veying fish alive, by which, as he constantly assures his wife, 
 he firmly believed he should make his fortune. It did not 
 35 succeed, however. 
 
 Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She 
 lies buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 * Lord Chesterfield sends these verses to Voltaire in a charac- 
 teristic letter. [Aug. 27,. 1752.] 
 
 1356 I 
 
114 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my 
 heart melts with compassion ; when I see the tomb of 
 the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving 
 for those whom we must quickly follow.' (I have owned 
 that I do not think Addison's heart melted very much, or s 
 that he indulged very inordinately in the ' vanity of 
 grieving '.) ' AVhen,' he goes on, ' when I see kings 
 lying by those who deposed them : when I consider rival 
 wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided 
 the world with their contests and disputes, — ^I reflect lo 
 with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, 
 factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the 
 several dates of the tombs of some that died yesterday 
 and some 600 years ago, I consider that Great Day when 
 we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our 15 
 appearance together.' 
 
 Our third humourist comes to speak upon the same 
 subject. You will have observed in the previous extracts 
 the characteristic humour of each writer — ^the subject 
 and the contrast — ^the fact of Death, and the play of 20 
 individual thought, by which each comments on it, and 
 now hear the third writer — death, sorrow, and the grave, 
 being for the moment also his theme. ' The first sense 
 of sorrow I ever knew,' Steele says in the Tatter, ' was 
 upon the death of my father, at which time I was not 25 
 quite five years of age : but was rather amazed at what 
 all the house meant, than possessed with a real under- 
 standing why nobody would play with me. I remember 
 I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother 
 sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, 30 
 and fell a-beating the cofQn, and calling papa ; for, I 
 know not how, I had some shght idea that he was locked 
 up there. My mother caught me in her arms, and, 
 transported beyond aU patience of the silent grief she 
 was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces, 35 
 and told me in a flood of tears, "Papa could not hear me, 
 and would play with me no more : for they were going 
 to put him underground, whence he could never come 
 to us again." She was a very beautiful woman, of 
 a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst 40 
 
STEELE 115 
 
 all the wildness of her transport, which methought 
 struck me with an instinct of sorrow that, before I was 
 sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and 
 has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since.' 
 6 Can there be three more characteristic moods of 
 minds and men ? ' Pools, do you know anything of this 
 mystery ? ' says Swift, stamping on a grave and carrying 
 his scorn for mankind actually beyond it. ' Miserable, 
 purblind wretches, how dare you to pretend to compre- 
 
 10 hend the Inscrutable, and how can your dim eyes pierce 
 the unfathomable depths of yonder boundless heaven ? ' 
 Addison, in a much kinder language and gentler voice, 
 utters much the same sentiment : and speaks of the 
 rivalry of wits, and the contests of holy men, with an 
 
 15 equal sceptic placidity. ' Look what a little vain dust we 
 are,' he says, smiling over the tombstones, and catching, 
 as is his wont, quite a divine effulgence as he looks 
 heavenward, he speaks in words of inspiration almost, 
 of ' the Great Day, when we shall all of us be contem- 
 
 20 poraries, and make our appearance together '. 
 
 The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will 
 speak his word of moral as Heaven teaches him, leads you 
 up to his father's coffin, and shows you his beautiful 
 mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy 
 
 25 wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as 
 he takes your hand and confidingly asks your sympathy. 
 ' See how good and innocent and beautiful women are,' 
 he says, ' how tender little children ! Let us love these 
 and one another, brother — God knows we have need of 
 
 30 love and pardon.' So it is each man looks with his 
 own eyes, speaks with his own voice, and prays his own 
 prayer. 
 
 When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in 
 that charming scene of Love and Grief and Death, who 
 
 35 can refuse it 1 One yields to it as to the frank advance 
 of a child, or to the appeal of a woman. A man is seldom 
 more manly than when he is what you call unmanned — 
 the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and 
 courage ; the instinctive desire to cherish those who are 
 
 40 innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender 
 
 12 
 
116 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. 
 He is by no means the most brilliant of wits nor the 
 deepest of thinkers : but he is our friend : we love him, 
 as children love their love with an A, because he is 
 amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the s 
 cleverest or the wisest of mankind ; or a woman because 
 she is the most virtuous, or talks French ; or plays the 
 piano better than the rest of her sex ? I own to Ukiag 
 Dick Steele the man, and Dick Steele the author, much 
 better than much better men and much better authors, lo 
 
 The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most part 
 of the company here present must take his amiability 
 upon hearsay, and certainly can't make his intimate 
 acquaintance. Not that Steele was worse than his time ; 
 on the contrary, a far better, truer, and higher-hearted is 
 man than most who lived in it. But things were done in 
 that society, and names were named, which would make 
 you shudder now. What would be the sensation of a 
 polite youth of the present day, if at a ball he saw 
 the young object of his affections taking a box out of 20 
 her pocket and a pinch of snuff : or if at dinner, by the 
 charmer's side, she deliberately put her knife into her 
 mouth ? If she cut her mother's throat with it, mamma 
 would scarcely be more shocked. I aUude to these 
 pecuUarities of bygone times as an excuse for my 25 
 favourite, Steele, who was not worse, and often much 
 more delicate than his neighbours. 
 
 There exists a curious document descriptive of the 
 manners of the last age; which describes most minutely 
 the amusements and occupations of persons of fashion 30 
 in London at the time of which we are speaking ; the 
 time of Swift, and Addison, and Steele. 
 
 When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel 
 Atwit, the immortal personages of Swift's Polite 
 Converaation, came to breakfast with my Lady Smart, 35 
 at eleven o'clock in the morning, my Lord Smart was 
 absent at the lev6e. His -lordship was at home to 
 dinner at three o'clock to receive his guests ; and we may 
 sit down to this meal, like the Barmecide's, and see the 
 fops of the last century before us. Seven of them sat4Q 
 
STEELE 117 
 
 down at dinner, and were joined by a country baronet, 
 who told them they kept Court hours. These persons 
 of fashion began their dinner with a sirloin of beef, 
 fish, a shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart 
 5 carved the sirloin, my Lady Answerall helped the fish, 
 and the gallant colonel cut the shoulder of veal. AH 
 made a considerable inroad on the sirloia and the shoulder 
 of veal with the exception of Sir John, who had no appe- 
 tite, having already partaken of a beefsteak and two 
 
 10 mugs of ale, besides a tankard of March beer as soon 
 as he got out of bed. They drank claret, which the 
 master of the house said should always be drunk after 
 fish ; and my Lord Smart particularly recommended 
 some excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, which 
 
 15 occasioned some brilliant remarks from that nobleman. 
 
 When the host called for wine, he nodded to one or other 
 
 of his guests, and said, ' Tom Neverout, my service to you.' 
 
 After the first course came almond pudding, fritters, 
 
 which the colonel took with his hands out of the dish, in 
 
 20 order to help the briUiant Miss Notable ; chickens, 
 black puddings, and soup ; and Lady Smart, the elegant 
 mistress of the mansion, finding a skewer in a dish, 
 placed it in her plate with directions that it should be 
 carried down to the cook and dressed for the cook's 
 
 26 own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk during 
 this second course ; and when the colonel called for 
 beer, he called the butler, Friend, and asked whether 
 the beer was good. Various jocular remarks passed from 
 the gentlefolks to the servants ; at breakfast several 
 
 30 persons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my lady's 
 maid, who warmed the cream and had charge of the 
 canister (the tea cost thirty shillings a pound in those 
 days). When my Lady Sparkish sent her footman out 
 to my Lady Match to come at six o'clock and play at 
 
 35 quadrille, her ladyship warned the man to follow his 
 nose, and if he fell by the way not to stay to get up again. 
 And when the gentlemen asked the hall-porter if his 
 lady was at home, that functionary replied, with manly 
 waggishness, ' She was at home just now, but she 's not 
 
 40 gone out yet,' 
 
118 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and 
 soup, came the third course, of which the chief dish was 
 a hot venison pasty, which was put before Lord Smart, 
 and carved by that nobleman. Besides the pasty, there 
 was a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, partridges, a goose, 6 
 and a ham. Beer and wine were freely imbibed during 
 this course, the gentlemen always pledging somebody 
 with every glass which they drank ; and by this time 
 the conversation between Tom Neverout and Miss 
 Notable had grown so brisk and lively, that the Derby- lo 
 shire baronet began to think the young gentlewoman 
 was Tom's sweetheart ; on which Miss remarked, that 
 she loved Tom ' like pie '. After the goose, some of 
 the gentlemen took a disna of brandy, ' which was very 
 good for the wholesomes,' Sir John said ; and now 15 
 having had a tolerably substantial dinner, honest Lord 
 Smart bade the butler bring up the great tankard full 
 of October to Sir John. The great tankard was passed 
 from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, but when 
 pressed by the noble host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, 20 
 he said, ' No faith, my lord, I like your wine, and won't 
 put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honour's claret is 
 good enough for me.' And so, the dinner over, the 
 host said, ' Hang saving, bring us up a ha'porth of 
 cheese.' 25 
 
 The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of bur- 
 gundy was set down, of which the ladies were invited 
 to partake before they went to their tea. When they 
 withdrew, the gentlemen promised to join them in an 
 hour ; fresh bottles were brought, the ' dead men ', 30 
 meaning the empty bottles, removed ; and ' D'you 
 hear, John ? bring clean glasses ', my Lord Smart said. 
 On which the gallant Colonel Atwit said, ' I'll keep my 
 glass ; for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses in.' 
 
 After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then 35 
 they all sat and played quadrille until three o'clock in 
 the morning, when the chairs and the flambeaux came, ■ 
 and this noble company went to bed. 
 
 Such were manners six or seven score years ago. 
 I draw no inference from this queer picture — let all 40 
 
STEELE 119 
 
 moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy the 
 moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion 
 joked with a footman, and carved a great shoulder of 
 veal, and provided besides a sirloin, a goose, hare, rabbit, 
 
 5 chickens, partridges, black puddings, and a ham for 
 a dinner for eight Christians. What — ^what could have 
 been the condition of that polite world in which people 
 openly ate goose after almond pudding, and took 
 their soup in the middle of dinner ? Fancy a colonel 
 
 10 in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of beignets 
 d'abricot, and helping his neighbour, a young lady du 
 monde ! Fancy a noble lord calling out to the servants, 
 before the ladies at his table, ' Hang expense, bring us 
 a ha'porth of cheese ! ' Such were the ladies of St. 
 
 15 James's — such were the frequenters of White's Chocolate- 
 house, when Swift used to visit it, and Steele described 
 it as the centre of pleasure, gallantry, and entertainment, 
 a hundred and forty years ago ! 
 
 Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of his 
 
 20 day, falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts him, — 
 
 ' Sir John Edgar, of the county of in Ireland, is 
 
 of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape 
 like the picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney — 
 a short chin, a short nose, a short forehead, a broad, 
 
 25 flat face, and a dusky countenance. . . . Yet with such 
 a shape and such a face, he discovered at sixty that he 
 took himseK for a beauty, and appeared to be more 
 mortified upon his being told he was ugly, than he was 
 by any reflection that was ever made upon his honour 
 
 30 or his understanding. 
 
 ' He is a gentleman bom, witness himself, of a very 
 honourable family ; certainly of a very ancient one, 
 for his ancestors flourished in Tipperary long before the 
 English ever set foot in Ireland. He has testimony of 
 
 3B this more authentic than the Heralds' Office, or than 
 any human testimony. For God has marked him more 
 abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his native 
 country upon his face, his understanding, his writings, 
 his actions, his passions, and, above aU, his vanity. The 
 
 40 Hibernian brogue is still upon all these, though long 
 
120 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 habitude and length of days have worn it from off his 
 tongue.' ^ 
 
 Although this portrait is the work of a man who was 
 neither the friend of Steele nor of any other man ahve, 
 yet there is a dreadful resemblance to the original in 6 
 the savage and exaggerated traits of the caricature, and 
 everybody who knows him must recognize Dick Steele. 
 
 ' Steele replied to Dennis in an Answer to a Whimsical 
 Pamphlet, called ' The Character of Sir John Edgar '. What Steele 
 had to say against the cross-grained old critic discovers a great 10 
 deal of humour : 
 
 ' Thou never lets the sun into thy garret, for fear he should 
 bring a bailifi along with him. . . . 
 
 ' Your years are about sixty-five, a damned ugly, vinegar 
 face, that if you had any command you would be obeyed out 15 
 of fear, from your ill-nature pictured there ; not out of any 
 other motive. Your height is about some five foot four inches. 
 You see I can give your exact measure as well as if I had taken 
 your dimension witii a good cudgel, which I'll promise you to 
 do as soon as ever I have the good fortune to meet you. ... 20 
 
 ' Your doughty paunch stands before you like a firkin of 
 butter, and your duck-legs seem to be oast for. carrying burdens. 
 
 ' Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself ; 
 and while they bark at men of sense, call him knave and fool 
 that wrote them. Thou hast a great antipathy to thy own 25 
 species ; and hatest the sight of a fool but in thy glass.' 
 
 Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on 
 account of a pecuniary service which he did him. When John 
 heard of the fact — ' 'Sdeath ! ' cries John ; ' why did not he 
 keep out of the way as I did ? ' 30 
 
 TTie Answer concludes by mentioning that Gibber had offered 
 Ten Pounds for the discovery of the authorship of Dennis's 
 pamphlet ; on which, says Steele, — 
 
 ' I am only sorry he has offered so much, because the twentieth 
 part would have over-valued his whole carcass. But I know 35 
 the fellow that he keeps to give answers to his creditors will 
 betray him ; for he gave me his word to bring officers on the 
 top of the house that should make a hole through the ceiling 
 of his garret, and so bring him to the punishment he deserves. 
 Some people think this expedient out of the way, and that he 40 
 would make his escape upon hearing the least noise. I say so 
 too ; but it takes him up-half an hour every night to fortify 
 himself with his old hair trunk, two or three joint-stools, and 
 some other lumber, which he ties together with cords so fast 
 that it takes him up the same time in the morning to release 45 
 himself.' 
 
STEELE 121 
 
 Dick set al)out almost all the undertakings of his life 
 with inadequate means, and, as he took and furnished 
 a house with the most generous intentions towards his 
 friends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and 
 5 with this only drawback, that he had not wherewithal to 
 pay the rent when quarter-day came, — so, in his life he 
 proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes of 
 virtue, forbearance, public and private good, and the 
 advancement of his own and the national religion ; 
 
 10 but when he had to pay for these articles — so difficult to 
 purchase and so costly to maintain — ^poor Dick's money 
 was not forthcoming : and when Virtue called with her 
 little bill, Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not 
 see her that morning, having a headache from being 
 
 15 tipsy overnight ; or when stem Duty rapped at the 
 door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready 
 to pay. He was shirking at the tavern ; or had some 
 particular business (of somebody's else) at the ordinary : 
 or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, in the 
 
 20 lock-up house. What a situation for a man ! — ^for 
 a philanthropist — for a lover of right and truth — 
 for a magnificent designer and schemer 1 Not to 
 dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored 
 and which he had offended : to have to shirk down 
 
 25 back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom 
 he loved and who had trusted him — to have the house 
 which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved 
 passionately, and for her ladyship's company which he 
 wished to entertain splendidly, in the possession of a 
 
 30 bailiff's man, with a crowd of little creditors, — ^grocers, 
 butchers, and smaU-coal men, lingering round the door 
 with their bills and jeering at him. Alas ! for poor 
 Dick Steele ! For nobody else, of course. There is no 
 man or woman in our time who makes fine projects and 
 
 35 gives them up from idleness or want of means. When 
 Duty calls upon us, we no doubt are always at home and 
 ready to pay that grim tax-gatherer. When we are 
 stricken with remorse and promise reform, we keep our 
 promise, and are never angry, or idle, or extravagant 
 
 40 any more. There are no chambers in our hearts, destined 
 
122 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 for family friends and afiections, and now occupied by 
 some Sin's emissary and bailiff in possession. There 
 are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, importunate 
 remembrances, or disappointed holders of our promises 
 to reform, hovering at our steps, or knocking at our door ! 5 
 Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth century, 
 and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and 
 got into jail and out again, and sinned and repented; 
 and loved and suffered ; and lived and died scores of 
 years ago. Peace be with him ! Let us think gently of lo 
 one who was so gentle •: let us speak kindly of one whose 
 own breast exuberated with human kindness. 
 
LECTURE THE FOURTH 
 
 PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 
 
 Matthew Peioe was one of those famous and lucky 
 
 wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne whose name 
 
 6 it behoves us not to pass over. Mat was a world- 
 
 phUosopher of no small genius, good nature, and acumen.^ 
 
 '■ Gay calls Mm — ' Dan Prior . . . beloved by every muse '. — 
 Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece. [Epistle vi, 1. 91.] 
 
 Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently 
 10 mentioned in the Journal to Stella. ' Mr. Prior,' says Swift, 
 ' walks to make himself fat, and I to bring myself down. . . . 
 We often walk round the park together.' [Feb. 21, 1710-11.] 
 
 In Swift's works there is a curious tract called Remarks on 
 the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne (Scott's edition, vol. xii). 
 15 The Bemarks are not by the Dean ; but at the end of each is 
 an addition in italics from his hand, and these are always charac- 
 teristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds, ' Detestably 
 Covetous' &c. Prior is thus noticed — 
 
 ' Matthew Priob, Esq., Commissioner of Trade. 
 20 ' On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued 
 in his office ; is very well at Court with the ministry, and is an 
 entire creature of my Lord Jersey's, whom he supports by his 
 advice ; is one of the best poets in England, but very facetious 
 in conversation. A thin, hollow-looked man, turned of 40 years 
 25 old. This is near the truth.' 
 
 Yet, counting as far as to fifty his years, 
 
 Hia virtues and vices were as other men's are ; 
 High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears. 
 In a life party-coloured — half pleasure, half care. 
 30 Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, 
 He strove to make interest and freedom agree ; 
 In public employments industrious and grave, 
 
 And alone with his friends. Lord, how merry was he ! 
 Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot, 
 35 Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust ; 
 
 And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about, 
 He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust. 
 Prioe's Poems. [' For my own monument.'] 
 
124 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 He loved, he drank, he sang. He describes himself, in 
 one of his lyrics, ' in a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday 
 night ; on his left hand his Horace, and a friend on his 
 right,' going out of town from the Hague to pass that 
 evening and the ensuing Sunday, boozing at a Spielhaus 6 
 with his companion, perhaps bobbing for perch in a 
 Dutch canal, and noting down, in a strain and with 
 a grace not unworthy of his Epicurean master, the charms 
 of his idleness, his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. 
 A vintner's son in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil lo 
 of Busby of the Rod, Prior attracted some notice by 
 writing verses at St. John's CoUege, Cambridge, and, 
 coming up to town, aided Montague^ in an attack on 
 the noble old English lion John Dryden, in ridicule 
 of whose work. The Hind and the Panther, he brought 15 
 out that remarkable and famous burlesque, The Tovm 
 and Country Mouse. Are not you aU acquainted with 
 it ? Have you not aU got it by heart ? What ! have you 
 never heard of it 1 See what fame is made of ! The 
 wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural so 
 consequence of The Town and Country Mouse, Matthew 
 Prior was made Secretary of Embassy at the Hague ! 
 I believe it is dancing, rather than singing, which 
 distinguishes the young English diplomatists of the 
 present day ; and have seen them in various parts of 25 
 Europe perform that part of their duty very finely. In 
 Prior's time, it appears, a different accomplishment led 
 to preferment. Could you write a copy of Alcaics ? that 
 was the question. Could you turn out a neat epigram or 
 two ? Could you compose The Tovm and Country Mouse ? so 
 It is manifest that, by the possession of this faculty, 
 the most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and 
 
 ^ "They joined to produce a parody, entitled The Town and 
 Country Mouse, part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify 
 his old friends Smith and Johnson, by repeating to them. The 3B 
 piece is therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of the Re- 
 hearsed. . . - There is nothing new or original in the idea. 
 In this piece. Prior, though the younger man, seems to have 
 had by far the larger share.' — Scott's Dryden, vol i p 330 
 [(1821) Sect. 6.] "40 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 125 
 
 the interests of our own, are easily understood. Prior rose 
 in the diplomatic service, and said good things that 
 proved his sense and his spirit. When the apartments 
 at Versailles were shown to him, with the victories of 
 
 5 Louis XIV painted on the walls, and Prior was asked 
 whether the palace of the King of England had any such 
 decorations, ' The monuments of my master's actions,' 
 Mat said, of WUliam, whom he cordially revered, ' are 
 to be seen everywhere except in his own house.' Bravo, 
 
 10 Mat ! Prior rose to be full ambassador at Paris,^ where 
 he somehow was cheated out of his ambassadorial 
 plate ; and in a heroic poem, addressed by him to her 
 late lamented Majesty Queen Anne, Mat makes some 
 magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of which 
 
 15 Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, is 
 her Majesty's picture ; without that he can't be happy. 
 
 Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore. 
 Thee, Queen of Peace— If Time and Fate have power 
 Higher to raise the glories of thy reign ; 
 20 In words sublimer and a nobler strain. 
 May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. 
 Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, 
 The votive tablet I suspend. 
 
 With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive 
 
 25 tablet is suspended for ever like Mahomet's coffin. 
 
 News came that the queen was dead. Stator Jove, and 
 
 ' He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke 
 of Shrewsbury, but that that nobleman, says Johnson, ' refused 
 to be associated with a man so meanly born. Prior therefore 
 30 continued to act without a title tUl the duke returned next 
 year to England, and then he assumed the style and dignity of 
 ambassador.' lUfe of Prior, p. 13.] , , i. 
 
 He had been thinking of shghts of this sort when he wrote 
 
 his Epitaph : — 
 35 Nobles and heralds by your leave. 
 
 Here hes what once was Matthew Prior, 
 The son of Adam and of Eve ; 
 
 Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher ? 
 But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old 
 40 joke. 
 
126 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Phoebus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to this 
 day, over the votive tablet. The picture was never got 
 any more than the spoons and dishes — ^the inspiration 
 ceased-^the verses were not wanted — ^the ambassador 
 wasn't wanted. Poor Mat was recalled from his embassy, 5 
 suffered disgrace along with his patrons, lived under a . 
 sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared in Essex. When 
 deprived of all his pensions and emoluments, the hearty 
 and generous Oxford pensioned him. They played for 
 gallant stakes — the bold men of those days — and lived 10 
 and gave splendidly. 
 
 Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, 
 after spending an evening with Harley, St. John, Pope, 
 and Swift, would go off and smoke a pipe with a couple 
 of friends of his, a soldier and his wife, in Long Acre, is 
 Those who have not read his late excellency's poems 
 should be warned that they smack not a little of the con- 
 versation of his Long Acre friends. Johnson speaks 
 slightingly of his lyrics ; but with due deference to the 
 great Samuel, Prior's seem to me amongst the easiest, 20 
 the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English 
 lyrical poems.^ Horace is always in his mind, and his 
 
 ' His epigrams have the genuine sparkle : 
 
 The Remedy wokse than the Disease. 
 
 I sent for RadolifEe ; was so ill, 25 
 
 That other doctors gave me over : 
 He felt my puls^ prescribed his pill, 
 
 And I was likely to recover. 
 
 But when the wit began to wheeze. 
 
 And wine had warmed the politician, 30 
 
 Cured yesterday of my disease, 
 
 I died last night of my physician. 
 
 Yes, every poet is a fool ; 
 
 By demonstration Ned can show it; 
 Happy could Ned's inverted rule 35 
 
 Prove every fool to be a poet. 
 
 On hJB death-bed poor Lubin lies. 
 
 His spouse is in despair ; 
 With frequent sobs and mutual cries. 
 
 They both express their care. 40 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 127 
 
 song ; and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy 
 easy turns and melody, his loves, and his Epicureanism, 
 bear a great resemblance to that most dehghtful and 
 accomphshed master. In reading his works, one is 
 5 struck with their modern air, as well as by their happy 
 similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the 
 Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, he 
 says, writing of that endless theme to poets, the vanity 
 of human wishes — 
 10 So when in fevered dreams we sink. 
 
 And, waking, taste what we desire. 
 The real draught but feeds the fire. 
 The dream is better than the drink. 
 
 Our hopes like towering falcons aim 
 15 At objects in an airy height : 
 
 To stand aloof and view the flight. 
 Is aU the pleasure of the game. 
 
 Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days was 
 singing ? and, in the verses of Chloe weeping and re- 
 20 proaching him for his inconstancy, where he says — 
 
 The God of us verse-men, you know, child, the Sun 
 How after his journeys, he sets up his rest. 
 
 If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to rim. 
 At night he declines on his Thetis's breast. 
 
 25 So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, 
 To thee, my delight, in the evening I come : 
 No matter what beauties I saw in my way ; 
 They were but my visits, but thou art my home. 
 
 Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war, 
 30 And let us like Horace and Lydia agree ; 
 For thou art a girl as much brighter than her, 
 As he was a poet sublimer than me. 
 
 If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study 
 
 'A different cause,' says Parson Sly, 
 35 ' The same effect may give ; 
 
 Poor Lubin fears that he shall die. 
 His wife that he may live.' 
 
128 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Prior ? Love and pleasure find singers in all days. 
 Roses are always blowing and fading — ^to-day as in 
 that pretty time when Prior sang of them, and of Chloe 
 lamenting their decay — 
 
 She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers 5 
 
 Pointing, the lovely moralist said : 
 
 ' See, friend, in some few fleeting hours. 
 See yonder what a change is made ! 
 
 ' Ah, me ! the blooming pride of May, 
 And that of Beauty are but one : 10 
 
 At morn both flourish, bright and gay. 
 Both fade at evening, pale and gone. 
 
 ' At dawn poor SteUa danced and sung, 
 The amorous youth around her bowed. 
 
 At night her fatal knell was rung ; is 
 
 I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. 
 
 ' Such as she is who died to-day. 
 Such I, alas, may be to-morrow : 
 
 Go, Damon, bid thy Muse display 
 The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow.' 20 
 
 Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf lie 
 lightly on him ! Devs sit propitius huic potatori, as 
 Walter de Mapes sang.l Perhaps Samuel Johnson, 
 
 '' PBIOE TO SIR THOMAS HANMEE. 
 
 ' Wesf., Aug. 4, 1709. 25 
 ' Deae Sie, 
 ' Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and 
 cherished by correspondence ; but with that additional benefit 
 I am of opinion it will look more cheerful and thrive better : 
 for in this case, as in love, though a man is sure of his own 30 
 constancy, yet his happiness depends a good deal upon the 
 sentiment of another, and while you and Chloe are alive, 'tis 
 not enough that I love you both, except I am sure you both 
 love me again ; and as one of her scrawls fortifies my mind 
 more against afiliotion than all Epictetus, with Simplicius's 35 
 comments into the bargain, so your single letter gave me more 
 real pleasure than all the works of Plato. ... I must return 
 my answer to your very kind question concerning my health. 
 The Bath waters have done a good deal towards the recovery 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 129 
 
 who spoke slightingly of Prior's verses, enjoyed them 
 more than he was willing to own. The old moralist 
 
 of it, and the great specific, Oa/pe CabaMum, will, I think, con- 
 firm it. Upon this head I must tell you that my mare Betty 
 5 grows blind, and may one day, by breaking my neck, perfect 
 my cure : if at Rixham fair any pretty nagg that is between 
 thirteen and fourteen hands presented himself, and you would 
 be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants might 
 ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, 
 
 10 is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch 
 widow, with a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very 
 skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. 
 You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, 
 when I dare put two such commissions in your hand. . . .' — 
 
 15 The Hanmer Correspondence, p. 120. 
 
 FROM ME. PEIOB. 
 
 " ' Paris, lst-12th May, 1714. 
 ' My dear Lord and Friend, 
 
 ' Matthew had never so great occasion to write a word to 
 
 20 Henry as now : it is noised here that I am soon to return. The 
 question that I wish I could answer to the many that ask, and 
 to our friend Colbert de Torcy (to whom I made your compli- 
 ments in the manner you commanded) is, What is done for me : 
 and to what I am recalled ? It may look like a bagatelle, what 
 
 25 is to become of a philosopher like me ; but it is not such, what is 
 to become of a person who had the honour to be chosen, and 
 sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with what the 
 Queen designed should make the peace ; returning with the 
 Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest men in England, and one 
 
 30 of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not, 
 n'importe) ; having been left by him in the greatest character 
 (that of Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary), exercising that power 
 conjointly with the Duke of Shrewsbury, and solely after his 
 departure ; having here received more distinguished honour 
 
 35 than any minister, except an Ambassador, ever did, and some 
 which were never given to any, but who had that character ; 
 having had all the success that could be expected, having (God 
 be thanked !) spared no pains, at a time when at home the peace 
 is voted safe and honourable — at a time when the Earl of Oxford 
 
 40 is Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke Eirst Secretary of State, 
 this unfortunate person, I say, neglected, forgot, unnamed to 
 anything that may speak the Queen satisfied with his services, 
 or his friends concerned as to his fortune. 
 
 ' Monsieur de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the 
 
 45 other day, by a pity that wounded me deeper than ever did 
 the cruelty of the late Lord Godolphin. He said he would write 
 to Robin and Harry about me. God forbid, my lord, that 
 1356 K 
 
130 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 had studied them as well as Mr. Thomas Moore, and 
 defended them, and showed that he remembered them 
 very weU too, on an occasion when their morality was 
 
 I should need any foreign intercession, or owe the least to any 
 Frenchman living, besides decency of behaviour and the returns B 
 of common civility. Some say I am to go to Baden, others 
 that I am to be added to the Commissioners for settling the 
 commerce ; in all cases I am ready, but in the meantime, die 
 aliquid de tribus capdlis ; neither of these two are, I presume, 
 honours or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my dear lo 
 Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me), are what 
 Drift may aspire to, and what Mr. WMtworth, who was his 
 fellow clerk, has or may possess. I am far from desiring to 
 lessen the great merit of the gentleman I named, for I heartily 
 esteem and love him ; but in this trade of ours, my lord, in is 
 which you are the general, as in that of the soldiery, there is 
 a certain right acquired by time and long service. You would 
 do anything for your Queen's service, but you would not be 
 contented to descend, and be degraded to a charge no way pro- 
 portioned to that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr. Boss, 20 
 though he would charge a party with a halbard in his hand, 
 would be content all his lite after to be a Serjeant. Was my 
 Lord Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Com- 
 missioner of Trade ; or from Secretary of War, would Frank 
 Gwyn think himself kindly used to be returned again to be 25 
 Commissioner ? In short, my lord, you have put me above 
 myself, and it I am to return to myself, I shall return to some- 
 thing very discontented and uneasy. I am sure, my lord, you 
 will make the best use you can of this hint for my good. If 
 I am to have anything, it will certainly be for her Majesty's 30 
 service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry, that it be 
 done before I am recalled from hence, lest the world may think 
 either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare not 
 stand by me. If nothing is to be done, fiat voluntas Dei. 1 have 
 writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having implored 35 
 your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance 
 of this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord ; all honour, 
 health, and pleasure to you. ' Yours ever, 
 
 ' Matt. 
 ' PS. — Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your 40 
 health together in usquebaugh after our tea : we are the greatest 
 friends alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the 
 books of Travels you mentioned ; if there be, let friend Tilson 
 send us more particular account of them, for neither I nor 
 Jacob Tonson can find them. Pray send Barton back to me, 45 
 and I hope with some comfortable tidings.' — Bolingbrolce' $ 
 Letters, 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 131 
 
 called in question by that noted puritan, James Boswell, 
 Esq., of Auchinleck.i 
 
 In the great society of the wits, John Gay deserved 
 to be a favourite, and to have a good place.^ In his set 
 
 e aU were fond of him. His success offended nobody. He 
 missed a fortune once or twice. He was talked of for 
 Court favour, and hoped to win it ; but the Court 
 favour jilted him. Craggs gave him some South-Sea 
 Stock ; and at one time Gay had very nearly made his 
 
 10 fortune. But Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted 
 him too : and so his friends, instead of being angry with 
 him, and jealous of him, were kind and fond of honest 
 
 ^ ' I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire ; 
 
 Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hailes's censure of 
 
 15 Prior in his preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various 
 
 hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, 
 
 where he mentions " those impure tales, which will be the eternal 
 
 opprobrium of then- ingenious author ". Johnson : " Sir, Lord 
 
 HaUes has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to 
 
 20 lewdness. If Lord Hailes thinks there is, he must be more 
 
 combustible than other people." I instanced the tale of Pavlo 
 
 Purganti and his Wife. Johnson : " Sir, there is nothing there 
 
 but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out 
 
 of pocket. No, sir. Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed 
 
 25 to have it standing in her library.' — Boswell' s Life of Johnson. 
 
 [anno 1777.] 
 
 ' Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary 
 prospects not being great, was placed in his youth in the house 
 of a silk-mercer in London. He was born in 1688 — Pope's year, 
 30 and in 1712 the Duchess of Monmouth made him her secretary. 
 Next year he published his Rural Sports, which he dedicated to 
 Pope, and so made an acquaintance, which became a memorable 
 friendship. 
 
 ' Gay,' says Pope, ' was quite a natural man, — wholly without 
 
 35 art or design, and spoke just what he thought and as he thought 
 
 it. He dangled for twenty years about a Court, and at last was 
 
 offered to be made usher to the young princesses. Secretary 
 
 Craggs made Gay a present of stock in the South-Sea year ; and 
 
 he was once worth 20,000i., but lost it all again. He got about 
 
 40 4002. by the first Beggar's Opera, and 1,100Z. or 1,200/. by the 
 
 second. He was negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the 
 
 Duke of Queensberry took his money into his keeping, and let 
 
 him have only what was necessary out of it, and, as he lived 
 
 with them, he could not have occasion for much. He died worth 
 
 45 upwards of 3,000?.' — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 214.] 
 
 K2 
 
132 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Gay, In the portraits of the literary worthies of the 
 early part of the last century. Gay's face is the pleasantest 
 perhaps of all. It appears adorned with neither periwig 
 nor nightcap (the fuU dress and negligee of learning, 
 without which the painters of those days scarcely ever 5 
 portrayed wits), and he laughs at you over his shoulder 
 with an honest boyish glee — an artless sweet humour. 
 He was so kind, so gentle, so jocular, so delightfully 
 brisk at times, so dismally woebegone at others, such 
 a natural good creature, that the Giants loved him. lo 
 The great Swift was gentle and sportive with him,^ as 
 the enormous Brobdingnag maids of honour were with 
 little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,^ 
 and sport, and bark, and caper without ofEendiag the 
 most thin-skinned of poets and men ; and when he was is 
 jilted in that little Court affair of which we have spoken, 
 his warmhearted patrons the Duke and Duchess of 
 Queensberry ^ (the ' Kitty, beautiful and young ', of 
 
 ' ' Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as 
 ever I knew.' — Swift, to Lady Betty Oermain, Jan. [8, 1732-3.] 20 
 
 ' Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; 
 In wit a man ; simplicity, a child ; 
 With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, 
 Form'd to delight at once and lash the age ; 
 Above temptation in a low estate, 25 
 
 And unoorrupted e'en among the great : 
 A safe companion, and an easy friend, 
 Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. 
 These are thy honours ; not that here thy bust 
 Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust ; 30 
 
 But that the worthy and the good shall say, 
 Striking their pensive bosoms, ' Here lies Gay.' 
 
 Pope's Epitaph on Gay. 
 
 A hare who, in a civil way, 
 
 Complied with everything, like Gay. 35 
 
 Fables, ' The Hare and Many Friends.' 
 
 ° ' I can give you no account of Gay,' says Pope, curiously, 
 ' since he was raffled for, and won back by his Duchess.' — Works, 
 Roscoe's ed., vol. ix, p. 392. [Letter to Fortescue of September 13, 
 ? 1726.] 40 
 
 Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen 
 Anne brought back Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him 
 
PEIOR, GAY, AND POPE 133 
 
 Prior) pleaded his cause with indignation, and quitted 
 the Court in a huff, carrying off with them into their 
 
 the secretaryship of that nobleman, of which he had had but a 
 short tenure. 
 5 Gay's Court prospects were never happy from this time. — His 
 dedication of The Shepherd's Week to Bolingbroke, Swift used 
 
 • to call the ' original sin ', which had hurt him with the house of 
 Hanover. 
 
 ' Sept. 23, 1714. 
 
 10 ' Dear Mb. Gay, 
 
 ' Welcome to your native soil ! welcome to your friends ! 
 thrice welcome to me ! whether returned in glory, blest with 
 Court interest, the love and familiarity of the great, and filled 
 with agreeable hopes ; or melancholy with dejection, contem- 
 
 16 plative of the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the future ; 
 whether returned a triumphant Whig or a desponding Tory, 
 equally all hail ! equally beloved and welcome to me ! If happy, 
 I am to partake in your elevation ; it unhappy, you have still 
 a warm corner in my heart, and a retreat at Binfield in the worst 
 
 20 of times at your service. If you are a Tory, or thought so by 
 any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but your gratitude 
 to a few people who endeavoured to serve you, and whose politics 
 were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, 
 and as I think your principles and mine (as brother poets) had 
 
 25 ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know you will be an honest 
 man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you are 
 incapable of being so much of either party as to be good for 
 nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are or in whatever 
 state you are, all hail ! 
 
 30 ' One or two of your own friends complained they had heard 
 nothing from you since the Queen's death ; I told them no man 
 living loved Mr. Gay better than I, yet I had not once written 
 to him in all his voyage. This I thought a convincing proof, how 
 truly one may be a friend to another without telling him so 
 
 35 every month. But they had reasons, too, themselves to allege 
 in your excuse ; as men who really value one another will never 
 want such as make their friends and themselves easy. The late 
 universal concern in public afiairs threw us all into a hurry of 
 spirits : even I, who am more a philosopher than to expect 
 
 40 anjrthing from any reign, was borne away with the current, and 
 full of the expectation of the successor. During your journeys, 
 I knew not whither to aim a letter after you ; that was a sort 
 of shooting flying : add to this the demand Homer had upon me, 
 to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, all which are 
 
 45 at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, O my friend ! 
 that my labour is over ; come and make merry with me in much 
 feasting. We will feed among the lilies (by the lilies I mean the 
 
134 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 retirement their kind gentle protege. With these kind 
 lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as delightful as 
 those who harboured Don Quixote, and loved the dear 
 old Sancho, Gay Uved, and was lapped in cotton, and 
 had his plate of chicken, ^and his saucer of cream, and 6 
 frisked, and barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, and so 
 ended.^ He became very melancholy and lazy, sadly 
 plethoric, and only occasionally diverting in his latter 
 days. But everybody loved him, and the remembrance 
 of his pretty little tricks ; and the raging old Dean of lo 
 St. Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, was afraid to 
 open the letter which Pope wrote him, announcing the 
 sad news of the death of Gay.^ 
 
 ladies). Are not the Eosalindas of Britain as charming as the 
 Blousalindas of the Hague ? or have the two great Pastoral 15 
 poets of our nation renounced love at the same time ? for Philips, 
 immortal Philips, hath deserted, yea, and in a rustic manner 
 kicked his Rosalind. Dr. Parnell and I have been inseparable 
 ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you 
 are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) your coming would 20 
 be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses : 
 Homer shall support his children. I beg a line from you, 
 directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnell is in an ill 
 state of health. 
 
 ' Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. 25 
 Write something on the King, or Prince, or Princess. On what- 
 soever foot you may be with the court, this can do no harm. 
 I shall never know where to end, and am confounded in the 
 many things I have to say to you, though they all amount but 
 to this, that I am, entirely, as ever, ' Your,' &c. 30 
 
 Gay took the advice ' in the poetical way ', and pubUshed An 
 EpisUe to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness 
 the Princess of Wales. But, though this brought him access to 
 Court, and the attendance of the ftinoe and Princess at his farce 
 of the What d'ye call it ? it did not bring him a place. On the 35 
 accession of George II, he was offered the situation of Gentleman 
 Usher to the Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years 
 old) ; but ' by this ofier ', says Johnson, ' he thought himself 
 insulted.' 
 
 ' ' Gay was a great eater. — As the Prench philosopher used to 40 
 prove his existence by cogito, ergo sum, the greatest proof of 
 Gay's existence is, edit, ergo est.' — Congbeve, in a Letter to Pope 
 {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 13.] 
 
 " Swift indorsed the letter — ' On my dear friend Mr. Gay's 
 
PRIOR, GAY AND POPE 135 
 
 Swift's letters to him are beautiful ; and having no 
 purpose but kindness in writing to him, no party aim 
 to advocate, or slight or anger to wreak, every word the 
 Dean says to his favourite is natural, trustworthy, and 
 
 5 kindly. His admiration for Gay's parts and honesty, 
 and his laughter at his weaknesses, were ahke just and 
 genuine. He paints his character in wonderful pleasant 
 traits of jocular satire. ' I writ lately to Mr. Pope,' 
 Swift says, writing to Gay ; ' I wish you had a little 
 
 10 viUakin in his neighbourhood ; but you are yet too 
 volatile, and any lady with a coach and six horses 
 would carry you to Japan.' ' If your ramble,' says 
 Swift, in another letter, ' was on horseback, I am glad 
 of it, on account of your health ; but I know your 
 
 15 arts of patching up afjourney between stage-coaches and 
 friends' coaches — ^for you are as arrant a cockney as 
 any hosier in Cheapside. . . I have often had it in 
 my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have 
 some great work in scheme, which may take up seven 
 
 20 years to finish, besides two or three under-ones that may 
 add another thousand pound to your stock, and then 
 I shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find 
 dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well, 
 without considering that the interest of a whole thousand 
 
 25 pounds brings you but half a crown a day : ' and then 
 
 death. ; received December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by 
 an impulse foreboding some misfortune.' 
 
 ' It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord 
 Bolingbroke, and obtained his patronage.' — Scott's Swift, vol. i, 
 30 p. 156. [Sect. 3.] 
 
 Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus : — 
 
 'Decembers, 1732. 
 
 ' . . . One of the nearest and longest ties I have ever had is 
 
 broken all on a sudden by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. 
 
 35 An inflammatory fever hurried him out of this life in three days. 
 
 ... He asked of you a few hours before when in acute torment 
 
 by the inflammation in his bowels and breast. . . . His sisters, 
 
 we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows . . . Good God 1 
 
 how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage ? In 
 
 40 every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God 
 
 keep those we have left ! few are worth praying for, and one's 
 
 self the least of all.' 
 
136 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Swift goes off from Gay to pay some grand compliments 
 to her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry, in whose 
 sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and in whose radiance 
 the Dean would have liked to warm himself too. 
 
 But we have Gay here before us, in these letters — ^lazy, s 
 kindly, uncommonly idle ; rather slovenly, I'm afraid ; for 
 ever eating and sajdng good things ; a little, round, French 
 abbe of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft-hearted. 
 
 Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the 
 men than their works ; or to deal with the latter only in lo 
 as far as they seem to illustrate the character of their 
 writers. Mr. Gay's Fables, which were written to-benefit 
 that amiable prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the 
 warrior of Dettingen and Culloden, I have not, I own, 
 been able to peruse since a period of very early youth ; 15 
 and it must be confessed that they did not effect much 
 benefit upon the illustrious yoimg prince, whose manners 
 they were intended to moUify, and whose natural 
 ferocity our gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps proposed 
 to restrain. But the six pastorals called The Shepherd's 20 
 Week, and the burlesque poem of Trivia any man fond 
 of lazy literature will find delightful, at the present 
 day, and must read from beginning to end with pleasure. 
 They are to poetry what charming little Dresden china 
 figures are to sculpture : graceful, minikin, fantastic ; 25 
 with a certain beauty always accompanying them. 
 The pretty little personages of the pastoral, with gold 
 clocks to their stockings, and fresh satin ribbons to 
 their crooks and waistcoats and bodices, dance their 
 loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, approach 30 
 the charmer, or rush from the false one daintily on their 
 red-heeled tiptoes, and die of despair or rapture, with 
 the most pathetic little grins and ogles ; or repose, 
 simpering at each other, under an arbour of pea-green 
 crockery ; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been 35 
 washed with the best Naples in a stream of Bergamot. 
 Gay's gay plan seems to me far pleasanter than that 
 of Philips — ^his rival and Pope's — a serious and dreary 
 idyllic Cockney ; not that Gay's ' Bumkinets and 
 Hobnelias ' are a whit more natural than the would-be 40 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 137 
 
 serious characters of the other postiire-master ; but the 
 quality of this true humourist was to laugh and make 
 laugh, though always with a secret kindness and tender- 
 ness, to perform the drollest little antics and capers, 
 5 but always with a certain grace, and to sweet music — as 
 you may have seen a Savoyard boy abroad, with a hurdy- 
 gurdy and a monkey, turning over head and heels, or 
 clattering and pirouetting in a pair of wooden shoes, yet 
 always with a look of love and appeal in his bright eyes, 
 
 10 and a smile that asks and wins affection and protection. 
 Happy they who have that sweet gift of nature ! It was 
 this which made the great folks and Court ladies free and 
 friendly with John Gay — ^which made Pope and Arbuth- 
 not love him — which melted the savage heart of Swift 
 
 15 when he thought of him — and drove away, for a moment 
 or two, the dark frenzies which obscured the lonely 
 tyrant's brain, as he heard Gay's voice with its simple 
 melody and artless ringing laughter. 
 
 What used to be said about Rubini, qu'il avait des 
 
 20 larmes dans la voix, may be said of Gay,^ and of one other 
 humourist of whom we shall have to speak. In almost 
 every baUad of his, however slight,^ in the Beggar's 
 
 ^ ' Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. " He could 
 play on the flute," says Singer, " and was, therefore, enabled to 
 25 adapt so happily some of the airs in the Beggar's Opera." ' — Notes 
 to Spencb. [p. 312.] 
 
 ' 'Twas when the seas were roaring 
 With hollow blasts of wind, 
 A damsel lay deploring 
 30 All on a rook reclined. 
 
 Wide o'er the foaming billows 
 
 She cast a wistful look ; 
 Her head was crown' d with willows 
 That trembled o'er the brook. 
 
 35 ' Twelve months are gone and over. 
 
 And nine long tedious days ; 
 Why didst thou, venturous lover — 
 Why didst thou trust the seas ? 
 Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean, 
 40 And let my lover rest ; 
 
 Ah ! what's thy troubled motion 
 To that within my breast ? 
 
138 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Opera^ and in its wearisome continuation (where the 
 verses are to the full as pretty as in the first piece, 
 
 ' The merchant robb'd of pleasu^p, 
 
 Sees tempests in despair ; 
 But what's the loss of treasure 5 
 
 To losing of my dear ? 
 Should you some coast be laid on, 
 
 AVhere gold and diamonds grow, 
 You'd find a richer maiden. 
 
 But none that loves you so. lo 
 
 ' How can they say that Nature 
 
 Has nothing made in vain; 
 Why, then, beneath the water 
 
 Should hideous rooks remain ? 
 No eyes the rooks discover 15 
 
 That lurk beneath the deep, 
 To wreck the wandering lover. 
 
 And leave the maid to weep ? ' 
 
 All melancholy lying, 
 
 Thus wail'd she for her dear ; 20 
 
 Bepay'd each blast with sighing. 
 
 Each billow with a tear ; 
 When o'er the white wave stooping, 
 
 His floating corpse she spy'd ; 
 Then, like a lily drooping, 25 
 
 She bow'd her head, and died. 
 
 A Ballad, from the ' What d'ye call it ? ' 
 
 ' What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's, 
 Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the What d'ye call it ? " 'Twas 
 when the seas were roaring " ? I have been well informed, that 30 
 they all contributed.' — Cowper to Unwin, [Aug. 4,] 1783. 
 
 '■ ' Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd 
 pretty sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was 
 inclined to try at such a thing for some time, but afterwards 
 thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. 35 
 This was what gave rise to the Beggar's Opera. He began on it, 
 and when first he mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much 
 like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote 
 to both of us ; and we now and then gave a correction, or a word 
 or two of advice ; but it was wholly of his own writing. When 40 
 it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed 
 it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, " It would either 
 take greatly, or be damned confoundedly." We were all at 
 the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till we 
 were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, 45 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 139 
 
 however), there is a pecuhar, hinted, pathetic sweetness 
 and melody. It charms and melts you. It is indefinable, 
 but it exists ; and is the property of John Gay's and 
 Oliver Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, 
 5 or freshness of a rose. 
 
 Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so 
 famous that most people here are no doubt famiHar with 
 it, but so delightful that it is always pleasant to hear : — 
 
 ' I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic 
 
 10 seat of my Lord Haroourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a 
 oomm.on field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two 
 lovers — as constant as ever were found in romance — beneath 
 a spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) 
 was John Hewet ; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set 
 
 15 man, about five-and-twenty ; Sarah, a brown woman of eighteen. 
 John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the 
 same field with Sarah ; when she milked, it was his morning and 
 evening charge to bring the cows to her paU. Their love was the 
 talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood, for aU they 
 
 20 aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. 
 It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' 
 consent, and it was but tUl the next week that they were to wait 
 to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their 
 work, they were talking of their wedding clothes ; and John was 
 
 25 now matching several kinds of poppies and fleld-flowers to her 
 complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. , While 
 they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a terrible 
 storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers 
 to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frighted 
 
 30 and out of breath, sunk on a haycock ; and John (who never 
 separated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or three 
 heaps together, to secure her. Immediately, there was heard so 
 loud a crack, as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all 
 solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another : those 
 
 35 that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the 
 place where they lay : they first saw a little smoke, and after, this 
 faithful pair — John, with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the 
 
 who sat in the next box to us, say, " It will do — it must do ! — 
 I see it in the eyes of them ! " This was a good while before the ■ 
 
 40 first Act was over, and so gave us ease soon ; for the Duke 
 (besides his own good taste) has a more particular knack than 
 any one now living in discovering the taste of the public. He 
 was quite right in this as usual ; the good nature of the audience 
 appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour 
 
 45 of applause.' — Pope {Spenee's Anecdotes), [p. 159.] 
 
140 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. 
 They-were struck dead, and already grown stifE and cold in this 
 tender posture. There was no mark or discolouring on their 
 bodies — only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and 
 a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next 5 
 day in one grave I ' 
 
 And the proof that this description is delightful and 
 beautiful is, that the great Mr. Pope admired it so much 
 that he thought proper to steal it and to send it off to 
 a certain lady and wit, with whom he pretended to be in lo 
 love in those days — my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, 
 and married to Mr. Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's 
 Ambassador at Constantinople. 
 
 We are now come to the greatest name on our list — 
 the highest among the poets, the highest among the is 
 English wits and humourists with whom we have to 
 rank him. If the author of the Dunciad be not a humour- 
 ist, if the poet of the Rape of the Lock be not a wit, who 
 deserves to be called so ? Besides that briUiant genius 
 and immense fame, for both of which we should respect 20 
 him, men of letters should admire him as being one of 
 the greatest literary artists that England has seen. He 
 polished, he refined, he thought ; he took thoughts from 
 other works to adorn and complete his own ; borrowing 
 an idea or a cadence from another poet as he would a 25 
 figure or a simile from a flower, or a river, stream, or 
 any object which struck him in his walk, or contempla- 
 tion of Nature. He began to imitate at an early age ; ^ 
 
 ^ ' Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great 
 favourites, in the order they are named, in his first reading, till he 30 
 was about twelve years old.' — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 8.] 
 
 ' Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in 
 Hollands, wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make 
 English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in 
 being pleased ; and used often to send him back to new turn 35 
 them. " These are not good rhimes ; " for that was my hus- 
 band's word for verses.' — ^Pope's Mother {Spence). [lb.} 
 
 ' I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. " Part of an 
 Epic Poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes, 
 and some of the neighbouring islands ; and the poem opened 40 
 under water with a description of the Court of Neptune.' — Pope 
 {ibid.), [p. 24.] 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 141 
 
 and taught himseK to write by copying printed books. 
 Then he passed into the hands of the priests, and from 
 his first clerical master, who came to him when he was 
 eight years old, he went to a school at Twyford, and 
 
 5 another school at Hyde Park, at which places he unlearned 
 all that he had got from his first instructor. At twelve 
 years old, he went with his father into Windsor Forest, 
 and there learned for a few months under a fourth 
 priest. ' And this was aU the teaching I ever had,' he 
 
 10 said, ' and God knows it extended a very little way.' 
 When he had done with his priests he took to reading 
 by himself, for which he had a very great eagerness and 
 enthusiasm, especially for poetry. He learned versifica- 
 tion from Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of 
 
 15 Alcander, he imitated every poet, Cowley, Milton, 
 Spenser, Statins, Homer, Virgil. In a few years he had 
 dipped into a great number of the English, French, 
 Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. ' This I did,' he says, 
 ' without any design, but that of pleasing myseK ; and 
 
 20 got the languages by hunting after the stories in the 
 several poets I read, rather than read the books to get 
 the languages. I followed everywhere as my fancy 
 led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the 
 fields and woods, just as they fall in his way. These 
 
 25 five or six years I still look upon as the happiest part of 
 my life.' Is not here a beautiful holiday picture ? The 
 
 ' His perpetual application (after he set to study of himself) 
 reduced him in four years' time to so bad a state of health, that, 
 after trying physicians for a good while in vain, he resolved to 
 
 30 give way to his distemper ; and sat down calmly in a full expecta- 
 tion of death in a short time. Under this thought, he wrote 
 letters to take a last farewell of some of his more particular 
 friends, and, among the rest, one to the Abb6 Southcote. The 
 Abbe was extremely concerned, both for his very ill state of 
 
 35 health and the resolution he said he had taken. He thought 
 there might yet be hopes, and went immediately to Dr. Radoliffe, 
 with whom he was well acquainted, told hitn Mr. Pope's case, 
 got full directions from him, and carried them down to Mr. Pope 
 in Windsor Forest. The chief thing the Doctor ordered him 
 
 40 was to apply less, and to ride every day. The following his 
 advice soon restored him to his health.' — Pope {ibid.), [p. 7.] 
 
142 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 forest and the fairy story-book — ^the boy spelling 
 Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, battling with the 
 Cid for the love of Chimene, or dreaming of Armida's 
 garden — peace and sunshine round about — the kindest 
 love and tenderness waiting for him at his quiet home 6 
 yonder — and Genius throbbing in his young heart, and 
 whispering to him, ' You shall be great ; you shall be 
 famous ; you, too, shall love and sing ; you will sing 
 her so nobly that some kind heart shall forget you are 
 weak and iU-formed. Every poet had a love. Eate must lo 
 give one to you too,' — and day by day he walks the 
 forest, very likely looking out for that charmer, ' They 
 were the happiest days of his lite,' he says, when he was 
 only dreaming of his fame : when he had gained that 
 mistress she was no consoler. ifi 
 
 That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, 
 about the year 1705, when Pope was seventeen. Letters 
 
 of his are extant, addressed to a certain Lady M , 
 
 whom the youth courted, and to whom he expressed his 
 ardour in language, to say no worse of it, that is entirely 20 
 pert, odious, and affected. He imitated love composi- 
 tions as he had been imitating love poems just before — 
 it was a sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, 
 expressed as became it. These unlucky letters found their 
 way into print years afterwards, and were sold to the 25 
 congenial Mr. CurU. If any of my hearers, as I hope 
 they may, should take a fancy to look at Pope's corre- 
 spondence, let them pass over that first part of it ; over, 
 perhaps, almost aU Pope's letters to women ; in which 
 there is a tone of not pleasant gallantry, and, amidst so 
 a profusion of compliments and politenesses, a something 
 which makes one distrust the little pert, prurient bard. 
 There is very little indeed to say about his loves, and 
 that little not edifying. He wrote flames and raptures 
 and elaborate verse and prose for Lady Mary Wortley 35 
 Montagu ; but that passion probably came to a climax 
 in an impertiaence and was extinguished by a box on 
 the ear, or some such rebuff, and he began on a sudden 
 to hate her with a fervour much more genuine than that 
 of his love had been. It was a feeble, puny grimace of 40 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 143 
 
 love, and paltering with passion. After Mr. Pope had 
 sent off one of his fine compositions to Lady Mary, he 
 made a second draft from the rough copy, and favoured 
 some other friend with it. He was so charmed with the 
 
 5 letter of Gay's, that I have just quoted, that he had 
 copied that and amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary 
 as his own. A gentleman who writes letters a deux fins, 
 and after having poured out his heart to the beloved, 
 serves up the same dish rechauffe to a friend, is not very 
 
 10 much in earnest about his loves, however much he may 
 be in his piques and vanities when his impertinence gets 
 its due. 
 
 But, save that unlucky part of the Pope Correspon- 
 dence, I do not know, in the range of our Uterature, 
 
 15 volumes more delightful.^ You live in them in the finest 
 
 ^ MB. POPE TO THE BEV. MB. BBOOME, PULHAM, NOEEOLK. 
 
 ' August 29, 1730. 
 ' Dear Sib, — 
 
 ' I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the 
 
 20 death of Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to have 
 informed myself and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear 
 is, that he felt a gradual decay, though so early in life, and was 
 declining for five or six months. It was not, as I apprehended, 
 the gout in his stomach, but, I believe, rather a complication 
 
 26 first of gross humours, as he was naturally corpulent, not dis- 
 charging themselves, as he used no sort of exercise. No man 
 better bore the approaches of his dissolution (as I am told), or 
 with less ostentation jdelded up his being. The great modesty 
 which you know was natural to him, and the great contempt he 
 
 30 had for all sorts of vanity and parade, never appeared more than 
 in his last moments : he had a conscious satisfaction (no doubt) 
 in acting right, in feeling himself honest, true, and unpretending 
 to more than was his own. So he died as he lived, with that 
 secret, yet sufficient contentment. 
 
 35 ' As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but 
 few ; for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or thought 
 much of the applause of men. I know an instance where he did 
 his utmost to conceal his own merit that way ; and if we join to 
 this his natural love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of this 
 
 40 sort : at least, I hear of none, except some few further remarks 
 on Waller (which his cautious integrity made him leave an order 
 to be given to Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years 
 since I saw it, a translation of the first book of Oppian. He had 
 begun a tragedy of Dion, but made small progress in it. 
 
144 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 company in the world. A little stately, perhaps ; a 
 little apprite and conscious that they are speaking 
 
 ' As to his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no 
 debts or legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr. Trumbull and 
 my lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, and mutual esteem. 5 
 
 ' I shall, with pleasure, take upon me to draw this amiable, 
 quiet, deserving, unpretending. Christian, and philosophical 
 character in his epitaph. There truth may be spoken in a few 
 words ; as for flourish, and oratory, and poetry, I leave them to 
 younger and more lively writers, such as love writing for writing 10 
 sake, and would rather show their own fine, parts than report 
 the valuable ones of any other man. So the elegy I renounce. 
 
 ' I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so worthy 
 a man, and a friend to us both. . . . 
 
 ' Adieu ; let us love his memory, and profit by his example. 15 
 Am very sincerely, dear sir, 
 
 ' Your affectionate and real servant.' 
 
 TO THE EABL OF BURLINGTON. 
 
 'August, 1714. 
 
 'My Lobd, 20 
 
 ' If your mare could speak she would give an account of 
 what extraordinary company she had on the road ; which, since 
 she cannot do, I will. 
 
 ' It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of 
 Mr. Tonson, who, mounted on a stonehorse, . . . overtook me in 25 
 Windsor Forest. He said he heard I designed for Oxford, the 
 seat of the Muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all means 
 accompany me thither. 
 
 ' I asked him where he got his horse ? He answered he got it 
 of his publisher ; " for that rogue, my printer," said he, " (Ssap- 30 
 pointed me. I hoped to put him in good humour by a treat 
 at the tavern of a brown fricassee of rabbits, which cost two 
 shillings, with two quarts of wine, besides my conversation. 
 I thought myself cocksure of his horse, which he readily promised 
 me, but said that Mr. Tonson had just such another design of 35 
 going to Cambridge, expecting there the copy of a new kind of 
 Horace from Dr. ; and if Mr. Tonson went, he was pre- 
 engaged to attend him, being to have the printing of the said 
 copy. So, in short, I borrowed this stonehorse of my publisher, 
 which he had of Mr. Oldmixon for a debt ; he lent me, too, the 40 
 pretty boy you see after me : he was a smutty dog yesterday, 
 and cost me near two hours to wash the ink off his face ; but 
 the devil is a fair-conditioned devil, and very forward in his 
 catechise : if you have any more bags he shall carry them." 
 
 ' I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave 45 
 the boy a small bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir Virgil ; 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 145 
 
 to whole generations who are listening ; but in the 
 tone of their voices — ^pitched, as no doubt they are, 
 
 and mounting in an instant proceeded on the road, with my man 
 before, my courteous stationer beside, and the aforesaid devil 
 
 5 behind. 
 
 ' Mr. Lintot began in this manner : " Now, damn them ! 
 what if they should put it into the newspaper how you and 
 I went together to Oxford ? What would I care ? If I should 
 go down into Sussex they would say was gone to the Speaker ; 
 
 10 but what of that ? If my son were but big enough to go on with 
 the business, by G — d, I would keep as good company as old 
 Jacob." 
 
 ' Hereupon, I inquired of his son. " The lad," says he, " has 
 fine parts, but is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for 
 
 15 nothing in his education at Westminster. Pray, don't you think 
 Westminster to be the best school in England ? Most of the late 
 Ministry came out of it ; so did many of this Ministry. I hope 
 the boy will make his fortune." 
 
 ' " Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford ? " " To 
 
 20 what pTirpose ? " said he. " The Universities do but make 
 pedants, and I intend to breed him a man of business." 
 
 ' As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his 
 saddle, for which I expressed some solicitude. " Nothing," says 
 he. " I can bear it well enough ; but, since we have the day 
 
 25 before us, methinks it would be very pleasant for you to rest 
 awhile under the woods." When we were alighted, " See, here, 
 what a mighty pretty Horace I have in my pocket ! What, if you 
 amused yoursefi in turning an ode till we mount again ? Lord ! 
 if you pleased, what a clever miscellany might you make at 
 
 30 leisure hours ! " " Perhaps I may," said I, " if we ride on ; the 
 
 motion is an aid to my fancy ; a round trot very much awakens 
 
 my spirits ; then jog on apace, and I'll think as hard as I can." 
 
 ' Silence ensued for a full hour ; after which Mr. Lintot lugged 
 
 the reins, stopped short, and broke out, " Well, sir, how far have 
 
 35 you gone ? " I answered, seven miles. " Z — ds, sir," said Lintot, 
 " I thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldisworth, in a ramble 
 round Wimbledon Hill, would translate a whole ode in half this 
 time. I'll say that for Oldisworth (though I lost by his Timothy's) 
 he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in 
 
 10 England. I remember Dr. King would write verses in a tavern, 
 three hours after he could not speak : and there is Sir Richard, 
 in that rumbling old chariot of his, between Fleet Ditch and 
 St. Giles's pound shall make you half a Job." 
 
 ' " Pray, Mr. Lintot," said I, " now you talk of translators, 
 
 46 what is your method of managing them ? " " Sir," replied he, 
 " those are the saddest pack of rogues in the world : in a hungry 
 fit, they'll swear they understand all the languages in the universe. 
 
 1366 L 
 
146 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 beyond the mere conversation key — in the expression 
 of their thoughts, their various views and natures, 
 
 I have known one of them take down a Greek book upon my 
 counter, and cry, ' Ah, this is Hebrew, I must read it from the 
 latter end.' By G — d, I can never be sure in these fellows, for s 
 I neither understand Greek, Latin, !Prench, nor Italian myself. 
 But this is my way ; I agree with them for ten shillings per 
 sheet, with a proviso that I will have their doings corrected by 
 whom I please ; so by one or other they are led at last to the 
 true sense of an author ; my judgement giving the negative to lo 
 all my translators." " But how are you secure these correctors 
 may not impose upon you ? " " Why, I get any civil gentleman 
 (especially any Scotchman) that comes into my shop, to read 
 the original to me in EngUsh ; by this I know whether my 
 first translator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits is 
 his money or not. 
 
 ' " I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained 
 
 with S for a new version of Imcretius, to publish against 
 
 Tonson's, agreeing to pay the author so many shillings at his 
 producing so many lines. He made a great progress in a very 20 
 short time, and I gave it to the corrector to compare with the 
 Latin ; but he went directly to Creech's translation, and found 
 it the same, word for word, all but the first page. Now, what 
 d'ye think I did ? I arrested the translator for a cheat ; nay, 
 and I stopped the corrector's pay, too, upon this proof that he 25 
 had made use of Creech instead of the original." 
 
 ' " Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics ? " " Sir," 
 said he, " nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable 
 of them ; the rich ones for a sheet a-piece of the blotted manu- 
 script, which cost me nothing ; they'll go about with it to their 30 
 acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, who 
 submitted to their correction : this has given some of them such 
 an air, that in time they come to be consulted with and dedicated 
 to as the top critics of the town. — As for the poor critics, I'll give 
 you one instance of my management, by which you may guess 35 
 the rest : a lean man, that looked like a very good scholar, came 
 to me, t'other day ; he turned over your Homer, shook his head, 
 shrugged up his shoulders, and pish'd at every line of it. ' One 
 would wonder,' says he, ' at the strange presumption of some 
 men ; Homer is no such easy task that every stripling, every 40 
 versifier — ' He was going on, when my wife called to dinner ; 
 ' Sir,' said I, ' will you please to eat a piece of beef with me ? ' 
 ' Mr. Lintot,' said he, ' I am sorry you should be at the expense 
 of this great book, I am really concerned on your account.' 
 ' Sir, I am much obliged to you : if you can dine upon a piece 45 
 of beef together with a slice of pudding — ? ' ' Mr. Lintot, I do 
 not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 147 
 
 there is something generous, and cheering, and ennobling. 
 You are in the society of men who have filled the 
 
 of learning — ' ' Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please 
 to go in.' My critic complies ; he comes to a taste of your poetry, 
 
 5 and tells me in the same breath, that the book is commendable, 
 and the pudding excellent. 
 
 ' " Now, sir," continued Mr. Lintot, " in return for the frank- 
 ness I have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends 
 at Court that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar 
 
 10 or not ? " I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my 
 lord being one I had particular obligations to. — " That may be," 
 replied Mr. Lintot ; " but by G — if he is not, I shall lose the 
 printing of a very good trial." 
 
 ' These, my lord, are a few traits by which you discern the 
 
 15 genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of 
 a letter. I dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid 
 a visit to my Lord Carleton, at Middleton. . . . 
 
 ' I am,' &c. 
 
 DB. SWIFT TO MB. POPE. 
 
 25 ' Sept. 29, 1725. 
 
 ' I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin — into the 
 
 grand monde — for fear of burying my parts ; to signalize myself 
 
 among curates and vicars, and correct all corruptions crept 
 
 in relating to the weight of bread-and-butter through those 
 
 25 dominions where I govern. I have employed my time (besides 
 ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing 
 my Travels [CfvUiver's], in four parts complete, newly augmented, 
 and intended for the press when the world shall deserve them, 
 or rather, when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture 
 
 30 his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and 
 dispersions ; but the chief end I propose to myself in all my 
 labours is to vex the world rather than divert it ; and if I could 
 compass that design without hurting my own person or fortune, 
 I would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, 
 
 35 without readihg. I am exceedingly pleased that you have done 
 with translations ; Lord Treasurer Oxford often lamented that 
 a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of misemploying 
 your genius for so long a time ; but since you will now be so 
 much better employed, when you think of the world, give it one 
 
 40 lash the more at my request. I have ever hated all nations, pro- 
 fessions, and communities ; and all my love is towards individuals 
 — for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor 
 Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one : it is so with physicians (I will 
 not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, IFrench, 
 
 45 and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal 
 called man — although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and 
 so forth. 
 
 L2 
 
148 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 greatest parts in the world's story — ^you are with 
 St. John the statesman ; Peterborough the conqueror ; 
 Swift, the greatest wit of all times ; Gay, the khidliest 
 
 ' . . . I have got materials towards a treatise proving the 
 falsity of that definition animal rationale, and to show it should 5 
 be only rationis capax. . . . The matter is so clear that it will 
 admit of no dispute — nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that 
 you and I agree in the point. . . . 
 
 ' Mr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, 
 which is a very sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long lo 
 out of the world, have lost that hardness of heart contracted by 
 years and general conversation. I am daily losing friends, and 
 neither seeking nor getting others. Oh, if the world had but 
 a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels ! ' 
 
 MB. POPE TO D». SWIFT. 15 
 
 ' October 16, 1725. 
 
 ' I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind 
 answer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that 
 you incline more and more to your old friends. . . . Here is one 
 [Lord Bolingbroke] who was once a powerful planet, but has 20 
 now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) learned 
 to be content with returning to his first point without the thought 
 or ambition of shining at all. Here is another [Edward, Earl 
 of Oxford], who thinks one of the greatest glories of his father 
 was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you 25 
 hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of 
 death, and more pleased with tlie hope of seeing you again 
 than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long 
 despised but what is made up of a few men like yourself. . . . 
 
 ' Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs — 30 
 and generally by Tories too. Because he had humour, he was 
 supposed to have dealt with Dr. Swift ; in like manner as when 
 any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt 
 with the devil. . . . 
 
 ' Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall ; I wish 35 
 he had received no more by his other fall. . . . But Lord Boling- 
 broke is the most improved mind since you saw him, that ever 
 was improved without shifting into a new body, or being ; pauUo 
 minus ah angdis. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever 
 all of us meet again, after so many varieties and changes, after 40 
 so much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has 
 been altered, that scarce a single thought of the one, any more 
 than a single atom of the other, remains just the same ; I have 
 fancied, I say, that we should meet like the righteous in the 
 millennium, quite in peace, divested of all our former passions, 4C 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 149 
 
 laugher — it is a privilege to sit in that company. 
 Delightful and generous banquet ! with a little faith and 
 a little fancy any one of us here may enjoy it, and conjure 
 up those great figures out of the past, and listen to their 
 5 wit and wisdom. Mind that there is always a certain 
 stamp about great men — they may be as mean on many 
 points as you or I, but they carry their great air — ^they 
 speak of common life more largely and generously than 
 common men do — ^they regard the world with a manlier 
 
 10 countenance, and see its real features more fairly 
 than the timid shufilers who only dare to look up at 
 life through blinkers, or to have an opinion when there 
 is a crowd to back it. He who reads these noble records 
 of a past age, salutes and reverences the great spirits 
 
 15 who adorn it. You may go home now and talk with 
 St. John ; you may take a volume from your library 
 and listen to Swift and Pope. 
 
 Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say 
 to him. Try to frequent the company of your betters. In 
 
 20 books and life that is the most wholesome society ; learn 
 to admire rightly ; the great pleasure of life is that. 
 Note what the great men admired ; they admired great 
 things : narrow spirits admire basely, and worship 
 meanly. .1 know nothing in any story more gallant 
 
 25 and cheering, than the love and friendship which this 
 company of famous men bore towards one another. 
 There never has been a society of men more friendly, 
 as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares 
 quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for 
 
 30 liking the society of men great and famous ? and 
 for liking them for the qualities which made them so ? 
 A mere pretty fellow from White's could not have written 
 the Patriot King, and would very likely have despised 
 
 smiling at oxir past follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of 
 35 the just in tranquillity. 
 
 ' I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot 
 to fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, 
 concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole 
 letter.' . . . 
 
150 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, whom the great 
 St. John held to be one of the best and greatest of men : 
 a mere nobleman of the Court could no more have won 
 Barcelona, than he could have written Peterborough's 
 letters to Pope,i which are as witty as Congreve : a mere 5 
 Irish Dean could not have written Oulliver ; and all 
 these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To 
 name his friendS" is to name the best men of his time. 
 Addison had a senate ; Pope reverenced his equals. 
 He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always. 10 
 
 ' Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says : — He was ' one 
 of those men of careless wit, and negligent grace, who scatter 
 a thousand hon mots and idle verses, which we painful compilers 
 gather and hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves 
 authors. Such was this lord : of an advantageous figure, and 15 
 enterprising spirit ; as gallant as Amadis and as brave ; but 
 a little more expeditious in his journeys ; for he is said " to have 
 seen more kings and more postilions than any man in Europe ". 
 . . . He was a man, as his poet said, " who would neither live nor 
 die like any other mortal." ' [Royal and Noble, Authors, p. 256.] 20 
 
 FROM THE EARL OF PETEEBOEOUGH TO POPE. 
 
 [1731.] 
 
 ' You must receive my letters with a just impartiality, and 
 give grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day ; I sink 
 grievously with the weather-glass, and am quite spiritless when 25 
 oppressed with the thoughts of a birthday or a return. 
 
 ' Dutiful afEeotion was bringing me to town, but undutiful 
 laziness, and being much out of order keep me in the country : 
 however, if alive, I must make my appearance at the birthday. . . . 
 
 ' You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but 30 
 one woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with 
 you upon this point, I doubt, every jury will give a verdict 
 against me. So, sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you 
 pluralities, the favourite privilege of our Church. 
 
 ' I find you do not mend upon correction ; again I tell you 35 
 you must not think of women in a reasonable way ; you know 
 we always make goddesses of those we adore upon earth ; and 
 do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what 
 relates to the Deity ? 
 
 ' . . . I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray 40 
 when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impa- 
 tience, in a place as odd and as much out of the way as himself. 
 
 ' Yours.' 
 
 Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated 
 singer. 46 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 151 
 
 His admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when 
 some one said of his friend, ' There is something in that 
 great man which looks as if he was placed here by 
 mistake,' ' There is so ; ' Pope answered, ' and when 
 
 B the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had 
 sometimes an imagination that it might possibly be 
 come to our world to carry him home, as a coach comes 
 to one's door for other visitors,' So these great spirits 
 spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest 
 
 10 middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club- 
 table, so faithful and so friendly. 
 
 We have said before that the chief wits of this time, 
 with the exception of Congreve, were what we should now 
 call men's men. They spent many hours of the four-and- 
 
 15 twenty, a fourth part of each day nearly, in clubs and 
 coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and smoked. 
 Wit and news went by word of mouth ; a journal of 1710 
 contained the very smallest portion of one or the other. 
 The chiefs spoke, the faithful habitues sat round; strangers 
 
 20 came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden had his head- 
 quarters at WiU's, in Russell Street, at the corner of 
 Bow Street, at which place Pope saw him when he was 
 twelve years old. The company used to assemble on the 
 first floor — ^what was called the dining-room floor in those 
 
 26 days — and sat at various tables smoking their pipes. 
 It is recorded that the beaux of the day thought it a 
 great honour to be allowed to take a pinch out of Dryden's 
 snuff-box. When Addison began to reign, he with a 
 certain crafty propriety — or policy let us call it — ^which 
 
 30 belonged to his nature, set up his court, and appointed 
 the ofi&cers of his royal house. His palace was Button's, 
 opposite Will's.^ A quiet opposition, a silent assertion 
 
 ^ ' Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's 
 
 family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house 
 
 35 on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from Covent 
 
 Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. 
 
 It is said, when Addison had suffered any vexation from the 
 
 Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house. 
 
 ' From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he 
 
 40 often sat late and drank too much wine.' — Db. Johnson. [Life 
 
 of Addison, p. 383.] 
 
152 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 of empire, distinguished this great man. Addison's 
 ministers were Budgell, Tickell, Philips, Carey ; his 
 master of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who was what 
 Duroc was to Napoleon, or Hardy to Nelson ; the man 
 who performed his master's bidding, and would haves 
 cheerfully died in his quarrel. Addison lived with 
 these people for seven or eight hours every day. The 
 male society passed over their punch-bowls [and tobacco- 
 pipes about as much time as ladies of that age spent over 
 Spadille and ManiUe. lo 
 
 For a brief space, upon coming up to town. Pope 
 formed part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather 
 too eager and obsequious humble servant.^ Dick Steele, 
 the editor of the Tatler, Mr. Addison's man, and his own 
 man too — a person of no little figure in the world of is 
 letters, patronized the young poet, and set him a task 
 or two. Young Mr. Pope did the tasks very quickly 
 and smartly (he had been at the feet quite as a boy of 
 Wycherley's ^ decrepit reputation, and propped up for 
 
 Will's ooffee-house was on the west side of Bow Street, and 20 
 'corner of Russell Street'. See [Cthstningham], Handbook of 
 London, [p. 554, 2nd ed.] 
 
 ^ ' My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712 : 
 I liked him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond 
 of his conversation. It was very soon after that Mr. Addison 25 
 advised me " not to be content with the applause of half the 
 nation ". He used to talk much and often to me, of moderation 
 in parties : and used to blame his dear friend Steele for being 
 too much of a party man. He encouraged me in my design of 
 translating the Iliad, which was begun that year, and finished 30 
 in 1718.' — Pope {Spencers Anecdotea). [p. 195.] 
 
 ' Addison had Budgell, and I think Philips, in the house with 
 him. — Gay, they would-call one of my elives. — They were angry 
 with me for keeping so much with Dr. Swift, and some of the late 
 Ministry.' — Pope {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 145.] 35 
 
 ' ' TO MB. EDWABD BLOTJNT. 
 
 ' Jan. 21, 1715-16. 
 ' I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present 
 as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet 
 and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, as I doubt 40 
 not he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as soon as 
 his life was despaired of. Accordingly, a few days before his 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 153 
 
 a year that doting old wit) : he was anxious to be well 
 with the men of letters, to get a footing and a recognition. 
 He thought it an honour to be admitted into their 
 company ; to have the confidence of Mr. Addison's 
 6 friend, Captain Steele. His eminent parts obtained for 
 him the honour of heralding Addison's triumph of Cato 
 with his admirable prologue, and heading the victorious 
 procession as it were. Not content with this act of 
 homage and admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself 
 10 by assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John 
 
 death, he underwent the ceremony, and joined together those 
 two sacraments which wise men say should be the last we 
 receive ; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme 
 unction in our Catechism, as a Mnd of hint of the order of time 
 
 15 in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, 
 satisfied in the conscience of having, by this one act, paid his 
 just debts, obliged a woman who (he was told) had merit, and 
 shown an heroic resentment of the ill-usage of his next heir. 
 Some hundred pounds which he had with the lady discharged 
 
 20 those debts ; a jointure of 4001. a year made her a recompense ; 
 and the nephew he left to comfort himself as well as he could 
 with the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate. I saw our 
 friend twice after this was done — less peevish in his sickness 
 than he used to be in his health ; neither much afraid of dying, 
 
 25 nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of 
 marrying. The evening before he expired, he called his young 
 wife to the bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny 
 him one request — the last he should make. Upon her assurances 
 of consenting to it, he told her : " My dear, it is only this — that 
 
 30 you will never marry an old man again." I cannot help remark- 
 ing that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, 
 yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour. 
 Mr. Wycherley showed his even in this last compliment ; though 
 I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from 
 
 35 doubling her jointure on the same easy terms ? 
 
 ' So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased 
 myself to know such trifles when they concern or characterize any 
 eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom 
 wiser or wittier than others in these sober moments ; at least, 
 
 40 our friend ended much in the same character he had lived in ; 
 and Horace's rule for a play may as well be applied to him as 
 a playwright : — 
 
 ' Servetur ad imum, 
 Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet. 
 
 45 ' I am,' &o. 
 
154 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highly offended 
 his lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed to, write to 
 Mr. Dennis and inform him that Mr. Pope's pamphlet 
 against him was written quite without Mr. Addison's 
 approval.^ Indeed, The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris 6 
 on the Phrenzy of J. D. is a, vulgar and mean satire, and 
 such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never 
 desire to see any partisan of his strike in any Uterary 
 quarrel. Pope was closely aUied with Swift when he 
 wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has beenio 
 printed ia Swift's works, too. It bears the foul marks 
 of the master hand. Swift admired and enjoyed with aU 
 his heart the prodigious genius of the young Papist 
 lad out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a 
 university ia his hfe, and came and conquered the Dons 15 
 and the doctors with his wit. He applauded, and loved 
 him too, and protected him, and taught him mischief. 
 I wish Addison could have loved him better. The 
 best satire that ever has been penned would never 
 have been written then ; and one of the best characters 20 
 the world ever knew would have been without a flaw. 
 But he who had so few equals could not bear one, and 
 Pope was more than that. When Pope, trying for himself, 
 and soaring on his immortal young wiags, found that his, 
 too, was a genius, which no pinion of that age could 25 
 foUow, he rose and left Addison's company, settUng on 
 his own eminence, and singing his own song. 
 
 It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer 
 of Mr. Addison ; nor likely that, after escaping from 
 his vassalage and assuming an independent crown, the 30 
 sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him 
 amicably.^ They did not do wrong to mislike each other. 
 
 ' ' Addison, wHo was no stranger to the world, probably saw 
 the selfishness of Pope's friendship ; and, resolving that he 
 should have the consequences of his offioiousness to himself, 35 
 informed Dennis by Steele that he was sorry for the insult.' — 
 Johnson (Life of Addison), [p. 357.] 
 
 ' ' While I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter 
 to Mr. Addison, to let him know " that I was not unacquainted 
 with this behaviour of his ; that if I was to speak severely of him 40 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 155 
 
 They but followed the impulse of nature, and the conse- 
 quence of position. When Bernadotte became heir to 
 a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was naturally 
 Napoleon's enemy. ' There are many passions and 
 
 5 tempers of mankind,' says Mr. Addison in the Spectator, 
 speaking a couple of years before the little differences 
 between him and Mr. Pope took place, ' which naturally 
 dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising 
 in the esteem of mankind. All those who made their 
 
 10 entrance into the world with the same advantages, and 
 were once looked on as his equals, are apt to think the 
 fame of his merits a reflection on their own indeserts. . . . 
 Those who were once his equals envy and defame him, 
 because they now see him their superior ; and those 
 
 15 who were once his superiors, because they look upon him 
 as their equal.' Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking 
 that, as young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a 
 university education, he couldn't know Greek, therefore 
 he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his young 
 
 20 friend Mr. TickeU, of Queen's, to translate that poet, 
 and aid him with his own known scholarship and skill ? ^ 
 It was natural that Mr. Addison should doubt of the 
 learning of an amateur Grecian, should have a high 
 opinion of Mr. TickeU, of Queen's, and should help that 
 
 25 ingenious young man. It was natural, on the other hand, 
 that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends should believe that 
 this counter-translation, suddenly advertised and so 
 
 in return for it, it should not be in sucli a dirty way ; that I should 
 rather tell tiim himself fairly of his faults, and allow his good 
 
 30 qualities ; and that it should be something in the following 
 manner." I then subjoined the first sketch of what has been 
 since called my satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever 
 after ; and never did me any injustice, that I know of, from that 
 time to his death, which was about three years after.' — Pope 
 
 35 {Spence's Anecdotes), [p. 149.] 
 
 * ' That TickeU should have been guilty of a villany seems to 
 us highly improbable ; that Addison should have been guilty of 
 a villany seems to us highly improbable ; but that these two men 
 should have conspired together to commit a villany, seems to 
 
 40 us improbable in a tenfold degree.' — Macattlay. [Essay on 
 Addison.] 
 
156 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 long written, though Tiokell's college friends had never 
 heard of it — ^though, when Pope first wrote to Addison 
 regarding his scheme, Mr. Addison knew nothing 
 of the similar project of Tickell, of Queen's — ^it was 
 natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, having interests, 6 
 passions, and prejudices of their own, should beheve 
 that Tickell's translation was but an act of opposition 
 against Pope, and that they should call Mr. Tickell's 
 fimulation Mr. Addison's envy — ^if envy it were. 
 
 But were there one whose fires lo 
 
 True genius kindles and fair fame inspires ; 
 Blest with each talent and each art to please. 
 And bom to write, converse, and live wdth ease ; 
 Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
 Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne ; 15 
 
 View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
 And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; 
 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
 And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; 
 Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 20 
 
 Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 
 AUke reserved to blame or to commend, 
 A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; ' 
 
 Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, 
 And so obUging that he ne'er obliged ; 25 
 
 Like Cato, give his little senate laws. 
 And sit attentive to his own applause ; 
 While wdts and templars every sentence raise, 
 And wonder with a foolish face of praise ; 
 Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? so 
 
 Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ? 
 
 ' I sent the verses to Mr. Addison,' said Pope, ' and 
 he used me very civilly ever after.' No wonder he did. 
 It was shame very likely more than fear that silenced him. 
 Johnson recounts an interview between Pope and Addi- 35 
 son after their quarrel, in which Pope was angry, and 
 Addison tried to be contemptuous and calm. Such 
 a weapon as Pope's must have pierced any scorn. It 
 flashes for ever, and quivers in Addison's memory. His 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 157 
 
 great figure looks out on us froSi the past — stainless 
 but for that — ^pale, calm, and beautiful : it bleeds from 
 that black wound. He should be drawn, like St. 
 Sebastian, with that arrow in his side. As he sent to 
 
 5 Gay and asked his pardon, as he bade his stepson come 
 and see his death, be sure he had forgiven Pope, when 
 he made ready to show how a Christian could die. 
 
 Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for 
 a short time, and describes himseK in his letters as sitting 
 
 10 with that coterie until two o'clock in the morning over 
 punch and burgundy amidst the fumes of tobacco. To 
 use an expression of the present day, the ' pace ' of those 
 viveurs of the former age was awful. Peterborough 
 lived into the very jaws of death ; Godolphin laboured 
 
 15 all day and gambled at night ; Bolingbroke,^ writing 
 to Swift, from Dawley, in his retirement, dating his 
 letter at six o'clock in the morning, and rising, as he 
 says, refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the 
 time of his London life ; when about that hour he used 
 
 20 to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure, and jaded 
 with business ; his head often fuU of schemes, and his 
 heart as often full of anxiety. It was too hard, too 
 coarse a life for the sensitive, sickly Pope. He was the 
 
 ' LORD BOUNGBEOKE TO THE THREE YAHOOS OF TWICKENHAM. 
 
 25 'July 23, 1726. 
 
 ' Jonathan, Alexander, John, most excellent Triumvirs 
 OF Parnassus, — 
 
 ' Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or 
 what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I per- 
 se suade myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within 
 this fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely 
 mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from 
 this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few 
 lines to you ; and I please myself beforehand with the vast 
 35 pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may 
 add to this pleasure, and give you further proofs of my beneficent 
 temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neigh- 
 bourhood again, by the end of next week : by which time I hope 
 that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by 
 40 some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine 
 science, la bagatelle. Adieu, Jonathan, Alexander, John ! Mirth 
 be with you 1 ' 
 
158 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 only wit of the day, 'a friend writes to me, who wasn't 
 fat.^ Swift was fat ; Addison was fat ; Steele was fat ; 
 Gay and Thomson were preposterously fat — all that 
 fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house 
 boozing, shortened the lives and enlarged the waistcoats 5 
 of the men of that age. Pope withdrew in a great measure 
 from this boisterous London company, and being put 
 into an independence by the gallant exertions of Swift ^ 
 and his private friends, and by the enthusiastic national 
 admiration which justly rewarded his great achievement lo 
 of the Iliad, purchased that famous viUa of Twickenham 
 which his song and life celebrated ; duteously bringing 
 his old parents to live and die there, entertaining his 
 friends there, and making occasional visits to London 
 in his little chariot, in which Atterbury compared him to is 
 ' Homer in a nutshell '. 
 
 ' Mr. Dryden was not a genteel man,' Pope quaintly 
 said to Spence, speaking of the manners and habits of 
 the famous old patriarch of Will's. With regard to 
 Pope's own mamiers, we have the best contemporary 20 
 authority that they were singularly refined and poHshed. 
 With his extraordinary sensibility, with his known 
 tastes, with his deUcate frame, with his power and 
 dread of ridicule. Pope could have been no other than 
 what we call a highly-bred person.^ His closest friends, 25 
 with the exception of Swift, were among the delights and 
 ornaments of the polished society of their age. Garth,* 
 
 ' Prior must be excepted from this observation. ' He was 
 lank and lean.' 
 
 " Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the Iliad 30 
 subscription ; and also introduced Pope to Harley and Boling- 
 broke. — Pope realized by the Iliad upwards of 5,000i., which he 
 laid out partly in annuities, and partly in the purchase of his 
 famous villa. Johnson remarks that ' it would be hard to find 
 a man so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted 35 
 so much in talking of his money '. [Life of Pope, p. 149.] 
 
 ^ ' His (Pope's) voice in common conversation was so naturally 
 musical, that I remember honest Tom Southerne used always to 
 call him " the little nightingale ".' — Obbeey. [Remarks, Sc, 
 Letter xix.] 40 
 
 * Garth, whom Dryden calls 'generous as his Muse', was 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 159 
 
 the accomplished and benevolent, whom Steele has 
 described so charmingly, of whom Codrington said 
 that his character was ' aU beauty ', and whom Pope 
 himself called the best of Christians without knowing 
 5 it ; Arbuthnotji one of the wisest, wittiest, most accom- 
 
 a Yorkshireman. He graduated at Cambridge, and was made 
 M.D. in 1691. He soon distinguished himself in his profession, 
 by his poem of The Dispensary, and in society, and pronounced 
 Dryden's funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable 
 
 10 member of the Kit-Kat and a friendly, convivial, able man. He 
 was knighted by George I, with the Duke of Marlborough's 
 sword. He died in 1719. 
 
 ' Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergyman in Scotland, 
 and belonged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. 
 
 15 He was educated at Aberdeen ; and, coming up to London — 
 according to a Scotch practice often enough alluded to — to make 
 his fortune — first made himself known by " an examination of 
 Dr. Woodward's account of the Deluge " . He became physician, 
 successively to Prince George of Denmark and to Queen Anne. 
 
 20 He is usually allowed to have been the most learned, as well as 
 one of the most witty and humorous members of the Scriblerus 
 Club. The opinion entertained of him by the humourists of the 
 day is abundantly evidenced in their correspondence. When he 
 found himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from his retreat 
 
 25 at Hampstead, to Swift : 
 
 ' Hampstead, Oct. 4, 1734. 
 'My Dear and Woethy Friend, — 
 
 ' You have no reason to put me among the rest of your for- 
 getful friends, for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never 
 
 30 received one word of answer. The first was about your health ; 
 the last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar. I can assure 
 you with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance 
 has a more warm heart toward you than myself. I am going out 
 of this troublesome world, and you, among the rest of my friends, 
 
 35 shall have my last prayers and good wishes. 
 
 ' . . . I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an 
 asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, or move. I most 
 earnestly desired and begged of God that he would take me. Con- 
 trary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had 
 
 40 forborne for some years . . .), I recovered my strength to a pretty 
 considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again. . . . What 
 I did, I can assure you was not for life, but ease ; for I am at 
 present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, and then 
 blown back to sea — who has a reasonable hope of going to 
 
 45 a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad 
 one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world ; for 
 
160 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 plished, gentlest of mankind ; Bolingbroke, the Alcibi- 
 ades of his age ; the generous Oxford ; the magnificent, 
 the witty, the famous, and chivah-ous Peterborough: 
 these were the fast and faithful friends of Pope, the 
 most brilliant company of friends, let us repeat, that 6 
 the world has ever seen. The favourite recreation of 
 
 I have as great comfort in my own family and from the kindness 
 of my friends as any man ; but the world, in the main, displeases 
 me, and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are 
 likely to befall my country. However, if I should have the lo 
 happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the 
 comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine 
 why you are frighted from a journey to England : the reasons 
 you assign are not sufficient — the journey I am sure would do 
 you good. In general, I recommend riding, of which I have 15 
 always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own 
 experience. 
 
 ' My family give you their love and service. The great loss 
 I sustained in one of them gave me my first shock, and the 
 trouble I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper to 20 
 bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, 
 is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear 
 friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, 
 to the last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being 
 well assured you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour ; 25 
 for all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from 
 that way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear from you some- 
 times ; for none can be with more sincerity than I am, my dear 
 friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant.' 
 
 ' Arbuthnot,' Johnson says, ' was a man of great comprehen- 30 
 sion, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted 
 with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of know- 
 ledge by a bright and active imagination ; a scholar with great 
 brilliance of wit ; a wit who, in the crowd of lite, retained and 
 discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.' [ii/eo/Pope, p. 118.] 35 
 
 Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a 
 department of which he was particularly qualified to judge : 
 ' Let me add, that, in the list of phUosophioal reformers, the 
 authors of Martinus Scriblerus ought not to be overlooked. Their 
 happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is univers- 40 
 ally known ; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity 
 displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable pas- 
 sages in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly 
 understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share.' — See 
 Preliminary Dissertation to Sncydopaedm Britannica [Seventh 45 
 Edit., 1842], note to p. 242, and also note bbb., p. 285. 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 161 
 
 his leisure hours was the society of painters, whose art 
 he practised. In his correspondence are letters between 
 him and Jervas, whose pupil he loved to be — ^Richardson, 
 a celebrated artist of his time, and who painted for him 
 
 5 a portrait of his old mother, and for whose picture he 
 asked and thanked Richardson in one of the most 
 delightful letters that ever was penned,^ — and the 
 wonderful KneUer, who bragged more, spelt worse, and 
 painted better than any artist of his day.^ 
 
 10 It is affecting to note, through Pope's correspondence, 
 the marked way in which his friends, the greatest, the 
 most famous, and wittiest men of the time — generals 
 and statesmen, philosophers and divines — all have a kind 
 word, and a kind thought for the good simple old mother, 
 
 ]5 whom Pope tended so affectionately. Those men would 
 have scarcely valued her, but that they knew how much 
 he loved her, and that they pleased him by thinking 
 
 ^ TO ME. BICHARDSON. 
 
 ' Twickenham, June 10, 1733. 
 
 20 ' As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hope 
 that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you 
 hither. And this for the very reason, which possibly might hinder 
 your coming, that my poor mother is dead. I thank God, her 
 death was as easy as her life was innocent ; and as it cost her 
 
 25 not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such 
 an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is 
 even amiable to behold it. It would afford the finest image of 
 a saint expired that ever painting drew ; and it would be the 
 greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever 
 
 so bestow on a friend, if you would come and sketch it for me. 
 I am sure, if there be no very prevalent obstacle, you will leave 
 any common business to do this ; and I hope to see you this 
 evening as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before 
 this winter flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to- 
 
 35 morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written 
 this — Icouldnot(atthi8 time) have written at all. Adieu! May 
 you die as happily ! ' Your,' &o. 
 
 ^ ' Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey KneUer one day, when his 
 nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. " Nephew," said Sir Godfrey, 
 
 40 " you have the honour of seeing the two greatest men in the 
 world." — " I don't know how great you may be," said the Guinea 
 man, " but I don't like your looks : I have often bought a man, 
 much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for 
 ten guineas." ' — Db. Wabbtjeton {Spenee'a Anecdotes), [p. 368]. 
 
 1356 M 
 
162 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 of her. If his early letters to women are affected and 
 insincere, whenever he speaks about this one, it is with 
 a childish tenderness and an almost sacred simplicity. 
 In 1713, when young Mr. Pope had, by ,a series of the 
 most astonishing victories and dazzling achievements, s 
 seized the crown of poetry ; and the town was in an 
 uproar of admiration, or hostility, for the young chief ; 
 when Pope was issuing his famous decrees for the transla- 
 tion of the Iliad ; when Dennis and the lower critics 
 were hooting and assailing him ; when Addison and the lo 
 gentlemen of his court were sneering with sickening 
 hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the young conqueror; 
 when Pope, in a fever of victory, and genius, and hope, 
 and anger, was struggling through the crowd of shouting 
 friends and furious detractors to his temple of Fame, his is 
 old mother writes from the country, ' My deare,' says 
 she, ' my deare, there's Mr. Blount, of Mapel Durom, 
 dead the same day that Mr. Inglefield died. Your 
 sister is very well ; but your brother is not. My service 
 to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to hear ao 
 from you, and that you are well, which is my daily 
 prayer ; and this with my blessing.' The triumph 
 marches by, and the car of the young conqueror, the 
 hero of a hundred brilliant victories — the fond mother 
 sits in the quiet cottage at home, and says,' ' I send 25 
 you my daily prayers, and I bless you, my dear '. 
 
 In our estimate of Pope's character, let us always take 
 into account that constant tenderness and fidelity of 
 affection which pervaded and sanctified his life, and 
 never forget that maternal benediction .^ It accompanied so 
 him always : his life seems purified by those artless and 
 
 ' Swift's mention of him as one 
 
 — — whose filial piety excels, 
 Whatever Grecian story tells, 
 
 {Libd on Dr. Ddany.] 35 
 is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better 
 use than he ever intended it for, a, propos of this subject. — He 
 charitably sneers, in one of his letters, at Spence's ' fondling an 
 old mother — in imitation of Pope ! ' {Letter to Horace Mann, 
 Sept. 20, 1750.] 40 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 163 
 
 heart-felt prayers. And he seems to have received and 
 deserved the fond attachment of the other members of 
 his family. It is not a little touching to read in Spence 
 of the enthusiastic admiration with which his half-sister 
 5 regarded him, and the simple anecdotes by which she 
 illustrates her love. ' I think no man was ever so little 
 fond of money,' Mrs. Rackett says about her brother ; 
 ' I think my brother when he was young read more books 
 than any man in the world ' ; and she falls to telling 
 
 10 stories of his schooldays, and the manner in which his 
 master at Twyford ill-used him. ' I don't think my 
 brother knew what fear was,' she continues ; and the 
 accounts of Pope's friends bear out this character for 
 courage. When he had exasperated the dunces, and 
 
 15 threats of violence and personal assault were brought 
 to him, the dauntless little champion never for one instant 
 allowed fear to disturb him, or condescended to take 
 any guard in his daily walks, except occasionally his 
 faithful dog to bear him company. ' I had rather 
 
 20 die at once,' said the gallant little cripple, ' than hve 
 in fear of those rascals.' 
 
 As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot 
 asked and enjoyed for himself — a euthanasia — a beauti- 
 ful end. A perfect benevolence, affection, serenity, 
 
 26 hallowed the departure of that high soul. Even in 
 the very hallucinations of his brain, and weaknesses of 
 his delirium, there was something almost sacred. Spence 
 describes him in his last days, looking up, and with 
 a rapt gaze as if something had suddenly passed before 
 
 30 him. ' He said to me, " What's that ? " pointing into 
 the air with a very steady regard, and then looked 
 down on me and said, with a smile of great pleasure and 
 with the greatest softness, " 'Twas a vision ! " ' He 
 laughed scarcely ever, but his companions describe his 
 
 35 countenance as often illuminated by a peculiar sweet 
 smile. 
 
 ' When,' said Spence,^ the kind anecdotist whom 
 
 ' Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. 
 He was a short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow 
 
 M2 
 
164 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Johnson despised, ' when I was telling Lord Bolingbroke 
 that Mr. Pope, on every catching and recovery of his 
 mind, was always saying something Mndly either of 
 his present or Ms absent friends ; and that this was 
 so surprising, that it seemed to me as if his humanity 5 
 had outlasted his understanding,' Lord Bolingbroke 
 said, " It has so," and then added, " I never in my Ufe 
 knew a man that had so tender a heart for his particular 
 friends, or a more general friendship for mankiad. 
 I have known him these thirty years, and value myself lo 
 
 more for that man's love than " Here,' Spence says, 
 
 ' St. John sunk his head, and lost his voice in tears.' 
 The sob which finishes the epitaph is finer than words. 
 It is the cloak thrown over the father's face in the famous 
 Greek picture, which hides the grief and heightens it. 15 
 
 In Johnson's Life of Pope, you will find described with 
 rather a malicious minuteness some of the personal 
 habits and infirmities of the great little Pope. His 
 body was crooked : he was so short that it was necessary 
 to raise his chair in order to place him on a level with 20 
 other people at table : ^ he was sewed up in a buckram 
 suit every morning and required a nurse like a child. 
 His contemporaries reviled these misfortunes with a 
 strange acrimony, and made his poor deformed person 
 the butt for many a bolt of heavy wit. The facetious as 
 Mr. Dennis, in speaking of him, says, ' If you take the 
 
 of New College, Oxford, a clergyman, and professor of poetry. 
 He was a friend of Thomson's, whose reputation he aided. He 
 published an Essay on the Odyssey in 1726, which introduced him 
 to Pope. Everybody liked him. His Anecdotes were placed, 30 
 while still in MS., at the service of Johnson and also of Malone. 
 They were published by Mr. Singer in 1820. 
 
 * He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through ' that 
 long disease, my life '. But not only was he so feeble as is 
 implied in his use of the ' buckram ', but ' it now appears ', says 35 
 Mr. Peter Cunningham, ' from his unpublished letters, that, like 
 Lord Hervey, he had recourse to ass's-milk for the preservation 
 of his health.' It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage 
 that he alludes when he says — 
 
 Let Sporus tremble ! — A. What, that thing of silk, 40 
 Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's-milk ! 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 165 
 
 first letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, 
 and the first and last letters of his surname, you have 
 A. P. E.' Pope catalogues, at the end of the Dunciad, 
 with a rueful precision, other pretty names, besides Ape, 
 
 5 which Dennis called him. That great critic pronounced 
 Mr. Pope was a little ass, a fool, a coward, a Papist, and 
 therefore a hater of Scripture, and so forth. It must 
 be remembered that the pillory was a flourishing and 
 popular institution in those days. Authors stood in it 
 
 10 in the body sometimes : and dragged their enemies 
 thither morally, hooted them with foul abuse, and assailed 
 them with garbage from the gutter. Poor Pope's figure 
 was an easy one for those clumsy caricaturists to draw. 
 Any stupid hand could draw a hunchback, and write 
 
 15 Pope underneath. They did. A libel was pubhshed 
 against Pope, with such a frontispiece. This kind of 
 rude jesting was an evidence not only of an ill nature, 
 but a duU one. When a child makes a pun, or a lout 
 breaks out into a laugh, it is some very obvious combina- 
 
 20 tion of words, or discrepancy of objects, which provokes 
 
 the infantine satirist, or tickles the boorish wag ; and 
 
 many of Pope's revilers laughed, not so much because 
 
 they were wicked, as because they knew no better. 
 
 Without the utmost sensibility, Pope could not have 
 
 25 been the poet he was ; and through his life, however 
 much he protested that he disregarded their abuse, the 
 coarse ridicule of his opponents stung and tore him. One 
 of Gibber's pamphlets coming into Pope's hands, whilst 
 Richardson the painter was with him, Pope turned 
 
 30 round and said, ' These things are my diversions : ' and 
 Richardson, sitting by whilst Pope perused the libel, 
 said he saw his features ' writhing with anguish '. How 
 little human nature changes ! Can't one see that little 
 figure ? Can't one fancy one is reading Horace ? Can't 
 
 35 one fancy one is speaking of to-day ? 
 
 The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led him to 
 cultivate the society of persons of fine manners, or wit, 
 or taste, or beauty, caused him to shrink equally from 
 that shabby and boisterous crew which formed the rank 
 
 40 and file of literature in his time : and he was as unjust 
 
166 ENGLISH HUMOUEISTS 
 
 to these men as they to him. The delicate little creature 
 sickened at habits and company which were quite 
 tolerable to robuster men : and in the famous feud 
 between Pope and the Dunces, and without attributing 
 any peculiar wrong to either, one can quite understand s 
 how the two parties should so hate each other. As I 
 fancy, it was a sort of necessity that, when Pope's triumph 
 passed, Mr. Addison and his men should look rather 
 contemptuously down on it from their balcony ; so it 
 was natural for Dennis and Tibbald, and Welsted andio 
 Cibber, and the worn and hungry pressmen iu the crowd 
 below, to howl at him and assail him. And Pope was 
 more savage to Grub Street than Grub Street was to 
 Pope. The thong with which he lashed them was 
 dreadful ; he fired upon that howling crew such shafts of is 
 fl.ame and poison, he slew and wounded so fiercely, that 
 in readiag the Dunciad and the prose lampoons of 
 Pope, one feels disposed to side against the ruthless little 
 tjnrant, at least to pity those wretched folks upon whom 
 he was so unmerciful. It was Pope, and Swift to aid him, 20 
 who estabhshed among us the Grub Street tradition. 
 He revels in base descriptions of poor men's want ; 
 he gloats over poor Dennis's garret, and flannel night- 
 cap, and red stockings ; he gives instructions how to 
 find CurU's authors, the historian at the tallow-chandler's 25 
 under the bUnd arch in Petty Prance, the two translators 
 in bed together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge Row, 
 whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I fear, 
 who contributed, more than any man who ever lived, 
 to depreciate the literary caUing. It was not an un-30 
 prosperous one before that time, as we have seen ; at 
 least there were great prizes in the profession which 
 had made Addison a minister, and Prior an ambassador, 
 and Steele a commissioner, and Swift all but a bishop. 
 The profession of letters was ruined by that libel of the 35 
 Dunciad. If authors were wretched and poor before, 
 if some of them lived in haylofts, of which their landladies 
 kept the ladders, at least nobody came to disturb them 
 in their straw ; if three of them had but one coat 
 between them, and two remained invisible in the garret, 40 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 167 
 
 the third, at any rate, appeared decently at the coffee- 
 house, and paid his twopence like a gentleman. It was 
 Pope that dragged into light all this poverty and 
 meanness, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to 
 
 6 pubUc ridicule. It was Pope that has made generations 
 of the reading world (delighted with the mischief, as 
 who would not be that reads it ?) believe that author 
 and wretch, author and rags, author and dirt, author 
 and drink, gin, cow-heel, tripe, poverty, duns, bailiffs, 
 
 10 squalling children and clamorous landladies, were always 
 associated together. The condition of authorship began 
 to f aU from the days of the Dunciad : and I believe in 
 my heart that much of that obloquy which has since 
 pursued our calling was occasioned by Pope's libels and 
 
 15 wicked wit. Everybody read those. Everybody was 
 familiarized with the idea of the poor-devil author. 
 The manner is so captivating that young authors practise 
 it, and begin their career with satire. It is so easy to 
 write, and so pleasant to read ! to fire a shot that makes 
 
 20 a giant wince, perhaps ; and fancy one's self his con- 
 queror. It is easy to shoot — ^but not as Pope did — ^the 
 shafts of his satire rise sublimely ; no poet's verse ever 
 mounted higher than that wonderful flight with which 
 the Dunciad concludes ^ : — 
 
 25 She comes, she comes ! the sable throne behold ! 
 
 Of Night primaeval and of Chaos old ; 
 Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay. 
 And aU its var3ring rainbows die away ; 
 Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, 
 
 30 The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. 
 As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain 
 The siok'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain ; 
 As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd. 
 Closed one by one to everlasting rest ; — 
 
 35 Thus, at her felt approach and secret might, 
 
 Art after Art goes out, and aU is night. 
 
 ' ' He (Johnson) repeated to us, in his forcible melodious 
 manner, the concluding lines of the Dunciad.' — Boswell. \Life 
 of Johnson, anno 1769.] 
 
168 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, 
 Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head ; 
 Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, 
 Shrinks to her second cause and is no more. 
 
 Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, ® 
 
 And unawares MoraUty expires. 
 Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine, 
 Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine. 
 Lo ! thy dread empire. Chaos, is restored. 
 Light dies before thy uncreating word ; ^'* 
 
 Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall. 
 And universal darkness buries all.^ 
 
 In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, to 
 the very greatest height which his sublime art has 
 attained, and shows himself the equal of all poets of all 15 
 times. It is the brightest ardour, the loftiest assertion 
 of truth, the most generous wisdom, illustrated by the 
 noblest poetic figure, and spoken in words the aptest, 
 grandest, and most harmonious. It is heroic courage 
 speaking : a splendid declaration of righteous wrath 20 
 and war. It is the gage flung down, and the silver 
 trumpet ringing defiance to falsehood and tyranny, 
 deceit, dullness, superstition. It is Truth, the champion, 
 shining and intrepid, and fronting the great world-tyrant 
 with armies of slaves at his back. It is a wonderful and 25 
 victorious single combat, in that great battle, which 
 has always been waging since society began. 
 
 In speaking of a work of consummate art one does not 
 try to show what it is, for that were vain ; but what 
 it is like, and what are the sensations produced in the 30 
 mind of him who views it. And in considering Pope's 
 admirable career, I am forced into similitudes drawn, 
 from other courage and greatness, and into comparing 
 
 ' ' Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson 
 (on the authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired these 36 
 lines so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered. 
 " And well it might, sir," said Johnson, " for they are noble 
 lines." ' J. BoswBLL, junior. [In a note to the last extract.] 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 169 
 
 him with those who achieved triumphs in actual war. 
 I think of the works of young Pope as I do of the actions 
 of young Bonaparte or young Nelson. In their common 
 life you will find frailties and meannesses, as great as 
 
 6 the vices and follies, of the meanest men. But in the 
 presence of the great occasion, the great soul flashes out, 
 and conquers transcendent. In thinking of the splendour 
 of Pope's young victories, of his merit, unequalled as 
 his renown, I hail and salute the achieving genius, and 
 
 10 do homage to the pen of a Hero. 
 
LECTURE THE FIFTH 
 
 HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 
 
 I SUPPOSE as long as novels last and authors aim at 
 interesting their public, there must always be in the story 
 a virtuous and gallant hero, a wicked monster his oppo- s 
 site, and a pretty girl who finds a champion. Bravery 
 and virtue conquer beauty : and vice, after seeming 
 to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure 
 to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice over- 
 takes him and honest folks come by their own. There lo 
 never was perhaps a greatly popular story but this 
 simple plot was carried through it : mere satiric wit is 
 addressed to a class of readers and thinkers quite different 
 to those simple souls who laugh and weep over the novel. 
 I fancy very few ladies indeed, for instance, could be 15 
 brought to like Gulliver heartily, and (putting the 
 coarseness and difference of manners out of the question) 
 to relish the wonderful satire of Jonathan Wild. In that 
 strange apologue, the author takes for a hero the greatest 
 rascal, coward, traitor, tyrant, hypocrite, that his wit 20 
 and experience, both large in this matter, could enable 
 him to devise or depict ; he accompanies this villain 
 through all the actions of his life, with a grinning 
 deference and a wonderful mock respect : and doesn't 
 leave him, tiU he is dangling at the gallows, when the 25 
 satirist makes him a low bow and wishes the scoundrel 
 good day. 
 
 It was not by satire of this sort, or by scorn and 
 contempt, that Hogarth achieved his vast popularity 
 and acquired his reputation.^ His art is quite 30 
 
 ' Coleridge speaks of the ' beautiful female faces ' in Hogarth's 
 pictures, ' in whom,' he says, ' the satirist never extinguished 
 that love of beauty which belonged to him as a poet.' — The 
 Friend. [No. 16, Dec. 7, 1809.] 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDliSTG 171 
 
 simple,! he speaks popular parables to interest simple 
 hearts and to inspire them with pleasure or pity or 
 
 ^ ' I was pleased with tlie reply jf a gentleman, who, being 
 asked which book he esteemed most in his library, answered, 
 5 " Shakespeare " : being asked which he esteemed next best, 
 replied " Hogarth ". His graphic representations are indeed 
 books : they have the teeming, frtiitful, suggestive meaning of 
 words. Other pictures we look at — his prints we read. . . . 
 ' The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every 
 
 10 picture would alone unmdgarize every subject which he might 
 choose. . . . 
 
 ' I say not that all the ridiculous subjects of Hogarth have 
 necessarily something in them to make us like them ; some are 
 indifferent to us, some in their natures repulsive, and only made 
 
 15 interesting by the wonderful skill and truth to nature in the 
 painter ; but I contend that there is in most of them that 
 sprinkling of the better nature, which, like holy water, chases 
 away and disperses the contagion of the bad. They have this 
 in them besides, that they bring us acquainted with the every- 
 
 20 day human face, — they give us skill to detect those gradations of 
 sense and virtue (which escape the careless or fastidious observer) 
 in the countenances of the world about us ; and prevent that 
 disgust at common life, that iaedium quotidianarum formarum, 
 which an unrestricted passion for ideal forms and beauties is in 
 
 25 danger of producing. In this, as in many other things, they are 
 analogous to the best novels of Smollett or Fielding.' — Charles 
 Lamb. [On the Genius arid Character of Hogarth.] 
 
 ' It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly 
 unlike any other representations of the same kind of subjects — 
 
 30 that they form a class, and have a character, peculiar to them- 
 selves. It may be worth while to consider in what this general 
 distinction consists. 
 
 ' In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, historical 
 pictures ; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of 
 
 35 Tom Jones ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because 
 it contained a regular development of fable, manners, character, 
 and passion, the compositions of Hogarth, will, in like manner, 
 be found to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than 
 many which have of late arrogated that denomination to them- 
 
 40 selves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subjects his- 
 torically, we mean that his works represent the manners and 
 humours of mankind in action, and their characters by varied 
 expression. Everything in his pictures has life and motion in it. 
 Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but 
 
 46 every feature and muscle is put into full play ; the exact feeling 
 of the moment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, 
 and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvas for ever. 
 
172 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 warning and terror. Not one of his tales but is as easy 
 as Goody Two Shoes ; it is the moral of Tommy was a 
 naughty boy and the master flogged him, and Jacky was 
 a good boy and had plum-cake, which pervades the 
 whole works of the homely and famous English morahst. 5 
 And if the moral is written in rather too large letters 
 after the fable, we must remember how simple the 
 scholars and schoolmaster both were, and like neither 
 the less because they are so artless and honest. ' It was 
 a maxim of Dr. Harrison's,' Fielding says in Amelia, 10 
 speaking of the benevolent divine and philosopher 
 who represents the good principle in that novel — ' that 
 no man can descend below himself, in doing any act 
 which may contribute to protect an innocent person, 
 or to bring a rogue to the gaUows.' The moralists of that is 
 age had no compunction you see ; they had not begun 
 to be sceptical about the theory of punishment, and 
 thought that the hanging of a thief was a spectacle for 
 edification. Masters sent their apprentices, fathers 
 took their children, to see Jack Sheppard or Jonathan 20 
 Wild hanged, and it was as undoubting subscribers to 
 this moral law, that Fielding wrote and Hogarth painted. 
 Except in one instance, where in the mad-house scene 
 in the Make's Progress, the girl whom he has ruined 
 is represented as still tending and weeping over him 25 
 in his insanity, a glimpse of pity for his rogues never 
 seems to enter honest Hogarth's mind. There's not the 
 slightest doubt in the breast of the joUy Draco. 
 
 The expression is always taken en passant, in a state of progress 
 or change, and, as it were, at the salient point. . . . His figures 30 
 are not like the background on which they are painted : even the 
 pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their own. Again, 
 with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth's heads 
 have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the 
 extremes of character and expression, but he gives them with 35 
 perfect truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what distinguishes 
 his compositions from all others of the same kind, that they are 
 equally remote from caricature, and from mere still life. . . . His 
 faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we 
 believe in any single instance) go beyond it.' — Hazlitt. [The 40 
 Round Table, No. 9, On Hogarth's Marriage d, la Mode.] 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 173 
 
 The famous set of pictures called Marriage d la Mode, 
 and which are exhibited at Marlborough House [1853], 
 in London, contains the most important and highly 
 wrought of the Hogarth comedies. The care and method 
 
 s with which the moral grounds of these pictures are laid 
 is as remarkable as the wit and skill of the observing 
 and dexterous artist. He has to describe the negotiations 
 for a marriage pending between the daughter of a rich 
 citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squander- 
 
 10 field, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl. Pride and 
 pomposity appear in every accessory surrounding the 
 Earl. He sits in gold lace and velvet — as how should 
 such an Earl wear anything but velvet and gold lace ? 
 His coronet is everywhere : on his footstool, on which 
 
 15 reposes one gouty toe turned out ; on the sconces 
 and looking-glasses ; on the dogs ; on his lordship's 
 very crutches ; on his great chair of state and the great 
 baldaquin behind him ; under which he sits pointing 
 majestically to his pedigree, which shows that his race 
 
 20 is sprung from the loins of William the Conqueror, and 
 confronting the old Alderman from the City, who has 
 mounted his sword for the occasion, and wears his 
 Alderman's chain, and has brought a bag full of money, 
 mortgage deeds, and thousand-pound notes, for the 
 
 25 arrangement of the transaction pending between them. 
 Whilst the steward (a Methodist, therefore a hypocrite 
 and cheat, for Hogarth scorned a Papist and a Dissenter) 
 is negotiating between the old couple, their children sit 
 together, united but apart. My lord is admiring himself 
 
 30 in the glass, while his bride is twiddling her marriage 
 ring on her pocket-handkerchief ; and listening with 
 rueful countenance to Counsellor Silvertongue, who has 
 been drawing the settlements. The girl is pretty, but 
 the painter, with a curious watchfulness, has taken 
 
 35 care to give her a likeness to her father, as in the young 
 Viscount's face you see a resemblance to the Earl, his 
 noble sire. The sense of the coronet pervades the picture, 
 as it is supposed to do the mind of its wearer. The 
 pictures round the room are sly hints indicating the 
 
 40 situation of the parties about to marry. A martyr is led 
 
174 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 to the fire ; Andromeda is offered to sacrifice ; Judith 
 is going to slay Holof ernes. There is the ancestor of 
 the house (in the picture it is the Earl himself as a young 
 man), with a comet over his head, indicating that the 
 career of the family is to be brilliant and brief. In the 5 
 second picture, the old lord must be dead, for Madam 
 has now the Countess's coronet over her bed and toilet- 
 glass, and sits listening to that dangerous Counsellor 
 Silvertongue, whose portrait now actually hangs up in 
 her room, whilst the counsellor takes his ease on the lo 
 sofa by her side, evidently the familiar of the house, and 
 the confidant of the mistress. My lord takes his 
 pleasure elsewhere than at home, whither he returns 
 jaded and tipsy from the ' Rose ', to find his wife yawning 
 in her drawing-room, her whist-party over, and the is 
 daylight streaming in ; or he amuses himself with the 
 very worst company abroad, whilst his wife sits at home 
 listening to foreign singers, or wastes her money at 
 auctions, or, worse still, seeks amusement at masquerades. 
 The dismal end is known. My lord draws upon the 20 
 counsellor, who kills him, and is apprehended whilst 
 endeavouring to escape. My lady goes back perforce to 
 the Alderman in the City, and faints upon reading 
 Counsellor Silvertongue's dying speech at Tyburn, 
 where the counsellor has been executed for sending his 25 
 lordship out of the world. Moral : — ^Don't listen to 
 evil silver-tongued counsellors : don't marry a man for 
 his rank, or a woman for her money : don't frequent 
 foolish tractions and masquerade balls unknown to your 
 husband : don't have wicked companions abroad and so 
 neglect your wife, otherwise you wiU be run through 
 the body, and ruin will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. 
 The people are all naughty, and Bogey carries them aU ofE. 
 In the JRake's Progress, a loose life is ended by a similar 
 sad catastrophe. It is the spendthrift coming into pos- 35 
 session of the wealth of the paternal miser ; the prodigal 
 surrounded by fiatterers, and wasting his substance on 
 the very worst company ; the bailiffs, the gambling- 
 house, and Bedlam for an end. In the famous story of 
 Industry and Idleness, the moral is pointed in a manner 40 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 175 
 
 similarly clear. Fair-haired Frank Goodchild smiles 
 at his work, whilst naughty Tom Idle snores over his 
 loom. Frank reads the edifying ballads of Whittington 
 and the London 'Prentice ; whilst that reprobate Tom 
 
 5 Idle prefers Moll Flanders, and drinks hugely of beer. 
 Frank goes to church of a Sunday, and warbles hymns 
 from the gaUery ; while Tom lies on a tombstone outside 
 playing at halfpenny-under-the-hat, with street black- 
 guards, and is deservedly caned by the beadle ; Frank is 
 
 10 made overseer of the business, whilst Tom is sent to 
 sea. Frank is taken into partnership and marries his 
 master's daughter, sends out broken victuals to the 
 poor, and hstens in his night-cap and gown with the 
 lovely Mrs. Goodchild by his side, to the nuptial music 
 
 15 of the City bands and the marrow-bones and cleavers ; 
 whilst idle Tom, returned from sea, shudders in a garret 
 lest the officers are coming to take him for picking 
 pockets. The Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., 
 becomes Sheriff of London, and partakes of the most 
 
 20 splendid dinners which money can purchase or Alderman 
 devour ; whilst poor Tom is taken up ia a night-cellar, 
 with that one-eyed and disreputable accomplice who 
 first taught him to play chuck-farthing on a Sunday. 
 What happens next ? Tom is brought up before the 
 
 25 justice of his country, in the person of Mr. Alderman 
 Goodchild, who weeps as he recognizes his old brother 
 'prentice, as Tom's one-eyed friend peaches on him, and 
 the clerk makes out the poor rogjie's ticket for Newgate. 
 Then the end comes. Tom goes to Tyburn in a cart with 
 
 30 a coffin in it ; whilst the Right Honourable Francis 
 Goodchild, Lord Mayor of London, proceeds to his 
 Mansion House, in his gilt coach with four footmen and 
 a sword-bearer ; whilst the Companies of London 
 march in the august procession ; whilst the trainbands 
 
 35 of the City fire their pieces and get drunk in his honour ; 
 and, oh crowning delight and glory of aU. ! whilst his 
 Majesty the King looks out from his royal balcony, with 
 his ribbon on his breast, and his Queen and his star by 
 his side, at the corner house of St. Paul's Churchyard, 
 
 40 where the toy-shop is now. 
 
176 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 How the times have changed ! The new Post Office 
 now not disadvantageously occupies that spot where the 
 scafiolding is in the picture, where the tipsy trainband- 
 man is lurching against the post, with his wig over one 
 eye, and the 'prentice-boy is trying to kiss the pretty s 
 girl in the gaUery. Passed away 'prentice boy and pretty 
 girl ! Passed away tipsy trainband-man with wig and 
 bandolier ! On the spot where Tom Idle (for whom I 
 have an unaffected pity) made his exit from this wicked 
 world, and where you see the hangman smoking his pipe lo 
 as he reclines on the gibbet and views the hiUs of Harrow 
 or Hampstead beyond — a splendid marble arch, a vast and 
 modern city — clean, airy, painted drab, populous with 
 nursery-maids and children, the abode of wealth and com- 
 fort — ^the elegant, the prosperous, the polite Tybumiais 
 rises, the most respectable district in the habitable globe! 
 
 In that last plate of the London Apprentices, in which 
 the apotheosis of the Right Honourable Francis Goodchild 
 is drawn, a ragged feUow is represented in the comer of 
 the simple kindly piece, offering for sale a broadside, 20 
 purporting to contain an account of the appearance of 
 the ghost of Tom Idle, executed at Tyburn. Could Tom's 
 ghost have made its appearance in 1847, and not in 
 1747, what changes would have been remarked by that 
 astonished escaped criminal ! Over that road which 25 
 the hangman used to travel constantly, and the Oxford 
 stage twice a week, go ten thousand carriages every day : 
 over yonder road, by wtdch Dick Turpin fled to Windsor, 
 and Squire Western journeyed into town, when he came 
 to take up his quarters at the ' Hercules PUlars ' on the 30 
 outskirts of London, what a rush of civilization and order 
 flows now ! What armies of gentlemen with umbrellas 
 march to banks, and chambers, and counting-houses ! 
 What regiments of nursery-maids and pretty infantry ; 
 what peaceful processions of policemen, what light 35 
 broughams and what gay carriages, what swarms of 
 busy apprentices and artificers, riding on omnibus-roofs, 
 pass daily and hourly ! Tom Idle's times are quite 
 changed : many of the institutions gone into disuse 
 which were admired in his day. There's more pity and 40 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 177 
 
 kindness and a better chance for poor Tom's successors 
 now than at that simpler period when Fielding hanged 
 him and Hogarth drew him. 
 
 To the student of history, these admirable works must 
 5 be invaluable, as they give us the most complete and 
 truthful picture of the manners, and even the thoughts, 
 of the past century. We look, and see pass before us 
 the England of a hundred years ago — ^the peer in his 
 drawing-room, the lady of fashion in her apartment, 
 
 10 foreign singers surrounding her, and the chamber fiUed 
 with gewgaws in the mode of that day ; the church, 
 with its quaint florid architecture and singing congrega- 
 tion ; the parson with his great wig, and the beadle 
 with his cane : all these are represented before us, and 
 
 IS we are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how the 
 Lord Mayor dines in state ; how the prodigal drinks 
 and sports at the bagnio ; how the poor girl beats 
 hemp in Bridewell ; how the thief divides his booty and 
 drinks his punch at the night-cellar, and how he finishes 
 
 20 his career at the gibbet. We may depend upon the 
 perfect accuracy of these strange and varied portraits of 
 the bygone generation : we see one of Walpole's Members 
 of Parliament chaired after his election, and the lieges 
 celebrating the event, and drinking confusion to the 
 
 25 Pretender : we see the grenadiers and trainbands of 
 the City marching out to meet the enemy ; and have 
 before us, with sword and firelock, and white Hanoverian 
 horse embroidered on the cap, the very figures of the 
 men who ran away with Johnny Cope, and who con- 
 so quered at CuUoden. The Yorkshire wagon rolls into the 
 inn-yard ; the country parson, in his jack-boots, and 
 his bands and short cassock, comes trotting into town, 
 and we fancy it is Parson Adams, with his sermons in 
 his pocket. The Sahsbury Fly sets forth from the old 
 
 35 ' Angel ' — ^you see the passengers entering the great 
 heavy vehicle, up the wooden steps, their hats tied down 
 with handkerchiefs over their faces, and under their 
 arms, sword, hanger, and case-bottle ; the landlady — 
 apoplectic with the liquors in her own bar — is tuggiug 
 
 40 at the bell ; the hunchbacked postihon — ^he may have 
 
 1366 17 
 
178 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 ridden the leaders to Humphry CUnker — ^is begging 
 a gratuity ; the miser is grumbling at the biU ; Jack 
 of the Centurion lies on the top of the clumsy vehicle, 
 with a soldier by his side — ^it may be Smollett's Jack 
 Hatchway — ^it has a likeness to Lismahago. You see 5 
 the suburban fair and the strolling company of actors ; 
 the pretty milkmaid singing under the windows of the 
 enraged French musician — ^it is such a girl as Steele 
 charmingly described in the Guardian, a few years 
 before this date, singing under Mr. Ironside's window in 10 
 Shire Lane, her pleasant carol of a May morning. You 
 see noblemen and blacklegs bawhng and betting in the 
 Cockpit ; you see Garrick as he was arrayed in King 
 Richard ; Macheath and PoUy in the dresses which they 
 wore when they charmed our ancestors, and when 15 
 noblemen in blue ribbons sat on the stage and listened 
 to their delightful music. You see the ragged French 
 soldiery, in their white coats and cockades, at Calais 
 Gate — ^they are of the regiment, very likely, which friend 
 Roderick Random joined before he was rescued by his 20 
 preserver Monsieur de Strap, and with whom he fought 
 on the famous day of Dettingen. You see the judges 
 on the bench ; the audience laughing in the pit ; the 
 student in the Oxford theatre ; the citizen on his country 
 walk ; you see Broughton the boxer, Sarah Malcolm the 25 
 murderess, Simon Lovat the traitor, John Wilkes the 
 demagogue, leering at you with that squint which has 
 become historical, and that face which, ugly as it was, 
 he said he could make as captivating to woman as 
 the countenance of the handsomest beau in town. All 30 
 these sights and people are with you. After looking 
 in the Rake's Progress at Hogarth's picture of St. 
 James's Palace-gate, you may people the street, but 
 little altered within these hundred years, with the 
 gilded carriages and thronging chairmen that bore the 35 
 courtiers your ancestors to Queen Caroline's Drawing- 
 room more than a hundred years ago. 
 What manner of man^ was he who executed these 
 
 ' Hogarth (whose family name was Hogart) was the grandson 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 179 
 
 portraits — so various, so faithful, and so admirable ? In 
 the London National Gallery most of us have seen the 
 
 of a Westmoreland yeoman. His father came to London, and 
 was an author and schoolmaster. William was born in 1697 
 5 (according to the most probable oonjeoture) in the parish of 
 St. Martin, Ludgate. He was early apprenticed to an engraver 
 of arms on plate. The following touches are from his Anecdotes 
 of himself (edition of 1833). 
 
 ' As 1 had naturally a good eye, and a fondness for drawing, 
 
 10 shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant ; 
 and mimicry, common to all children, was remarkable in me. An 
 early access to a neighbouring painter drew my attention from 
 play ; and I was, at every possible opportunity, employed in 
 making drawings. I picked up an acquaintance of the same 
 
 15 turn, and soon learnt to draw the alphabet with great correctness. 
 My exercises, when at school, were more remarkable for the 
 ornaments which adorned them, than for the exercise itself. In 
 the former, I soon found that blockheads with better memories 
 could much surpass me ; but for the latter I was particularly 
 
 20 distinguished. . . . 
 
 ' I thought it still more unlikely that by pursuing the common 
 method, and copying M drawings, I could ever attain the 
 power of making new designs, which was my first and greatest 
 ambition. I therefore endeavoured to habituate myself to the 
 
 25 exercise of a sort of technical memory ; and by repeating in my 
 own mind the parts of which objects were composed, I could by 
 degrees combine and put them down with my pencil. Thus, 
 with all the drawbacks which resulted from the circumstances 
 I have mentioned, I had one material advantage over my com- 
 
 30 petitors, viz. the early habit I thus acquired of retaining in my 
 mind's eye, without coldly oop3dng it on the spot, whatever I 
 intended to imitate. . . . 
 
 ' The instant I became master of my own time, I determined 
 to qualify myself for engraving on copper. In this I readily 
 
 36 got emplo3naient ; and frontispieces to books, such as prints to 
 Hvdibras, in twelves, &c., soon brought me into the way. But 
 the tribe of booksellers remained as my father had left them . . . 
 which put me upon publishing on my own account. But here 
 again I had to encounter a monopoly of printsellers, equally 
 
 40 mean and destructive to the ingenious ; for the first plate I pub- 
 lished, called " The Taste of the Town ", in which the reigning 
 follies were lashed, had no sooner begun to take a run, than 
 I found copies of it in the print-shops, vending at half-price, 
 while the original prints were returned to me again ; and I was 
 
 46 thus obliged to sell the plate for whatever these pirates pleased 
 to give me, as there was no place of sale but at their shops. 
 Owing to this, and other circumstance^ by engraving, until 
 
 N2 
 
180 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 best and most carefully finished series of his comic 
 paintings, and the portrait of his own honest face, of 
 
 I was near tliirty, I could do little more than maintain myself ; 
 but even then, I was a punctual paymaster.' [Chap. I.] 
 
 ' I then married, and 5 
 
 [But William is going too fast here. He made ' a stolen union ' 
 on March 23, 1729, with Jane, daughter of Sir James Thornhill, 
 serjeant-painter. For some time Sir James kept his heart and 
 his purse-strings close, but ' soon after became both reconciled 
 and generous to the young couple '. — HogartVs Works, by 10 
 Nichols and Steevens, vol. i, p. 44.] 
 
 ' — commenced painter of small Conversation Pieces, from 
 twelve to fifteen inches high. This, having novelty, succeeded 
 for a few years.' . . . 
 
 [About this time Hogarth had summer lodgings at South Lam- 15 
 beth, and did all kinds of work, ' embellishing ' the ' Spring 
 Gardens ' at ' Vauxhall ' and the like. In 1731, he published 
 a satirical plate against Pope, founded on the well-known impu- 
 tation against Viim of his having satirized the Duke of Chandos 
 under the name of Timon, in his poem on Taste. The plate 20 
 represented a view of Burlington House, with Pope whitewashing 
 it, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos's coach. Pope made 
 no retort, and has never mentioned Hogarth.] 
 
 ' Before I had done anything of much consequence in this walk, 
 I entertained some hopes of succeeding in what the puffers in 25 
 books call The Great Style of History Painting ; so that without 
 having had a stroke of this grand business before, I quitted small 
 portraits and familiar conversations, and with a smile at my 
 own temerity, commenced history-painter, and on a great stair- 
 case at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, painted two Scripture 30 
 stories, the " Pool of Bethesda " and the " Good Samaritan ", 
 with figures seven feet high. . . . But as religion, the great pro- 
 moter of this style in other countries, rejected it in England, I was 
 unwilling to sink into a portrait manufacturer ; and still ambitious 
 of being singular, dropped all expectations of advantage from 35 
 that source, and returned to the pursuit of my former dealings 
 with the public at large. . . . 
 
 ' As to portrait-painting, the chief branch of the art by which 
 a painter can procure himself a tolerable livelihood, and the 
 only one by which a lover of money can get a fortune, a man of 40 
 very moderate talents may have great success in it, as the artifice 
 and address of a mercer is infinitely more useful than the abihties 
 of a painter. By the manner in which the present race of 
 professors in England conduct it, that also becomes still life.' 
 
 ' By this inundation of folly and fuss ' {he has been speaking of 45 
 the success of Vanloo, y^ho came over here in 1737), ' I must confess 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 181 
 
 which the bright blue eyes shine out from the canvas 
 and give you an idea of that keen and brave look with 
 
 I was much disgusted, and determined to try if by any means 
 I could stem the torrent, and, hy opposing, end it. I laughed at 
 
 5 the pretensions of these quacks in colouring, ridiculed their pro- 
 ductions as feeble and contemptible, and asserted that it required 
 neither taste nor talents to excel their most popular performances. 
 This interference excited much enmity, because, as my opponents 
 told me, my studies were in another way. You talk, added they, 
 
 10 with ineffable contempt of portrait-painting ; if it is so easy 
 a task, why do not you convince the world, by painting a portrait 
 yourself ? Provoked at this language, I, one day at the Academy 
 in St. Martin's Lane, put the following question : Supposing 
 any man, at this time, were to paint a portrait as well as Vandyke, 
 
 15 would it be seen or acknowledged, and could the artist enjoy the 
 benefit or acquire the reputation due to his performance ? 
 
 ' They asked me in reply. If I could paint one as well ? and 
 I frankly answered, I believed I could. . . . 
 
 ' Of the mighty talents said to be requisite for portrait-painting 
 
 20 I had not the most exalted opinion.' [Chap. II.] 
 
 Let us now hear him on the question of the Academy :■ — 
 ' To pester the three great estates of the empire, about twenty 
 or thirty students drawing after a man or a horse, appears, as it 
 must be acknowledged, foolish enough : but the real motive is, 
 
 25 that a few bustUng characters, who have access to people of rank, 
 think they can thus get a superiority over their brethren, be 
 appointed to places, and have salaries, as in France, for telling 
 a lad when an arm or a leg is too long or too short. . . . 
 
 ' Prance, ever aping the magnificence of other nations, has in 
 
 30 its turn assumed a foppish kind of splendour sufficient to dazzle 
 the eyes of the neighbouring states, and draw vast sums of money 
 from this country. . . . 
 
 ' To return to our Eoyal Academy : I am told that one of 
 their leading objects will be, sending young men abroad to study 
 
 35 the antique statues, &c. Such kind of studies may sometimes 
 improve an exalted genius, but they will not create it ; and what- 
 ever has been the cause, this same travelling to Italy has, in 
 several instances that I have seen, seduced the student from 
 nature, and led him to paint marble figures, in which he has 
 
 40 availed himseK of the great works of antiquity, as a coward does 
 when he puts on the armour of an Alexander ; for, with similar 
 pretensions and similar vanity, the painter supposes he shall be 
 adored as a second Raphael Urbino.' [Chap. III.] 
 We must now hear him on his ' Sigismunda ' : — 
 
 45 ' As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on " Sigis- 
 munda " was from a set of miscreants, with whom I am proud of 
 having been ever at war, I mean the expounders of the mysteries 
 
182 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 which William Hogarth regarded the world. No man 
 was ever less of a hero ; you see him before you, and can 
 fancy what he was — a jovial, honest, London citizen, 
 stout and sturdy ; a hearty, plain-spoken man,^ loving 
 
 of old pictures, I have been sometimes told they were beneath 5 
 my notice. This is true of them individually, but as they have 
 access to people of rank, who seem as happy in being cheated as 
 these merchants are in cheating them, they have a power of doing 
 much mischief to a modern artist. However mean the vendor 
 of poisons, the mineral is destructive : — ^to me its operation was 10 
 troublesome enough. Ill nature spread so fast, that now was the 
 time for every little dog in the profession to bark ! ' [Chap. V.] 
 
 Next comes a characteristic account of his controversy with 
 Wilkes and Churchill. 
 
 ' The stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some 15 
 timed thing, to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my 
 income. This drew forth my print of " The Times," a subject 
 which tended to the restoration of peace and unanimity, and put 
 the opposers of these humane objects in a light which gave 
 great offence to those who were trjdng to foment disaffection in 20 
 the minds of the populace. One of the most notorious among 
 them, till now rather my friend and flatterer, attacked me in 
 a North Briton in so infamous and malign a style, that he himself, 
 when pushed even by his best friends, was (friven to so poor an 
 excuse as to say he was drunk when he wrote it. . . . 25 
 
 ' This renowned patriot's portrait, drawn like as I could as to 
 features, and marked with some indications of his mind, fully 
 answered my purpose. The ridiculous was apparent to every 
 eye. A Brutus I A saviour of his country with such an aspect- 
 was so arrant a farce, that though it gave rise to much laughter 30 
 in the lookers-on, galled both him and his adherents to the 
 bone. . . . 
 
 ' Churchill, Wilkes's toad eater, put the North Briton into 
 verse, in an Epistle to Hogarth ; but as the abuse was precisely 
 the same, except a little poetical heightening, which goes for 35 
 nothing, it made no impression. . . . However, having an old 
 plate by me, with some parts ready, such as the background and 
 a dog, I began to consider how I could turn so much work laid 
 aside to some account, so patched up a print of Master Churchill 
 in the character of a Bear. The pleasure and pecuniary advan- 40 
 tage which I derived from these two engravings, together with 
 occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to as much health 
 as can be expected at my time of life.' [Chap. Y.} 
 
 ' ' It happened in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a noble- 
 man who was uncommonly ugly and deformed came to sit to him 45 
 for his picture. It was executed with a skill that did honour to 
 the artist's abilities ; but the likeness was rigidly observed, with- 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 183 
 
 his laugh, his friend, his glass, his roast-beef of Old 
 England, and having a proper bourgeois scorn for French 
 frogs, for mounseers, and wooden shoes in general, 
 for foreign fiddlers, foreign singers, and, above all, for 
 
 5 foreign painters, whom he held in the most amusing 
 contempt. It must have been great fun to hear him rage 
 against Correggio and the Caraoci ; to watch him thump 
 the table and snap his fingers, and say, ' Historical 
 painters be hanged ; here's the man that will paint 
 
 10 against any of them for a hundred pounds. Correggio's 
 " Sigismunda " ! Look at Bill Hogarth's " Sigismunda " ; 
 look at my altar-piece at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol ; 
 look at my " Paul before Felix ", and see whether I'm 
 not as good as the best of them.' ^ 
 
 15 out even the necessary attention to compliment or flattery. The 
 peer, disgusted at this counterpart of his dear self, never once 
 thought of paying for a reflector that would only insult him with 
 his deformities. Some time was suffered to elapse before the 
 artist applied for his money ; but afterwards many applications 
 
 20 were made by him (who had then no need of a banker) for pay- 
 ment, without success. The painter, however, at last hit upon 
 an expedient. ... It was couched in the following card : — 
 
 ' " Mr. Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord . Finding that 
 
 he does not mean to have the picture which was drawn for him, 
 
 25 is informed again of Mr. Hogarth's necessity for the money. If, 
 therefore, his lordship does not send for it in three days, it will 
 be disposed of, with the addition of a tail, and some other little 
 appendages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wild-beast man : Mr. Ho- 
 garth having given that gentleman a conditional promise of it for 
 
 30 an exhibition-picture, on his lordship's refusal." 
 
 ' This intimation had the desired effect.' — Worhs, by Nichols 
 and Steevens, vol. i, p. 24. 
 
 ^ ' Garrick himself, however, was not more ductile to flattery. 
 A word in favour of " Sigismunda " might have commanded 
 
 35 a proof -print or forced an original sketch out of our artist's 
 hands.' . . . 
 
 ' The following authenticated story of ova artist (furnished by 
 the late Mr. Belchier, F.R.S., a surgeon of eminence) will also 
 serve to show how much more easy it is to detect ill-placed or 
 
 40 hyperbolical adulation respecting others, than when applied to 
 ourselves. Hogarth, being at dinner with the great Cheselden 
 and some other company, was told that Mr. John Freke, surgeon 
 of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a few evenings before at Dick's 
 Coffee-house, had asserted that Greene was as eminent in compo- 
 
184 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Posterity has not quite confirmed honest Hogarth's 
 opinion about his talents for the sublime. Although 
 Swift could not see the difference between tweedle-dee 
 and tweedle-dum, posterity has not shared the Dean's 
 contempt for Handel ; the world has discovered a differ- 5 
 ence between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and given 
 a hearty applause and admiration to Hogarth, too, but 
 not exactly as a painter of scriptural subjects, or as a 
 rival of Correggio. It does not take away from one's 
 liking for the man, or from the moral of his story, or the lo 
 humour of it — ^from one's admiration for the prodigious 
 merit of his performances, to remember that he persisted 
 to the last in believing that the world was in a conspiracy 
 against him with respect to his talents as an historical 
 painter, and that a set of miscreants, as he called 15 
 them, were employed to run his genius down. They 
 say it was Listen's firm beUef, that he was a great and 
 neglected tragic actor ; they say that every one of us 
 beUeves in his heart, or would like to have others believe, 
 that he is something which he is not. One of the most 20 
 notorious of the ' miscreants ', Hogarth says, was Wilkes, 
 who assailed him in the North Briton; the other was 
 Churchill, who put the North Briton attack into heroic 
 verse, and pubHshed his Epistle to Hogarth. Hogarth 
 replied by that caricature of Wilkes, in which the patriot 25 
 still figures before us, with his Satanic grin and squint, 
 and by a caricature of Churchill, in which he is repre- 
 sented as a bear with a staff, on which, ' Lie the first ', 
 ' Lie the second ', ' Lie the tenth ', are engraved ia 
 unmistakable letters. There is very little mistake 30 
 about honest Hogarth's satire : it he has to paiat a man 
 with his throat cut, he draws him with his head almost 
 
 sition as Handel. " That fellow Preke," replied Hogartli, " is 
 always shooting his bolt absurdly, one way or another. Handel 
 is a giant in music ; Greene only a light Plorimel kind of a 35 
 composer." " Aye," says our artist's informant, " but at the 
 same time Mr. Freke declared you were as good a portrait-painter 
 as Vandyck." " There he was in the right," adds Hogarth, 
 " and so, by G — , I am, give me my time and let me choose my 
 subject." ' — Works, by Nichols and Steevens, vol. i, pp. 236, 237. 40 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 185 
 
 off ; and he tried to do the same for his enemies in 
 this little controversy. ' Having an old plate by me,' 
 says he, ' with some parts ready, such as the background, 
 and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn so much 
 5 work laid aside to some account, so patched up a print of 
 Master ChurchiU, in the character of a bear ; the pleasure 
 and pecuniary advantage which I derived from these 
 two engravings, together with occasionally riding on 
 horseback, restored me to as much health as can be 
 
 10 expected at my time of hfe.' 
 
 And so he concludes his queer little book of Anecdotes : 
 ' I have gone through the principal circumstances of 
 a life which tiU lately passed pretty much to my own 
 satisfaction, and I hope in no respect injurious to any 
 
 15 other man. This I can safely assert, I have invariably 
 endeavoured to make those about me tolerably happy, 
 and my greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an inten- 
 tional injury. . . . What may follow, God knows.' 
 A queer account still exists of a holiday jaunt taken 
 
 20 by Hogarth and four friends of his, who set out, like 
 the redoubted Mr. Pickwick and his companions, but 
 just a hundred years before those heroes ; and made 
 an excursion to Gravesend, Rochester, Sheemess, and 
 adjacent places .^ One of the gentlemen noted down 
 
 25 the proceedings of the journey, for which Hogarth 
 and a brother artist made drawings. The book is chiefly 
 curious at this moment from showing the citizen life 
 of those days, and the rough, jolly style of merriment, 
 not of the five companions merely, but of thousands of 
 
 sojoUy fellows of their time. Hogarth and his friends, 
 quitting the ' Bedford Arms ', Covent Garden, with a 
 song, took water to Billingsgate, exchanging compli- 
 ments with the bargemen as they went down the river. 
 At BiUingsgate, Hogarth made a ' caracatura ' of a 
 
 35 facetious porter, called the Duke of Puddledock, who 
 agreeably entertained the party with the humours of 
 
 * He made this excursion in 1732, his companions being John 
 Thornhill (son of Sir James), Scott the landscape-painter, Tothall, 
 and Forrest. 
 
186 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 the place. Hence they took a Gravesend boat for 
 themselves ; had straw to lie upon, and a tilt over their 
 heads, they say, and went down the river at night, 
 sleeping, and singing joUy choruses. 
 
 They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they washed 5 
 their faces and hands, and had their wigs powdered. 
 Then they saUied forth for Rochester on foot, and drank 
 by the way three pots of ale. At one o'clock they went 
 to dinner with excellent port, and a quantity more beer, 
 and afterwards Hogarth and Scott played at hopscotch lo 
 ia the town haU. It would appear that they slept 
 most of them in one room, and the chronicler of the party 
 describes them all as waking at seven o'clock, and teUing 
 each other their dreams. You have rough sketches by 
 Hogarth of the incidents of this hoHday excursion. 15 
 The sturdy little painter is seen sprawling over a plank 
 to a boat at Gravesend ; the whole company are 
 represented in one design, in a fisherman's room, where 
 they had all passed the night. One gentleman in a 
 nightcap is shaving himself ; another is being shaved by 20 
 the fisherman ; a third, with a handkerchief over his 
 bald pate, is taking his breakfast ; and Hogarth is 
 sketching the whole scene. They describe at night how 
 they returned to their quarters, drank to their friends, 
 as usual, emptied several cans of good flip, all singing 25 
 merrily. It is a joUy party of tradesmen engaged at 
 high- jinks. These were the manners and pleasures of 
 Hogarth, of his time very likely, of men not very refined, 
 but honest and merry. It is a brave London citizen, 
 with John Bull habits, prejudices, and pleasures.'- 30 
 
 ' ' Dr. Johnson made four lines once, on the death of poor 
 Hogarth, which were equally true and pleasing : I know not why 
 Garrick's were preferred to them : — 
 
 The hand of him here torpid lies, 
 
 That drew th' essential form of grace ; 35 
 
 Here, closed in death, th' attentive eyes, 
 
 That saw the mannas in the face. 
 
 ' Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me 
 when I was too young to have a proper sense of them, was used to 
 be very earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, and if 40 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 187 
 
 Of Smollett's associates and manner of life the 
 author of the admirable Humphry Clinker has given 
 us an interesting account, in that most amusing of 
 novels.^ 
 
 5 possible the friendship, of Dr. Johnson ; whose conversation 
 was, to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting compared 
 to Hudson's, he said : " but don't you tell people now that I say 
 so " (continued he) " for the connoisseurs and I are at war, you 
 know ; and because I hate them, they think I hate Titian — and 
 
 10 let them ! " ... Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and he were 
 talking together about him one day, " That man " (says Hogarth) 
 " is not contented with believing the Bible ; but he fairly resolves, 
 I think, to believe nothing hwt the Bible. Johnson " (added he), 
 " though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than King 
 
 15 Solomon, for he says in his haste, that All men are liars." ' — 
 Mrs. Piozzi. [Anecdotes, p. 135 (1786).] 
 
 Hogarth died on the 26th of October, 1764. The day before 
 his death, he was removed from his villa at Chiswiok to Leicester 
 Fields, ' in a very weak condition, yet remarkably cheerful.' 
 
 20 He had just received an agreeable letter from Franklin. He lies 
 buried at Chiswick. 
 
 ^ TO SIB WATKIN PHILLIPS, BAB.T., OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXON. 
 
 ' Dear Phillips, — In my last, I mentioned my having spent 
 an evening with a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous 
 
 25 and afraid of one another. My uncle was not at all surprised 
 to hear me say I was disappointed in their conversation. " A man 
 may be very entertaining and instructive upon paper," said he, 
 " and exceedingly dull in common discourse. I have observed, 
 that those who shine most in private company are but secondary 
 
 30 stars in the constellation of genius. A small stock of ideas is 
 more easily managed, and sooner displayed, than a great quantity 
 crowded together. There is very seldom anything extraordinary 
 in the appearance and address of a good writer ; whereas a dull 
 author generally distinguishes himself by some oddity or ex- 
 
 35 travagance. For this reason I fancy that an assembly of grubs 
 must be very diverting." 
 
 ' My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend 
 Dick Ivy, who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which 
 was Sunday last. He carried me to dine with S , whom you 
 
 40 and I have long known by his writings. He lives in the skirts of 
 the town ; and every Sunday his house is open to all unfortunate 
 brothers of the quill, whom he treats with beef, pudding, and 
 potatoes, port, punch, and Calvert's entire butt beer. He has 
 fixed upon the first day of the week for the exercise of his hos- 
 
 45 pitality, because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any 
 other, for reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received 
 
188 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 I have no doubt that the above * picture is as faithful 
 a one as any from the pencil of his kindred humourist, 
 Hogarth. 
 
 * [It appears that Thackeray read to his audience the letter 
 given in the note on p. 187. — Ed.] 5 
 
 in a plain, yet decent habitation, which opened backwards into 
 a very pleasant garden, kept in excellent order ; and, indeed, 
 I saw none of the outward signs of authorship either in the house 
 or the landlord, who is one of those few writers of the age 
 that stand upon their own foundation, without patronage, and lo 
 above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic in the 
 entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of 
 singularity. 
 
 ' At two in the afternoon, I found myself one of ten messmates 
 seated at table ; and I question if the whole kingdom could 15 
 produce such another assemblage of originals. Among their 
 peculiarities, I do not mention those of dress, which may be 
 purely accidental. What struck me were oddities originally 
 produced by affectation, and afterwards confirmed by habit. 
 One of them wore spectacles at dinner, and another his hat 20 
 flapped ; though (as Ivy told me) the first was noted for having 
 a seaman's eye, when a bailiff was in the wind ; and the other 
 was never known to labour under any weakness or defect of 
 vision, except about five years ago, when he was complimented 
 with a couple of black eyes by a player, with whom he had 25 
 quarrelled in his drink. A third wore a laced stocking, and 
 made use of crutches, because, once in his life, he had been laid 
 up with a broken leg, though no man could leap over a stick with 
 more agility. A fourth had contracted such an antipathy to the 
 country, that he insisted upon sitting with his back towards the 30 
 window that looked into the garden ; and when a dish of cauli- 
 flower was set upon the table, he snuffed up volatile salts to keep 
 him from fainting ; yet this delicate person was the son of a 
 cottager, born under a hedge, and had many years run wild among 
 asses on a common. A fifth affected distraction : when spoke to, 35 
 he always answered from the purpose. Sometimes he suddenly 
 started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath ; sometimes he burst 
 out a-laughing ; then he folded his arms, and sighed ; and then 
 he hissed like fifty serpents. 
 
 ' At first, I really thought he was mad ; and, as he sat near me, 40 
 began to be under some apprehensions for my own safety ; when 
 our landlord, perceiving me alarmed, assured me aloud that I had 
 nothing to fear. " The gentleman," said he, " is tr3ring to act 
 a part for which he is by no means qualified : if he had all the 
 inclination in the world, it is not in his power to be mad ; his 45 
 spirits are too flat to be kindled into phrenzy." " 'Tis no bad 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 189 
 
 We have before us, and painted by his own hand, Tobias 
 Smollett," the manly, kindly, honest, and irascible ; worn 
 
 p-p-pufE, how-o wever," observed a person in a tarnislied laced coat : 
 " aff-ffected m-madness w-will p-pass for w-wit w-with nine-nine- 
 
 6 teen out of t-twenty." " And affected stuttering for humour," 
 replied our landlord ; " thougli, God knows ! there is no affinity 
 betwixt them." It seems this wag, after having made some 
 abortive attempts in plain speaking, had recourse to this defect, 
 by means of which he frequently extorted the laugh of the com- 
 
 10 pany, without the least expense of genius ; and that imperfection, 
 which he had at first counterfeited, was now become so habitual, 
 -that he could not lay it aside. 
 
 ' A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, 
 had, on his first introduction, taken such ofience at S , 
 
 15 because he looked and talked, and ate and drank, like any other 
 man, that he spoke contemptuously of his understanding ever 
 after, and never would repeat his visit, until he had exhibited 
 the following proof of his caprice. Wat Wyvil, the poet, having 
 made some unsuccessful advances towards an intimacy with 
 
 20 S , at last gave him to understand, by a third person, that 
 
 he had written a poem in his praise, and a satire against his 
 person : that if he would admit him to his house, the first should 
 be immediately sent to the press ; but that it he persisted in 
 declining his friendship, he would publish the satire without 
 
 25 delay. S replied, that he looked upon Wyvil's panegyric as, 
 
 in effect, a species of infamy, and would resent it accordingly 
 with a good cudgel ; but if he published the satire, he might 
 deserve his compassion, and had nothing to fear from his revenge. 
 Wyvil having considered the alternative, resolved to mortBy 
 
 30 S by printing the paneg5?ric, for which he received a sound 
 
 drubbing. Then he swore the peace against the aggressor, who, 
 in order to avoid a prosecution at law, admitted him to his good 
 
 graces. It was the singularity in S 's conduct on this 
 
 occasion, that reconciled him to the yellow-gloved philosopher, 
 
 35 who owned he had some genius ; and from that period cultivated 
 his acquaintance. 
 
 ' Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my 
 fellow guests were employed, I applied to my communicative 
 friend Dick Ivy, who gave me to understand that most of them 
 
 40 were, or had been, understrappers, or journeymen, to more 
 creditable authors, for whom they translated, collated, and 
 compiled, in the business of bookmaking ; and that all of them 
 had, at different times, laboured in the service of our landlord, 
 though they had now set up f orthemselves in various departments 
 
 45 of literature. Not only their talents, but also their nations 
 and dialects, were so various, that our conversation resembled 
 the confusion of tongues at Babel. We had the Irish brogue, the 
 
190 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 and battered, but still brave and full of heart, after a 
 long struggle against a hard fortune. His brain had 
 
 Scotch accent, and foreign idiom, twanged off by the most dis- 
 cordant vociferation ; for as they all spoke together, no man 
 had any chance to be heard, unless he could bawl louder than 5 
 his fellows. It must be owned, however, there was nothing 
 pedantic in their discourse ; they carefully avoided all learned 
 disquisitions, and endeavoured to be facetious : nor did their 
 endeavours always miscarry ; some droll repartee passed, and 
 much laughter was excited ; and if any individual lost his temper 10 
 so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually 
 checked by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal 
 authority over this irritable tribe. 
 
 ' The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who 
 had been expelled the university for atheism, has made great 15 
 progress in a refutation of Lord Bolingbroke's metaphysical 
 works, which is said to be equally ingenious and orthodox : but 
 in the meantime, he has been presented to the grand jury as 
 a public nuisance for having blasphemed in an alehouse on the 
 Lord's Day. The Scotchman gives lectures on the.pronuncia- 20 
 tion of the English language, which he is now publishing by 
 subscription. 
 
 ' The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name 
 of My Lord Potatoe. He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of 
 a minister, hoping his zeal would be rewarded with some place 25 
 or pension ; but finding himself neglected in that quarter, he 
 whispered about that the pamphlet was written by the minister 
 himself, and he published an answer to his own production. In 
 this he addressed the author under the title of " your lordship ", 
 with such solemnity, that the public swallowed the deceit, and 30 
 bought up the whole impression. The wise politicians of the 
 metropolis declared they were both masterly performances, and 
 chuckled over the flimsy reveries of an ignorant garreteer, as 
 the profound speculations of a veteran statesman, acquainted 
 with all the secrets of the cabinet The imposture was detected 35 
 in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer retains no part of 
 his assumed importance but the bare title of " my lord ", and 
 the upper part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in Shoe Lane. 
 
 ' Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the 
 public with a humorous satire, entitled The Balance of the English 40 
 Poets ; a performance which evinced the great modesty and taste 
 of the author, and, in particular, his intimacy with the elegances 
 of the English language. The sage, who laboured under the 
 dypo0o^ia, or " horror of green fields ", had just finished a treatise 
 on practical agriculture, though, in fact, he had never seen corn 45 
 growing in his life, and was so ignorant of grain, that our 
 entertainer, in the face of the whole company, made him own 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 191 
 
 been busied with a hundred different schemes ; he had 
 been reviewer and historian, critic, medical writer, 
 poet, pamphleteer. He had fought endless literary- 
 battles ; and braved and wielded for years the cudgels 
 5 of controversy. It was a hard and savage fight in those 
 days, and a niggard pay. He was oppressed by illness, 
 
 that a plate of hominy was the best rioe-pudding he had ever 
 
 - eat. 
 
 ' The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe 
 
 10 and part of Asia, without ever budging beyond the liberties of 
 the King's Bench, except in term-time, with a tipstaff for his 
 companion : and as for little Tim Cropdale, the most facetious 
 member of the whole society, he had happily wound up the 
 catastrophe of a virgin tragedy, from the exhibition of which 
 
 15 he promised himself a large fund of profit and reputation. Tim 
 had made shift to live many years by writing novels, at the rate 
 of five pounds a volume ; but that branch of business is now 
 engrossed by female authors, who publish merely for the propa- 
 gation of vhtue, with so much ease, and spirit, and delicacy, and 
 
 20 knowledge of the human heart, and all in the serene tranquillity 
 of high life, that the reader is not only enchanted by their genius, 
 but reformed by their morality. 
 
 ' After dinner, we adjourned into the garden, where I observed 
 Mr. S give a short separate audience to every individual in 
 
 26 a small remote filbert-walk, from whence most of them dropped 
 off one after another, without further ceremony.' [Melford's 
 first letter of June 10th.] 
 
 Smollett's house was in Lawrence Street, Chelsea, and is now 
 destroyed. See [CuNNiNaHAM] Handbook of London, p. 115. 
 
 30 [Second ed.] 
 
 ' The person of Smollett was eminently handsome, his features 
 prepossessing, and, by the joint testimony of all his surviving 
 friends, his conversation in the highest degree instructive and 
 amusing. Of his disposition, those who have read his works (and 
 
 35 who has not done so ?) may form a very accurate estimate ; for 
 in each of them he has presented, and sometimes under various 
 points of view, the leading features of his own character without 
 disguising the most xmf avourable of them. . . . When unseduced 
 by his satirical propensities, he was kind, generous, and humane 
 
 40 to others ; bold, upright, and independent in his own character ; 
 stooped to no patron, sued for no favour, but honestly and 
 honourably maintained himself on his literary labours. . . . He 
 was a doating father, and an affectionate husband ; and the 
 warm zeal with which his memory was cherished by his surviving 
 
 45 friends showed clearly the reliance which they placed upon his 
 regard.'— SiK Walter Scott. [Life of Smollett, p. 188 (1827).] 
 
192 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 age, narrow fortune ; but his spirit was still resolute, 
 and his courage steady ; the battle over, he could do 
 justice to the enemy with whom he had been so fiercely 
 engaged, and give a not unfriendly grasp to the hand 
 that had mauled him. He is like one of those Scotch s 
 cadets, of whom history gives us so many examples, 
 and whom, with a national fidehty, the great Scotch 
 noveUst has painted so charmingly ; of gentle birth ^ 
 
 * Smollett of Bonhill, in Dumbartonshire. Arms, az. ' a bend, 
 or, between a lion rampant, ppr., holding in his paw a banner, lo 
 arg. and a bugle-horn, also ppr. Crest, an oak-tree ppr. Motto, 
 Viresco.' 
 
 Smollett's father, Archibald, was the fourth son of Sir James 
 Smollett of Bonhill, a Scotch judge and Member of Parliament, 
 and one of the commissioners for framing the Union with Eng- 15 
 land. Archibald married, without the old gentleman's consent, 
 and died early, leaving his children dependent on their grand- 
 father. Tobias, the second son, was born in 1721, in the old house 
 of Dalquhurn in the valley of Leven ; and all his life loved and 
 admired that valley and Loch Lomond beyond all the valleys 20 
 and lakes in Europe. He learned the ' rudiments ' at Dumbarton 
 Grammar-school, and studied at Glasgow. 
 
 But when he was only eighteen, !his grandfather died, and left 
 him without provision (figuring as the old judge in Roderick 
 Random in consequence, according to Sir Walter). Tobias, 35 
 armed with The Regicide., a tragedy — a provision precisely similar 
 to that with which Dr. Johnson had started, just before — came 
 up to London. The Regicide came to no good, though at first 
 patronized by Lord Lyttelton (' one of those little fellows who 
 are sometimes called great men,' Smollett says) ; and Smollett 30 
 embarked as ' surgeon's mate ' on board a line-of -battle ship, 
 and served in the Oarthagena expedition, in 1741. He left the 
 service in the West Indies, and, after residing some time in 
 Jamaica, returned to England in 1744. 
 
 He was now unsuccessful as a physician, to begin with ; pub- 35 
 lished the satires, Advice and Reproof — without any luck ; and 
 (1747) married the ' beautiful and accomplished Miss Lascelles'. 
 
 In 1748 he brought out his Roderick Random, which at once 
 made a ' hit '. The subsequent events of his life may be pre- 
 sented, chronologically, in a bird's-eye view : — 40 
 
 1750. Made a tour to Paris, where he chiefly wrote Peregrine 
 Pickle. 
 
 1751. Published Peregrine Piclde. 
 
 1753. Published AdvenMres of Ferdinand Count Fathom. 
 
 1755. Published version of Don Quixote. 45 
 
 1756. Began The Critical Review. 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 193 
 
 and narrow means, going out from his northern 
 home to win his fortune in the world, and to fight his 
 way, armed with courage, hunger, and keen wits. His 
 crest is a shattered oak-tree, with green leaves yet 
 5 springing from it. On his ancient coat-of-arms there is 
 a lion and a horn ; this shield of his was battered and 
 dinted in a hundred fights and brawls,^ through which 
 
 1757. Publislied his History of England. 
 1763-1766. Travelling in France and Italy; publislied his 
 10 Travels. 
 
 1769. Published Adventures of an Atom. 
 
 1770. Set out for Italy ; died at Leghorn 17th of Sept., 1771, in 
 the fifty -first year of his age. 
 
 ' A good specimen of the old ' slashing ' style of writing is pre- 
 
 15 sented by the paragraph on Admiral Knowles, which subjected 
 
 Smollett to prosecution and imprisonment. The admiral's 
 
 defence on the occasion of the failure of the Eochfort expedition 
 
 came to be examined before the tribunal of the Critical Review. 
 
 ' He is,' said our author, ' an admiral without conduct, an 
 
 20 engineer without knowledge, an officer without resolution, and 
 
 a man without veracity ! ' 
 
 Three months' imprisonment in the King's Bench avenged this 
 stinging paragraph. [Scott's Life, p. 163.] 
 
 But the Critical was to Smollett a perpetual fountain of ' hot 
 25 water '. Among less important controversies may be mentioned 
 that with Grainger, the translator of Tibullus. Grainger rephed 
 in a pamphlet ; and in the next number of the Review we find 
 him threatened with ' oastigation ', as an ' owl that has broken 
 from his mew ' ! 
 30 In Dr. Moore's biography of him is a pleasant anecdote. After 
 publishing the Don Quixote, he returned to Scotland to pay a visit 
 to his mother : — 
 
 ' On Smollett's arrival, he was introduced to his mother with 
 the connivance of Mrs. Telfer [her daughter], as a gentleman 
 36 from the West Indies, who was intimately acquainted with her 
 son. The better to support his assumed character, he endea- 
 voured to preserve a serious countenance, approaching to a frown ; 
 but while his mother's eyes were riveted on his countenance, he 
 could not refrain from smiling : she immediately sprung from 
 40 her chair, and throwing her arms around his neck, exclaimed, 
 " Ah, my son ! my son ! I have found you at last ! " 
 
 ' She afterwards told him, that if he had kept his austere look 
 and continued to gloom, he might have escaped detection some 
 time longer, but " your old roguish smile ", added she, " betrayed 
 45 you at once." ' [Soott's Life, p. 161.] 
 
 ' Shortly after the publication of The Adventures of an Atom, 
 
 1356 
 
194 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 the stout Scotchman bore it courageously. You see. 
 somehow that he is a gentleman, through aU his battling 
 and struggling, his poverty, his hard-fought successes, 
 and his defeats. His novels are recollections of his own 
 adventures ; his characters drawn, as I should think, 5 
 from personages with whom be became acquainted 
 in his own career of life. Strange companions he 
 must have had ; queer acquaiutances he made in the 
 Glasgow College — in the country apothecary's shop ; 
 in the gun-room of the man-of-war where he served as lo 
 surgeon, and in the hard life on shore, where the sturdy 
 adventurer struggled for fortune. He did not invent 
 much, as I fancy, but had the keenest perceptive faculty, 
 and described what he saw with wonderful relish and 
 deUghtful broad humour. I think Uncle Bowling, in is 
 Roderick Random, is as good a character as Squire 
 Western himself ; and Mr. Morgan, the Welsh apothe- 
 cary, is as pleasant as Dr. Gains. What man who has 
 made his inestimable acquaintance — what novel-reader 
 who loves Don Quixote and Major Dalgetty — ^will refuse ao 
 his most cordial acknowledgements to the admirable 
 Lieutenant Lismahago ? The novel of Humphry Clinher 
 is, I do think, the most laughable story that has ever 
 been written since the goodly art of novel- writing began. 
 Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble must keep 25 
 Englishmen on the grin for ages yet to come ; and in 
 their letters and the story of their loves there is a 
 
 disease again assailed Smollett with redoubled violence. Attempts 
 being vainly made to obtain for bim the office of Consul in some 
 port of the Mediterranean, he was compelled to seek a warmer 30 
 climate, without better means of provision than his own precarious 
 finances could afford. The kindness of his distinguished friend 
 and countryman, Dr. Armstrong (then abroad), procured for 
 Dr. and Mrs. Smollett a house at Monte Nero, a village situated 
 on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea, in the neighbour- 35 
 hood of Leghorn, a romantic and salutary abode, where he 
 prepared for the press, the last, and like music " sweetest 
 in the close ", the most pleasing of his compositions. The 
 Expedition of Humphry Clinker. This delightful work was 
 published in 1771.'— Sie Walter Scott. [Life of Smollett, 40 
 p. 180.] 
 
HOGAETH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 195 
 
 perpetual fount of sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible 
 as Bladud's well. 
 
 Fielding, too, has described, though with a greater 
 hand, the characters and scenes which he knew and saw. 
 6 He had more than ordinary opportunities for becoming 
 acquainted with life. His family and education first — 
 his fortunes and misfortunes afterwards, brought him 
 into the society of every rank and condition of man. 
 He is himself the hero of his books : he is wild Tom 
 10 Jones, he is wild Captain Booth, less wild, I am glad to 
 think, than his predecessor, at least heartily conscious 
 of demerit, and anxious to amend. 
 
 When Fielding first came upon the town in 1727, the 
 recollection of the great wits was still fresh in the coffee- 
 is houses and assemblies, and the judges there declared that 
 young Harry Fielding had more spirits and wit than 
 Congreve or anjr of his brilliant successors. His figure 
 was tall and stalwart ; his face handsome, manly, and 
 noble-looking ; to the very last days of his Ufe he 
 20 retained a grandeur of air, and, although worn down by 
 disease, his aspect and presence imposed respect upon 
 the people round about him. A dispute took place 
 between Mr. Fielding and the captain ^ of the ship in 
 which he was making his last voyage, and Fielding 
 25 relates how the man finally went down on his knees and 
 begged his passenger's pardon. He was living up to the 
 last days of his Ufe, and his spirit never gave in. His 
 vital power must have been immensely strong. Lady 
 
 '- The dispute with the captain arose from the wish of that 
 30 functionary to intrude on his right to his cabin, for which he had 
 paid thirty pounds. After recounting the circumstances of the 
 apology, he characteristically adds : — 
 
 ' And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of 
 my own praises, I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. 
 35 Neither did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of 
 my Christianity exact this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave 
 him from a motive which would make men much more forgiving, 
 if they were much wiser than they are ; because it was convenient 
 for me so to do.' [Voyage to Lisbon. Vol. viii, p. 472 (1771).] 
 
 O 2 
 
196 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Mary Wortley Montagu ^ prettily characterizes Fielding 
 and this capacity for happiness which he possessed, in 
 a little notice of his death, when she compares him to 
 Steele, who was as improvident and as happy as he was, 
 and says that both should have gone on living for ever. 5 
 One' can fancy the eagerness and gusto with which a 
 man of Fielding's frame, with his vast health and robust 
 appetite, his ardent spirits, his joyful humour, and his 
 keen and hearty relish for life, must have seized and 
 drunk that cup of pleasure which the town offered to 10 
 him. Can any of my hearers remember the youthful 
 feats of a college breakfast — the meats devoured and 
 the cups quaffed in that Homeric feast ? I can call 
 to mind some of the heroes of those youthful banquets, 
 and fancy young Fielding from Leyden rushing upon is 
 the feast, with his great laugh and immense healthy 
 young appetite, eager and vigorous to enjoy. The young 
 man's wit and manners made him friends everywhere : 
 he lived with the grand Man's society of those days ; 
 
 ' Lady Mary was his second cousin — their respective grand- 20 
 fathers being sons of George Feilding, Earl of Desmond, son of 
 William, Earl of Denbigh. 
 
 In a letter dated just a week before his death, she says : — 
 ' H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first 
 wife in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments 25 
 to his own figure excepted ; and I am persuaded, several of the 
 incidents he mentions are real matters of fact. I wonder he does 
 not perceive Tom Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry scoundrels. . . . 
 Fielding has really a fund of true humour, and was to be pitied 
 at his first entrance into the world, having no choice, as he said 30 
 himself, but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman. 
 His genius deserved a better fate ; but I cannot help blaming that 
 continued indiscretion, to give it the softest name, that has run 
 through his life, and I am afraid still remains. . . . Since I was 
 born no original has appeared excepting Congreve and Fielding, 35 
 who would, I believe, have approached nearer to his excellences, 
 if not forced by necessity to publish without correction, and 
 throw many productions into the world he would have thrown 
 into the fire, if meat could haije been got without money, or 
 money without scribbling. ... I am sorry not to see any more 40 
 of Peregrine Pickle's performances ; I wish you would tell me his 
 name.' — Letters and Worhs (Lord WharnclifEe's ed.), vol. iii, 
 pp. 92 sqq. [June 23, 1754.] 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 197 
 
 he was courted by peers and men of wealth and fashion. 
 As he had a paternal allowance from his father, General 
 Fielding, which, to use Henry's own phrase, any man 
 might pay who would ; as he liked good wine, good 
 s clothes, and good company, which are all expensive 
 articles to purchase, Harry Fielding began to run into 
 debt, and borrow money in that easy manner in which 
 Captain Booth borrows money in the novel : was in 
 nowise particular in accepting a few pieces from the 
 
 10 purses of his rich friends, and bore down upon more than 
 one of them, as Walpole tells us only too truly, for a 
 dinner or a guinea. To supply himself with the latter, 
 he began to write theatrical pieces, having already, 
 no doubt, a considerable acquaintance amongst the 
 
 15 Oldfields and Bracegirdles behind the scenes. He 
 laughed at these pieces and scorned them. When the 
 audience upon one occasion began to hiss a scene which 
 he was too lazy to correct, and regarding which, when 
 Garrick remonstrated with him, he said that the public 
 
 20 was too stupid to find out the badness of his work ; — 
 when the audience began to hiss. Fielding said, with 
 characteristic coolness — ' They have found it out, have 
 they ? ' He did not prepare his novels in this way, and 
 with a very different care and interest laid the founda- 
 
 25 tions and built up the edifices of his future fame. Time 
 and shower have very little damaged those. The 
 fashion and ornaments are, perhaps, of the architecture 
 of that age ; but the buildings remain strong and lofty, 
 and of admirable proportions — masterpieces of genius 
 
 30 and monuments of workmanlike skiU. 
 
 I cannot offer or hope to make a hero of Harry 
 Fielding. Why hide his faults ? Why conceal his weak- 
 nesses in a cloud of periphrasis ? Why not show him, 
 like him as he is, not robed in a marble toga, and draped 
 
 35 and polished in a heroic attitude, but with inked ruffles, 
 and claret stains on his tarnished laced coat, and on his 
 manly face the marks of good fellowship, of iUness, 
 of kindness, of care, and wine. Stained as you see him, 
 and worn by care and dissipation, that man retains 
 
 40 some of the most precious and splendid human qualities 
 
198 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 and endowments. He has an admirable natural love of 
 truth, the keenest instinctive antipathy to hypocrisy, 
 the happiest satirical gift of laughing it to scorn. His 
 wit is wonderfully wise and detective ; it flashes upon 
 a rogue and lightens up a rascal like a policeman's 6 
 lantern. He is one of the manliest and kindliest of 
 human beings : in the niidst of aU his imperfections, he 
 respects female innocence and infantine tenderness, as 
 you would suppose such a great-hearted, courageous 
 soul would respect and care for them. He could not beio 
 so brave, generous, truth-teUing as he is, were he not ■ 
 infinitely merciful, pitiful and tender. He wiU give any 
 man his purse — ^he can't help kindness and profusion. 
 He may have low tastes, but not a mean mind : he 
 admires with all his heart good and virtuous men, stoops 15 
 to no flattery, bears no rancour, disdains all disloyal arts, 
 does his public duty uprightly, is fondly loved by his 
 family, and dies at his work.^ 
 
 If that theory be — and I have no doubt it is — the right 
 and safe one, that human nature is always pleased with 20 
 the spectacle of innocence rescued by fidelity, purity, 
 and courage ; I suppose that of the heroes of Fielding's 
 three novels, we should like honest Joseph Andrews the 
 best, and Captain Booth the second, and Tom Jones 
 the third .^ 25 
 
 Joseph Andrews, though he wears Lady Booby's cast- 
 ofi livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones 
 in his fustian suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. 
 He has, like those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, 
 a high courage, and a handsome face. The accounts 30 
 
 ' He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend, on Sunday morning, 
 June 30th, 1754 ; and began the Journal of a Voyage during the 
 passage. He died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October of 
 the same year. He lies buried there, in the English Protestant 
 churchyard, near the Estrella Church, with this inscription 35 
 over him : — 
 
 ' HBNKIOUS MELDING, 
 
 LUQET BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DATUM 
 
 EOVEBB NATUM.' 
 
 " Fielding himself is said by Dr. Warton to have preferred 40 
 Joseph Andrews to his other writings. 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 199 
 
 of Joseph's bravery and good qualities ; his voice, 
 too musical to halloo to the dogs ; his bravery in riding 
 races for the gentlemen of the county, and his constancy 
 in refusing bribes and temptation, have something 
 
 5 affecting in their naivete and freshness, and prepossess 
 one in favour of that handsome young hero. The rustic 
 bloom of Fanny, and the delightful simplicity of Parson 
 Adams, are described with a friendliness which wins the 
 reader of their story : we part with them with more 
 
 10 regret than from Booth and Jones. 
 
 Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel in ridicule 
 of Pamela, for which work one can understand the hearty 
 contempt and antipathy which such an athletic and 
 boisterous genius as Fielding's must have entertained. 
 
 15 He couldn't do otherwise than laugh at the puny 
 Cockney bookseller, pouring out endless volumes of 
 sentimental twaddle, and hold him up to scorn as a moll- 
 coddle and a milksop. His genius had been nursed on 
 sack-posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse had 
 
 20 sung the loudest in tavern choruses, had seen the day- 
 light streaming in over thousands of emptied bowls, and 
 reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of the watch- 
 man. Richardson's goddess was attended by old maids 
 and dowagers, and fed on muffins and bohea. ' Milksop ! ' 
 
 25 roars Harry Fielding, clattering at the timid shop- 
 shutters. ' Wretch ! Monster ! Mohock ! ' shrieks the 
 sentimental author of Pamela;'^ and all the ladies 
 of his court cackle out an affrighted chorus. Fielding 
 proposes to write a book in ridicule of the author, 
 
 30 whom he disHked and utterly scorned and laughed at ; 
 
 ' ' Richardson,' says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of 
 him, prefixed to his Correspondence, ' was exceedingly hurt at 
 this {Joseph Andrews), the more so as they had been upon good 
 terms, and he was very intimate with Fielding's two sisters. He 
 
 35 never appears cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps it was not in 
 human nature that he should), and he always speaks in his letters 
 with a great deal of asperity of Tom Jones, more indeed than was 
 quite graceful in a rival author. No doubt he himself thought 
 his indignation was solely excited by the loose morality of the 
 
 40 work and of its author, but he could tolerate Gibber.' [p. Ixxix 
 (1804).] 
 
200 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 but lie is himself of so generous, jovial, and kindly 
 a turn that he begins to Hke the characters which he 
 invents, can't help making them manly and pleasant 
 as well as ridiculous, and before he has done with them 
 all loves them heartily every one. ^ 
 
 Richardson's sickening antipathy for Harry Fielding 
 is quite as natural as the other's laughter and contempt 
 at the sentimentalist. I have not learned that these 
 likings and dislikings have ceased in the present day : 
 and every author must lay his account not only to lo 
 misrepresentation but to honest enmity among critics, 
 and to being hated and abused for good as well as for bad 
 reasons. Richardson disliked Fielding's works quite 
 honestly : Walpole quite honestly spoke of them as 
 vulgar and stupid. Their squeamish stomachs sickened is 
 at the rough fare and the rough guests assembled 
 at Fielding's jolly revel. Indeed the cloth might have 
 been cleaner ; and the dinner and the company were 
 scarce such as suited a dandy. The kind and wise 
 old Johnson would not sit down with him.^ But a 20 
 greater scholar than Johnson could afford to admire 
 that astonishing genius of Harry Fielding : and we all 
 know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, 
 and which remains a towering monument to the great 
 novelist's memory. ' Our immortal Fielding,' Gibbon 25 
 writes, ' was of the younger branch of the Earls of 
 Denbigh, who draw their origin from the Counts of 
 Hapsburgh. . . . The successors of Charles the Fifth may 
 disdain their brethren of England : but the romance of 
 Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, 30 
 will outUve the palace of the Escurial and the imperial 
 eagle of the house of Austria.' There can be no gain- 
 sajdng the sentence of this great judge. To have your 
 name mentioned by Gibbon is hke having it written 
 
 ' It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the 35 
 Doctor couldn't be expected to like Fielding's wild life (to say 
 nothing of the fact, that they were of opposite sides in politics), 
 Richardson was one of his earliest and kindest friends. Yet 
 Johnson too (as Boswell tells us) 'read ^meZio through without 
 stopping '. ilAfe, anno 1776.] 40 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 201 
 
 on the dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world 
 admire and bfehold it. 
 
 As a picture of manners, the novel of Tom Jones is 
 indeed exquisite : as a work of construction quite a 
 6 wonder : the by-play of wisdom ; the power of observa- 
 tion ; the multiplied feUcitous turns and thoughts ; the 
 varied character of the great Comic Epic ; keep the 
 reader in a perpetual admiration and curiosity .^ But 
 against Mr. Thomas Jones himself we have a right to 
 
 10 put in a protest, and quarrel with the esteem the author 
 evidently has for that character. Charles Lamb says 
 finely of Jones, that a single hearty laugh from him 
 ' clears the air ' — ^but then it is in a certain state of the 
 atmosphere. It might clear the air when such personages 
 
 IB as Blifil or Lady Bellaston poison it. But I fear very 
 much that (except until the very last scene of the 
 story), when Mr. Jones enters Sophia's drawing-room, 
 the pure air there is rather tainted with the yoimg gentle- 
 man's tobacco-pipe and punch. I can't say that I think 
 
 20 Mr. Jones a virtuous character ; I can't say but that 
 I think Fielding's evident liking and admiration for 
 Mr. Jones, shows that the great humourist's moral sense 
 was blunted by his hfe, and that here in Art and Ethics, 
 
 ' ' Manners change from generation to generation, and with 
 
 25 manners morals appear to change — actually change with some, 
 but appear to change with all but the abandoned. A young man 
 of the present day who should act as Tom Jones is supposed to 
 act at Upton, with Lady Bellaston, &o., would not be a Tom 
 Jones ; and a Tom Jones of the present day, without perhaps 
 
 30 being in the ground a better man, would have perished rather 
 than submit to be kept by a harridan of fortune. Therefore, this 
 novel is, and indeed pretends to be no exemplar of conduct. 
 But, notwithstanding all this, I do loathe the cant which can 
 recommend Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe as strictly moral, though 
 
 35 they poison the imagination of the young with continued doses 
 of tinct. lyttae, while Tom Jones is prohibited as loose. I do not 
 speak of young women ; but a young man whose heart or feelings 
 can be injured, or even his passions excited by aught in this novel, 
 is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sunshiny, 
 
 40 breezy spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted 
 with the close, hot, day-dreamy continuity of Eichardson.' — 
 Coleridge, Literary Bemains, vol. ii, p. 373. 
 
202 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 there is a great error. If it is right to have a hero 
 whoni we may admire, let us at least take care that he 
 is admirable : if, as is the plan of some authors (a plan 
 decidedly agaiast their interests, be it said), it is pro- 
 pounded that there exists ia life no such being, and 6 
 therefore that in novels, the picture of life, there should 
 appear no such character ; then Mr. Thomas Jones 
 becomes an admissible person, and we examine his 
 defects and good quaUties, as we do those of Parson 
 Thwackum, or Miss Seagrim. But a hero with a flawed lo 
 reputation ; a hero spungiag for a guinea ; a hero who 
 can't pay his landlady, and is obliged to let his honour 
 out to hire, is absurd, and his claim to heroic rank 
 untenable. I protest agaiast Mr. Thomas Jones holding 
 such rank at aU. I protest even agaiast his beiagis 
 considered a more than ordinary young fellow, ruddy- 
 cheeked, broad-shouldered, and fond of wine and pleasure. 
 He woujd not rob a church, but that is all ; and a pretty 
 long argument may be debated, as to which of these old 
 types, the spendthrift, the hypocrite, Jones and Blifil, 20 
 Charles and Joseph Surface, — is the worst member of 
 society and the most deserving of censure. The prodigal 
 Captain Booth is a better man than his predecessor 
 Mr. Jones, in so far as he thinks much more humbly of 
 himself than Jones did : goes down on his knees, and owns 25 
 his weaknesses, and cries out, ' Not for my sake, but for 
 the sake of my pure and sweet and beautiful wife Amelia, 
 I pray you, critical reader, to forgive me.' That stern 
 moralist regards him from the bench (the judge's 
 practice out of court is not here the question), and says, ^o 
 ' Captain Booth, it is perfectly true that your life has 
 been disreputable, and that on many occasions you 
 have shown yourself to be no better than a scamp — ^you 
 have been tippling at the tavern, when the kindest and 
 sweetest lady in the world has cooked your little supper of 35 
 boiled mutton and awaited you aU the night ; you have 
 spoilt the little dish of boiled mutton thereby, and caused 
 pangs and pains to Amelia's tender heart.^ You have 
 
 ' ' Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 203 
 
 got into debt without the means of paying it. You 
 have gambled the money with which you ought to have 
 paid your rent. You have spent in drink or in worse 
 amusements the sums which your poor wife has raised 
 
 5 upon her little home treasures, her, own ornaments, 
 and the toys of her children. But, you rascal ! you 
 own humbly that you are no better than you should 
 be ; you never for one moment pretend that you are 
 anything but a miserable weak-minded rogue. You 
 
 10 do in your heart adore that angelic woman, your wife, 
 and for her sake, sirrah, you shall have your discharge. 
 Lucky for you and for others like you, that in spite of 
 your failings and imperfections, pure hearts pity and 
 
 that beloved first wife, whose picture lie drew in his Amelia, 
 
 15 where, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to 
 employ, did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of 
 the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little 
 from the accident related in the novel^ — a frightful overturn, 
 which destroyed the gristle of her nose. He loved her passionately, 
 
 20 and she returned his affection. . . . 
 
 ' His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after 
 the death of this charming woman, he married her maid. And 
 yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may 
 sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent 
 
 25 creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken- 
 hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which 
 approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along 
 with her ; nor solace when a degree calmer, but in talking to 
 her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his 
 
 30 habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began 
 to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or 
 secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At 
 least, this was what he told his friends ; and it is certain that her 
 conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good 
 
 35 opinion.' — Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 
 Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. Introductory Anecdotes, vol. i, 
 pp. 79 sqq. 
 
 Fielding's first wife was Miss Cradock, a young lady from 
 Salisbury, with a fortune of 1,500Z., whom he married in 1734. 
 
 40 About the same time he succeeded, himself, to an estate of 200^ 
 per annum, and on the joint amount he lived for some time as 
 a splendid country gentleman in Dorsetshire. Three years 
 brought him to the end of his fortune ; when he returned to 
 London, and became a student of law. 
 
204 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 love you. For your wife's sake you are permitted to 
 go hence without a remand ; and I beg you, by the way, 
 to carry to that angehcal lady the expression of the 
 cordial respect and admiration of this court.' Amelia 
 pleads for her husband WiU Booth : AmeUa pleads for s 
 her reckless kindly old father, Harry Fielding. To 
 have invented that character, is not only a triumph 
 of art, but it is a good action. They say it was in his 
 own home that Fielding knew her and loved her : and 
 from his own wife that he drew the most charming lo 
 character in English fiction — ^Fiction ! why fiction ? 
 why not history ? I know Amelia just as well as Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu. I beUeve in Colonel Bath 
 almost as much as in Colonel Gardiner or the Duke of 
 Cumberland. I admire the author of Amelia, and thank is 
 the kind master who introduced me to that sweet and 
 delightful companion and friend. Amelia perhaps is not 
 a better story than Tom Jones, but it has the better 
 ethics ; the prodigal repents at least, before forgiveness, 
 — ^whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. Jones carries 20 
 off his beauty with scarce an interval of remorse for his 
 manifold errors and shortcomings ; and is not half 
 punished enough before the great prize of fortune and 
 love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too 
 much of the plum-cake and rewards of Ufe fall to as 
 that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia 
 actually surrenders without a proper sense of decorum ; 
 the fond, foolish, palpitating Httle creature, — ' Indeed, 
 Mr. Jones,' she says, — ' it rests with you to appoint 
 the day.' I suppose Sophia is drawn from life as well 30 
 as Amelia; and many a young fellow, no better than 
 Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a coup de main the 
 heart of many a kind girl who was a great deal too good 
 for him. 
 
 What a wonderful art ! What an admirable gift of 35 
 nature, was it by which the author of these tales was 
 endowed, and which enabled him to fix our interest, to 
 waken our sympathy, to seize upon our credulity, so 
 that we believe in his people — speculate gravely upon 
 their faults or their excellences, prefer this one or that, 40 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 205 
 
 deplore Jones's fondness for drink and play, Booth's 
 fondness for play and drink, and the unfortunate position 
 of the wives of both gentlemen — ^love and admire those 
 ladies with all our hearts, and talk about them as faith- 
 
 5 fuUy as if we had breakfasted with them this morning in 
 their actual drawing-rooms, or should meet them this 
 afternoon in the Park ! What a genius ! what a vigour ! 
 what a bright-eyed intelligence and observation ! what 
 a wholesome hatred for meanness and knavery ! what 
 
 10 a vast sympathy ! what a cheerfulness ! what a manly 
 relish of life ! what a love of human kind ! what a poet 
 is here ! — watching, meditating, brooding, creating ! 
 What multitudes of truths has that man left behind 
 him : what generations he has taught to laugh wisely 
 
 15 and fairly : what scholars he has formed and accustomed 
 to the exercise of thoughtful humour and the manly play 
 of wit ! What a courage he had ! ^ What a dauntless 
 and constant cheerfulness of intellect, that burned 
 bright and steady through all the storms of his life, and 
 
 20 never deserted its last wreck ! It is wonderful to think 
 of the pains and misery which the man suffered ; the 
 pressure of want, iUness, remorse which he endured ; 
 
 ' In the Oendemari's Magazine for [August] 1786, an anecdote 
 is related of Harry Fielding, ' in whom,' says the correspondent, 
 
 25 ' good nature and philanthropy in their extreme degree were 
 known to be the prominent features.' It seems that ' some 
 parochial taxes ' for his house in Beaufort Buildings had long 
 been demanded by the collector. At last, Harry went off to 
 Tonson, and obtained by a process of literary mortgage the 
 
 30 needful sum. He was returning with it, when he met an old 
 college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He asked 
 the chum to dinner with him at a neighbouring tavern ; and 
 learning that he was in difficulties, emptied the contents of his 
 pocket into his. On returning home he was informed that the 
 
 35 collector had been twice for the money. " Friendship has called 
 for the money and had it," said Fielding ; " let the collector call 
 again." 
 
 It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl 
 of Denbigh, his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their 
 
 40 relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his 
 name ' Fielding ', and not ' Feilding ', like the head of the house ? 
 ' I cannot tell, my lord,' said he, ' except it be that my branch 
 of the family were the first that knew how to spell.' 
 
206 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 and that the writer was neither malignant nor melancholy, 
 his view of truth never warped, and his generous human 
 kindness never surrendered.^ 
 
 ' In 1748, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster 
 and Middlesex, an office then paid by fees, and very laborious, 6 
 without being particularly reputable. It may be seen from his 
 own words, in the Introduction to the Voyage, what kind of 
 work devolved upon him, and in what a state he was, during 
 these last years ; and still more clearly, how he comported himself 
 through all. 10 
 
 ' Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was 
 almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating 
 to five different murders, all committed within the space of 
 a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message 
 from his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the 15 
 Bang's messenger, to attend his Grace the next morning in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon some business of importance ; but 
 I excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides 
 being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had lately 
 undergone, added to my distemper. 20 
 
 ' His Grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next 
 morning, with another summons ; with which, though in the 
 utmost distress, I immediately complied ; but the Duke happen- 
 ing, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after 
 I had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me 25 
 on the best plan which could be invented for putting an immediate 
 end to those murders and robberies which were every day com- 
 mitted in the streets ; upon which I promised to transmit my 
 opinion in writing to iiis Grace, who, as the gentleman informed 
 me, intended to lay it before the Privy Council. 30 
 
 ' Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, 
 set myself down to work, and in about four days sent the Duke 
 as regular a plan as I could form, with all the reasons and 
 arguments I could bring to support it, drawn out in several 
 sheets of paper ; and soon received a message from the Duke 35 
 by Mr. Carrington, acquainting me that my plan was highly 
 approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with. 
 
 ' The principal and most material of those terms was the 
 immediately depositing 600Z. in my hands ; at which small 
 charge I undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to 40 
 put the civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should 
 ever be able for the future to form themselves into bodies, or at 
 least to remain any time formidable to the public. 
 
 ' I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the 
 repeated advice of my physical acquaintance, and the ardent 45 
 desire of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now 
 turned to a deep jaundice ; in which case the Bath waters 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 207 
 
 In the quarrel mentioned before, which happened on 
 Fielding's last voyage to Lisbon, and when the stout 
 captain of the ship fell down on his knees and asked the 
 sick man's pardon — ' I did not suffer,' Fielding says, in 
 
 5 his hearty, manly way, his eyes lighting up as it were 
 with their old fire — ' I did not suffer a brave man and 
 an old man to remain a moment ia this posture ; but I 
 immediately forgave him.' Indeed, I think, with his 
 noble spirit and unconquerable generosity. Fielding 
 
 10 reminds one of those brave men of whom one reads in 
 stories of English shipwrecks and disasters — of the officer 
 on the African shore, when disease has destroyed the crew, 
 and he himself is seized by fever, who throws the lead 
 with a death-stricken hand, takes the soundings, carries 
 
 15 the ship out of the river or off the dangerous coast, and 
 dies in the manly endeavour — of the wounded captain, 
 when the vessel founders, who never loses his heart, 
 who eyes the danger steadily, and has a cheery word for 
 all, imtU the inevitable fate overwhelms him, and the 
 
 20 gallant ship goes down. Such a brave and gentle heart, 
 such an intrepid and courageous spirit, I love to recognize 
 in the manly, the English Harry Fielding. 
 
 are generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the 
 most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and out- 
 
 25 throats. . . . 
 
 ' After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and 
 within a few days, after 200Z. of it had come to my hands, the 
 whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed. . . .' [Voyage 
 to Lisbon, pp. 369 sqq.] 
 
 30 Further on, he says — 
 
 ' I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the 
 winter had but a gloomy aspect ; for I had not plundered the 
 public or the poor of those sums which men, who are always 
 ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased 
 
 35 to suspect me of taking ; on the contrary, by composing, instead 
 of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush 
 when I say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing 
 to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not 
 have had another left, I had reduced an income of about 600/. 
 
 40 a year of the dirtiest money upon earth, to little more than 300/., 
 S, considerable portion of which remained with my clerk.' 
 
LECTURE THE SIXTH 
 STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 
 
 Roger Steknb, Sterne's father, was the second son 
 of a numerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, 
 Archbishop of York, in the reign of James II ; and s 
 children of Simon Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, 
 heiress of Elvington, near York.^ Roger was a lieutenant 
 in Handyside's regiment, and engaged in Flanders in 
 Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter of a 
 noted sutler — ' N.B., he was in debt to him,' his son lo 
 writes, pursuing the paternal biography — and marched 
 through the world with this companion following the 
 regiment and bringing many children to poor Roger 
 Sterne. The captain was an irascible but kind and 
 simple little man, Sterne .says, and informs us that his 15 
 sire was run through the body at Gibraltar, by a brother 
 officer, in a duel, which arose out of a dispute about 
 a goose. Roger never entirely recovered from the effects 
 of this rencontre, but died presently at Jamaica, whither 
 he had followed the drum. 20 
 
 Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in 
 Ireland, in 1713, and travelled for the first ten years of 
 his life, on his father's march, from barrack to transport, 
 from Ireland to England.^ One relative of his mother's 
 took her and her family under shelter for ten months at 25 
 MuUingar : another collateral descendant of the Arch- 
 
 ' He came of a Suffolk family^ — one of whom settled in Notting- 
 hamahire. The famous ' starling ' was actually the family crest. 
 
 ' ' It was in this parish ' (of Animo, in Wicklow), ' during our 
 stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill- 30 
 race, whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt ; 
 the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of 
 Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked to see 
 me.' — Sterne. [Autobiography.] 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 209 
 
 bishop's housed them for a year at his castle near 
 Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was put to school at 
 Halifax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman 
 of Elvington, and parted company with his father, the 
 s Captain, who marched on his path of life till he met 
 the fatal goose, which closed his career. The most 
 picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence Sterne's 
 writings, we owe to his recollections of the military life. 
 Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's sword, and dear 
 
 10 Uncle Toby's roquelaure, are doubtless reminiscences of 
 the boy, who had lived with the followers of William and 
 Marlborough, and had beat time with his little feet to 
 the fifes of Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played 
 with the torn flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the 
 
 ]o parade-ground at Clonmel. 
 
 Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was 
 eighteen years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have 
 acquired the respect of his master here : for when the 
 usher whipped Laurence for writing his name on the 
 
 20 newly whitewashed schoolroom ceiliig, the pedagogue 
 
 in chief rebuked the under-strapper, and said that the 
 
 name should never be effaced, for Sterne was a boy of 
 
 genius, and would come to preferment. 
 
 His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to 
 
 25 Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained five years, 
 and taking orders, got, through his uncle's interest, the 
 hving of Sutton and the prebendary of York. Through 
 his wife's connexions, he got the living of Stillington. 
 He married her in 1741 ; having ardently courted the 
 
 30 young lady for some years previously. It was not until 
 the young lady fancied herself dying, that she made 
 Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. 
 One evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost 
 broken heart to see her so ill (the Rev. Mr. Sterne's heart 
 
 35' was a good deal broken in the course of his life), she 
 said — ' My dear Laurey, I can never be yours, for I 
 verily believe I have not long to live, but I have left 
 you every shilling of my fortune,' a generosity which 
 overpowered Sterne : she recovered : and so they were 
 
 40 married, and grew heartily tired of each other before 
 
 1366 p 
 
210 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 many years were over. ' Nescio quid est materia cum 
 me,' Sterne writes to one of his friends (in dog-Latin, and 
 very sad dog-Latin too), ' sed sum fatigatus et aegrotus 
 de mea uxore plus quam unquam,' which means, I am 
 sorry to say, ' I don't know what is the matter with me : 5 
 but I am more tired and sick of my wife than ever.' ^ 
 
 This to be sure was five-and-twenty years after Laurey 
 had been overcome by her generosity and she by Laurey's 
 love. Then he wrote to her of the delights of marriage, 
 saying — ' We wiU be as merry and as innocent as our 10 
 first parents in Paradise, before the arch-fiend entered 
 that undescribable scene. The kindest affections will 
 have room to shoot and expand in our retirement . . . 
 let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance, 
 the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My is 
 L. has seen a polyanthus blow in December — some 
 friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting wind. — ^No 
 planetary influence shall reach us, but that which 
 presides and cherishes the sweetest flowers. . . . The 
 gloomy f amUy of care and distrust shall be banished 20 
 from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar 
 deity — we will sing our choral songs of gratitude and 
 rejoice to the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L. 
 Return to one who languishes for thy society ! ' . . . 
 ' As I take up my pen, my poor pulse quickens, my 25 
 pale face glows, and tears are trickling down upon the 
 paper as I trace the word L.' 
 
 And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no 
 fault, but that she bores him, that our philanthropist 
 writes, ' Sum fatigatus et aegrotus ' ; and then adds, 30 
 ' Sum mortaliter in amore ' with somebody else ! That 
 fine flower of love, that polyanthus over which Sterne 
 snivelled so many tears, could not last for a quarter of 
 
 ^ ' My wife returns to Toulouse, and purposes to pass the 
 summer at Bagnieres — I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, 35 
 the church in Yorkshire. We all live the longer, at least the 
 happier, for having things our own way. This is my conjugal 
 maxim. — ^I own 'tis not the hest of maxims, but I maintain 'tis 
 not the worst.' — Sterne's Letters, 20th January, 1764. [Letter 
 45.] 40 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 211 
 
 a century ! Or rather it could not be supposed that 
 a gentleman with such a fountain at command, should 
 keep it to arroser one homely old lady, when a score of 
 younger and prettier people might be refreshed from the 
 6 same gushing source.^ It was in December, 1767, that 
 the Rev. Laurence Sterne, the famous Shandean, the 
 charming Yoriok, the delight of the fashionable world, 
 the delicious divine, for whose sermons the whole polite 
 pubUc was subscribing,^ the occupier of Rabelais's easy 
 
 10 ' In a collection of Seven Letters by Sterne and His Friends, 
 (printed for private circulation), in 1844, is a letter of M. ToUot, 
 who was in Prance with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here is 
 a paragraph : — 
 
 ' Nous arrivames le lendemain k Montpellier, ou nous trou- 
 
 15 vames notre ami Mr. Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et 
 quelques autres Anglaises ; j'eus, je vous I'avoue, beauooup de 
 plaisir en revoyant le bon et agrSable Tristram. ... II avait ete 
 assez longtemps k Toulouse, ou il se serait amus6 sans sa femme, 
 qui le poursuivait partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces 
 
 20 dispositions dans cette bonne dame lui ont fait passer d' assez 
 mauvais momens ; il supporte tous oes desagr^mens avec une 
 patience d'ange.' 
 
 About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne 
 wrote to the same gentleman to whom ToUot had written ; and 
 
 26 from his letter we may extract a companion paragraph : — 
 
 ' ... All which being premised, I have been for eight weeks 
 smitten with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight under- 
 went. I wish, dear cousin, thou couldst conceive (perhaps thou 
 canst without my wishing it) how deliciously I canter'd away with 
 
 30 it the first month, two up, two down, always upon my hanches, 
 along the streets from my hotel to hers, at first once — then twice, 
 then three times a day, till at length I was within an ace of 
 setting up my hobby-horse in her stable for good and all. I might 
 as well, considering how the enemies of the Lord have blasphemed 
 
 35 thereupon. The last three weeks we were every hour upon the 
 doleful ditty of parting — and thou mayest conceive, dear cousin, 
 how it altered my gait and air — for I went aqd came like any 
 louden' d carl, and did nothing but mix tears and jouer des 
 sentimens with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the 
 
 40 same ; and now she is gone to the south of France ; and to 
 finish the comedie, I fell ill and broke a vessel in my lungs, and 
 half bled to death. Voila mon histoire I ' 
 
 Whether husband or wife had most of the patience d'ange may 
 be uncertain ; but there can be no doubt which needed it most ! 
 
 46 ' ' Tristram Shandy is still a greater object of admiration, 
 the man as well as the book ; one is invited to dinner, where he 
 
 P2 
 
212 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 chair, only fresh stuffed and more elegant than when in 
 possession of the cynical old curate of Meudon,^ — ^the 
 
 dines, a fortniglit beforehand.' [Gray's Letter to Dr. Wharton, 
 Apr. 22, 1760.] As to the volume yet published, ' there is much 
 good fun in it, and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed. 5 
 . . . Have you read his Sermons, with his own oomiok figure [from 
 a painting by Reynolds] at the head of them ? They are in the 
 style I think most proper for the pulpit, and show a very strong 
 imagination and a sensible heart ; but you see him often tottering 
 on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the 10 
 face of his audience.' [lb., June or July 1760.] 
 
 ' It having been observed that there was little hospitality in 
 London — Johnson : " Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or 
 who has the power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in 
 London. The man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engage- 15 
 ments for three months." Goldsmith : " And a very dull 
 fellow." Johnson : " Why, no, sir." ' — Boswell's Life of 
 Johnson, [anno 1773.] 
 
 ' Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they 
 used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular 20 
 instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of 
 Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied 
 it. " I am sure," said she, " they have afieoted me." " Why," 
 said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about — " that is, 
 because, dearest, you're a dunce." When she some time after- 25 
 wards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth and 
 politeness, " Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not 
 have said it." ' — Boswell's Life of Johnson, [anno 1781.] 
 
 '■ A passage or two from Sterne's Sermons may not be without 
 interest here. Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties 30 
 of the Church of Rome, stamped with the autograph of the 
 author of the Sentimental Journey ?— 
 
 ' To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the 
 prisons of the Inquisition — behold religion with mercy and justice 
 chained down under her feet, — there, sitting ghastly upon 35 
 a black tribunal, propped up with racks, and instruments of 
 torment. — Hark ! — what a piteous groan ! — See the melancholy 
 wretch who uttesed it, just brought forth to undergo the anguish 
 of a mock-trial, and endure the utmost pains that a studied 
 system of religious crudty has been able to invent. Behold this 40 
 helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors. His body so 
 wasted with sorrow and long confinement, you'll see every nerve 
 and muscle as it suffers. Observe the last movement of that 
 horrid engine. — What convulsions it has thrown him into ! Con- 
 sider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched. — 45 
 What exquisite torture he endures by it. — 'Tis all nature can bear. 
 — Good God ! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 213 
 
 more than rival of the Dean of St. Patrick's, wrote the 
 above-quoted respectable letter to his friend in London : 
 and it was in April of the same year, that he was pouring 
 out his fond heart to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife of 
 
 5 ' Daniel Draper, Esq., Counsellor of Bombay, and, in 
 1775, chief of the factory of Surat — a gentleman very 
 much respected in that quarter of the globe '. 
 
 ' I g9t thy letter last night, Eliza,' Sterne writes, ' on 
 my return from Lord Bathurst's, where I dined ' — (the 
 
 10 letter has this merit in it that it contaias a pleasant 
 reminiscence of better men than Sterne, and introduces 
 us to a portrait of a kind old gentleman) — ' I got 
 
 trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not suffered to depart. 
 Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell, — dragg'd out of 
 
 15 it again to meet the flames — and the insults in his last agonies, 
 which this principle — this principle, that there can be religion 
 without morality — has prepared for him.' — Sermon 27th. 
 
 The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges 
 xix, ver. 1, 2, 3, concerning a ' certain Levite ' : — 
 
 20 ' Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill 
 up that uncomfortable blank in the heart in such a situation ; 
 for, notwithstanding all we meet with in books, in many of which, 
 no doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the 
 sweets of retirement, &c. . . . yet still " it is not good for man to 
 
 25 6e alone " : nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our 
 ears with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction 
 to the mind ; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, 
 nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship ; — a 
 good heart wants some object to be kind to — and the best parts 
 
 30 of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the 
 destitution. 
 
 ' Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. 
 God speed him ! For my own part, I fear I should never so find 
 the way ; let me be wise and religious, but let me be Man ; 
 
 35 wherever Thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road 
 I take to get to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, 
 be it only to remark to, " How our shadows lengthen as the sun 
 goes down " ; — to whom I may say, " How fresh is the face of 
 Nature ! how sweet the flowers of the field ! how delicious are 
 
 40 these fruits ! " ' — Sermon ISth. 
 
 The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the 
 famous ' Captive '. The second shows that the same reflection 
 was suggested to the Rev. Laurence, by a text in Judges, as by 
 the flle-de-chamhre. 
 
 45 Sterne's Sermorta were published as those of ' Mr. Yorick ' 
 
214 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 thy letter last night, Eliza, on my return from Lord 
 Bathurst's ; and where I was heard — ^as I talked of 
 thee an hour without intermission — with so much 
 pleasure and attention, that the good old lord toasted 
 your health three different times ; and now he is in his s 
 85th year, says he hopes to hve long enough to be intro- 
 duced as a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her 
 echpse a,ll other Nabobesses as much in wealth, as she 
 does already in exterior, and what is far better ' (for 
 Sterne is nothing without his morality) — ' and what is lo 
 far better, in interior merit. . . . This nobleman is an 
 old friend of mine. You know he was always the 
 protector of men of wit and genius, and has had those of 
 the last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, 
 &c. &c., always at his table. The manner in which his 15 
 notice began of me was as singular as it was polite. He 
 came up to me one day as I was at the Princess of Wales's 
 court. " I want to know you, Mr. Sterne, but it is fit 
 you should know also who it is that wishes this pleasure. 
 You have heard," continued he, of an old "Lord Bathurst, 20 
 of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken 
 so much : I have lived my life with geniuses of that 
 cast ; but have survived them ; and, despairing ever 
 to find their equals, it is some years since I have closed 
 my accounts and shut up my books . . . ; but you have 25 
 kindled a desire in me of opening them once more before 
 I die : which I now do : so go home and dine with me." 
 This nobleman, I say, is a prodigy, for at eighty-five he 
 has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty ; a 
 disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, so 
 beyond whatever I knew : added to which a man of 
 learning, courtesy, and feeling.' 
 
 ' He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon 
 satisfaction — ^tor there was only a third person, and of 
 sensibility, with us : and a most sentimental afternoon 35 
 till nine o'clock have we passed ! ^ But thou, Eliza, wert 
 
 ' ' I am glad that you are in love — 'twill cure you at least of 
 the spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and woman — 
 I myself must ever have some Dulcinea in my head ; it harmonizes 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 215 
 
 the star that conducted and enlivened the discourse. 
 And when I talked not of thee, still didst thou fill my 
 mind, and warmed every thought I uttered, for I am 
 not ashamed to acknowledge I greatly miss thee. Best 
 
 5 of all good girls ! — ^the sufferings I have sustained the 
 whole night on account of thine, Eliza, are beyond my 
 power of words. . . . And so thou hast fixed thy Bramin's 
 portrait over thy writing desk, and wilt consult it in all 
 doubts and difficulties. — Grateful and good girl ! Yorick 
 
 10 smiles contentedly over all thou dost : his picture does 
 not do justice to his own complacency. ... I am glad your 
 shipmates are friendly beings ' (Eliza was at Deal, going 
 back to the Counsellor at Bombay, and indeed it was 
 high time she should be off). ' You could least dispense 
 
 15 with what is contrary to your own nature, which is soft 
 and gentle, EUza. It would civilize savages. — ^Though 
 pity were it thou shouldst be tainted with the office ! . . . 
 Write to me, my child, thy delicious letters. Let them 
 speak the easy carelessness of a heart that opens itself 
 
 20 anyhow and every how. . . . Such, Eliza, I write to thee ! ' 
 (The artless rogue, of course he did !) ' And so I should 
 ever live with thee, most artlessly, most affectionately, 
 if Providence permitted thy residence in the same 
 section of the globe : for I am, all that honour and 
 
 25 affection can make me, " Thy Bkamin '■ 
 
 . j> ) 
 
 the soul ; and in those cases I first endeavour to make the lady 
 believe so, or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am 
 in love — but I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, senti- 
 mentally — I'amour (say they) n'est rien sans sentiment. Now, 
 
 30 notwithstanding they make such a pother about the word, they 
 have no precise idea annexed to it. And so much for that same 
 subject called love.' — Stebne's Letters, May 23rd, 1765. [Letter 
 58.] 
 
 ' PS. — My Sentimental Journey will please Mrs. J and my 
 
 35 Lydia [his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle] — I can answer 
 for those two. It is a subject which works well, and suits the 
 frame of mind I have been in for some time past. I told you 
 my design in it was to teach us to love the world and our 
 fellow creatures better than we do — so it runs most upon those 
 
 40 gentler passions and affections which aid so much to it.' — (1767). 
 [Letter 113.] 
 
216 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper until 
 the departure of the Earl of Chatham, Indiaman, from 
 Deal, on the 2nd of April, 1767. He is amiably anxious 
 about the fresh paint for Eliza's cabin ; he is uncommonly 
 solicitous about her companions on board : ' I fear the s 
 best of your shipmates are only genteel by comparison 
 with the contrasted crew with which thou must behold 
 them. So was — ^you know who ! — ^from the same fallacy 
 that was put upon the judgement when — ^but I wiU not 
 mortify you ! ' lo 
 
 ' You know who ' was, of course, Daniel Draper, 
 Esq., of Bombay — a gentleman very much respected 
 in that quarter of the globe, and about whose probable 
 health our worthy Bramia writes with delightful 
 candour. 15 
 
 ' I honour you, EUza, for keeping secret some things 
 which, if explained, had been a panegjric on yourself. 
 There is a dignity in venerable affliction which will not 
 aUow it to appeal to the world for pity or redress. Well 
 have you supported that character, my amiable, my 20 
 philosophic Mend ! And indeed, I begin to think 
 you have as many virtues as my Uncle Toby's widow. . . . 
 Talking of widows — ^pray, EUza, if ever you are such, do 
 not think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, 
 because I design to marry you myself. My wife cannot 25 
 live long, . . . and I know not the woman I should like 
 so well for her substitute as yourseK. 'Tis true I am 
 ninety-five in constitution, and you but twenty-five ; . . . 
 but what I want in youth, I wiU make up in wit and 
 good humour. Not Swift so loved his SteUa, Scarronso 
 his Maiatenon, or Waller his Saccharissa. . . . TeU me, 
 in answer to this, that you approve and honour the 
 proposal.' 
 
 Approve and honour the proposal ! The coward was 
 writing gay letters to his friends this while, with sneering 35 
 allusions to this poor foolish Bramine. Her ship was 
 not out of the Downs, and the charming Sterne was at the 
 ' Mount ' Coffee-house, with a sheet of gilt-edged paper 
 before him, offering that precious treasure his heart to 
 Lady P , asking whether it gave her pleasure to see 40 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 217 
 
 him unhappy ? whether it added to her triumph that 
 her eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool ? — quoting 
 the Lord's Prayer, with a horrible baseness of blasphemy, 
 as a proof that he had desired not to be led into tempta- 
 5 tion, and swearing himseK the most tender and sincere 
 fool in the world. It was from his home at Coxwould 
 that he wrote the Latin letter, which, I suppose, he was 
 ashamed to put into English. I find in my copy of the 
 Letters, that there is a note of I can't call it admiration, 
 
 10 at Letter 112, which seems to announce that there was 
 a No. 3 to whom the wretched worn-out old scamp was 
 paying his addresses ; ^ and the year after, having come 
 back to his lodgings in Bond Street, with his Sentimental 
 Journey to launch upon the town, eager as ever for 
 
 15 praise and pleasure ; as vain, as wicked, as witty, as 
 false as he had ever been, death at length seized the 
 feeble wretch, and, on the 18th of March, 1768, that ' bale 
 of cadaverous goods ', as he calls his body, was consigned 
 
 ' TO MBS. H . 
 
 2Q 'Coxwould, Nov. 15, 1767. 
 
 ' Now be a good, dear woman, my H — — , and execute these 
 commissions well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss — 
 there's for you ! But I have something else for you which I am 
 fabricating at a great rate, and that is my Sentimental Journey, 
 25 which shall make you cry as much as it has affected me, or I will 
 give up the business of sentimental writing . . . 
 
 ' I am yours, &c. &c., 
 
 'T. Shandy.' 
 
 TO THE BAEL OB . 
 
 30 'Coxwould, Nov. 28th, 1767. 
 
 ' My Lord — 'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to 
 
 thank your lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick — he 
 
 has worn out both his spirits and body with the Sentimental 
 
 Journey; 'tis true that an author must feel himself, or his 
 
 35 reader will not — but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by 
 my feelings — I believe the brain stands as much in need of 
 recruiting as the body ; therefore I shall set out for town the 
 twentieth of next month, after having recruited myself a week 
 at York. I might indeed solace myself with my wife (who is 
 
 40 come from France), but, in fact, I have long been a sentimental 
 being, whatever your lordship may think to the contrary.' 
 [Letter 116.] 
 
218 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 to Pluto .^ In his last letter there is one sign of grace — 
 the real affection with which he entreats a friend to be 
 a guardian to his daughter Lydia.^ All his letters to 
 her are artless, kind, affectionate, and not sentimental ; 
 as a hundred pages in his writings are beautiful, and f uU, s 
 not of surprising humour merely, but of genuine love 
 and kindness. A perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man 
 who has to briag his tears and laughter, his recollections, 
 his personal griefs and joys, his private thoughts and 
 feelings to market, to write them on paper, and sell them lo 
 for money. Does he exaggerate his grief, so as to get his 
 reader's pity for a false sensibility ? feign indignation, 
 so as to establish a character for virtue ? elaborate 
 repartees, so that he may pass for a wit ? steal from 
 other authors, and put down the theft to the credit side is 
 of his own reputation for ingenuity and learning ? feign 
 originaUty ? affect benevolence or misanthropy ? appeal 
 
 ' ' It is known that Sterne died in hired lodgings, and I have 
 been told that his attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeve- 
 buttons while he was expiring.' — Db. Fbbbiae. [Illustrations 20 
 of Sterne, p. 175.] 
 
 ' He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemonger's) on the west side 
 of Old Bond Street.' — [Cunningham], Handbook of London. 
 [p. 64, 2nd ed.] 
 
 ' ' In February, 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted 25 
 by long debilitating illness, expired at his lodgings at Bond 
 Street, London. There was something in the manner of his 
 death singularly resembling the particulars detailed by Mrs. 
 Quickly, as attending that of PalstafE, the compeer of Yorick 
 for infinite jest, however unlike in other particulars. While life 30 
 was ebbing fast and the patient lay on his bed totally exhausted, 
 he complained that his feet were cold, and requested the female 
 attendant to chafe them. She did so, and it seemed to relieve 
 him. He complained that the cold came up higher ; and whilst 
 the assistant was in the act of rubbing his ankles and legs, he 35 
 expired without a groan. It was also remarkable that his death 
 took place much in the manner which he himself had wished ; 
 and that the last offices were rendered him, not in his own house, 
 or by the hand of kindred affection, but in an inn, and by strangers. 
 
 ' We are well acquainted with Sterne's features and personal 40 
 appearance, to which he himself frequently alludes. He was tall 
 and thin, with a hectic and consumptive appearance.' — Sib 
 Walteb Scott. [Life of Sterne, p. 321 (1827).] 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 219 
 
 to the gallery gods with claptraps and vulgar baits to 
 catch applause ? How much of the paiut and emphasis 
 is necessary for the fair business of the stage, and how 
 much'of the rant and rouge is put on for the vanity of the 
 
 5 actor ? His audience trusts him : can he trust himself ? 
 How much was deliberate calculation and imposture — 
 how much was false sensibility — and how much true 
 feeling — ^where did the lie begin, and did he know 
 where ? , and where did the truth end in the art and 
 
 10 scheme of this man of genius, this actor, this quack ? 
 Some time since, I was in the company of a French actor, 
 who began after dinner, and at his own request, to sing 
 French songs of the sort called «?es chansons grivoises, and 
 which he performed admirably, and to the dissatisfaction 
 
 15 of most persons present. Having finished these, he 
 commenced a sentimental ballad — ^it was so charmingly 
 sung that it touched aU persons present, and especially 
 the singer himself, whose voice trembled, whose eyes 
 filled with emotion, and who was snivelling and weeping 
 
 20 quite genuine tears by the time his own ditty was over. 
 I suppose Sterne had this artistical sensibility ; he used to 
 blubber perpetually in his study, and finding his tears 
 infectious, and that they brought him a great popularity, 
 he exercised the lucrative gift of weeping ; he utilized it, 
 
 25 and cried on every occasion. I own that I don't value 
 or respect much the cheap dribble of those fountains. 
 He fatigues me with his perpetual disquiet and his 
 uneasy appeals to my risible or sentimental faculties. 
 He is always looking in my face, watching his effect, 
 
 30 uncertain whether I think him an impostor or not ; 
 posture-making, coaxing, and imploring me. ' See what 
 sensibility I have — own now that I'm very clever — do 
 cry now, you can't resist this.' The humour of Swift and 
 Rabelais, whom he pretended to succeed, poured from 
 
 35 them as naturally as song does from a bird ; they lose 
 no manly dignity with it, but laugh their hearty great 
 laugh out of their broad chests as nature bade them. 
 But this man — ^who can make you laugh, who can make 
 you cry, too — ^never lets his reader alone, or will permit 
 
 40 his audience repose : when you are quiet, he fancies 
 
220 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 he must rouse you, and turns over head and heels, or 
 sidles up and whispers a nasty story. The man is a great 
 jester, not a great humourist. He goes to work syste- 
 matically and of cold blood ; paints his face, puts on his 
 ruEE and motley clothes, and lays down his carpet and 5 
 tumbles on it. 
 
 For instance, take the Sentimental Journey, and see 
 in the writer the dehberate propensity to make points 
 and seek applause. He gets to Desseia's Hotel, he wants 
 a carriage to travel to Paris, he goes to the inn-yard, lo 
 and begins what the actors call ' business ' at once. There 
 is that little carriage the desobligeante. 'Four months had 
 elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in the 
 corner of Monsieur Dessein's coachyard, and having 
 sallied out thence but a vamped-up business at the first, is 
 though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount 
 Sennis, it had not profited much by its adventures, but 
 by none so little as the standing so many months unpitied 
 in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coachyard. Much, 
 indeed, was not to be said for it — ^but something might 20 
 — and when a few words will rescue misery out of her 
 distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them.' 
 
 Le tour est fait ! PaiUasse has tumbled ! Paillasse 
 has jumped over the desobligeante, cleared it, hood and 
 aU, and bows to the noble company. Does anybody 25 
 believe that this is a real sentiment ? that this luxury of 
 generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery — out of an old 
 cab, is genuine feeling ? It is as genuine as the virtuous 
 oratory of Joseph Surface when be begins, ' The man 
 who,' &c. &c., and wishes to pass off for a saint with his 30 
 credulous, good-humoured dupes. 
 
 Our friend purchases the carriage — after turning that 
 notorious old monk to good account, and effecting (Uke 
 a soft and good-natured Paillasse as he was, and very 
 free with his money when he had it), an exchange of 35 
 snuff-boxes with the old Franciscan, jogs out of Calais ; 
 sets down in immense figures on the credit side of his 
 account the sous he gives away to the Montreuil 
 beggars ; and, at Nampont, gets out of the chaise and 
 whimpers over that famous dead donkey, for which any 40 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 221 
 
 sentimentalist may cry who will. It is agreeably and 
 skilfully done— that dead jackass ; like M. de Soubise's 
 cook, on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it 
 up quite tender and with a very piquante sauce. But 
 
 5 tears, and fine feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, 
 and a funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, and a 
 procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey 
 inside ! Psha ! Mountebank ! I'll not give thee one 
 penny more for that trick, donkey and all ! 
 
 10 This donkey had appeared once before with signal 
 effect. In 1765, three years before the publication 
 of the Sentimental Journey, the seventh and eighth 
 volumes of Tristram Shandy were given to the world, 
 and the famous Lyons donkey makes his entry in those 
 
 15 volumes : — [Book VII, chap. 32.] 
 
 ' 'Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with 
 a couple of large panniers upon his back, to coUect 
 eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves, and 
 stood dubious, with his two forefeet on the inside of 
 
 20 the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards 
 the street, as not knowing very well whether he was 
 to go in or no. 
 
 ' Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot 
 bear to strike ; there is a patient endurance of sufferings 
 
 25 wrote so unaffectedly in. his looks and carriage which 
 pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me, 
 and to that degree that I do not like to speak unkindly 
 to him : on the contrary, meet him where I will, whether 
 in town or country, in cart or under panniers, whether 
 
 30 in liberty or bondage, I have ever something civil to 
 say to him on my part ; and, as one word begets another 
 (if he has as little to do as I), I generally faU into conversa- 
 tion with him ; and surely never is my imagination so 
 busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of 
 
 35 his countenance ; and where those carry me not deep 
 enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing 
 what is natural for an ass to think — as well as a man, 
 upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature 
 of all the classes of beings below me with whom I can 
 
 40 do this. . . . With an ass I can commune for ever. 
 
222 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 ' " Come, Honesty," said I, seeing it was impracticable 
 to pass betwixt him and the gate, " art thou for coming 
 in or going out ? " 
 
 ' The ass twisted his head round to look up the street. 
 
 ' " Well ! " replied I, " we'll wait a minute for thy 5 
 driver." 
 
 ' He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked 
 wistfuUy the opposite way. 
 
 ' " I understand thee perfectly," answered I : "if 
 thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he wiU cudgel 10 
 thee to death. Well ! a minute is but a minute ; and 
 if it saves a fellow creature a drubbing, it shall not be set 
 down as ill spent." 
 
 ' He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this dis- 
 course went on, and, in the little peevish contentions of 15 
 nature between hunger and unsavouriness, had dropped 
 it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and picked it 
 up again. " God help thee. Jack ! " said I, " thou hast 
 a bitter breakfast on't — and many a bitter day's labour, 
 and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages ! *Tis all, 20 
 aU bitterness to thee — ^whatever life is to others ! And 
 now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, 
 I dare say, as soot " (for he had cast aside the stem), 
 " and thou hast not a friend perhaps in aU this world 
 that will give thee a macaroon." In saying this, I pulled 25 
 out a paper of 'em, which I had just purchased, and gave 
 him one ; — and, at this moment that I am teUing it, 
 my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry 
 in the conceit of seeing fiow an ass would eat a macaroon 
 than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in so 
 the act. 
 
 ' When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him 
 to come in. The poor beast was heavy loaded — ^his legs 
 seemed to tremble under him — he hung rather backwards, 
 and, as I puUed at his halter, it broke short in my hand. 35 
 He looked up pensive in my f ace : " Don' t thrash me with 
 it : but if you wiU you may." " If I do," said I, " I'll 
 be d d." ' 
 
 A critic who refuses to see in this charming description 
 wit, humour, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real 40 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 223 
 
 sentiment, must be hard indeed to move and to please. A 
 page or two farther we come to a description not less 
 beautiful — a landscape and figures, deUciously painted 
 by one who had the keenest enjoyment and the most 
 
 6 tremulous sensibihty : — 
 
 ' 'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where 
 there is the best Muscatto wine in all France : . . . the 
 sun was set, they had done their work ; the nymphs 
 had tied up their hair afresh, and the swains were 
 
 10 preparing for a carousal. My mule made a dead point. 
 " 'Tis the fife and tabourin," said I. ..." I never will 
 argue a point with one of your family as long as I live ; " 
 so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into 
 this ditch and t'other into that, " I'll take a dance," 
 
 15 said I, "so stay you here." 
 
 ' A sunburnt daughter of labour rose up from the group 
 to meet me as I advanced towards them ; her hair, 
 which was a dark chestnut approaching rather to a 
 black, was tied up ia a knot, all but a single tress. 
 
 20 ' " We want a cavaHer," said she, holdiag out both 
 her hands, as it to offer them. " And a cavalier ye shall 
 have," said I, taking hold of both of them. ..." We 
 could not have done without you," said she, letting go 
 one hand, with self-taught politeness, and leading me 
 
 25 up with the other. 
 
 ' A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with 
 a pipe, and to which he had added a tabourin of his 
 own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon 
 the bank. ' Tie me up this tress instantly,' said Nannette, 
 
 30 puttiag a piece of string into my hand. It taught me to 
 forget I was a stranger. The whole knot fell down — ^we 
 had been seven years acquainted. The youth struck 
 the note upon the tabourin, his pipe followed, and off 
 we bounded. 
 
 35 ' The sister of the youth — ^who had stolen her voice 
 from Heaven — sang alternately with her brother. 'Twas 
 a Gascoigne roundelay. " Viva lajoia, fidon la tristessa ! " 
 — the nymphs joined in unison, and their swains an octave 
 below them. . . . 
 
 40 ' Viva la joia was in Naimette's lips ; viva la joia was 
 
224 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the 
 space betwixt us. She looked amiable. Why could I 
 not live and end my days thus ? " Just Disposer of our 
 joys and sorrows ! " cried I, " why could not a man sit 
 down in the lap of content here, and dance, and sing, 5 
 and say his prayers, and go to heaven with this nut-brown 
 maid 1 " Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, 
 and dance up insidious. " Then 'tis time to dance off," 
 quoth I.' 
 
 And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume 10 
 artfuUy concludes. Even here one can't give the whole 
 description. There is not a page in Sterne's writing but 
 has something that were better away, a latent corrup- 
 tion — a hint, as of an impure presence.^ Some of that 
 
 ' ' With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness 15 
 which presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would , 
 remark that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which 
 depends, firstly, on the modesty it gives pain to ; or, secondly, 
 on the innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs ; 
 or thirdly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind 20 
 between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his 
 nature — a sort of dallying with the devil — a fluxionary act of 
 combining efeurage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle 
 with his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like 
 that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea-urn, 25 
 because it has been forbidden ; so that the mind has in its own 
 white and black angel the same or similar amusement as may be 
 supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude — 
 she feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a prudential 
 anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character, and, on the 30 
 other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to 
 suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of 
 wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound, 
 because exciting no resistance ; the remainder rests on its being 
 an offence against the good manners of human nature itself. 35 
 
 ' This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined 
 with wit, drollery, fancy, and even humour ; and we have only 
 to regret the misalliance ; but that the latter are quite distinct 
 from the former, may be made evident by abstracting in our 
 imagination the morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my 40 
 Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are all antagonists to this spurious 
 sort of wit, from the rest of Tristram Shandy, and by supposing, 
 instead of them, the presence of two or three callous debauchees. 
 The result will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 225 
 
 dreary double entendre may be attributed to freer times 
 and mamiers than ours, but not all. The foul Satyr's 
 eyes leer out of the leaves constantly : the last words 
 the famous author wrote were bad and wicked — ^the 
 8 last lines the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity 
 and pardon. I think of these past writers and of one 
 who lives amongst us now, and am grateful for the inno- 
 cent laughter and the sweet and unsullied page which the 
 author of David Copperfield gives to my children. 
 
 10 Jete sur cette boule. 
 
 Laid, chetif et soufeant 
 fitouffe dans la foule,- 
 Faute d'etre assez grand ; 
 
 Une plainte touchante 
 X5 De ma bouche sortit ; 
 
 Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, 
 Chante, pauvre petit ! 
 
 Chanter, ou j© m'abuse, 
 Est ma tache ici-bas. 
 20 Tous ceux qu'ainsi j 'amuse, 
 
 Ne m'aimeront-ils pas ? 
 
 Li those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy 
 described the career, the sufferings, the genius, the gentle 
 nature of Goldsmith, and the esteem in which we hold 
 25 him. Who, of the millions whom he has amused, does 
 not love him ? To be the most beloved of English 
 writers, what a title that is for a man ! ^ A wild youth, 
 
 censured for thus using the best dispositions of our nature 
 as the panders and condiments for the basest.' — Colbbidge, 
 
 30 Literary Remains, vol. i, pp. 141, 142. 
 
 ' ' He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages 
 never forgets what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and 
 purity of feeling distinguishes whatever he wrote, and bears 
 a correspondence to the generosity of a disposition which knew 
 
 35 no bounds but his last guinea. . . . 
 
 ' The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the 
 pleasing truth with which the principal characters are designed, 
 make the Vicar of Wakefield one of the most delicious morsels 
 
 1356 Q 
 
226 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 wayTvard, but full of tenderness and affection, quits 
 the country village where his boyhood has been passed 
 in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see 
 the great world out of doors, and achieve name and 
 fortune — and after years of dire struggle, and neglects 
 and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his 
 native place, as it had longed eagerly for change when 
 sheltered there, he writes a book and a poem, fnll of the 
 recollections and feelings of home — ^he paints the friends 
 and scenes of his youth, and peoples Auburn and Wake- lo 
 field with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander he must, 
 but he carries away a home-reUc with him, and dies 
 with it on his breast. His nature is truant ; in repose 
 it longs for change : as on the journey it looks back for 
 friends and quiet. He passes to-day in building an air- is 
 castle for to-morrow, or in writing yesterday's elegy ; 
 and he would fly away this hour, but that a cage and 
 necessity keep him. What is the charm of his verse, 
 of his style, and humour ? His sweet regrets, his 
 dehcate compassion, his soft smile, his tremulous 20 
 sjmipathy, the weakness which he owns ? Your love for 
 him is half pity. You come hot and tired from the day's 
 battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you. Who could 
 harm the kind vagrant harper ? Whom did he ever hurt ? 
 He carries no weapon — save the harp on which he plays 25 
 to you ; and with which he delights great and humble, 
 young and old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers 
 round the fire, or the women and children in the villages, 
 at whose porches he stops and sings his simple songs of 
 love and beauty. With that sweet story of the Vicar of so 
 Wakefield,^ he has found entry into every castle and every 
 
 of fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever 
 employed. 
 
 ' . . . We read the Vicar of Wakefield in youth and in age — 
 we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an 35 
 author who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature.' — 
 Sib Walter Scott. [Life of Ooldsmith, pp. 279 sqq.] 
 
 ' ' Now Herder came,' says Goethe in his Autobiography, 
 relating his first acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, 
 ' and together with his great knowledge brought many other aids, 40 
 and the later publications besides. Among these he announced 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 227 
 
 hamlet. Not one of us, however busy or hard, but once 
 or twice in our lives has passed an evening with him, and 
 undergone the charm of his delightful music. 
 
 to us the Vicar of Wakefield as an excellent work, with the 
 6 German translation of which he would make us acquainted by 
 reading it aloud to us himself. . . . 
 
 ' A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful 
 subject for a modern idyl ; he appears like Melohizedeck, as 
 priest and king in one person. To the most innocent situation 
 
 10 which can be imagined on earth, to that of a husbandman, he is, 
 for the most part, united by similarity of occupation as well as 
 by equality in family relationships ; he is a father, a master of 
 a family, an agriculturist, and thus perfectly a member of the 
 community. On this pure, beautiful, earthly foundation rests 
 
 15 his higher calling ; to him is it given to guide men through life, to 
 take care of their spiritual education, to bless them at all the 
 leading epochs of their existence, to instruct, to strengthen, to 
 console them, and if consolation is not sufficient for the present, 
 to call up and guarantee the hope of a happier future. Imagine 
 
 20 such a man with pure human sentiments, strong enough not to 
 deviate from them under any ciroiimstances, and by this aheady 
 elevated above the multitude of whom one cannot expect purity 
 and firmness ; give him the learning necessary for his office, as 
 well as a cheerful, equable activity, which is even passionate, as 
 
 25 it neglects no moment to do good — and you will have him well 
 endowed. But at the same time add the necessary limitation, 
 so that he must not only pause in a small circle, but may also, 
 perchance, pass over to a smaller ; grant him good nature, 
 placabihty, resolution, and everything else praiseworthy that 
 
 30 springs from a decided character, and over all this a cheerful 
 spirit of compUance, and a smiling toleration of his own f aihrigs 
 and those of others, — then you will have put together pretty 
 well the image of our excellent Wakefield. 
 
 ' The delineation of this character on his course of life through 
 
 35 joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by 
 the combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the 
 singular, make this novel one of the best which has ever been 
 written ; besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite 
 moral, nay, in a pure sense. Christian — ^represents the reward of 
 
 40 a goodwill and perseverance in the right, strengthens an uncon- 
 ditional confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good 
 over evil ; and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The 
 author was preserved from both of these by an elevation of mind 
 that shows itself throughout in the form of irony, by which this 
 
 45 little work must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The 
 author, Dr. Goldsmith, has, without question, great insight into 
 the moral world, into its strength and its infirmities ; but at the 
 
 Q2 
 
228 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doctor 
 Primrose, whom we all of us know.^ Swift was yet aUve, 
 
 same time he can thankfully acknowledge that he is an English- 
 man, and reckon highly the advantages which his country and 5 
 his nation afEord him. The family, with the delineation of which 
 he occupies himself, stands upon one of the last steps of citizen 
 comfort, and yet comes in contact with the highest ; its narrow 
 circle, which becomes still more contracted, touches upon the 
 great world through the natural and civil course of things ; this lo 
 little skiff floats on the agitated waves of English life, and in weal 
 or woe it has to expect injury or help from the vast fleet which 
 sails around it. 
 
 ' I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it 
 in memory ; whoever hears it named for the first time here, as 
 well as he who is induced to read it again, will thank me.' — 
 GoBTHB, Truth and Poetry ; from my own Life (English transla- 
 tion, vol. i, pp. 368-70). [Bohn's edition.] 
 
 ' He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two 
 natures, one bright, the other blundering ; or to have had fairy 
 gifts laid in his cradle by the ' good people ' who haunted his ^ 
 birthplace, the old goblin mansion, on the banks of the Inny. 
 
 ' He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so 
 term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at 
 school, academy, or college ; they unfit him for close study and 
 practical science, and render him heedless of everything that does ^^ 
 not address itself to his poetical imagination, and genial and 
 festive feelings ; they dispose him to break away from restraint, 
 to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel 
 with jovial companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy in 
 quest of odd adventures. ... 30 
 
 ' Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate 
 with the poor, they never could betray him into companionship 
 with the depraved. His relish for humour, and for the study of 
 character, as we have before observed, brought him often into 
 convivial company of a vulgar kind ; but he discriminated 35 
 between their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, or rather 
 wrought from the whole those familiar pictures of life which form 
 the staple of his most popular writings.' — Washington iBvnfG. 
 [Goldsmith, chap. 45 (revised edn.)] 
 
 ' ' The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasion- 40 
 ally written, Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, 
 and seems always to have held a respectable station in society. 
 Its origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was 
 long settled at Crayford in Kent.' — Pbiob's Life of Goldsmith. 
 [Chap. I.] 45 
 
 Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather 
 were clergymen ; and two of them married clergymen's daughters. 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 229 
 
 when the little Oliver was born at Pallas, or Pallasmore, 
 in the county of Longford, in Ireland. In 1730, two 
 years after the child's birth, Charles Goldsmith removed 
 his family to Lissoy, in the county Westmeath, that 
 
 5 sweet ' Auburn ' which every person who hears me has 
 seen in fancy. Here the kind parson ^ brought up his 
 eight children ; and loving all the world, as his son says, 
 fancied all the world loved him. He had a crowd of 
 poor dependants besides those hungry children. He kept 
 
 10 an open table ; round which sat flatterers and poor 
 friends, who laughed at the honest rector's many jokes 
 and ate the produce of his seventy acres of farm. Those 
 who have seen an Irish house in the present day can 
 fancy that one of Lissoy. The old beggar stiU has his 
 
 15 allotted comer by the kitchen turf ; the maimed old 
 soldier still gets his potatoes and butter-milk ; the poor 
 cottier still asks his honour's charity, and prays God 
 bless his Reverence for the sixpence : the ragged 
 pensioner stiU takes his place by right and sufferance. 
 
 20 There's stiU a crowd in the kitchen, and a crowd round 
 the parlour-table, profusion, confusion, kindness, 
 poverty. If an Irishman comes to London to make 
 his fortime, he has a half-dozen of Irish dependants who 
 take a percentage of his earnings. The good Charles 
 
 25 1 At church, with meek and unafifected grace, 
 His looks adorn'd the venerable place ; 
 Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
 And fools who came to scofi remain' d to pray. 
 The service past, around the pious man 
 
 30 With steady zeal each honest rustic ran ; 
 E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, 
 And pluok'd his gown to share the good man's smile. 
 His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, 
 Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest ; 
 
 35 To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
 
 But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. 
 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form. 
 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 
 40 Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 
 
 The Deserted Village. [177 sqq.] 
 
230 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Goldsmith ^ left but little provision for his hungry race 
 when death summoned him : and, one of his daughters 
 being engaged to a squire of rather superior dignity, 
 Charles Goldsmith impoverished the rest of his family 
 to provide the girl with a dowry. 5 
 
 The small-pox, which scourged all Europe at that time, 
 and ravaged the roses off the cheeks of half the world, fell 
 foul of poor little Oliver's face, when the child was eight 
 years old, and left him scarred and disfigured for his 
 life. An old woman in his father's village taught him lo 
 his letters, and pronounced him a dunce : Paddy Byrne, 
 the hedge-schoolmaster, took him in hand ; and from 
 Paddy Byrne, he was transmitted to a clergyman at 
 Elphin. When a child was sent to school in those days, 
 the classic phrase was that he was placed under Mr. xs 
 So-and-so's ferule. Poor little ancestors ! It is hard to 
 think how ruthlessly you were birched ; and how much 
 of needless whipping and tears our small forefathers 
 had to undergo ! A relative, kind Uncle Contarine, 
 took the main charge of little Noll ; who went through 20 
 his school-days righteously doing as little work as he 
 
 ' ' In May this year (1768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry 
 Goldsmith, for whom he had been unable to obtain preferment 
 in the Church. . . . 
 
 ' To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the moderate stipend of 25 
 which, forty pounds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his 
 brother's lines, it has been stated that Mr. Goldsmith added a 
 school, which, after having been held at more than one place 
 in the vicinity, was finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his talents and 
 industry gave it celebrity, and under his care the sons of many 30 
 of the neighbouring gentry received their education. A fever 
 breaking out among the boys about 1765, they dispersed for 
 a time ; but reassembling at Athlone, he continued his scholastic 
 labours there until the time of his death, which happened, like 
 that of his brother, about the forty-fifth year of his age. He 85 
 was a man of an excellent heart and amiable disposition.' — 
 Prior's Goldsmith. [Chap. XVH.] 
 
 Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see. 
 
 My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee : 
 
 Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, 40 
 
 And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 
 
 Tlie Traveller. [7 sqq.] 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 231 
 
 could : robbing orchards, playing at ball, and making 
 his pocket-money fly about whenever fortune sent it 
 to him. Everybody knows the story of that famous 
 ' Mistake of a Night ', when the young schoolboy, 
 5 provided with a guinea and a nag, rode up to the ' best 
 house ' in Ardagh, called for the landlord's company 
 over a bottle of wine at supper, and for a hot cake for 
 breakfast in the morning ; and found, when he asked 
 for the bm, that the best house was Squire Peatherstone's, 
 
 10 and not the inn for which he mistook it. Who does not 
 know every story about Goldsmith ? That is a dehghtful 
 and fantastic picture of the child dancing and capering 
 about in the kitchen at home, when the old fiddler gibed 
 at him for his ugliness — ^and called him Aesop, and 
 
 16 Uttle NoU made his repartee of ' Heralds proclaim aloud 
 this saying — See Aesop dancing and his monkey playing.' 
 One can fancy the queer pitiful look of humour and 
 appeal upon that little scarred face — ^the funny little 
 dancing figure, the funny Uttle brogue. In his Hfe, 
 
 20 and his writings, which are the honest expression of it, 
 
 he is constantly bewaihng that homely face and person ; 
 
 anon he surveys them in the glass ruefuUy ; and 
 
 presently assumes the most comical dignity. He likes to 
 
 ■ deck out his Mttle person in splendour and fine colours. 
 
 25 He presented himself to be examined for ordination in 
 a pair of scarlet breeches, and said honestly that he did 
 not like to go into the Church, because he was fond of 
 coloured clothes. When he tried to practise as a doctor, 
 he got by hook or by crook a black velvet suit, and looked 
 
 30 as big and grand as he could, and kept his hat over a 
 patch on the old coat : in better days he bloomed out 
 in plum-colour, in blue silk, and in new velvet. Eor some 
 of those splendom-s the heirs of Mr. Pilby, the tailor, 
 have never been paid to this day ; perhaps the kind tailor 
 
 35 and his creditor have met and settled the little account 
 in Hades .1 
 
 '■ ' When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to 
 Mr. William Filby (amounting in all to 191.) was for clothes 
 supplied to this nephew Hodson.' — Fokstbe's Goldsmith, p. 520. 
 40 [1848.] 
 
232 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 They showed until lately a window at Trinity College, 
 Dublin, on which the name of 0. Goldsmith was engraved 
 with a diamond. Whose diamond was it ? Not the 
 young sizar's, who made but a poor figure in that place 
 of learning. He was idle, penniless, and fond of pleasure ■^ 5 
 he learned his way early to the pawnbroker's shop. He 
 wrote ballads, they say, for the street-singers, who paid 
 him a crown for a poem : and his pleasure was to steal 
 out at night and hear his verses sung. He was chastised 
 by his tutor for giving a dance in his rooms, and took the lo 
 box on the ear so much to heart, that he packed up his 
 all, pawned his books and little property, and disappeared 
 from college and family. He said he intended to go to 
 America, but when his money was spent, the young 
 prodigal came home ruefully, and the good folks there 15 
 kUled their calf — it was but a lean one — and welcomed 
 him back. 
 
 After college, he hung about his mother's house, and 
 lived for some years the life of a buckeen — ^passed a 
 month with this relation and that, a year with one patron, 20 
 a great deal of time at the public -house .^ Tired of this 
 life, it was resolved that he should go to London, and 
 study at the Temple ; but he got no farther on the road 
 to London and the woolsack than Dublin, where he 
 gambled away the fifty pounds given him for his outfit, 25 
 and whence he returned to the indefatigable forgiveness 
 of home. Then he determined to be a doctor, and Uncle 
 Contarine helped him to a couple of years at Edinburgh. 
 
 As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) 
 ' a prosperous Irish gentleman ', it is not unreasonable to wish 30 
 that he had cleared off Mr. Klby's bill. 
 
 ' ' Poor fellow ! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor 
 a turkey from a goose, but when he saw it on the table.' — 
 Ctjmbbbland's Memoirs. [Vol. I, p. 352 (1807).] 
 
 ' ' These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often 35 
 disturb the mind only in order to its future refinement : a life 
 spent in phlegmatic apathy resembles those liquors which never 
 ferment and are consequently always muddy.' — Goldsmith, 
 Memoir of Voltaire. 
 
 ' He (Johnson) said ' Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. 40 
 There appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was 
 young.' — BoswELL. ILife of Johnson, anno 1777.] 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 233 
 
 Then from Edinburgh he felt that he ought to hear the 
 famous professors of Leyden and Paris, and wrote most 
 amusing pompous letters to his uncle about the great 
 Farheim, Du Petit, and Duhamel du Monceau, whose 
 
 5 lectures he proposed to follow. If Uncle Contarine 
 beUeved those letters — ^if Oliver's mother believed that 
 story which the youth related of his going to Cork, with 
 the purpose of embarking for America, of his having 
 paid his passage-money, and having sent his kit on 
 
 10 board ; of the anonymous captain sailing away with 
 Ohver's valuable luggage in a nameless ship, never to 
 return ; if Uncle Contarine and the mother at Bally- 
 mahon believed his stories, they must have been a very 
 simple pair ; as it was a very simple rogue indeed who 
 
 15 cheated them. When the lad, after failiag in his 
 clerical examination, after faihng in his plan for studjring 
 the law, took leave of these projects and of his parents, 
 and set out for Edinburgh, he saw mother, and uncle, 
 and lazy BaUymahon, and green native turf, and spark- 
 
 20 Ung river for the last time. He was never to look on 
 old Ireland more, and only in fancy revisit her. 
 
 But me, not destined such dehghts to share, 
 My prime of life in wandering spent and care, 
 Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue 
 25 Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view. 
 That, hke the circle bounding earth and skies, 
 Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies ; 
 My fortune leads to traverse realms alone. 
 And find no spot of all the world my own. 
 
 30 I spoke m a former lecture of that high courage which 
 enabled Fieldiug, in spite of disease, remorse, and 
 poverty, always to retain a cheerful spirit and to keep 
 his manly benevolence and love of truth intact, as if 
 these treasures had been confided to him for the public 
 
 35 benefit, and he was accountable to posterity for their 
 honourable employ ; and a constancy equally happy 
 and admirable I think was shown by Goldsmith, whose 
 sweet and friendly nature bloomed kindly always in the 
 
234 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 midst of a life's storm, and rain, and bitter weather.^ The 
 poor fellow was never so friendless but he could befriend 
 some one ; never so pinched and wretched but he could 
 give of his crust, and speak his word of compassion. If 
 he had but his flute left, he could give that, and make 5 
 the children happy in the dreary London court. He 
 could give the coals in that queer coal-scuttle we read 
 of to his poor neighbour : he could give away his blankets 
 in coUege to the poor widow, and warm himself as he 
 best might in the feathers : he could pawn his coat lo 
 to save his landlord from gaol : when he was a school- 
 usher, he spent his earnings in treats for the boys, and 
 the good-natured schoolmaster's wife said justly that 
 she ought to keep Mr. Goldsmith's money as well as the 
 young gentlemen's. When he met his pupils in later is 
 life, nothing would satisfy the Doctor but he must treat 
 them stiU. ' Have you seen the print of me after Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds ? ' he asked of one of his old pupils. 
 ' Not seen it ? not bought it ? Sure, Jack, if your 
 picture had been published, I'd not have been without 20 
 it half an hour.' His purse and his heart were everybody's 
 and his friends' as much as his own. When he was at the 
 height of reputation, and the Earl of Northumberland, 
 going as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland, asked if he could 
 be of any service to Dr. Goldsmith, Goldsmith recom-as 
 mended his brother, and not himself, to the great man. 
 ' My patrons,' he gallantly said, ' are the booksellers, 
 and I want no others.' ^ Hard patrons they were, and 
 
 ' ' An " inspired idiot ", Goldsmitli, hangs strangely about tiim 
 [Johnson] . . . Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the " goose- 30 
 berry -fool ", but rather much good ; of a finer, if of a weaker 
 sort than Johnson's ; and all the more genuine that he himself 
 could never become conscious of it, though unhappily never cease 
 attempting to become so : the author of the genuine Vicar of 
 Wakefidd, nill he will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of 35 
 genuine manhood.' — Caelyle's Essays (2nd ed.), vol. iv, p. 91. 
 \0n BosweWs Life of Johnson.] 
 
 ' ' At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on 
 the great for subsistence ; they have now no other patrons but 
 the pubUo, and the public, collectively considered, is a good 40 
 and a generous master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 235 
 
 hard work he did ; but he did not complain much : if 
 in his early writings some bitter words escaped him, some 
 allusions to neglect and poverty, he withdrew these 
 expressions when his works were repubHshed, and better 
 5 days seemed to open for him ; and he did not care to 
 complain that printer or publisher had overlooked his 
 merit, or left him poor. The Court face was turned 
 from honest OHver, the Court patronized Beattie ; the 
 fashion did not shine on him — ^fashion adored Sterne.^ 
 
 10 as to the merits of every candidate for favour ; but to make 
 amends, it is never mistaken long. A performance indeed may 
 be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, 
 it soon sinks ; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will 
 soon discover the fraud, and an author should never arrogate to 
 
 15 himself any share of success till his works have been read at 
 least ten years with satisfaction. 
 
 ' A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is 
 perfectly sensible of their value. Every polite member of the 
 community, by buying what he writes, contributes to reward 
 
 20 him. The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret might have 
 been wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, because 
 no longer true. A writer of real merit now may easily be rich, 
 if his heart be set only on fortune : and for those who have no 
 merit, it is but fit that such should remain in merited obscurity.' 
 
 25 — Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, Let. 84. 
 
 ^ Goldsmith attacked Sterne, obviously enough, censuring his 
 indecency, and slighting his wit, and ridiculing Ids manner, in 
 the 53rd letter in The Citizen of the World. 
 
 ' As in common conversation,' saj^ he, ' the best way to make 
 
 30 the audience laugh is by first laughing yourself ; so in writing, 
 the properest manner is to show an attempt at humour, which 
 will pass upon most for humour in reality. To effect this, readers 
 must be treated with the most perfect familiarity ; in one page 
 the author is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull 
 
 35 them by the nose ; he must talk in riddles, and then send them 
 to bed in order to dream for the solution,' &c. 
 
 Sterne's humorous mot on the subject of the gravest part of 
 the charges, then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be 
 quoted here, from the excellent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 40 ' Soon after Tristram had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire 
 lady of fortune and condition, whether she had read his book. 
 " I have not, Mr. Sterne," was the answer ; " and to be plain 
 with you, I am informed it is not proper for female perusal." 
 " My dear good lady," replied the author, " do not be gulled 
 
 45 by such stories ; the book is like your young heir there " (pointing 
 
236 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Fashion pronounced Kelly to be the great writer of 
 comedy of his day. A little — ^not iU humour, but 
 plaintiveness — a little betrayal of wounded pride which 
 he showed render him not the less amiable. The author 
 of The Vicar of Wakefield had a right to protest when s 
 Newbery kept back the MS. for two years ; had a right 
 to be a little peevish with Sterne ; a httle angry when 
 Cohnan's actors declined their parts in his dehghtful 
 comedy, when the manager refused to have a scene 
 painted for it, and pronounced its damnation before lo 
 hearing. He had not the great pubhc with him ; but he 
 had the noble Johnson, and the admirable Reynolds, 
 and the great Gibbon, and the great Burke, and the 
 great Fox — ^friends and admirers illustrious indeed, as 
 famous as those who, fifty years before, sat round Pope's 15 
 table. 
 
 Nobody knows, and I dare say Goldsmith's buoyant 
 temper kept no account of aU the pains which he endured 
 during the early period of his literary career. Should 
 any man of letters in our day have to bear up against 20 
 such, Heaven grant he may come out of the period of 
 misfortune with such a pure kind heart as that which 
 Goldsmith obstinately bore in his breast. The insults 
 to which he had to submit are shocking to read of — 
 slander, contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity 25 
 pervertiag his commonest motives and actions : he had 
 his share of these, and one's anger is roused at reading 
 of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child 
 assaulted, at the notion that a creature so very gentle 
 and weak, and full of love, should have had to suffer 30 
 so. And he had worse than insult to undergo — ^to own 
 to fault, and deprecate the anger of ruffians. There 
 is a letter of his extant to one Griffiths, a bookseller, in 
 which poor Goldsmith is forced to confess that certain 
 books sent by Griffiths are in the hands of a friend from 35 
 whom Goldsmith had been forced to borrow money. 
 
 to a child of three years old, who was rolling on the carpet in his 
 white tunics) : " he shows at times a good deal that is usually 
 concealed, but it is all in perfect innocence." ' [Scott, Life of 
 Sterne, p. 323 (1827).] . 40 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 237 
 
 ' He was wild, sir,' Johnson said, speaking of Goldsmith 
 to BoBwell, with his great, wise benevolence and noble 
 mercifulness of heart, ' Dr. Goldsmith was wild, sir ; 
 but he is so no more.' Ah ! if we pity the good and 
 
 5 weak man who suffers undeservedly, let us deal very 
 gently with him from whom misery extorts not only 
 tears, but shame ; let us think humbly and charitably 
 of the human nature that suffers so sadly and falls so 
 low. Whose turn may it be to-morrow ? What weak 
 
 10 heart, confident before trial, may not succumb under 
 temptation invincible ? Cover the good man who has 
 been vanquished — cover his face and pass on. 
 
 For the last half-dozen years of his hfe, Goldsmith 
 was far removed from the pressure of any ignoble neces- 
 
 15 sity ; and in the receipt, indeed, of a pretty large income 
 from the booksellers, his patrons. Had he lived but a 
 few years more, his pubHc fame would have been as 
 great as his private reputation, and he might have 
 enjoyed aUve a part of that esteem which his country 
 
 20 has ever since paid to the vivid and versatile genius 
 who has touched on almost every subject of Uterature, 
 and touched nothing that he did not adorn. Except 
 in rare instances, a man is known in our profession, and 
 esteemed as a skilful workman, years before the lucky 
 
 25 hit which trebles his usual gains, and stamps him a 
 popular author. In the strength of his age, and the 
 dawn of his reputation, having for backers and friends 
 the most illustrious Uterary men of his time,^ fame and 
 
 ' ' Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a 
 
 30 Natural History ; and that he might have full leisure for it, he 
 
 had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six-mile 
 
 stone on the Edgeware Boad, and had carried down his books in 
 
 two returned post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's 
 
 family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which 
 
 35 the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children ; he was 
 
 The Oentleman. Mr. Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad, and 
 
 I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was 
 
 not at home ; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we 
 
 went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals 
 
 40 scrawled upon the wall with a blaoklead pencil.' — Boswbll. 
 
 [anno 1772.] 
 
238 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 prosperity might have been in store for Groldsmith, had 
 fate so willed ; and, at forty-six, had not sudden 
 disease carried him off. I say prosperity rather than 
 competence, for it is probable that no sum could have 
 put order into his affairs or suf&ced for his irreclaimable s 
 habits of dissipation. It must be remembered that he 
 owed 2,000?. when he died. ' Was ever poet,' Johnson 
 asked, ' so trusted before 1 ' As has been the case with 
 many another good fellow of his nation, his life was 
 tracked and his substance wasted by crowds of hungry lo 
 beggars and lazy dependants. If they came at a lucky 
 time (and be sure they knew his affairs better than he 
 did himself, and watched his pay-day), he gave them 
 of his money : if they begged on empty-purse days 
 he gave them his promissory bUls : or he treated them is 
 to a tavern where he had credit ; or he obUged them 
 with an order upon honest Mr. FUby for coats, for which 
 he paid as long as he could earn, and untU the shears of 
 FUby were to cut for him no more. Staggering under 
 a load of debt and labour, tracked by baUiffs and 20 
 reproachful creditors, running from a hundred poor 
 dependants, whose appealing looks were perhaps the 
 hardest of aU. pains for him to bear, devising fevered 
 plans for the morrow, new histories, new comedies, aU 
 sorts of new Uterary schemes, flying from aU these iato 25 
 seclusion, and out of seclusion into pleasure — ^at last, 
 at five-and-forty, death seized him and closed his career.^ 
 I have been many a time in the chambers in the Temple 
 which were his, and passed up the staircase, which 
 Johnson, and Burke, and Reynolds trod to see their 30 
 friend, their poet, their kind Goldsmith — ^the stair on 
 
 ^ ' When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, " Your 
 pulse is in greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of 
 fever which you have ; is your roiud at ease ? " Goldsmith 
 answered it was not.' — Dr. Johnson (in Boswdl). [anno 1777.] 85 
 
 ' Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone 
 much farther. He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, 
 by the fear of distress. He had raised money and squandered 
 it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let 
 not his faiUngs be remembered ; he was a very great man.' — De. 40 
 Johnson (in Boswdl, July 5th, 1774). 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 239 
 
 which the poor -women sat weeping bitterly when they 
 heard that the greatest and most generous of all men was 
 dead within the black oak door.^ Ah, it was a different 
 lot from that for which the poor fellow sighed, when he 
 5 wrote with heart yearning for home those most charm- 
 ing of all fond verses, in which he fancies he revisits 
 ' Auburn ' — 
 
 Here, as I take my soUtary roimds 
 Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
 10 And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
 
 Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew. 
 Remembrance wakes with aU her busy train. 
 Swells at my breast, and tiu'ns the past to pain. 
 
 In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
 15 In all my griefs — and God has given my share, 
 I stUl had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 
 Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
 To husband out life's taper at the close. 
 And keep the flame from wasting by repose ; 
 20 I stUl had hopes — for pride attends us still — 
 Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill. 
 Around my jBre an evening group to draw, 
 And tell of aU I felt and aU I saw ; 
 And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
 25 Pants to the place from whence at first she flew — 
 
 ' ' When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into 
 tears. Reynolds was in his painting-room when the messenger 
 went to him ; but at once he laid his pencil aside, which in times 
 of great family distress he had not been known to do, left his 
 
 30 painting-room, and did not re-enter it that day. . . . 
 
 ' The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with 
 mourners, the reverse of domestic ; women without a home, 
 without domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they 
 had come to weep for ; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked 
 
 35 city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable. 
 And he had domestic mourners, too. His coffin was reopened 
 at the request of Miss Horneck and her sister (such was the regard 
 he was known to have for them) that a look might be cut from his 
 hair. It was in Mrs. Gwyn's possession when she died, after 
 
 40 nearly seventy years.' — Forsteb's Ooldsmith. [pp. 688 sqq. 
 (1848).] 
 
240 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
 Here to return, and die at home at last. 
 
 O blest retirement, friend to life's decline ! 
 
 Retreats from care that never must be mine — 
 
 How happy he who crowns in shades Uke these s 
 
 A youth of labour with an age of ease ; 
 
 Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
 
 And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
 
 For him no wretches born to work and weep 
 
 Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep ; lo 
 
 No surly porter stands in guilty state 
 
 To spurn imploring famine from the gate : 
 
 But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
 
 Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 
 
 Bends to the grave with unperceived decay, is 
 
 While resignation gently slopes the way ; 
 
 And, aU Ms prospects brightening to the last, 
 
 His heaven commences ere the world be past. 
 
 In these verses, I need not say with what melody, 
 with what touching truth, with what exquisite beauty 20 
 of comparison — as indeed in hundreds more pages of 
 the writings of this honest soul — the whole character 
 of the man is told — ^his humble confession of faults 
 and weakness ; his pleasant Uttle vanity, and desire 
 that his village should admire him ; his simple scheme 25 
 of good in which everybody was to be happy — ^no 
 beggar was to be refused his dinner — ^nobody in fact 
 was to work much, and he to be the harmless chief 
 of the Utopia, and the monarch of the Irish Yvetot. 
 He would have told again, and without fear of their 30 
 failing, those famous jokes ^ which had hung fire in 
 
 ' ' Goldsmitli's incessant desire of being conspicuous in com- 
 pany was the occasion of his sometimes appearing to such 
 disadvantage, as one should hardly have supposed possible in 
 a man of his genius. When his literary reputation had risen 35 
 deservedly high, and his society was much courted, he became 
 very jealous of the extraordinary attention which was everywhere 
 paid to Johnson. One evening, in a circle of wits, he found fault 
 with me for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honour of 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 241 
 
 London ; he would have talked of his great friends of 
 the Club — of my Lord Clare and my Lord Bishop, my 
 
 unquestionable superiority. " Sir," said he, " you are for making 
 a monarchy of what should be a republic." 
 5 ' He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with 
 fluent vivacity, and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration 
 of all who were present, a German who sat next him, and per- 
 ceived Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, suddenly 
 stopped him, saying, " Stay, stay — Tootor Shonson is going to 
 
 10 say something." This was no doubt very provoking, especially 
 to one so irritable as Goldsmith, who frequently mentioned it 
 with strong expressions of indignation. 
 
 ' It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes 
 content to be treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions 
 
 15 would be consequential and important. An instance of this 
 occurred in a small particular. Johnson had a way of contracting 
 the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau ; Boswell, Bozzy. 
 ... I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that 
 Dr. Johnson said — " We are all in labour for a name to Ooldy's 
 
 20 play," Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should 
 be taken with his name, and said, " I have often desired him 
 not to call me OMy." ' [Boswell, Life, anno 1773.] 
 
 This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions of 
 Goldsmith — which may well irritate biographers and admirers — 
 
 25 and also those who take that more kindly and more profound 
 view of Boswell's own character, which was opened up by 
 Mr. Carlyle's famous article on his book. No wonder that 
 Mr. Irving calls Boswell an ' incarnation of toadyism '. And the 
 worst of it is, that Johnson himself has suffered from this habit 
 
 30 of the Laird of Auchinleck's. People are apt to forget under 
 what BoswelUan stimxdus the great Doctor uttered many hasty 
 things : — things no more indicative of the nature of the depths 
 of his character than the phosphoric gleaming of the sea, when 
 struck at night, is indicative of radical corruption of nature ! 
 
 35 In truth, it is clear enough on the whole that both Johnson and 
 Goldsmith appreciated each other, and that they mutually knew 
 it. They were, as it were, tripped up and flung against each 
 other, occasionally, by the blundering and silly gambolling of 
 people in company. 
 
 40 Something must be allowed for Boswell's ' rivalry for John- 
 son's good graces ' with Oliver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), 
 for Oliver was intimate with the Doctor before his biographer 
 was, — and as we all remember, marched off with him to ' take 
 tea with Mrs. Williams ' before Boswell had advanced to that 
 
 45 honourable degree of intimacy. But, in truth, Boswell — though 
 he perhaps showed more talent in his delineation of the Doctor 
 than is generally ascribed to him — had not faculty to take 
 1356 B 
 
242 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 Lord Nugent — sure he knew them intimately, and was 
 hand and glove with some of the best men in town — 
 and he would have spoken of Johnson and of Burke, from 
 Cork, and of Sir Joshua who had painted him — ^and he 
 would have told wonderful sly stories of Ranelagh and s 
 the Pantheon, and the masquerades at Madame Comelys' ; 
 and he would have toasted, with a sigh, the Jessamy 
 Bride — ^the lovely Mary Horneck. 
 
 The figure of that charming young lady forms one of 
 the prettiest recollections of Goldsmith's Ufe. She and lo 
 her beautiful sister, who married Bunbury, the graceful 
 and humorous amateur artist of those days, when 
 Gillray had but just begun to try his powers, were among 
 the kindest and dearest of Goldsmith's many friends ; 
 cheered and pitied him, travelled abroad with him, made is 
 him welcome at their home, and gave him many a 
 pleasant holiday. He bought his finest clothes to figure 
 at their country house at Barton — ^he wrote them droU 
 verses. They loved him, laughed at him, played him 
 tricks and made him happy. He asked for a loan from 20 
 Garrick, and Garrick kindly supplied him, to enable 
 him to go to Barton — ^but there were to be no more 
 holidays, and only one brief struggle more for poor 
 Goldsmith — ^a lock of his hair was taken from the coffin 
 and given to the Jessamy Bride. She lived quite into 25 
 our time. Hazhtt saw her an old lady, but beautiful 
 stiU, in Northoote's painting-room, who told the eager 
 critic how proud she always was that Goldsmith had 
 admired her. The younger Colman has left a touching 
 reminiscence of him (vol. i, 110 [1830]). *> 
 
 ' I was only five years old,' he says, ' when Goldsmith 
 took me on his knee while he was drinking coffee one 
 evening with my father, and began to play with me, 
 which amiable act I returned, with the ingratitude of 
 a peevish brat, by giving him a very smart slap in the ss 
 face : it must have been a tingler, for it left the marks 
 
 a fair view of two great men at a time. Besides, as Mr. Forster 
 justly remarks, ' he was impatient of Goldsmith from the first 
 hour of their acquaintance.' — [Ooldsmith, p. 292.] 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 243 
 
 of my little spiteful paw upon his cheek. This infantile 
 outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was 
 locked up by my indignant father in an adjoining room 
 to undergo solitary imprisonment in the dark. Here 
 
 5 1 began to howl and scream most abominably, wh'oh 
 was no bad step towards liberation, since those who 
 were not inclined to pity me might be likely to set me 
 free for the purpose of abating a nuisance. 
 
 ' At length a generous friend appeared to extricate 
 
 10 me from jeopardy, and that generous friend was no 
 other than the man I had so wantonly molested by 
 assault and battery — it was the tender-hearted Doctor 
 himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile 
 upon his countenance, which was still partially red 
 
 15 from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed 
 and he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. 
 Goldsmith . . . seized the propitious moment of returning 
 good humour, so he put down the candle and began to 
 conjure. He placed three hats, which happened to be in 
 
 20 the room, upon the carpet, and a shilling under each. 
 The shillings he told me were England, France, and 
 Spain. " Hey presto cockalorum ! " cried the Doctor, 
 and Id, on uncovering the shillings, which had been 
 dispersed, each beneath a separate hat, they were all 
 
 25 found congregated under one. I was no politician at 
 five years old, and therefore might not have wondered at 
 the sudden revolution which brought England, France, 
 and Spain all under one crown ; but, as I was also no 
 conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure. . . . From that 
 
 30 time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father, 
 " I plucked his gown to share the good man's smile " ; 
 a game at romps constantly ensued, and we were always 
 cordial friends and merry playfellows. Our unequal 
 companionship varied somewhat in point of sports as 
 
 35 I grew older ; but it did not last long : my senior play- 
 mate died alas ! in his forty-fifth year, some months 
 after I had attained my eleventh. ... In all the numerous 
 accounts of his virtues and his foibles, his genius and 
 absurdities, his knowledge of nature and his ignorance 
 
 40 of the world, his "compassion for another's woe" was 
 
 E2 
 
244 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 always predominant ; and my trivial story of his humour- 
 ing a f reward child weighs but as a feather in the recorded 
 scale of his benevolence.' 
 
 Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain if you like — ^but 
 merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. He 5 
 passes out of our life, and goes to render his account 
 beyond it. Think of the poor pensioners weeping at 
 his grave ; think of the noble spirits that admired and 
 deplored him ; think of the righteous pen that wrote his 
 epitaph — and of the wonderful and unanimous response lo 
 of affection with which the world has paid back the love 
 he gave it. His humour delighting us still : his song 
 fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed with it : 
 his words in all our mouths : his very weaknesses beloved 
 and familiar — ^his benevolent spirit seems stUI to smile is 
 upon us : to do gentle kindnesses : to succom? with 
 sweet charity : to soothe, caress, and forgive : to plead 
 with the fortunate for the unhappy and the poor. 
 
 His name is the last in the list of those men of humour 
 who have formed the themes of the discourses which you 20 
 have heard so kindly. Long before I had ever hoped for 
 such an audience, or dreamed of the possibiMty of the 
 good fortune which has brought me so many friends, 
 I was at issue with some of my literary brethren upon 
 a point — which they held from tradition I think rather 25 
 than experience — ^that our profession was neglected in 
 this country ; and that men of letters were iU-received 
 and held in sUght esteem. It would hardly be grateful 
 of me now to alter my old opinion that we do meet with 
 goodwill and kindness, with generous helping hands in the so 
 time of our necessity, with cordial and friendly recogni- 
 tion. What claim had any one of these of whom I have 
 been speaking, but genius ? What return of gratitude, 
 fame, affection, did it not bring to all ? What punishment 
 befeU those who were unfortunate among them, but that 35 
 which follows reckless habits and careless lives 1 For 
 these faults a wit must suffer like the dullest prodigal that 
 ever ran in debt. He must pay the tailor if he wears 
 the coat ; his children must go in rags if he spends his 
 money at the tavern ; he can't come to London and be 40 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 245 
 
 made Lord Chancellor if he stops on the road and 
 gambles away his last shilling at Dublin. And he must 
 pay the social penalty of these foUies too, and expect 
 that the world will shun the man of bad habits, that 
 
 6 women will avoid the man of loose life, that prudent 
 folks will close their doors as a precaution, and before 
 a demand shall be made on their pockets by the needy 
 prodigal. With what difficulty had any one of these 
 men to contend, save that eternal and mechanical one 
 
 10 of want of means and lack of capital, and of which 
 thousands of young lawyers, young doctors, young 
 soldiers and sailors, of inventors, manufacturers, shop- 
 keepers, have to complain ? Hearts as brave and resolute 
 as ever beat in the breast of any wit or poet, sicken 
 
 15 and break daily in the vain endeavom: and unavailing 
 struggle against life's difficulty. Don't we see daily 
 ruined inventors, grey-haired midshipmen, balked 
 heroes, blighted curates, barristers pining a hungry life 
 out in chambers, the attorneys never mounting to their 
 
 20 garrets, whilst scores of them are rapping at the door 
 of the successful quack below ? If these suffer, who is 
 the author, that he should be exempt ? Let us bear our 
 iUs with the same constancy with which others endure 
 them, accept our manly part in hfe, hold our own, and 
 
 25 ask no more. I can conceive of no kings or laws causing 
 or curing Goldsmith's improvidence, or Fielding's fatal 
 love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for running races 
 with the constable. You never can outrun that sure- 
 footed officer — ^not by any swiftness or by dodges devised 
 
 30 by any genius, however great ; and he carries ofE the 
 Tatler to the spunging-house, or taps the Citizen of the 
 World on the shoulder as he would any other mortal. 
 
 Does society look down on a man because he is an 
 author ? I suppose if people want a buffoon they tolerate 
 
 35 him only in so far as he is amusing ; it can hardly be 
 expected that they should respect him as an equal. Is 
 there to be a guard of honour provided for the author 
 of the last new novel or poem ? how long is he to reign, 
 and keep other potentates out of possession 1 He retires, 
 
 40 grumbles, and prints a lamentation that Uterature is 
 
246 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 
 despised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady B.'s parties 
 he does not state that the army is despised : if Lord C. 
 no longer asks Counsellor T>. to dinner, Counsellor D. does 
 not announce that the Bar is iusulted. He is not fair 
 to society if he enters it with this suspicion hankering 5 
 about him ; it he is doubtful about his reception, how 
 hold up his head honestly, and look frankly in the face 
 that world about which he is fuU of suspicion ? Is he 
 place-hunting, and thinking in his mind that he ought 
 to be made an Ambassador, like Prior, or a Secretary 10 
 of State, like Addison ? his pretence of equality falls to 
 the ground at once : he is scheming for a patron, not 
 shaking the hand of a friend, when he meets the world. 
 Treat such a man as he deserves ; laugh at his buffoonery, 
 and give him a dinner and a bon jour ; laugh at his self- is 
 sufficiency and absurd assumptions of superiority, and 
 his equally ludicrous airs of martyrdom : laugh at his 
 flattery and his scheming, and buy it, if it's worth the 
 having. Let the wag have his dinner and the hireling 
 his pay, if you want him, and make a profound bow to 20 
 the grand homme incompris, and the boisterous martyr, 
 and show him the door. The great world, the great 
 aggregate experience, has its good sense, as it has its 
 good humour. It detects a pretender, as it trusts a 
 loyal heart. It is kind in the main : how should it 25 
 be otherwise than kind, when it is so wise and clear- 
 headed ? To any literary man who says, ' It despises 
 my profession,' I say, with all my might — ^no, no, no. It 
 may pass over your individual case — ^how many a brave 
 feUow has failed in the race, and perished unknown in 30 
 the struggle ! — ^but it treats you as you merit in the 
 main. If you serve it, it is not unthankful ; if you 
 please it, it is pleased ; if you cringe to it, it detects you, 
 and scorns you if you are mean ; it returns your cheer- 
 fulness with its good humour ; it deals not ungenerously 35 
 with your weaknesses ; it recognizes most kindly your 
 merits ; it gives you a fair place and fair play. To any 
 one of those men of whom we have spoken was it in 
 the main ungrateful ? A king might refuse Goldsmith 
 a pension, as a publisher might keep his masterpiece and 40 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 247 
 
 the delight of all the world in his desk for two years ; but 
 it was mistake, and not iU will. Noble and illustrious 
 names of Swift, and Pope, and Addison ! dear and 
 honoured memories of Goldsmith and Fielding ! kind 
 6 friends, teachers, benefactors ! who shall say that our 
 country, which continues to bring you such an unceasing 
 tribute of applause, admiration, love, sympathy, does 
 not do honour to the Uterary calling in the honour 
 which it bestows upon you ! 
 
EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 SWIFT 
 
 Page 1, 1. 30. Rich, John (? 682-1761), has been called ' the 
 Father of Harlequins '- He was for nine years manager at 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, and buUt the first Covent Garden 
 Theatre in 1732. 
 
 Page 2, 1. 21. Sir William Temple : (1628-99), a diplomatist 
 and essay-writer, who was for some time Ambassador at the 
 Hague. He was a cautious politician ' whose great maxim was 
 to offend no party '. He is best remembered for his abortive 
 scheme to check the growing power of the Cabinet by a recon- 
 stitution of the Privy Council. He several times refused the 
 post of Secretary of State, and for the last eighteen years of his 
 life kept aloof from politics, devoting himself to literature and 
 his garden. 
 
 1. 34. Withers : more usually Wither, George (1588-1667), 
 a poet and pamphleteer, who is now chiefly remembered for his 
 charming lyric, ' Shall I, wasting in despair.' 
 
 Page 3, 1. . Temple's natural daughter : this, as Sir Leslie 
 Stephen says, is nothing but ' a gratuitous guess '. The state- 
 ment was apparently first made by a writer in the Oentleman's 
 Magazine for November 1757, who also asserted that Temple 
 was likewise the father of Swift. The tragic possibUities involved 
 in this theory have commended it to the lovers of sensation, 
 but it seems entirely unsupported by evidence. 
 
 1. 13. his deanery of St. Patrick : in Dublin ; Swift was in- 
 stalled June 13, 1713. 
 
 1. 17. his party disgraced : Swift entered poUtical life as 
 a Whig, but in 1710 joined the Tories, who were then in power, 
 and so continued till the death of the queen in 1714, when the 
 Whigs came in and Swift's poUtical influence in London went 
 for ever. 
 
 1. 20. Dra/pier's Letters : owing to a shortage of copper coinage 
 m beland a patent was given by a shameful piece of jobbery in 
 1723 to one Wood to make £108,000 worth of copper coins. 
 The Irish ParHament having in vain protested against this, 
 Swift wrote a series of letters against the imposition under the 
 title of ' M. D. drapier [= draper] Dublin'. The effect was 
 instantaneous ; people refused to touch the new coinage, and 
 the Government was forced to withdraw Wood's patent. 
 
 1. 21. married Hester Johnson : few questions have been more 
 debated than this. In any case the marriage was merely a formal 
 
250 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 one : the two never lived together or even met after the alleged 
 ceremony without the presence of a third person. 
 
 Page 4, 1. 6. Irishman : but see Thackeray's words below, 
 p. 11, 1. 19. 
 
 1. 25. the Earl of Orrery : John Boyle, fifth earl, son of Charles 
 Boyle, fourth earl, famous for his dispute with Bentley over 
 the Epistles of Phalaris. It was after the fourth earl that the 
 mechanical invention for showing the motions of the planets 
 was called an orrery. 
 
 1. 34. Dr. Wilde's book : it was entitled The Closing Tears of 
 Dean Swiff s Life, by Sir W. R. W. WUde, and was first published 
 in 1849 in Dublin. 
 
 Page 5, 1. 24. his mug of small ieer : this was the regular 
 breakfast beverage of the time. Tea cost about 16«. a pound — 
 Thackeray says 30s., below, p. 117 — and coflfee was even dearer. 
 
 Page 6, 1. 26. Mr. Serjeant BeMesworth : a member of the Irish 
 Parliament, ' remarkable for his florid elocution ', who had 
 incurred Swift's enmity by supporting bills for enforcing resi- 
 dence on the clergy and dividing large benefices, and also by 
 advocating the relaxation of the penal laws against Dissenters. 
 His quarrel with Swift is said to have injured his practice at the 
 Bar to the extent of £1,200 per annum (see Scott's lAfe, p. 415, 
 second edition). Serjeants-at-law were an order of barristers 
 socially superior to King's Counsel ; from among them the 
 judges were chosen. No fresh Serjeants have been created since 
 1875, and the order is now extinct. 
 
 1. 28. Thus, at the bar, &c. : from the verses On the words 
 Brother Protestants, &c. 
 
 1. 30. margent : ' margin ', where notes would be written. 
 
 1. 31. Singleton : Henry, then (1733) Prime Serjeant, after- 
 wards Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and later Master 
 of the RoUs. 
 
 1. 38. my Hamilton : the Hon. Hamilton Boyle, Lord Orrery's 
 son, to whom the Remarks are addressed in the form of letters. 
 
 1. 43. motions : this is the reading of the first and second 
 editions; the third and fourth have ' notions '. AH four editions 
 appeared in 1752. 
 
 Page 7, 1. 2. fighting your battles masked : not one of Swift's 
 works, with the exception of his Proposal for Correcting . . . the 
 English Tongue, was published under his own name. 
 
 1. 7. one of his letters : dated April 5, 1729. 
 Bolingbroke : Henry St. John (1678-1751) was made 
 Secretary at War in 1704 by the influence of Harley, and a 
 Secretary of State in 1710. Two years later he was created 
 Viscount Bolingbroke. In 1715, being suspected of complicity 
 in a Jacobite plot, he fled to the Continent, and remained in 
 exile for eight years, till he received the royal pardon. But 
 though he returned to England he never re-entered political life. 
 
SWIFT 251 
 
 1. 13. a blue ribbon : one of the insignia of a Knight of the 
 Garter. 
 
 1. 18. Mrs. PilMngton : the aspersion on the lady's aoouraoy 
 is hardly warranted. True she was not a person of very high 
 character, but, according to Diot. Nat. Biog., ' Thackeray was 
 quite justified in the extensive use he made of her anecdotes . . . 
 for the internal evidence of their authenticity is quite con- 
 clusive '. Her Memoirs . . . written by hersdf, appeared in 1748. 
 
 Page 8, 1. 5. Macheath : the highwayman hero of Gay's 
 Beggar's Opera. 
 
 1. 10. a patent place : a post held by royal warrant. 
 
 1. 12. the mitre and crazier : Swift aspired to the bishopric of 
 Hereford, but Queen Anne, whose limited intelligence regarded 
 him as httle better than an infidel, refused to give him anything 
 more than the deanery of St. Patrick's. 
 
 1. 21. Jan. 7, 1712-13 : up to 1752 the days from January 1 
 to March 24 were counted in all legal business as falling within 
 the previous year, as the legal year only began on March 25. 
 Hence for these days it was usual to give the double date, the 
 former indicating the legal, the latter the popular year. The 
 distinction was abolished by the Act of 1751 for reforming the 
 calendar. 
 
 1. 24. Lord Treasurer : this was Robert Harley (1661-1724), 
 who entered the House of Commons as a Whig, was elected 
 Speaker, and later a Secretary of State. Shortly after this he 
 began to intrigue with the Tories, and in 1711, on being created 
 Earl of Oxford, he received the office of Lord High Treasurer, 
 and took the lead of the Tory party. He was dismissed in 1714, 
 and the following year was impeached of high treason ; but 
 after lying two years in the Tower he was acquitted. Like his 
 friend and rival, Bolingbroke, he spent the rest of his hfe in 
 retirement, devoting himself chiefly to letters. 
 
 The Lord High Treasurer was originally President of the 
 Exchequer, his chief business being to provide for the expenses 
 of the Government. In 1715 his office was ' put into commis- 
 sion ', i. e. a board was appointed to supersede him ; the nominal 
 head of this is the First Lord of the Treasury, who since 1800 
 has always been the Prime Minister, but the actual head is the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 1. 42. take wp Hurt, the, printer : in the following year Hurt 
 was again taken up for publishing The British Ambassadress's 
 Speech to the French king, which Swift calls ' the cursedest 
 Ubel in verse that ever was seen ' {J. to S., March 23, 1712-13). 
 He was tried in June 1713, and sentenced to stand twice in the 
 pillory, to pay a fine of £50, to be imprisoned for two years, 
 and to find sureties for his good behaviour for the rest of his life. 
 
 Page 9, 1. 1. to point a moral, &c. : from Johnson's Vanity of 
 Human Wishes, 221. 
 
252 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 3. Rid/path, George, the editor of the Flying Post, a Whig 
 moruiag paper, which appeared first ia 1695. It was published 
 three times a week, and appeared regularly tUl July 1712, when 
 in consequence of the Stamp Act it combined with the Medley. 
 This was a Whig organ, started in 1710, with Addison and 
 Steele as contributors ; it was intended, like its short-lived 
 predecessor. The Whig Examiner, to give the other side to that 
 put forward in The Examiner by Harley, Prior, Atterbuiy, and, 
 a little later, Swift. 
 
 Bidpath was put on his trial for Ubel in 1713, and found guilty, 
 but sentence was postponed : three months later he forfeited 
 his bail and fled to Scotland, whence he crossed to Holland, 
 remaining there tiU the accession of George I, when he returned 
 to England. 
 
 1. 39. Quiscard : a French adventurer who had managed to 
 procure a Government pension of £500, which Harley afterwards 
 reduced to £400. Guiscard, being detected in treasonable corre- 
 spondence with France, was brought before the Council for 
 examination, when he took the opportunity to gratify his 
 vengeance by stabbing Harley with a pocket-knife. He was 
 assailed in turn by the other members of the Council, and being 
 seized, was carried to Newgate, where he died of his wounds. 
 Harley became the object of much popular sympathy, and 
 received from the queen his title and the ofBee of Lord High 
 Treasurer. 
 
 Page 10, 1. 5. condottieri : [ItaL] ' captains of mercenary 
 soldiers '. 
 
 1. 12. the Eailway mania : in 1846 the English public was 
 possessed by a fury for speculating in railways ; no fewer than 
 272 Acts were passed in twelve months. 
 
 1. 32. Mr. Secretary : i. e. Henry St. John ; see above, note 
 to p. 7, L 7. In the reign of Henry VllI there were two Secre- 
 taries of State ; on the union with Scotland in 1708, a third 
 Secretary was appointed. There are now five, who, unlike their 
 predecessors, deal with separate departments. Home Affairs, 
 Foreign Affairs, the Colonies, War, and India. 
 
 Page 11, 1. 7. Copenhagen : in 1801 the British fleet, in order 
 to break up the armed neutraUty existing between Bussia, 
 Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia, bombarded the batteries of 
 Copenhagen and the Danish fleet. 
 
 1. 21. Oriib Street, now called Milton Street, near Moorgate 
 Street, was the haunt of many publishers' hacks and needy 
 journalists. 
 
 1. 22. Medley : see above, note to p. 9, 1. 3. 
 
 Page 12, 1. 5. tropes and metaphors : a trope is any turn of 
 speech by which a word, phrase, or sentence is used in a sense 
 other than the literal. Metaphor, therefore, is one form of 
 trope. 
 
SWIFT 253 
 
 1. 43. Mantua vae, &c. : Virg. Ed. ix. 28. ' Mantua, alas ! 
 too near to hapless Cremona.' After the Civil War Ootavian 
 rewarded his soldiers with the territory of Cremona, but this 
 proving insufficient, the neighbouring district of Mantua was 
 drawn on for further spoil. A mantua was a loose gown worn 
 by women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; the 
 word has no connexion with the town. Cremona became noted 
 for violins in the sixteenth century. 
 
 Page 13, 1. 13. to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion : this 
 fact, as Soott says, is recorded by all Swift's biographers, but 
 neither he nor any other has explained how the Dutch method 
 of cultivation differs from ours. It appears that the Dutch heap 
 up the earth round the shoots, allowing only the tip to appear 
 above ground ; this, of course, bleaches the aspaiagus, and gives 
 it, they claim, a finer flavour. The shoots are cut underground 
 by a specially designed knife. 
 
 1. 14. Shme or Sheen, is near Kichmond, and Moor Park near 
 Farnham in Surrey. 
 
 L 15. twenty pounds, &c. : this rests on the authority of 
 Eichardson, who quoted it from the ' Jack Temple ' mentioned 
 below, p. 19, 1. 42. Sir Leslie Stephen stigmatizes it as ' an 
 untrustworthy report'. 
 
 1. 18. as proud as Lucifer's : Satan was termed Lucifer before 
 he was driven from heaven for his pride. ' How art thou fallen 
 from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ' (Isa. xiv. 12) — 
 one of the unconscious hexameters of the Authorized Version. 
 
 1. 32. ambrosial : ' fragrant ' ; ambrosia was the food of the 
 gods in Greek mythology. 
 
 Page 14, L 24. The Epicureans : the followers of the Greek 
 philosopher Epicurus (342-270 B.C.), who taught that pleasure 
 was the highest good — a by no means ignoble doctrine if the 
 term ' pleasure ' is rightly construed. 
 
 1. 33. the Molinists : followers of Miguel de Molinos, a Spanish 
 priest (d. 1697), who taught that man's first duty was to give 
 himself up to the contemplation and love of God, prayer and 
 other devotional exercises being imnecessary. His doctrines 
 were condemned by the Pope, who kept him in prison till he 
 died. 
 
 Page 15, L 1. the ambassador : Temple was British Resident 
 at Brussels when he brought about the Triple Alliance between 
 England, Holland, and Sweden (1668). After that he was 
 Ambassador at the Hague, first for two years, and, after an 
 interval, for five. 
 
 1. 5. the Ciceronian majesty : among Latin prose authors 
 Cicero (d. 43 B.C.) reigns supreme for style. 
 
 1. 13. Dorothea, his wife: she, had been Dorothy Osborne, 
 daughter of Sir Peter Osborne, an ardent royalist. As Temple's 
 
254 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 father was a member of the Long Parliament, there was a good 
 deal of opposition to the match from both families, and the 
 lovers had to submit to a seven years' separation. The world 
 is, however, the richer for the delightfiil letters writtej) by 
 Dorothy to Temple during that period. We hear little of her 
 after her marriage ; she died five years before her husband. 
 
 1. 15. Mild Dorothea, &c. ; from Verses occasioned hy Sir 
 William Temple's late illness and recovery, written in 1693. 
 
 1. 17. Dorinda : this was Martha, Lady GifEord, who being 
 left a widow within a month of her marriage, lived with the 
 Temples, and seems to have been a more important personage 
 in the family than Lady Temple. She accompanied her brother 
 on many of his diplomatic journeys. 
 
 1. 26. a Persian word : despite the advance in the science of 
 etymology it still ' seems to have been a Persian word ' which 
 came into our language through the Greek. 
 
 1. 28. Straho : an historian and geographer who wrote about 
 the beginning of the Christian era, and compiled a Geography of 
 the World in seventeen books. He wrote in Greek, but a Latin 
 version appeared in print before the original. The passage quoted 
 by Temple is from Book XVI, chap, ii, § 41. The Latin translation 
 appears to be that of Xylander, publihed at Basel in 1571. 
 
 1. 29. Ihi est, &c. : ' There is a palm-grove there, wherein are 
 several other garden trees ; it is a fruitful spot with a quantity 
 of palm trees, and weU-watered throughout for the distance of 
 a hundred furlongs. There is a palace there and a park of 
 Balsam.' 
 
 Page 16, 1. 13. moxa : the down of a plant called mugwort, 
 which used to be burnt over the skin in order to produce a 
 blister. 
 
 Page 17, 1. 6. gentleman : ' valet '. 
 
 1. 7. Teague : ' an Irishman ' ; the anglicized "spelling of 
 the Irish name Tadhg, which in one of its various pronunciations, 
 rimes with ' league '. 
 
 1. 24. plates-bandes : ' borders of flowers '. 
 
 Diogenes Laertius : i. e. Diogenes, bom at Laerte in Asia 
 Minor ; he lived about a. d. 200, and wrote the Uves of the 
 Greek philosophers ; his work is the foundation of most modem 
 histories of philosophy ; it is packed with anecdotes, but very 
 little reliance can be placed on their accuracy. 
 
 1. 25. Sermramis : a queen of Assyria, who is supposed to 
 have reigned about 2000 b. o. She is credited with having built 
 — or at least greatly enlarged — Babylon. 
 
 gardens o/ the Hesperides : the four daughters of Night 
 dwelt in a beautiful garden on the western verge of the world, 
 where with the sufficient aid of a dragon they guarded the 
 golden apples which had been given to Hera the Queen of Heaven 
 on her wedding-day. 
 
SWIFT 255 
 
 1. 26. Maecenas : chief minister of Augustus, and friend and 
 patron of Horace and Virgil. He died 8 b. o. 
 
 1.28. Pythagoroi's precept: Pythagoras, born about 580 B. C, 
 founded a religious brotherhood, admission to which was only 
 granted after five years of silence. The brothers of the order 
 were pledged to abstain from meat, and were also forbidden to 
 eat beans. No one has yet explained this latter prohibition ; 
 there is not even agreement as to whether it is to be interpreted 
 literally or as a metaphor. Those who adopt Sir WiUiam Temple's 
 explanation point to the fact that votes were given at Bome 
 by means of pebbles. 
 
 Page 18, 1. 5. Pope says nobly : see Spence's Anecdotes, p. 158, 
 in Singer's edition (1820) : ' they are quite azure as the heavens, 
 and there 's a very uncommon archness in them.' 
 
 1. 15. vertigo : ' dizziness '. There is a horrible modem ten- 
 dency — even among medical men — to lengthen the ' i ' in this 
 word. 
 
 1. 25. the letter to Temple : dated October 6, 1694. 
 
 Page 19, 1. 3. Bishop Kennet : White Kennett was Bishop of 
 Peterborough from 1718 till his death in 1728 ; Scott in his Life 
 printed this extract from the bishop's Diary, where it appears 
 under the year 1713. The Diary, which is in manuscript, is 
 in the British Museum (see Scott's Life, p. 137, ed. of 1824). 
 
 1. 32. a young feUow : see above, note to p. 10, 1. 32. 
 
 1. 35. makes : this must mean in his published writings and 
 correspondence, for he had been dead for twelve years. He 
 never was Secretary of State, though the post was offered him 
 on several occasions. 
 
 Page 20, 1. 1. F. Qwynne : this should be Francis Gwyn 
 (? 1648-1734). He was for some time Commissioner of the 
 Board of Trade, and afterwards Secretary at War. 
 
 1. 35. Tom JDavies : a bookseller and actor who introduced 
 BosweU to Johnson. In 1784 he published his Dramatic Mis- 
 cellanies, from which extracts appear below on pp. 48, 49. 
 
 Page 21, 1. 15. the Tale of a Tub : a satire directed against 
 the Church of Rome, represented in the story by Peter, and 
 the Nonconformists, represented by Jack ; the Church of 
 England, which Swift upheld, was personified as Martin ; the 
 names Jack and Martin being taken from Calvin and Luther. 
 The queen could not beUeve — any more than the great majority 
 of people can nowadays — ^that a writer was in earnest unless he 
 was also serious. 
 
 Page 22, 1. 4. the wildest of the wits about toum : this extra- 
 ordinary description of the gentle creature may be compared 
 with what Thackeray says of him below, p. 132. Here in hia 
 anxiety to make a point he besmirches Gay in order to heighten 
 the indecency of Swift's proposal. But Thackeray's sense of 
 
256 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 humour must for once have deserted him : • the words of which 
 he complains come at the end of a letter dated January 8,. 
 1722-3 ; Swift writes, ' take care of your health and money ; 
 be less modest [this to ' the wildest of the wits about town ' !] 
 and more active ; or else turn parson and get a bishopric here.' 
 It is hardly possible for an unprejudiced reader to take this 
 seriously, and if the Archbishop of Cashell's view of episcopal 
 duties was shared by the other bishops, one cannot believe that 
 Gay would have brought any special discredit on the Bench. 
 
 1. 7. advised him to husband his shillings : see, for instance, 
 the extract given on p. 135 below. 
 
 1. 26. translated : ' transferred to another see '. 
 
 Page 23, 1. 18. wooden shoes : a term specially applied to the 
 French from the use of sabots by the poorer classes in !Pranoe. 
 
 1. 28. Robin : this must be Robert Blakeley, who had been 
 the Dean's butler. 
 
 Page 24, 1. 5. what a genius I had : it is said that Thackeray 
 used almost the same words when reading in after-years his own 
 account of Colonel Newcome's death. 
 
 1. 27. put his apostasy out to hire : this is a curious phrase to 
 describe the action of one who takes orders without having any 
 decided convictions. Swift's ' apostasy ' presumably consisted 
 in his sceptical attitude towards the Church ; to swallow one's 
 doubts for the sake of one's living is not the same as ' putting 
 them out to hire '. 
 
 Page 25, I. 4. Abudah : a merchant in Ridley's Tales of the 
 Oenii, who was haunted each night by an old hag tiU at last he 
 learnt to fear God and keep His commandments. 
 
 1. 16. saeva indignatio : ' fierce resentment ', from Swift's 
 epitaph written by himself : ' . . . Ubi saeva indignatio | XJlterius 
 cor lacerare nequit.' It is engraved on a slab of black marble 
 on the wall of St. Patrick's. 
 
 1. 28. Lilliputian island : in Gulliver's first voyage, the one 
 to the island of IHliput, Swift intended a satire on England and 
 the court of George I. 
 
 1. 30. Samson with a hone : see Judges xv. 15. 
 
 Page 26, 1. 9. modest proposal : it is perfectly true that the 
 suggestion is revolting ; Swift works it out remorselessly with 
 a wealth of detail which almost sickens the reader. But one need 
 not, for aU that, accept Thackeray's view of the motive at the 
 back of the horrid picture. Swift's was the quite arguable pro- 
 position that it is better for children to be eaten than to be 
 forced into a Ufe of misery, and any one who reads the history 
 of child labour in the factories — ^though that, of course, was not 
 what Swift was thinking of — will hardly dissent. 
 
 Page 27, 1. 5. roaming : ' making game of '. 
 
 I. 8. On nait rotissew : it is not in the Almanack des Qour- 
 
SWIFT 257 
 
 mands, which was pubUshed in Paris, 1805-12, that this aphorism 
 comes, but in Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du OoM : ' On 
 devient cuisinier, mais on nait rotisseur' ('The art of cooking 
 may be learnt, that of roasting is innate '), Aphor. xv. 
 
 1. 15. among his favourite horses: i.e. in Gulliver's fourth 
 voyage, when he visited the country of the Houyhnhnms (pro- 
 nounced by common consent ' Hoonims '). In this Swift's 
 pessimism reaches its lowest depths, and his satire is directed 
 not against any special country or individuals, but against the 
 whole human race, which he depicts as in every way inferior to 
 animals. 
 
 1. 31. the Eoyal Sovereign : Admiral CoUingwood's ship at the 
 battle of Trafalgar. 
 
 Brobdingnag : in this, Gulliver's second voyage, Swift 
 satirizes the poUtioal, legal, and social systems of Europe 
 generally, and in particular of England. 
 
 1. 34. the Emperor of Lilliput's features, &c. : from Part I, 
 chap. ii. 
 
 Page 28, 1. 1. an Austrian lip : the House of Hapsburg are 
 noted for a thick under-lip. 
 
 1. 9. Mr. Macaiday has quoted : in his Essay on Addison Macau- 
 lay quotes four lines from Addison's Latin poem on the Battle 
 of the Cranes and the Pygmies, but there is no mention of a nail 
 in the passage. Addison merely says the king of the Pygmies 
 ' overtops all others with his giant stature and rises to the 
 height of haK an eU ' (mediamque exsurgit in ulnam). Macaulay 
 seems to have read it as ' mediumque exsurgit in unguem ', and 
 Thackeray blindly follows him. 
 
 1. 12. the mast of some tall amiral : Par. Lost, i. 293 ; read- 
 ing ' great ' for ' tall '. 
 
 1. 27. the unpronounceable country : that of the Houyhnhnms. 
 
 • Page 29, 1. 38. meers : ' boundaries '. It is also spelt ' mear ' 
 and ' mere '. 
 
 Page 32, 1. II. A remarkable story : see Scott's Life, § v (vol. i, 
 p. 234) ; he says Swift rushed away ' with a countenance of 
 distraction ' — ^not as Thackeray quotes it. 
 
 Delany : this is the Dr. Patrick Delany, Dean of Down, 
 whose comments on Lord Orrery's book are mentioned above, 
 p. 4, 1. 32. 
 
 1. 23. Drapier Bickerstaff: for the former of these names, 
 see above, note to p. 3, 1. 20. The name Isaac Bickerstaff was 
 adopted by Swift in his pamphlet against Partridge the Almanac- 
 maker. Two years later Steele took the same pseudonym for his 
 Tatler. 
 
 1. 26. writing over to Bolingbroke : under the date March 21, 
 1728-9. 
 
 Page 33, 1. 26. that little episodical aberration : ' that temporary 
 straying of his affections from Stella.' 
 
 1356 S 
 
258 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Page 34, 1. 8. course of that true love, &o.: ' The course of true 
 love never did run smooth,' Mid. Night's Dream, i. i. 134. 
 
 1. 30. Champollicm, Jean FranQois, a celebrated French 
 Orientalist, who in 1822 discovered the key to the Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics. 
 
 Page 35, 1. 21. When on my siclcly couch, &c. ; from the 
 verses To Stdla, visiting me in my siohness, 1720. 
 
 1. 28. more than me : Swift's grammar is often irregular ; 
 but this particular blunder was — and is — common. Cf. Prior's 
 line below, p. 127, 1. 32, ' As he was a poet subhmer than me.' 
 
 1. 36. After this line Thackeray has omitted four, which have 
 such a touch of humorous pathos that they may well be quoted : — 
 I see her taste each nauseous draught, 
 And so obligingly am caught ; 
 I bless the hand from whence they came. 
 Nor dare distort my face for shame. 
 
 Page 36, 1. 12. Bury Street : out of Jermyn Street, near 
 St. James's Street. 
 
 made love to him : in fairness to Vanessa it should be added 
 that she had no idea Swift was married to Stella ; she never 
 made the least advances to him after hearing that he had a wife, 
 but grief at having lost him and at Swift's anger killed her in 
 a few months. Thackeray's extravagant admiration for Stella 
 has made him less than just to her rival. 
 
 1. 34. Mrs. Johnson : it was then the custom to call any girl 
 over sixteen ' Mistress ' or ' Madam '. 
 
 Page 37, 1. 22. previsions : ' presentiments '. 
 
 Page 38, 1. 6. doesn't amavi come after amo and amas? i.e. in 
 life as in language the present is followed by the past. 
 
 1.8. Cademis' sown poem: wherein Swift describes the advances 
 Vanessa made to him and the way in which he met them. 
 Oadenus is a transposition of Decanus, the Latin for ' Dean '. 
 
 1. 15. settled in London in 1709 : according to Diet. Nat. Biog. 
 they were already living there in 1708. 
 
 Page 39, 1. 12. Ariadne was beloved by Theseus, who after- 
 wards abandoned her on the island of Naxos. Unlike Vanessa, 
 she did not die of grief, but was found by Dionysus, and fell in 
 love with him. 
 
 Page 41, 1. 2. about a hroomsticJc : to ridicule the sententious- 
 ness and inflated style of the Hon. Robert Boyle's Occasional 
 Reflections, Swift wrote A Meditation v/pon a Broomstick ; this he 
 mischievously read to Lady Berkeley as one of Boyle's produc- 
 tions, of which she was a great admirer. It does not say much 
 for the lady's intelligence that she took the Meditation seriously, 
 and expressed great admiration for the author ; but it is not 
 a Uttle to her credit that when, later on in the day, the hoax 
 
SWIFT 259 
 
 was exposed, she joined in the laugh against herself, and quite 
 forgave Swift. The Hon. Robert Boyle was the great-grand- 
 unole of the Earl of Orrery mentioned above, p. 4, 1. 25. 
 
 1. 5. In a note in his biography: Scott's Life, vol. i, p. 239 
 (1824). 
 
 Page 42, 1. 1. Sheridan : see above, p. 4, 1. 20. 
 
 1. 2. slunk away from . . . Pope : the estrangement was wholly 
 of Pope's contriving ; his difference with Swift about the pubhoa- 
 tion of his — ^Pope's — letters is one of the most discreditable and 
 treacherous incidents in his life. 
 
 1. 10. none greater or so gloomy : in the first edition this runs, 
 ' none, I think, however, so great or so gloomy.' Thackeray no 
 doubt made the change from the recollection that in the Fourth 
 Lecture he had spoken of Pope's as ' the greatest name on our 
 list '. 
 
 CONGREVE AND ADDISON 
 
 Page 43, 1. 4. existed : and still exists. 
 
 1. II. a great nobleman's nominee : before the passing of the 
 Reform Bill in 1832 and the introduction of the ballot, there 
 were many boroughs in England which were practically in the 
 gift of the landowner, there being few voters, and those all 
 w illin g to vote as they were ordered. An extreme instance was 
 that of Old Sarum, which returned two members, though it had 
 neither house nor inhabitant. 
 
 1. 16. Miraheau : Gabriel Honor6, Comte de Mirabeau, was 
 the greatest orator of the French Revolution. He died in 1791, 
 before the Reign of Terror. 
 
 1. 24. in the dust behind the fervid wheels : an echo of Horace, 
 Od. I. i. 3 :— 
 
 Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum 
 CoUegisse iuvat, metaque fervidis 
 Evitata rotis. 
 
 1. 29. boxing the watch : upsetting a watchman's sentry-box 
 with the watchman inside was a favourite amusement of the 
 gilded youth of the time. 
 
 Page 44, 1. 1. Prince Eugene : a celebrated Austrian general 
 who shared with Marlborough the victory over the French at 
 Blenheim (1704). 
 
 1. 7. Busby, Richard (1606-95), was head master of West- 
 minster for over fifty years. He is traditionally regarded — 
 without much authority — as a stern wielder of the rod. It is 
 said that he apologized to Charles II for not uncovering in his 
 presence, as it would not do to let his boys know that any one 
 was greater than himself. The king, with his usual urbanity, 
 fully admitted the plea, and offered to remove his own hat. It 
 
 S 2 
 
260 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 will be noted that Dr. Busby's rod bore fruit ; Aaron's (Num. 
 xvii. 8) had merely blossomed. 
 
 1. 9. Tickell, Thomas (1686-1740), was a friend of Addison's, 
 who, when Secretary of State, made Tickell his under- secretary. 
 For his translation of Book I of the Iliad see below, p. 155. He 
 pubUshed an edition of Addison's works in 1721, to which he 
 prefixed a beautiful elegy of his own. 
 
 1. id. John Dennis (1657-1734), a cross-grained critic with 
 a bitter tongue to whom constant reference is made in these 
 Lectures. He was at war with all the writers of his time, and was 
 severely castigated by Pope in the Dunciad. For Steele's picture 
 of him see below, p. 120, 1. 12 sqq. 
 
 1. 13. all {save one) : Pope, as a Papist, was not ehgible for 
 any Government post. 
 
 1. 20. Commissioner of Appeals : in the Excise. 
 
 1. 22. Lord of Trade : the office is now extinct, its duties 
 being performed by the Board of Trade. 
 
 1. 26. Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians : otherwise 
 Supervisor of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. 
 
 1. 28. Forfeited Estates : i. e. those confiscated for their owners' 
 comphoity in the Jacobite rising of 1715. 
 
 1. 37. Pipe-office : see below, p. 46, 1. 21 sqq. 
 
 Page 45, 1. 5. Accourez . . . &c. : from the Ode sur la prise de 
 Namur. It is printed at length in the Poems of Prior, who wrote 
 a reply to it. 
 
 Permesse : Permessus was a stream rising in Mount Helicon 
 and sacred to the Muses, who are often called ' nymphes de 
 Permesse ' in French poetry. In the first edition of the Lectures 
 ' Pamasse ' is printed ; the second restores the right reading. 
 
 1. 10. foundation exercises : ' compositions in a scholarship 
 examination'. 
 
 1. 12. remain : in the first edition ' aie left '. 
 
 1. 22. Pindaric Odes : Pindar was the greatest Ijrrio poet of 
 the Greeks ; he lived at Thebes, dying there in 443 b. c. The 
 only poems of his which have come down to us entire are the 
 triumphal odes written to celebrate the victors in the Olympian 
 and other games. From the erroneous idea that the metre in 
 these was based on no rules, it became the fashion to call any 
 irregular ode ' Pindaric '. 
 
 1. 23. Johnson's Poets : the Lives of the Poets, which is usually 
 considered Johnson's greatest work, appeared first in 1779-80 
 as Prefaces to a new edition of the poets from Cowley downwards. 
 
 1. 32. instantly : The Old Bachelor appeared in January, 
 1692-3 ; Montague gave Congreve his Hackney Coach Com- 
 missionership in July 1695. 
 
 Page 46, 1. 6. those : in the first edition ' them '. 
 
 Page 47, 1.4. the Piazza: an arcade on the north and east sides 
 of Oovent Garden market ; once a fashionable promenade. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 261 
 
 the Mall : the promenade in St. James's Park. 
 
 1. 9. writes to him: in the Dedication to his verse translation 
 of Virgil's Aeneid. 
 
 1. 14. his twelfth epistle : Dryden's Epistles are not numbered, 
 and, if they are arranged in chronological order, the one to 
 Congreve is the eleventh. 
 
 Page 48, 1. 6. Will's : a famous coffee-house at the corner of 
 Bow Street and Russell Street. It was called after its landlord, 
 William Urwin, and was much frequented by men of letters. 
 Here Dryden held his court when he presided over the Republic 
 of Letters. See below, p. 151. 
 
 1. 9. Voltaire went to wait upon him : see below, p. 61. 
 
 1. 13. Timon : a misanthrope who hved at Athens about 
 400 B. c. ; he is chiefly known through Shakespeare's play, but 
 he is mentioned by Aristophanes and other Greek comedians. 
 
 1. 19. Bracegirdle, Anne, born about 1663, was the most 
 famous actress of her day. ' It was said of her that in the 
 crowded theatre she had as many lovers as she had male admirers ' 
 (Macaulay). But whether from indifference or virtue she 
 I remained obdurate to them aU. For further incidents in her life, 
 see below, p. 86. 
 
 1. 38. the young IMchess of Marlborough : this was the second 
 duchess, wife of Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, who 
 succeeded to the dukedom in 1733 as grandson of John Churchill, 
 first duke. Lady Diana was her elder daughter. 
 
 Page 49, 1. 12. Nell Owynn : an actress of Charles II's time 
 and mistress of the King, who had two children by herl ' Don't 
 let poor Nellie starve 1 ' was almost his last remark on his death- 
 bed. Nell Gwynn's footman, after the fight, admitted the truth 
 of the other footman's charge, but stoutly disputed his right 
 to make it, how true soever — a distinction which may be recom- 
 mended to the notice of scandalmongers in general. 
 
 1. 15. Jeremy Collier : a nonjuring clergyman (1650-1726), 
 who suffered imprisonment for his adherence to James II. His 
 Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, 
 which was published in 1698, had a considerable effect in puri- 
 fying the drama. 
 
 Page 50, 1. 10. Lais : a beautiful courtesan of Corinth 
 who was living at the time of the Peloponnesian War (431- 
 404 B. c). 
 
 1. 17. hind and frank : the ' and ' is omitted in the first edition. 
 
 Page 51, 1. 14. the Poet's house : the House of the Tragic Poet 
 was excavated in 1824 ; it was noted for the number and beauty 
 of its paintings, now in the Naples Museum. In the first edition 
 Thackeray wrote ' SaUust's house ', and on p. 52, 1. 8, ' Sallust ' 
 instead of ' the Poet '. 
 
 1.18. cicerone: [Ital.] 'guide'. The term is derived from the 
 
262 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Boman orator, guides to places of interest being too often persons 
 of torrential eloquence. 
 
 1. 38. cavalier seul : the man dancing alone for the moment, 
 having quitted his partner, as is done ia one figure of the Lancers. 
 
 Page 52, 1. 11. gaunt disciples : Pompeii was destroyed by 
 an eruption of Vesuvius in a. d. 79 ; St. Paul is said to have 
 come to Rome in 61, when Nero was emperor. It is therefore 
 quite possible that Christianity was preached at Pompeii before 
 its destruction. Professor Regel strangely takes the phrase to 
 refer to the Stoics, whose doctrine was not new, had not lately 
 come from Asia, and did not aim at the overthrow of Paganism. 
 
 1. 18. masons : the Freemasons profess to trace back their 
 Order to the building of Solomon's temple. One historian of 
 their craft even claims Moses as a Grand Master of the Order. 
 
 1. 22. gather roses : from Herrick's poem : — 
 Gather ye roses while ye may ; 
 Old Time is still a-flying. 
 
 1. 25. treillage : a Ught framework of posts and rails on which 
 plants are trained. 
 
 1. 40. the lavryer : in the first edition ' his lawyer '- 
 
 Page 53, 1. 14. segreio per esser f dice: ' secret for happiness ', 
 a well-known song in. Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia Borgia. 
 
 1. 16. Falernian : the second of the fine wines of ancient 
 Italy ; it came from the ager Palernus in Campania, between 
 Naples and Borne. 
 
 1. 28. Mirabel : a witty man of the world in Congreve's Way 
 of the World. Congreve is supposed to have aimed at portraying 
 his own character in the part. 
 
 1. 29. Belmour : the hero in Congreve's Old Bachelor. 
 
 1. 30. Scapin : a roguish valet in Molitee's Fourberies de 
 
 Frontin : a valet of the old French comedy who appears 
 in the plays of Regnard, Le Sage, and other followers of Moliere. 
 1. 36. merciless in old age : this is the reading of all the editions, 
 but it obviously should be ' on '. 
 
 Page 54, 1. 9. MiUamant : Thackeray is not very happy in 
 his choice of a name here, for MiUamant is the name of a brilliant 
 young lady in The Way of ike World (see above, p. 49, 1. 32). 
 
 1. 11. Doricourt : a man of the world in Mrs. Cowley's Betters 
 
 Page 55, 1. 5. the horn'd herd : a husband whose wife was 
 unfaithful was said, for some obscure reason, ' to wear horns ' ; 
 the phrase occurs several times in Shakespeare, and is found in 
 many other European languages in the same sense. The men of 
 fashion of the West End looked on the wives of the citizens as 
 ' fair game ' : D'Urfey (1719) speaks of ' The horned herd within 
 yon city wall '. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 263 
 
 1. 8. cropt : ' with close-cropped hair '. 
 
 1. 22. Medea's kettle : the cauldron wherein by magic spells 
 that great sorceress restored the youth of an aged ram. 
 
 I. 23. Atlas : the giant who bore the heavens on his shoulders. 
 
 1. 24. TaUacotius : the Latin form of Tagliacozzi, a famous 
 Venetian surgeon of the sixteenth century. 
 
 1. 27. pigeons : MUed and cut open and placed at a sick 
 person's feet to bring warmth into them. 
 
 1. 45. Endymion : a beautiful youth who was kissed by Selene 
 (the Moon) as he lay asleep on Mount Latmos in Asia IVOnor. 
 
 1. 47. Hymen : the god of marriage. 
 
 Page 56, 1. 5. Argus : the hundred-eyed guardian of lo ; 
 after Hermes slew him Juno put his eyes into the tail of her 
 favourite bird the peacock. 
 
 Page 57, 1. 5. a Mrs. Nichleby : an exceedingly stupid and 
 very talkative lady who prided herself on her great powers of 
 penetration. Dickens is said to have drawn her from his mother, 
 who — all unconscious of the resemblance — declared Mrs. Niokleby 
 to be quite an imreal character. 
 
 Page 58, 1. 7. Bichdieii at eighty : the famous Cardinal never 
 attained this age ; he died in 1642, at the age of fifty-seven. 
 
 1. 12. Lerida : Antoine (III), Due de Gramont, led an assault 
 on Lerida, in the north-east of Spain, in 1647. The town was 
 also taken by storm by the French in 1707, and again in 1810, 
 but I cannot find that a Gramont was present on either occasion. 
 
 1. 16. Cease, cease to ash her name : the reader has no need to 
 ask it, as the piece is headed ' Written at Tunbridge Wells on 
 Miss Temple'. 
 
 1. 19. SlwM only sounded be : the ' only ', as so often happens 
 in poetry and, imhappUy, elsewhere, is misplaced. It qualifies 
 ' fame ', not ' sounded '. 
 
 1. 39. the languor of convalescence : Jeremy Collier's remark 
 on hearing this is too good to be omitted : ' What his disease 
 was ', said the eminent divine, ' I am not to enquire ; but it 
 must be a very iU one to be worse than the remedy.' 
 
 Page 59, 1. 6. his : i. e. Prometheus. 
 
 1. 27. that which in herself she prizes : i.e. her skill in coquetry. 
 
 Page 60, 1. 26. gives Sdbina the pas : ' yields precedence to 
 her'. 
 
 1. 32. Spring Garden, at the east end of the Mali in St. James's 
 Park, was called after a fountain erected in the time of James I, 
 which was so contrived as to sprinkle the pedestrian who trod 
 on a concealed lever. 
 
 1. 34. Southeme, or Southern, Thomas (1660-1746), a popular 
 playwright of the day, whose work showed neither wit nor 
 imagination. 
 
264 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Page 61, 1. 22. it does not appear in the text of the same Letters : 
 the omitted passage, which appears ia the first four editions (the 
 two of 1734, the one of 1735, and the first of 1739), was suppressed 
 in the second edition of 1739 and in all subsequent editions up 
 to that of 1784. Other passages in the Lettres sur les Anglais 
 which treated of personal matters were omitted by the author 
 in his later editions, in order to bring the Letters more in line 
 with his other philosophical writings. The omitted passage nms 
 as follows : — 
 
 ' II 6tait infirme et presque mourant quand je I'ai comm ; il 
 avait nn d6faut, c'6tait de ne pas assez estimer son premier 
 m6tier d'auteur, qui avait fait sa reputation et sa fortune. II 
 me parlait de ses ouvrages comme de bagatelles au-dessous de 
 lui, et me dit h, la premiere conversation de ne le voir que sur le 
 pied d'un gentUhomme qui vivait tres-uniment ; je lui r6pondis 
 que s'il avait eu le malheur de n'etre qu'un gentilhomme comme 
 un autre je ne le serais jamais venu voir, et je fus trte-choqu6 
 de cette vanit6 si mal plao6e.' 
 
 Page 62, 1. 27. Dryden vrrote to him : in the Epistle ' To my 
 dear friend Mr. Congreve', which is also quoted above, p. 47, 
 1. 17 sqq. 
 
 1. 41. Be kind to my remains : Congreve discharged his friend's 
 commands by bringing out an edition of his plays in 1718. 
 
 Page 63, 1. 13. article in the Edinburgh Review : written by 
 Macaulay ; it appeared in Jidy 1843 as a review of Miss Aikin's 
 Life of Addison, pubUshed in the same year. 
 
 1. 18. Shadwdl, Thomas (? 1642-92), a writer of comedies, 
 succeeded Dryden as Poet Laureate when the latter retired in 
 1688. He was at daggers drawn with Dryden, who assails him 
 with more bitterness than justice as MaoMecknoe. Rochester, 
 who was certainly no bad judge of wit, said of Shadwell that 
 ' if he had burnt all he wrote and printed all he spoke, he would 
 have had more wit and humour than any other poet '. 
 
 Higgons, BevH (1670-1735), was the author of a History of 
 England, some poems, and a stiU-bom tragedy. 
 
 1. 25. Well-dressed barbarians, &c. : from Steele's Com- 
 mendatory Verses on The Way of the World. It is in the same 
 piece that he praises Pastora. 
 
 Page 65, 1. 7. Mr. Pinkethman : ' The petulancy of a peevish 
 old Fellow, who loves and hates he knows not. why, is very 
 excellently performed by the Ingenious Mr. William Penkethman 
 in The Fop's Fortune ' {Spectator, No. 370, which, however, is bv 
 Steele). 
 
 1. 8. Mr. Doggett played the countryman in a play of his own, 
 entitled The Country Wake {Spectator, No. 502, which also is bv 
 Steele). "^ 
 
 1. 10. Don Saltero : a barber- dentist, whose real name was 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 265 
 
 Salter, collector of curiosities and keeper of a coffee-house iii 
 Che3me Walk, Chelsea. See the second part of Tatler, No. 34 ; 
 this again is Steele's. In Peregrine Pickle (chap. Ixvi) Pallet 
 exclaims, d propos of a private museum at Rotterdam, ' I would 
 not give one corner of Saltero's coffeehouse at Chelsea for all the 
 trash he hath shown '- 
 
 Page 66, 1. 6. Queen's College : after a few months he migrated 
 to Magdalen, where he had gained a Demyship. 
 
 1. 13. Lyaeus : lit. ' the Relaxer ', a surname of Bacchus, used 
 poetically for wine. 
 
 the Collection : in vol. ii of Musarum Anglicanarum Analecta 
 (1698) there are eight pieces of Latin verse by Addison. There 
 is nothing of his in vol. i, which appeared six years earlier. 
 
 1. 14. the Peace of Bymvick (1697) ended the war between 
 France on the one side, and England, the Netherlands, and Spain 
 on the other ; by it France abandoned the cause of the Stuarts. 
 
 1. 16. Montague, Charles, afterwards Earl of Halifax, was at 
 this time Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Whig leader in the 
 Commons ; it was through Congreve that Addison became 
 acquainted with him. 
 
 1. 20. his pension was unpaid : he had only received it for 
 one year. The main source of his income was his Oxford Fellow- 
 ship, which he held from 1698 till 1711. 
 
 1. 21. Mandeville, Bernard (1670-1733), a Dutch physician 
 who practised in London. His best known work is the Fable 
 of the Bees, wherein he asserts that ' private vices are public 
 benefits ', and bases all virtuous action on self-interest. 
 
 1. 26. Jacob Tonson (1656-1736), the most famous bookseller 
 (i. e. publisher) of his day ; he brought out the works of Dryden 
 .and Pope, and is frequently mentioned in the Lectures. 
 
 1. 37. his masters : sc. in French, which he had gone to Blois 
 to learn. 
 
 Page 67, 1. 3. Boileau, Nicholas (1636-1711), a famous French 
 critic and satirist who profoundly influenced French style for 
 more than a hundred years. 
 
 1. 13. one of the most famous scholars : Thackeray is certainly 
 ante-dating and perhaps exaggerating Addison's reputation, 
 which in 1702 rested solely on his Latin verses. 
 
 1. 20. congees : this curious form is a half-way spelling between 
 the English ' congee ', which appears before 1600, and the 
 French conge which has now replaced it, and is generally printed 
 in italics. Thackeray was not consistent in his use of the word : 
 in Vanity Fair (1848) he has conge ; in Esmond (1852) cong6e (in 
 roman type). 
 
 Page 68, 1. 23. Crambo : in this game — too intellectual for 
 an age devoted to bridge and jig-saw puzzles — one player began 
 by giving a word or line of verse ; the rest had then to follow 
 
266 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 with another which rimed with it. Addison's head must have 
 been very bad for ' summer ' not to occur to him. 
 
 Page 69, 1. 6. Smft describes Urn : ' I dined with Mr. Addison 
 and Dick Stuart, ... a treat of Addison's. They were half 
 fuddled, but not I ; for I mixed water with my wine and left 
 them together between nine and ten.' — Journal to Stella, October 
 31, 1710. 
 
 Paoe 70, 1. 5. His look of Travels : this was only published 
 in 1705, and was so far from being a failure that four or five 
 times its price had to be given for a copy before a second edition 
 appeared in 1718. 
 
 his Dialogues on Medals : this was a posthumous publica- 
 tion. 
 
 1. 8. Staiius (a. d. 45-96) was Court poet to the Emperor 
 Domitian. 
 
 1. 11. Johnson rather chuckles : Johnson, it is true, makes it 
 clear that he had no great love or admiration for Addison, but 
 on the present occasion he merely uses the words given in the 
 footnote ; they hardly amount to ' chuckling '- 
 
 1. 15. Mr. Boyle : see below, note to p. 147, 1. 17. 
 
 Page 71, 1. 7. Such as of late, &c. : on November 26 and 27, 
 1703, occurred the most terrible storm that has ever been recorded 
 in this country ; twelve men-of-war with 1,800 on board were 
 lost, thousands of persons were drowned in various parts of the 
 country ; in Kent alone it was estimated that 17,000 trees were 
 uprooted, and whole herds of cattle and sheep were killed. 
 It was in this storm that the first Eddystone lighthouse was 
 destroyed, together with its designer. 
 
 1. 11. that simile : Johnson objects that the comparison of 
 Marlborough to an angel is not a simile ; for the essence of 
 a simile is the discovery of a likeness in things essentially different,, 
 and Marlborough has been described as acting aU through in the 
 same way as the angel; a mere shifting of personality is not 
 a simile. With this criticism Macaulay agrees. 
 
 1. 13. that good angel flew off vnth Mr. Addison : the tale that 
 Addison owed his preferment to The Campaign rests on the 
 authority of Budgdl, who gave it to the world a quarter of 
 a century later. Sir Leslie Stephen (in Diet. Nat. Biog.) looks 
 on the tale as quite improbable and inconsistent with Godolphin's 
 character, who was more interested in racehorses than in poetry. 
 
 1. 15. providentially promoted : i. e. to heaven. John Locke 
 (1632-1704) is best known for his Essay concerning Human 
 Understanding, which attacks the theory of innate ideas. Besides 
 his Commissionership Locke was for some time Secretary to the 
 Council of Trade. 
 
 1. 18. angel visits : ' Like angel- visits, few and far between ' 
 (Campbell, Pleasures of Hope, n. 375). 
 
 1. 30. King of the Romans : the title borne by the heir of the 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 267 
 
 Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire was at this time vested in 
 the House of Austria, which held it till the Empire was dissolved 
 in 1806. 
 
 Page 72, 1. 9. Swift has left a description : it was a rehearsal 
 on the morning of April 6, 1713, that Swift attended, and not 
 the first-night performance. See Journal to Stella of that date. 
 The first performance took place on April 17 ; its success is 
 described by Pope in the letter given in the footnote. Steele, 
 who had packed the house, gave a glowing account of the per- 
 formance in the Ovardian of the following day (No. 33), and 
 returned to the subject in Nos. 43 and 59. 
 
 1. 25. what the author once said of another : or rather of others, 
 for the word 'him' in the second Une should be 'them', i.e. 
 the Queen's favourites. See The Campaign, 45-6. 
 
 1. 37. against a perpetual dictator : this was, of course, a hit at 
 Marlborough. 
 
 1. 40. Garth, Sir Samuel (1661-1719), physician and poet, was 
 the author of The Dispensary. See below, p. 158, 1. 41. 
 
 Page 73, 1. 3. save from John Dennis : for Pope's rejoinder to 
 his attack on Addison see below, p. 153, 1. 10. According to 
 Dennis's own account — ^which is accepted by Mr. Courthope — 
 Dennis's remarks on Cato were prompted by Pope, that he might 
 avenge himself for Dennis's previous criticisms on himself by 
 a savage reply. See Dennis's Bemarhs upon . . . the Dunciad, 
 p. 41 (1729). 
 
 1. 6. Divus : ' divine ' ; this title was regularly accorded to 
 deceased Roman emperors, which makes it a questionable com- 
 pliment to apply it to a living writer. 
 
 1. 18. splendid but dismal union : Mr. Aitken in his Life of 
 Steele (1889) says, ' There is no evidence in favour of the tradi- 
 tion that the union was not a happy one, and there is a good 
 deal to be said on the other side ' (vol. ii, p. 107). 
 
 1. 37. Bowe's ballad of The Despairing Shepherd : Rowe's 
 ballad was called Colin's Complaint, as is mentioned in the foot- 
 note to the next page. The Despairing Shepherd is a poem by 
 Prior. 
 
 Page 74, 1. 4. an Examiner : the Whig Examiner, of which 
 there were only five numbers, appeared in September and October 
 1710 ; the first number of the Quardian, which ran to 176 
 numbers, appeared in March 1713 ; the Tatler ran from April 
 1709 to January 1710-11, and was succeeded by the Spectator, 
 which lasted from March 1710-11 to December 1712; it was 
 revived in June 1714, and lived tiU the end of that year. Addison 
 is credited with 51 numbers of the Guardian ; 42 of the Tatler 
 are his, and 36 others were written by him in conjunction with 
 Steele ; about half the numbers of the Spectator are Addison's. 
 
 1. 14. a literary Jeffreys : the ruffianly judge who punished 
 those implicated in Monmouth's rebellion in 1685. 
 
268 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 31. Lycidas : the name given by Milton to his friend Edward 
 King, who was drowned in crossing the Irish Channel. As 
 Macaulay remarks, Rowe's selection of this name for a friend 
 about to visit Ireland is not very happy. 
 
 Page 75, 1. 37. Sir George Etheridge's way : in The Comical 
 Revenge, or Love in a Tvh, Dufoy, a saucy French servant, is 
 drugged and put into a tub with his head appearing at one end 
 and his legs at the other ; thus clad he is told to make love to 
 the chambermaid — if he can. The play was first acted in 1664. 
 
 1. 42. the farthingale : a kind of tub-shaped crinoline. The 
 first mention of the word given in N. E. 7). is in a sermon of 
 Latimer's (1552) ; but it is not easy to fix what is meant by 
 ' the ruin of the Spanish monarchy '. The defeat of the Armada 
 was in 1588. . 
 
 Page 76, 1. 1. canes and enuff-hoxes : see Tatler, No. 103 
 (a joint production of Steele and Addison), and No. 35, which 
 is by Steele. 
 
 1. 3. ogling too dangercmsly : ib., No. 145, also by Steele. 
 
 I. 4. for beating the watch, &c. : I can find no reference in the 
 Tatler or the Spectator to either of these charges. 
 
 Priscian : a grammarian of the fifth century ; violating 
 the rules of grammar was called ' breaking Priscian-'s^iead '. 
 Of. Hudibras, Part II. ii. 223 :— 
 
 And held no crime so deeply red 
 As that of breaking Priscian' s head. 
 
 1. 5. caring too much for the puppet-show : here too I have 
 failed to find the reference. 
 
 1. 12. caught at his friend's notion : Addison recognized Steele's 
 hand in the sixth number from a remark which he had himself 
 made to him. 
 
 1. 22. prolusions : ' preludes '. 
 
 1. 23. four acts of a tragedy : Cato was begun when Addison 
 was travelling in Italy ; Tonson and Gibber said that Addison 
 showed them four acts written out on his return in 1703. The 
 fifth act was written ' in a week ' ten years later. 
 
 1. 30. bathos : the depth of absurdity following on loftier 
 ideas. 
 
 1. 37. epithalamium : ' poem on his marriage '. 
 
 Page 77, 1. 16i Ardelia does not appear in this connexion in 
 the Tatler or the Spectator. Thackeray has taken it as a fancy- 
 name ; so also Saocharissa and Sir Fopling below. The incidents 
 too are his own. 
 
 1. 23. Sir Fopling : Sir FopUng Flutter was the chief character 
 in Etherege's comedy. The Man of Mode (1676). 
 
 1. 27. it must be owned : in the first edition this is ' you must 
 know it, he owned, too.' 
 
 1. 34. the 'Grecian' : a coffee-house in Devereux Court, off 
 Essex Street, Strand. 
 
CONGREVE AND ADDISON 269 
 
 the ' Devil ' : a tavern in Fleet Street near Temple Bar. 
 to pace 'Change : the Royal Exchange was frequented by 
 many people besides merchants. Mr. Spectator went there 
 once to enjoy the busy scene {Spectator, No. 454). 
 1. 37. Mack : ' dark-complexioned '. 
 
 Page 78, 1. 12. depending : ' awaiting settlement '. 
 
 1. 39. Child's : a coffee-house in St. Paul's Churchyard, chiefly 
 frequented by clergymen and physicians. 
 
 1. 40. the Postman : a penny weekly paper edited by a French- 
 man named Fonvive. It was described as the best paper of its 
 day (1705-12). 
 
 1. 41. St. James's Coffee-house : at the south-west corner of 
 St. James's Street ; it was chiefly frequented by Whig politicians. 
 
 1. 44. the " Cocoa-Tree " : a Tory chocolate-house in St. James's 
 Street. 
 
 Page 79, 1. 3. damn him mth faint praise : from Pope's 
 character of Addison under the name of Attious in the Epistle 
 to Dr. Arbuthnot. See below, p. 166 and note. 
 
 1. 9. Sir Roger de Coverley : Steele gave the first sketch of 
 the good knight in No. 2 of the Spectator, but the fiUing in of his 
 character was mainly the work of Addison. 
 
 1. 11. call out to the people : Spectator, No. 112. 
 
 1. 13. make a speech : ib.. No. 122. 
 
 a propos de bottes : ' irrelevantly ', ' not to the point '. 
 
 1. 16. Jonathan's : a cofiee-house in Change Alley, Cornhill, 
 the forerunner of the Stock Exchange. 
 
 1 . 26. blots : in backgammon, when a single piece remains to 
 be taken up, it is called a blot. 
 
 Page 80, 1. 1 : Doll Tearsheet : a disreputable woman in 
 3 Henry IV, v. iv. Thackeray is alluding to the encounter with 
 Sukey told by Steele in Spectator, No. 410. 
 
 1. 10. that touched brain : Sir Roger, like all interesting people, 
 was unusual, not to say eccentric ; but if that implies that his 
 brain was touched, we can only regret that there are so many 
 sane people in the world. 
 
 1. 28. Soon as the evening sMdes, &c. : from Addison's version 
 of Psalm xix, which originally appeared in No. 465 of the 
 Spectator. 
 
 Page 81, 11. 29-42 : these notes are omitted in the second 
 edition. 
 
270 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 STEELE 
 
 Page 82, I. 24. Swift's history : The History of the Four last 
 Years of the Queen, which was not published till 1758, though it 
 was written during the time of which it tells. 
 
 1. 32. MarlhorougKs life : Coxe's Memoirs of John Duke of 
 Marlborough, published in 1818-19. 
 
 Page 83, 1. 6. almost at Paris gate : as a matter of fact Marl- 
 borough's forces were never within a hundred miles of Paris. 
 
 1. 13. daughter of Mnemosyne : Clio, the Muse of History, was 
 one of the nine Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne (Memory) by Zeus. 
 
 1. 19. Turpin, Dick, the notorious highwayman, was hanged 
 at York in 1739, and not in London. 
 
 1. 24. the Dons : i. e. give a scholastic rather than a practical 
 account of events. 
 
 Page 84, 1. 3. The Maypole : before the Commonwealth and 
 after the Restoration there stood a Maypole, reputed the highest 
 in England, in front of the place where St. Mary-le-Strand is 
 now. It was finally removed in 1717. Cf. The Dunoiad, ii. 
 28-30 :— 
 
 Where the tall may-pole once o'erlooked the Strand, 
 
 But now (so Anne and Piety ordain) 
 
 A Church collects the saints of Drury-lane. 
 
 1. 4. crowded : in the first edition this is ' thronged '. 
 
 1. 11. Will Wimble: a country gentleman whose character 
 is drawn by Addison in No. 108 of the Spectator ; he was 
 ' extremely well versed in all the handicrafts of an idle man '. 
 
 1. 18. Captain Macheath : see above, p. 8, 1. 5. 
 
 1. 20. Boniface: the standing name for an innkeeper, taken 
 from one in Parquhar's Beaux' Stratagem. 
 
 1. 30. BamiUies : in Belgium, fought in 1706 ; MaVphquet : 
 in the north of Prance, fought in 1709 ; the scenes of two of 
 Marlborough's victories over the French. 
 
 Page 85, 1. 10. Addison talks jocularly : in No. 129 of the 
 Spectator. Staines is on the Exeter Road, sixteen miles 
 
 from Hyde Park Comer. 
 
 1. 17. coram latronibus : ' when confronted with highway- 
 men' Prom Juvenal x. 22, 
 
 Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator ; 
 which some one has translated. 
 
 The empty traveller may whistle 
 Before the robber and his pistol. 
 1. 19. it was the fashion to accompany him : the ghastly pro- 
 cession from Newgate to Tyburn was discontinued in 1783; 
 after which executions took place in front of Newgate. 
 
STEELE 271 
 
 1. 34. Swift knighed at him : the passage is quoted above, 
 p. 16. 
 
 1. 38. Oay wrote the most delightful ballads : in The Beggar's 
 Opera, produced in 1728 ; see below, p. 138. 
 
 Page 86, 1. 16. Lard Mohun : Charles, fifth Baron Mohun, 
 bom about 1675, killed in a duel in Hyde Park, November 15, 
 1712. It was in December 1692 — not 1691 — that he and 
 Captain Hill murdered Mountford. Thackeray gives a fuller 
 picture of ' this exceedingly fast nobleman ' in Esmond, Book I, 
 chap, xii sqq. 
 
 1. 18. Howell's State Trials : see vol. xii, p. 949 sqq. 
 
 1. 22. Mrs. Bracegirdle : cf. above, p. 48, 1. 19 ; p. 49, 1. 20 sqq. 
 
 Page 87, 1. 8. Sixty-one : in point of fact sixty-nine. 
 
 1. 11. another trial for murder: see Howell's State Trials, 
 vol. xiii, p. 939, for Lord Warwick's trial, and p. 1033 for Lord 
 Mohun' s. 
 
 1. 15. at Lockefs : Locket kept a famous ordinary, which is 
 often mentioned in the literature of the day. It lasted into the 
 reign of George I, after which it is heard of no more. 
 
 1. 21. buy his commission : the cost of an ensign's commission 
 was £400 ; towards this Warwick lent Coote a hundred guineas. 
 The purchase of commissions in the army was only abolished 
 in 1871 by Royal Warrant, the Bill for the purpose having been 
 rejected by the House of Lords. 
 
 1. 24. On this evening : the duel took place on the night of 
 October 30, 1699 ; the trial began on March 28 following, and 
 resulted in Warwick's being found guilty of manslaughter ; but 
 he pleaded his peerage, and was discharged. Mohun was found 
 not gmlty, and was discharged. From the evidence they appear 
 to have been equally culpable. 
 
 1. 30. Ohap-Books: a modern name given to specimens of 
 popular Uterature which were carried about by chapmen or 
 hawkers. 
 
 1. 39. afterwards : see note on 1. 16 of previous page. 
 
 1. 42. a recent novelist : Thackeray himself in Esmond. 
 
 Page 88, 1. 4. Leicester Fields : the name given to Leicester 
 Square tiU the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
 1. 29. the black, lampless streets : it was not till the reign of 
 George III that the streets were publicly lighted. 
 
 I. 34. bagnio : [Ital.] ' baths ', where a barber- surgeon would 
 be in attendance. ' They were soon used to such an extent for 
 illicit intrigues, that the name of a hothouse or bagnio became 
 equivalent to that of a brothel ' (Wright). It is in this sense 
 that the word is used below, p. 177, 1. 17. 
 
 Page 89, 1. 1. have ceased to run : ' to have legal validity '. 
 1. 14. the Waverley novels : Waverley, the fiirst of them, came 
 out in 1814. 
 
272 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 16. the Miss Porters : Jane and Anna Maria, born in the 
 last quarter of the eighteenth century ; the former was the author 
 of The Scottish Chiefs and Thaddeus of Warsaw, which still have 
 a certain vogue. 
 
 the Anne of Swanseas : Mrs. Anne Hatton wrote about 
 a dozen novels between 1810 and 1831, under the name of 
 Anne of Swansea. She was the sister of Kemble the actor, and 
 of Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 Mrs. Raddiffe: (1764-1823) author of The Mysteries of 
 Udolpho and other blood-curdling romances. 
 
 1. 21. Mrs. Manley: (1672-1724) it was to her that Swift 
 gave materials for those pamphlets which he preferred not to 
 write himself [Journal to Stella, April 16, 1711). Her New 
 Atalantis was a scandalous record of ' Persons of Quality of 
 both Sexes'. 
 
 1. 23. Tom Durfey : a comic dramatist and poet of the Restora- 
 tion (1653-1723). 
 
 Tom Brovm : a satirical and scurrilous writer of the same 
 period (1663-1704). 
 
 Ned Ward : a tavern-keeper and writer of political squibs 
 (for some of which he was put in the pillory), and other poems 
 and pamphlets. The London Spy was a monthly publication 
 which began in 1698. 
 
 1. 26. farrago: 'hotch-potch', 'medley'. 
 
 1. 29. Craftsmen : the Craftsman was a political periodical 
 started in 1726 by Bolingbroke and Pulteney, and carried on by 
 Nicholas Amhurst. It was largely instrumental in the overthrow 
 of Sir Robert Walpole in 1742. 
 
 Post Boys : the Post Boy was started as a Tory paper by 
 one Thomas in 1697, and carried on by Abel Boyer ; it was 
 flourishing in 1722. 
 
 1. 30. lighter : the first edition reads ' higher ' ; this may be 
 merely a printer's error— otherwise it is a poor sarcasm. 
 
 1. 32. Wednesday, October 13th : the real date of No. 70 of the 
 British Apollo, from which the extracts are made, is Friday, 
 October 8 — ^Wednesday, October 13. 
 
 1. 40. the passage, &c. : 1 Tim. iii. 2, ' A bishop then must be 
 blameless, the husband of one wife.' 
 
 Paob 90, 1. 20. ' Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold ? ' 
 I am told that this remarkable superstition is still prevalent 
 in many parts of the country. It probably originated from the 
 remarkable quickness with which hot water loses its heat when 
 exposed to frosty air. 
 
 Page 91, 1. 2. Armenia : this is the reading of the first edition ; 
 in the second Thackeray altered it to ' Ardelia ' ; but, as the 
 name is ' Armenia ' in the British Apollo, I have restored the 
 reading of the first edition. 
 
 1. 4. winds : in the first edition ' wound '. 
 
STEELE 273 
 
 1. 7. Mr. Hill : probably Aaron Hill, poet and playwright, 
 who in 1709, after travelling in the East, published A Fvll 
 Accoimt of the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 1. 11. when the Tatler appeared : its first number was issued 
 on April 12, 1709 ; it was a single sheet, appearing three times 
 a week, and sold for one penny. 
 
 1. 17. humanities : ' the Greek and Latin classics ', which, as 
 Ovid said, have a softening and oivUizing effect on the character. 
 The term is still used in the Scottish Universities. 
 
 1. 19. Duke ofOrmond : Henry Gascoigne, Steele's uncle, was 
 private secretary to the Duke of Ormonde. Steele was entrusted 
 to his uncle's care on the death of his mother, which took place 
 not long after that of his father. 
 
 1. 21. described : in the Tatler, No. 181. Thackeray quotes 
 from it below, p. 114. 
 
 Page 92, 1. 5. mum : a strong beer, made originally in Bruns- 
 wick, and largely imported into England in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. 
 
 sack : [Pr. sec = dry] a white wine from Spain or the Canaries. 
 
 1. 11. Imcas^s Fusiliers : Lord Lucas's regiment was the 
 Thirty-fourth, and was not called ' Fusiliers'. This term was 
 applied to those regiments which were armed with the fusU — a 
 species of long musket. 
 
 1. 15. the expelled Member of Parliament : in March 1713-14, 
 Steele was expelled the House for writing a pamphlet on the 
 succession to the Crown, entitled The Crisis. After the acces- 
 sion of George I he was returned for another constituency. 
 
 1. 32. masterpiece : in the first edition ' masterpieces '. 
 
 1. 36. are : in the first edition ' were '. 
 
 Page 93, 1. 1. gownboy : Steele was on the foundation, i. e. 
 a scholar, at Charterhouse. 
 
 1. 6. Joseph Addison was always his head boy : though he was 
 two months younger than Steele, Addison went to Oxford three 
 years earlier than his schoolfellow. 
 
 1. 20. rode privately : i. e. as a private. Steele erJisted as 
 a cadet or gentleman volunteer in the Second Troop of Life 
 Guards in 1694. 
 
 1. 28. doathes : this spelling and ' finist ' (1. 30) are corrections 
 made in the second edition. 
 
 Page 94, 1. 3. a cometcy : a cornet in a cavalry regiment 
 corresponded to an ensign in a line regiment. But it does not 
 appear that Steele ever held that rank. Lord Cutts made him 
 an ensign in the newly formed Coldstream Guards ia 1699, and 
 in 1702 he became a captain in Lucas's regiment, which was not 
 called Fusiliers. 
 
 1. 7. The Christian Hero: itaa\ih-titlewa.3 An Argument proving 
 that no Principles but those of Religion are sufficient to make 
 a great Man. 
 
 1356 T 
 
274 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 As poor Dick, &c. : in the first edition this runs, ' As for 
 Dick . . . work, he was . . . town ; it is related ', &o. 
 
 1. 23. Good Dr. Lucas : the work referred to was possibly the 
 Enquiry after Happiness of Dr. Richard Lucas, Prebendary of 
 Westminster. Written in 1685 it soon became the most popular 
 devotional book of its day, and reached its tenth edition in 1764. 
 
 Page 95, 1. 3. Steele says of himsdf: there are many expres- 
 sions of contrition in his letters to his wife, but I cannot find 
 this one. » 
 
 1. 7. paper in the Tatler : No. 181, quoted below, p. 114. 
 
 Page 96, 1. 2. Oarraways : a celebrated cofiee-house in Ex- 
 change AUey, Comhill, which lasted for over two centuries, but 
 was puUed down in 1866. 
 
 In both editions there are inverted commas round two parts 
 
 of this sentence, which I have removed, as Thackeray only gives 
 
 the sense, and not the exact words, of the passage. 
 
 1. 7. the 'Rose'' : an ordinary in Russell Street, Covent Garden. 
 
 1. 8. 8ir Plume : perhaps taken from Pope's Bape of the Loch, 
 
 where appears 
 
 Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain. 
 And the nice conduct of a clouded cane. 
 Mr. Diver : I have been unable to find any character of 
 this name. 
 
 1. 18. Maudlin : the spelling represents the pronunciation of 
 the name of the college, Magdalen, where the meadow walk is 
 called after Addison. 
 
 1. 29. the ' Devil ', or the ' OaHer ' : see above, p. 77, 11. 34 
 and 16. 
 1. 36. tahle-book : ' tablet ' or ' note-book '. 
 
 Page 97, 1. 1. Gazetteer : editor of the Gazette, an official paper 
 published twice a week, which announces pensions, promotions, 
 bankruptcies, and the like. 
 
 1. 2. The Tender Husband : this was Steele's third, not second, 
 play, and it was produced in 1705 ; his second play was The 
 Lying Lover, which appeared in 1703, when, as Steele said, it 
 was ' daumed for its piety '. His last and most successful comedy 
 was The Conscious Lovers (1722). 
 
 1. 3. he fondly owned : in No. 555 of the Spectator. 
 
 1. 22. that excellent man : Addison had died eight months 
 before this, and Lady Steele had been dead for over two years. 
 
 1. 29. Sydney Smith: in 1804-6 Sydney Smith delivered 
 courses of lectures at the Royal Institution. In the tenth of 
 these lectures treating of wit and humour, he quoted this passage 
 from The Funeral. The lectures were published in 1854. 
 
 1. 35. that fellow's almost: i.e. 'that fellow who is almost'. 
 
 Page 98, 1. 10. monitor : ' adviser '. 
 1. 12. complication : ' combination '. 
 
STEELE 275 
 
 1. 34. Mrs. Mary : the term ' Miss ' was then applied only 
 to girls under sixteen ; after that they were termed Mistress ' 
 or ' Madam '. Cf. above, p. 36, 1. 34. 
 
 Page 99, 1. 1. the famous Spectator : the first number appeared 
 March 1, 1710-11 ; it was of the same size as the Tatler, came 
 out daily, and cost one penny till the Stamp Act of 1712, after 
 which its price was raised to twopence. 
 
 1. 41. fearfulness to find a fault : ' strong reluctance to re- 
 prove '. 
 
 Page 100, 1. 2. the Guardian : brought out by Steele in March 
 1713 ; it ran to 175 numbers. 
 
 the Englishman : of this there were fifty- six numbers, the 
 first appearing October 1713 ; it followed immediately on the 
 /Chmrdian. 
 
 the Lover appeared in 1714 ; there were forty numbers, of 
 which two were by Addison. 
 
 1. 6. gossipping : ' christening '. Gossip means ' related in 
 God '. 
 
 1. 26. open-breasted : with the waistcoat unbuttoned, so as to 
 show the embroidered shirt. 
 
 1. 33. the front box : the ladies usually sat in the boxes facing 
 the stage, the men in those at the sides or in the pit. 
 
 1. 42. a point of war : a. signal on a trumpet or drum. Cf. 
 Waverley, chap, xlvi, ' The trumpets and kettledrums were next 
 heard to perform the beautiful and wild point of war, appro- 
 priated as a signal for that piece of nocturnal duty '. 
 
 1. 46. on the other side eight years old : the variations of read» 
 ing in the Tatler are innumerable ; in this passage the original 
 has ' t'other side ten ' ; the coUeoted editions of 1713 and 1720 
 have ' t'other side eight ' ; an edition of 1786 and Chalmers's 
 edition of 1823 have ' the other side eight '- 
 
 Page 101, 1. 1. TheBeader began before the Lover expired ; it 
 ran for nine numbers, not two. 
 
 1. 2. The Theatre : a twopenny paper, which appeared twice 
 a week, beginning in 1719 ; it only reached twenty-eight num- 
 bers. For Sir John Edgar's portrait as paiated by Dennis, see 
 below, p. 119. 
 
 1. 20. Don BeUianis of Greece : it should be ' Belianis ' ; he 
 was the hero of a Spanish romance of chivalry. An English 
 abridgement of it was pubHshed in 1673. 
 
 Guy of Warwick : a legendary hero whose history was 
 written in the twelfth century, and later by Drayton in Polyolbion 
 (songs xii and xiii). 
 
 1. 21. the Seven Champions of Christendom were St. George, 
 St. Andrew, St. Patrick, St. David, St. Denis (France), St. James 
 (Spam), St. Antony (Italy). Their history was written in 1617 
 by Richard Johnson. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 23. and that : ' and to show that ', or ' as a proof that '. 
 
 1. 26. John Hickerthrift : (or Hickathrift), a legendary poor 
 labourer who slew a giant and became niler of Thanet. 
 
 1. 27. Bevis of Southampton : a knight errant whose history 
 is given in Polyolhion (song ii). 
 
 1. 28. St. George : a native of Cappadooia in Asia Minor ; he 
 was martyred under Diocletian (a. d. 303), and was adopted by 
 Edward III as the patron saint of England for the help he was 
 believed to have given to the English arms in the Crusades. 
 
 Page 102, 1. 5. in Wales : at Carmarthen, where he had 
 lived for some time before his death. He was buried there in 
 St. Peter's Church. 
 
 1. 10. Oongreve the Oreat, who alludes : in the second paper 
 of the Tatter, No. 42. It was in the same paper that he sang the 
 praises of Aspatia (sic). See below, p. 103, 1. 12. 
 
 Page 103, 1. 13. to have loved her was a liberal education : it 
 is in No. 49 of the Toiler that Steele says this of Aspasia (sic), 
 by whom he meant Lady Ehzabeth Hastings, daughter of the 
 Earl of Huntingdon. The remark is assigned by Leigh Himt to 
 Congreve, iu which error he has been followed by Mr. Walter 
 Sichel in a recent number of the Contemporary Review. Thackeray's 
 estimate of this famous sentence as ' the finest compliment ever 
 offered to a woman ' is a little extravagant : to love any woman 
 is a liberal education, so that the compliment is one of universal 
 application ; moreover, what is commonly called a liberal educa- 
 tion is not invariably productive of either wisdom, sense, pros- 
 perity, or happiness. 
 
 1. 15. dedicating a volume to his ivife : this is the third volume 
 of the Ladies' Library, all three volumes of which appeared in 
 1714. 
 
 Page 104, 1. 16. This letter was printed, with a few altera- 
 tions, as No. 142 of the Spectator, where appears also the letter 
 of September 1. The intermediate letter Steele did not see fit 
 to print. 
 
 Page 105, 1. 1. Walpole, Horace (1717-97), the third son of 
 Sir Robert Walpole, and later fourth Earl of Orford, is more 
 noted for his voluminous correspondence — there are sixteen 
 volumes of it in Mrs. Paget Toynbee's edition — ^than for his 
 romance. The Castle of Otranto, or for his Anecdotes of Painting. 
 
 1. 11. Hampton Court : where Queen Anne often resided. 
 
 1. 12. on Tuesday come se'nnight : ' next Tuesday week '. 
 
 Page 106, 1. 20. Mr. Edgeconib, Ned Ash, and Mr. Lumley : 
 Mr. Aitken, in his Life of Steele (1889), identifies these with the 
 ' R. Edgeoomb, Esq.', who was a subscriber to the collected editioii 
 of The Tatler ; Edward Ash, M.P. for Heytesbury ; and Lieutenant 
 General Lumley, who also subscribed for The Tatter. 
 
 1. 28. Tonson : see above, note to p. 66, 1. 26. 
 
STEELE 277 
 
 Page 107, 1. 14. ' within a pint of wine ' : this is dated 
 January 5, 1707-8. 
 
 1. 37. In another : this bears no date but ' Half-hour after 
 nine '. 
 
 Page 108, 1. 4. Germain Street : i. e. Jermjm Street, which 
 was originally spelt ' Germin '. Steele's house in Bury Street 
 was pulled down in 1830. Swift also lived in Bury Street (see 
 above, p. 36), five doors from Mrs. Vanhomrigh. 
 
 1. 16. Prince Oeorge : George of Denmark, husband of Queen 
 Aime. 
 
 Page 109, 1. 1. in Jermyn Street . . . three doors from Bury 
 Street : Thackeray has transposed the two names, see last page. 
 
 1. 22. ' / fared like a distressed prince,' &o. : from the preface 
 to the fourth volume of the Tatler. 
 
 1. 32. One narrated by Dr. HoaMy : this appears in vol. ii, 
 p. 508, of The Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele, 
 from which so many extracts have been made above. It is 
 there said to be ' from a letter written by Dr. John Hoadly ', 
 presumably to Nichols the editor. 
 
 1. 39. Shire Lane : this is printed ' Shoe Lane ' in Nichols 
 and in both editions of the Humourists, but as the ' Trumpet ' 
 was in Shire Lane, or Sheer Lane, off Fleet Street, where the 
 Law Courts are now, I have restored the correct reading. 
 
 Page 110, 1. 2. the 4th of November : birthday and wedding 
 day of WiUiam of Orange. 
 
 1. 5. by that time Steele was : ' by the time that Steele was '. 
 
 1. 18. was got quietly to bed : the letter continues, ' The next 
 morning he was much ashamed, and sent the Bishop the distich ' 
 given in the footnote. 
 
 1. 21. Mr. Joseph Miller : in 1739 John Mottley published 
 a collection of jokes, which he called Joe Miller's Jest Boole, 
 after a comic actor of the day. 
 
 1. 24. a pretty private theatre : this was called ' The Censorium', 
 and is described in No. 4 of The Town Talk, January 6, 1715-16. 
 There Steele says that ' the Censorium, as everybody knows, is 
 the organ of sense, as the eye is of sight '. [Spelling was not 
 a strong point with Steele.] The theatre or rather Music Room 
 was not buUt but only adapted by Steele ; it was situate in 
 York Buildings, where he then had a house. 
 
 Page 111, 1. 31. damn with faint praise: see below, p. 156, 
 1.18. 
 1. 33. savage indignation : see above, p. 25, 1. 16 and note. 
 
 Page 113, 1. 7. Amazed, confused, &o. : from The Day of 
 Judgement. 
 
 1. 15. shamm'd : ' cheated '. 
 
 1. 22. you're bit : in modern slang parlance, ' had ', i. e. out- 
 witted. 
 
278 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 PagbII*,!. 24. Steele says in The Tatler: No. 181. This paper 
 has been twice before referred to. 
 
 Page 115, 1. 14. an equal : in the first edition ' the same '. 
 
 Page 116, 1. 34. Atmt : this is the reading of the first edition 
 and of the original. In the second Thackeray altered to ' Alwit ', 
 but he left the true reading below, p. 118, I. 33. 
 
 1. 39. the Barmecide's : in the Tale of the Barber's Sixth 
 Brother in The Arabian Nights, Sohacabao, a starving wretch, is 
 invited to dinner by a Barmecide, who regales him on purely 
 imaginary food and drink. The Barmecides were a powerful 
 Persian family ; one of them, Jaffar, was vizier to Haroun al 
 Raschid. 
 
 Page 117, 1. 10. March beer : March and October are the best 
 months for brewing, as the fermentation is retarded if the 
 weather is too cold, and unduly forced if it is too hot. 
 
 1. 32. tea cost thirty shillings a pound : I gather from Notes 
 and Queries that tea was known in this country as early as 
 1587 ; for the next eighty years it was imported by the Dutch, 
 and cost from £5 to £10 per lb. In 1669 the East India Company 
 began to import it, and its price naturally deoUned ; so that in 
 1728 it was from 13«. to 20s. per lb. The date of the PoUte 
 Conversation being 1738, it seems probable that Thackeray has 
 over-stated the price. 
 
 1. 35. quadrille : a four-handed game of cards played with 
 a pack of forty cards. 
 
 Page 119, 1. 10. beignets : ' fritters '. 
 
 1. 15. White's : a chocolate-house and gambling club estab- 
 lished in St. James's Street in 1698. In the first number of the 
 Tatler (April 12, 1709) Steele says 'aU accounts of gallantry, 
 pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of White's 
 Chocolate-house ; Poetry under that of Will's Coffee-house ', &c. 
 
 1. 19. Dennis : see above, note to p. 44, 1. 10. 
 
 I. 20. thus depicts him : in The Picture of Sir John Edgar, 
 which was appended to the second part of The Characters and 
 Conduct of Sir John Edgar and his three Deputy Oovernors, &c. 
 (1720). For Sir John Edgar, see above, p. 101, 1. 2. 
 
 Page 120, 1. 31. Gibber, CoUey (1671-1757), an actor and 
 dramatist, who was made Poet Lameate in 1730. He was the 
 chief object of Pope's attack in the final version of the Dunciad. 
 Pope substituted his name for Theobald's, not because he hated 
 the latter any less, but because he hated Cibber even more, 
 though the grounds of the feud between them are not clear. 
 
 1. 43. joint-stools : stools made by joining pieces of wood 
 together, as practically all stools are made to-day. 
 
279 
 
 PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 
 
 Page 123, 1. 7. Dan : this is not a Christian name, but a title 
 of respect, like ' Master ' ; it came later to be applied exclusively 
 to poets, owmg, says JV. E. D., to Spenser's line, ' Dan Chaucer, 
 well of English undefiled ' (P. Q. iv. ii. 32). So Prior in Ahna 
 speaks of ' Dan Pope '. 
 
 1. 8. Welcome from Greece : i. e. congratulations on the accom- 
 plishment of his translation of the Iliad. 
 
 1. 22. Lord Jersey's : this was Edward ViUiers, first Earl of 
 Jersey (1656-1711). In 1698 he went to Paris as ambassador- 
 extraordinary. Prior going with him as secretary to the embassy. 
 The following year when he became Secretary of State, Prior 
 was made under- secretary. 
 
 Page 124, 1. 2. one of his lyrics : i. e. The Secretary, written 
 at the Hague in 1696. The word ' friend ' should be ' nymph '. 
 
 1. 5. Spielhaus : ' gambling-house '. 
 
 1. 6. bobbing : ' fishing with a bob ', i. e. a knot of worms 
 threaded on worsted. 
 
 1. 8. his Epicurean master : Horace was a follower, both in 
 theory and practice, of Epicurus, for whom see above, note to 
 p. 14, 1. 24. 
 
 1. 9. Batavian : Batavia was an old name for Holland and 
 the Netherlands, derived from the Batavi, a Low German tribe 
 conquered by the Romans in the time of Augustus. 
 
 1. 10. A vintner's son : his father, George Prior, is said to 
 have been a joiner at Wimbome in Dorset ; George's brother, 
 Samuel, was a vintner in Westminster. 
 
 1. 11. Bushy : see above, note to p. 44, 1. 7. 
 
 1. 13. Montague : see above, note to p. 66, 1. 15. 
 
 1. 16. The Town and Country Mouse : though often so called, 
 its true title was The Hind and the Panther transvers'd To the 
 Story of the Cowniry-Mouse and the City-Mouse (1687). 
 
 1. 25. of Europe : these two words are not in the first edition. 
 
 1. 28. Alcaics : a metre, the invention of which is ascribed to 
 the Greek poet Aloaeus. It consists of stanzas of four lines, 
 and is much used by Horace. Tennyson attempted it in his 
 ' O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies ', &c. 
 
 1. 36. The Rehearsal : a comedy by George VilHers, second 
 Duke of Buckingham, one of the wildest and wickedest of 
 Charles II's courtiers ; the play was intended as a skit on 
 Dryden's tragedies, and was produced in 1671. 
 
 Page 125, 1. 17. Thee gracious Anne, &c. : the concluding lines 
 in An Epistle desiring the Queen's picture, written at Paris 171i ; 
 but left unfinished, by the sudden news of Her Majesty's death. 
 
 1. 22. Stator : the stablisher or supporter. 
 
 1. 23. The votive tablet : see Horace, Od. l. v. 14 ; a Roman 
 who had escaped shipwreck set up a tablet in the temple of 
 Neptune to express his gratitude. 
 
280 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 25. Mahomet's coffin : according to the common tale this 
 was suspended in the air midway between roof and floor of the 
 building at Medina, where it was placed after death. The 
 traveller Burckhardt, who entered Medina in disguise in the 
 early part of the nineteenth century, declared that the cofBn 
 rested on the ground ; but of course the legend was not upset 
 by mere evidence. 
 
 1. 27. the Duke of Shrewsbury : Prior went over to Paris in 
 July 1711, and again in August 1712, when he accompanied 
 Bohngbroke ; on the return of the latter at the end of the month 
 Prior was left behind ' to adjust whatever difierences might 
 remain or arise between the two crowns '. The Duke of Shrews- 
 bury went/over in November of the same year ; and presumably 
 it was then, if ever, that he protested against Prior's being in 
 the same commission with hiinselt. Anyhow his protest does 
 not seem to have had much effect, for while he himself returned 
 in June 1713, Prior stayed on as British representative till 
 March 1715. Is it not possible that Johnson was thinking of 
 the Earl of Strafford, who had been appointed one of the pleni- 
 potentiaries to sign the treaty at tJtrecht, Prior being also 
 named in the same commission, together with Bishop Robinson, 
 who was Lord Privy Seal ? See Journal to Stella, November 20, 
 1711, where Swift says, ' Lord Strafford is as proud as hell, and 
 how he wiU bear one of Prior's mean birth on an equal character 
 with him I know not.' Anyhow, Prior never became one of the 
 plenipotentiaries, but, as said above, remained at Paris till 1715, 
 with incidental journeys to England. 
 
 1. 35. Nobles and heralds : another reading is ' Heralds and 
 Statesmen . . . Here lie the bones of ... go higher.' 
 
 1. 38. Bourbon or Nassau : the former was the royal house 
 dating from the tenth century, which gave kings to Prance, 
 Spain, and Naples. The latter was the noble house from which 
 William of Orange was descended. 
 
 1. 39. the old joke : I suppose this means the assertion that we 
 are all descended from Adam. 
 
 Page 126, 1. 6. suffered disgrace : after his recall from Paris 
 in March 1715, Prior was impeached and kept in custody for 
 three years, during which time he relieved the tedium of imprison- 
 ment by writing Alma. , 
 
 1. 9. Oxford ^pensioned him : Prior had made 4,000 guineas 
 by an edition of his poems in 1719. Lord Harley, son of the 
 Earl of Oxford, added as much more to enable him to buy 
 Down Hall, near Harlow, in Essex, which he retained till his 
 death in September 1721. 
 
 1. 12. Spence : see below, p. 163, 1. 38. The ' legend ' is not 
 from Spence, but from Bichardsoniana, or Occasional Beflections 
 on the Moral Nature of Man, by the late Jonathan Bichardson 
 jun. Esq. (1776); this was the son of the famous portrait- 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 281 
 
 painter mentioned below, p. 161. The tale is on p. 274 of his 
 Occasional Reflections. 
 
 1. 18. Johnson speaks slightingly : ' He attacked him [Prior] 
 powerfully ; said he wrote of love like a man who had never 
 felt it ; . . . Mrs. Thrale stood to her gun with great courage, 
 ... till he at last silenced her by saying, "My dear lady, talk 
 no more of this ; nonsense can be defended but by nonsense." ' 
 BosweU's Life, anno 1769. Johnson, however, who was nothing 
 if not contradictious, could on occasion defend Prior. See 
 below, p. 131, 1. 13 sqq. 
 
 1. 25. Baddiffe : Dr. John Radoliffe (1650-1714) was a famous 
 physician, who attended several members of the royal family. 
 He left most of his property to the University of Oxford, where 
 the RadchSe Infirmary and Observatory are, named after him. 
 
 1. 33. Tes, every poet, &c. : in Swift's works under the heading 
 ' Miscellanies in Verse by Mr. Pope, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Gay, &o.', 
 this epigram appears as 'From the French'. There it runs : — 
 Sir I admit your gen'ral rule 
 That every poet is a fool ; 
 But you yourself may serve to show it 
 That every fool is not a poet. 
 The ' genuine sparkle ' is, it appears, not necessarily original. 
 
 Page 127, 1. 7. the Sabine farm : this was given to Horace 
 by the emperor through the interest of Maecenas. 
 
 1. 10. So when in fevered dreams, &c. : Thackeray has so 
 transformed these verses that I have not ventured to correct 
 them. They come in the second version, published in 1692, 
 of a poem To the Hon. Charles Montague, and run : — 
 Our hopes like towering falcons aim 
 
 At objects in an airy height ; 
 
 But all the pleasure of the game 
 
 Is afar off to view the flight. 
 
 So while in feverish sleeps we think 
 
 We taste what waking we desire. 
 
 The dream is better than the drink 
 
 Which only feeds the sickly fire. 
 
 In the original form the lines hardly suggest Tennyson, if that 
 
 is the ' poet of our own days ' to whom Thackeray alluded. 
 
 1. 21. The God of us verse-men, &c. : from a set of three songs 
 entitled Chloe Jealous. 
 
 1. 24. Thetis : the wife of Peleus, and mother by him of 
 Achilles. Being the daughter of Nereus the sea-god, she dwelt 
 with her sisters in the depths of the sea, but she does not appear 
 to have had any special connexion with the sun. 
 
 1. 30. lihe Horace and Lydia : see Horace, Od. iii. ix,' Donee 
 gratus eram tibi ', &c. 
 
 1. 31. than her : this should of course be ' than she ', and in 
 
282 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 the next line ' than me ' should be ' than I ' — ^if one may hamper 
 so charming a song by mere considerations of grammar. 
 
 Page 128, 1. 5. She sighed, she smiled, &c. : from The Garland. 
 
 1. 22. Dew sit propitius, &c. : ' May the Lord be merciful to 
 this honest toper '. From a delightful bacchanalian quatrain 
 beginning ' Meum est propositum in tabema mori '. 
 
 1. 23. Walter de Mopes: or Map (? 1140-1210), an author 
 of Welsh extraction, who was one of the Clerks of the House- 
 hold to Henry II. He has been credited with a large share in 
 the composition of the Arthurian legend. 
 
 1. 24. Sir Thomas Hanmer : Speaker of the House of Commons 
 in 1714. He married Isabella, the widow of the Duke of Grafton, 
 whose seat was Euston near Thetford. Sir Thomas's house was 
 some ten miles away at MUdenhall. 
 
 1. 35. Epictetm : a celebrated Stoic philosopher, by birth 
 a slave, who taught at Rome in the reigns of Nero and Domitiau. 
 He left no writings, but his teaching was preserved in written 
 form by his pupU Arrian. Simplicius, a Neo-platonist of the 
 sixth century, wrote a commentary on it. 
 
 Page 129, 1. 3. Cape Cahallum : ' take horse-exercise '. 
 
 1. 6. Bixham : I can find no place of this name in the neigh- 
 bourhood or elsewhere. 
 
 1. 11. that has her goings : in a newspaper of 1701 a horse is 
 advertised that has ' all his goings ', in the sense of paces ; so 
 possibly Prior means ' active '. 
 
 1. 17. lst~12th May : the double date was necessary, for the 
 reform of the calendar, which took place in all Roman Catholic 
 countries in 1582, was not adopted in England till 1752, so that 
 the date in this country was eleven days behind that in Paris. 
 
 1. 20. Henry : Lord BoUngbroke, to whom the letter is 
 addressed. 
 
 1. 22. Colbert, Marquis de Torcy (1665-1746), was a French 
 diplomatist who acted for some time as ambassador to the 
 English Court. 
 
 1. 47. Robin and Harry : Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and 
 Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. 
 
 Page 130, 1. 8. die aliquid de tribns capettis : ' Now talk about 
 my three kids ', i. e. Come to the point. In Martial vi. 19, 
 Postumus, a windy advocate, has to plead the cause of a man 
 whose kids have been stolen ; he begins with a long harangue 
 about the past military glory of Rome, which his client inter- 
 rupts with ' Nunc die, Postume, de tribus capellis '. 
 
 1. 12. Drift, Adrian, a clerk of Prior's, was afterwards his 
 executor. 
 
 Mr. Whitworth, Charles, afterwards Baron Whitworth, was 
 actually appointed British Plenipotentiary at Baden the day 
 before this letter was written. 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 283 
 
 1. 24. Frank Gvyyn : see above, note to p. 20, 1. 1. 
 1. 45. Jacob Tonson : see above, note to p. 66, 1. 26. 
 
 Page 131, 1. 8. Craggs: James, the younger (1686-1721), 
 succeeded Addison as one of the principal Secretaries of State 
 in 1718. He became involved in the South Sea Company, and 
 was said to have connived at bribes given by the directors to 
 facihtate the passmg of the Bill. Three weeks after the atten- 
 tion of Parliament was drawn to the matter Craggs died of 
 smaU-pox. 
 
 1. 10. Fortune shook her swift wings : from Horace, 0&. in. 
 zxix, 53 ' si oeleres quatit Pennas, resigno quae dedit '. 
 
 1. 28. horn in 1688 — Pope's year : Pope was bom in 1688, 
 but Gay three years earlier. He was baptized in Barnstaple 
 Church, September 1685. The same mistake appears in John- 
 son's Life of Oay. 
 
 1. 36. to the young princesses : or rather Princess Louisa, the 
 youngest child of George II. See below, p. 134, 1. 35. He was 
 offered the post in 1727. 
 
 1. 39. the first Beggar's Opera : see below, p. 138, 1. 32. It 
 was produced in January 1728, at the Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 Theatre, by Rich ; the effect, as a contemporary wit remarked, 
 was to make Rich gay and Gay rich. Elsewhere Pope says that 
 Gay made £700 or £800 by it. 
 
 ike second : Polly, which Thackeray calls a ' wearisome 
 continuation ' of the earlier opera, was prohibited by the Lord 
 Chamberlain, for what reason is not very apparent ; but being 
 published in book form proved an immense success, the censor's 
 veto having acted as a fine advertisement. 
 
 1. 44. wpwards o/3,000«. : this should rather be £6,000. 
 
 Page 132, 1. 4. negligee : if this is meant for a French word, 
 as the itahcs and accent seem to show, it should be ' neglige '. 
 The word was naturalized as ' neghgee ' in the eighteenth 
 century, meaning a loose wrapper worn by women. 
 
 1. 18. ' Kitty, ieautifid and young ' : from The Female Phaeton, 
 1.1. 
 
 1. 29. thy bust Is mix'd with heroes : Gay was buried in West- 
 minster Abbey, ' as if he had been a peer of the reahn,' says 
 Arbuthnot. 
 
 Page 133, 1. 19. Binfield : Pope's home in Windsor Forest. 
 
 1. 44. besides learned notes : ' The copious notes with which 
 the version is accompanied, and by which it is recommended to 
 many readers, though they were undoubtedly written to swell 
 the volumes, ought not to pass without praise : commentaries 
 which attract the reader by the pleasure of perusal have not 
 often appeared ; the notes of others are read to clear difficulties, 
 those of Pope to vary entertainment '- Johnson, Life of Pope, 
 p. 196. 
 
284 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Page 134, 1. 3. who harboured Don Quixote : see Don Quixote, 
 chap. 82 sqq. 
 
 1. 14. BosalindoB : Spenser in his Shepheard's Calendar intro- 
 duces a love-sick swain who has been forsaken by the shep- 
 herdess Rosalind. Blouzelinda is a sturdy country wench from 
 Gay's Shepherd^s Week. 
 
 1. 16. Philips, Ambrose (1671-1749), is chiefly known by his 
 Pastorals, whicli appeared in 1709 in Tonson's Miscellanies ; 
 the same number contained Pope's Pastorals, so that the two 
 poets were at once brought into rivalry. This was accentuated 
 by Philips's joining the Addison faction against Pope ; and it 
 was at the latter' s instigation that Gay wrote The Shepherd's 
 Week in 1714, Pope being anxious to rob Philips of the popu- 
 larity he had gained. 
 
 1. 18. Dr. Parndl : (whom Pope spells ' PameUe ' in both 
 places in this letter), Thomas PameU (1679-1718) was a minor 
 poet of Queen Anne's time ; the best known of his poems is 
 The Hermit. Pope published his poems in 1722. 
 
 1. 40. the French philosopher : Ren6 Descartes (1596-1650) 
 said that consciousness was the foundation of all knowledge ; 
 the consciousness of a man's existence is to him the assurance 
 of his existence : ' I think, therefore I exist '. Congreve found 
 the proof of Gay's existence in the fact that he ate. 
 
 Page 135, 1. 9. Sidft says, vrriting to day : March 19, 1728-9. 
 1. 10. viUakin : in Scott's Smft this is ' village ' ; and for 
 ' his ' he reads ' this '. 
 1. 13. in another letter : September 10, 1731. 
 
 Page 136, 1. 13. the Duke of Cumberland : WiUiam Augustus, 
 second son of George II, fought at his father's side at Dettingen 
 (1743), where the aUied English and German forces defeated 
 the French ; and commanded at Gulloden (1746), where his 
 brutaUty towards the defeated Jacobites earned him the title 
 of ' The Butcher ' 
 
 1. 25. minikin : ' diminutive '. 
 
 1. 30. a bird-organ : a small barrel-organ, so called because 
 it was used to teach birds to sing. 
 
 1. 36. Naples : a yellow pigment prepared in Italy, used for 
 colouring porcelain and in oil-painting. 
 
 Bergamot : a scented oil extracted from a species of citron. 
 
 1. 39. ' Bumkinets and Hobnelias ' : a shepherd and shep- 
 herdess in Gay's Shepherd's Week. 
 
 Page 137, 1. 19. Rubini, Giovanni Battista (1795-1854), 
 a celebrated Italian tenor. According to a note in Lady Ritchie's 
 edition the remark was made earher about Mdlle Dnchesnois 
 of the Theatre Franjais, who died in 1835. 
 
 1. 24. says Singer : there were two editions of Spence's Anec- 
 dotes pubUshed in 1820, one by Singer, the other by Malone. 
 There are many variations in the two, and each editor has 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 285 
 
 appended notes of his own. The one used by Thackeray and 
 Hannay was evidently Singer's ; but the editorial notes being 
 merely marked 'Ed.', whichever of the two cited this note 
 apparently forgot which edition he was using, and wrote 'Malone' 
 in place of ' Singer ' ; for thus it appears in all the editions of 
 the Lectv/res. 
 
 Page 138, 1. 1. ita wearisome continuation : for Polly see 
 above, note to p. 131, 1. 39. 
 
 Page 140, 1. 9. he thought proper to steal it : in 1718 Lord 
 Harcourt lent his house at Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire to 
 Pope, who wished to be near Oxford, as he was then busy on 
 his Iliad. He invited Gay to stay with him, and it was during 
 the visit that this famous tragedy occurred. It was first told 
 by Gay to Mr. Fortescue in a letter dated August 9, which was 
 printed in 1737. Pope's account of it to Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu is dated September 1 ; this is the version given by 
 Thackeray as Gay's. There is a striking resemblance between 
 the two letters, as though one had been written from the recol- 
 lection of the other. But on August 6 Pope wrote an account 
 of the tragedy in almost identical terms to Martha Blount ; so 
 that if either poet was the sole originator of the letter, it was 
 Pope and not Gay. Messrs. Elwin and Courthope, however, in 
 their edition of Pope suggest that Pope and Gay collaborated 
 in an account of the disaster, and sent it with very slight varia- 
 tions to their friends ; for Lord Bathurst, in a letter to Pope, 
 dated August 14, says, ' I must now return my thanks to Mr. 
 Gay and you for your melancholy novel you sent me of the two 
 unhappy lovers.' It would thus appear that there was no 
 ' stealiiig ' on either side, and Pope has one less aspersion on 
 his literary honesty. 
 
 1. 11. my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter : the famous Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu, who introduced the practice of inocula- 
 tion into England from Turkey. Her Letters were printed in 
 1763, the year after her death. 
 
 1.21. one of the greatest literary artists : in the first edition this 
 is ' the greatest literary artist '. 
 
 1. 32. dealt in Hollands : he kept a linen-draper's shop in the 
 City, but retired from business when his son was quite young. 
 
 Page 141, 1. 9. ' And this was all the teaching ', &c. : Spence's 
 Anecdotes, p. 193, in Singer's edition of 1820. 
 
 1. 15. Akander : the poem itself (which Diet. Nat. Biog. calls 
 'Alexander') was afterwards burnt, but some of the couplets from 
 it. Pope tells us in Spence (p. 277), were used for the Essay on 
 Criticism and The Dunciad. 
 
 1. 16. Statius : see above, note to p. 70, 1. 8. 
 
 1. 18. ' This I did ', &c. : Spence, p. 193. 
 
 1. 36. Dr. Baddiffe : see above, note to p. 126, 1. 25. 
 
286 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Page 142, 1. 2. Ariosto : a great Italian poet (1474-1533), 
 author of Orlando Fwrioso. 
 
 1.3. theCid: [Arabic 'seid'= lord] a famous Spanish warrior 
 (c. 1040-99) who fought against the Moors. He is hardly ever 
 spoken of by his name — ^Ruy Diaz de Bivar. He has been the 
 hero of many poems and tragedies, one of the most noted of the 
 latter being by ComeiUe. 
 
 Chimine (Ximena) was the wife of the CSd; she was the 
 daughter of a Spanish Count. 
 
 Armida was a beautiful maiden in Tasso's JerusaHeim 
 Ddivered, who succeeded by magic arts in enticing Rinaldo 
 away from the First Crusade, till he was won back by his com- 
 rades. 
 
 1. 17. about the year 1705 : though not printed tiU 1709 (see 
 above, note to p. 134, 1. 16), Pope's Pastorah were all written 
 before 1706 — he said two years earlier — and were handed about 
 and admired by the literary circle of the day. 
 
 1. 26. Mr. Curll : a piratical bookseller, infamous for the 
 slanderous and indecent works he published. Arbuthnot said 
 that his biographies added a new terror to death. Of course 
 Pope quarrefled with him, and put him into the Dunciad. 
 
 Page 143, 1. 7. a deux fins : ' to serve two ends '- 
 
 1. 20. Mr. Fenton : Elijah Fenton (1683-1730) together with 
 William Broome wrote a great part of Pope's translation of the 
 Odyssey. They copied his style so admirably that it is hardly 
 possible to distinguish how much is theirs. Fenton's epitaph 
 in Easthamstead Church, Berks., was written by Pope ; see 
 next page, 1. 6. 
 
 1. 40. further remarks on Waller : Fenton had edited Waller's 
 poems in 1729. 
 
 1. 43. Oppian : a Greek poet of the second century a.d. 
 
 Page 144, 1. 2. apprets : ' dressed up '. 
 
 1. 18. Earl of BwUrigton : this was Richard Boyle (1695- 
 1753), third Earl of Burlington and fourth Earl of Cork. He 
 was much interested in architecture, music, and gardening. 
 
 1. 19. August, 1714 : Messrs. Elwin and Courthope assign 
 this letter to 1716. See below, note to p. 147, 1. 9. 
 
 1. 25. a stonehorse : ' a BtaUion '- 
 
 1. 40. Mr. Oldmixon : John Oldmixon (1673-1742) was 
 a voluminous writer of histories, political pamphlets, poems, 
 and plays ; he contributed largely to The Medley during the 
 ten months of its existence (1710-11). The debt mentioned 
 was very possibly in connexion with the reprint of these papers, 
 which proved a financial failure. 
 
 1. 46. an Elzevir Virgil : the Elzevirs were a famous family 
 of Dutch printers of the seventeenth century, who printed over 
 a thousand classical texts. Really good Elzevirs are now very 
 rare, but, whatever be their condition or rarity, they are, says 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 287 
 
 Mr. Andrew Lang, 'regarded by novelists as the great prize 
 of the book collector.' 
 
 Page 145, 1. 11. old Jacob : i.e. Jacob Tonson. 
 
 1. 38. by Ms Timothy's: William Oldisworth (whom Pope 
 here and two lines above calls ' Oldsworth ') published through 
 Lintot in 1709 A Dialogue between Timothy and Philatheus, 
 a theological work in three volumes. 
 
 1. 40. Dr. King: William King, . D.C.L. (1663-1712), was 
 a sufficiently versatile writer ; he published through Lintot The 
 Art of Cookery in 1708, and the following year The Art of Love, 
 
 1. 41. Sir Richard : sc. Blackmore, who in 1700 published his 
 Paraphrases on Job. His poem Creation was warmly praised by 
 Addison and Dr. Johnson ; the latter edited his poems and wrote 
 his Life. 
 
 Page 146, 1. 18. S : this is shown by Lintot's Account 
 
 Book to have been Dr. George Sewel, a controversialist and 
 hack-writer, who helped to translate Ovid's Metamorphoses in 
 1717. 
 
 1. 22. Creech, Thomas (1659-1701), published a verse transla- 
 tion of Lucretius in 1682, of which Dryden spoke highly. Creech 
 was for some time head master of Sherborne, and afterwards 
 vicar of Welwyn, Herts. ; he ultimately hanged himself either 
 from money difficulties or a love trouble. 
 
 Page 147, 1. 9. Lord Lansdovme : George Granville or Gren- 
 ville. Baron Lansdowne (1667-1735), was Treasurer of the 
 Household in the last year of Queen Anne. Being suspected 
 of complicity in a plot to raise Cornwall for the Pretender, he 
 was imprisoned in the Tower in September 1715 ; but one year 
 and five months later he was released without trial. 
 
 1. 17. Lard Carleton : Henry Boyle, Baron Carleton (d. 1725), 
 was the uncle of the Earl of Eurhngton. He is mentioned above, 
 p. 70, I. 15 ; he was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1701-8), and 
 then a Secretary of State for two years, being replaced by 
 St. John. Middleton Stoney is some ten nules north of Oxford. 
 
 1. 28. intended for the press : the first part of Oviliver's Travels 
 appeared the following year — 1726 ; the second early in 1727. 
 Smft's suggestion that the printer might endanger his ears iB 
 hardly to be taken seriously ; the satire, though biting, was too 
 general in its application to be made the subject of a legal 
 prosecution. 
 
 1. 34. seen, loithout reading : i. e. whom you have seen, I do 
 not say whom you have read. 
 
 1. 42. CounseUor : an old-fashioned term for a barrister. 
 
 Page 148, 1. 2. Peterhmrmigh : Charles Mordaunt, third Earl 
 (1658-1735), was the English general in Spain in the War of the 
 Spanish Succession, Macaulay terms him the most extraordinary 
 character of his age. For more about him see below, p. 150. 
 
288 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 5. animal rationale : it was Quintilian (v. x. 56) who defined 
 man as a reasoning animal ; no one who has made an intelligent 
 study of the human race or what are called the lower animals, 
 will be prepared to accept the definition ; or Swift's either, that 
 man is an animal capable of reason, for some are evidently not. 
 
 1. 38. paullo minus db angelis : Ps. viii. 5. 
 
 Page 149, 1. 6. stomp : in the first edition ' cachet '. 
 
 1. 32. White's : see above, note to p. 119, 1. 15. 
 
 1. 33. the Patriot King : Bolingbroke wrote The Idea of a 
 Patriot King in 1738, but he did not print it tiU 1749, and then 
 without his name. Lord Chesterfield said that till he read this 
 work he did not know the extent and power of the English 
 language. 
 
 Page 150, 1. 4. Barcelona : this was taken by Peterborough 
 in 1705. 
 
 Peterborough's letters : Pope said they ' would contain very 
 pretty and lively things, but were apt to be too gay and wander- 
 ing ' (Spence, p. 294). 
 
 1. 16. Amadis : Amadis de Gaul was a legendary hero of 
 romance whose adventures are chiefly known through the 
 French version of Herberay (1540), but Professor Saintsbury 
 says the legend probably originally came from Portuga;!. 
 
 1. 17. he is said : in a letter of Walpole's to Sir Horace Mann, 
 April 14, 1679, he speaks of ' old Peterborough, that bragged of 
 having seen more kings and postilions than any man in Europe '. 
 I have not found the ' brag '. 
 
 1. 19. as his poet said : Pope, in an undated letter to Swift, 
 which has been assigned to November 1735. Why Pope is 
 called Peterborough's poet I know not. 
 
 1. 34. pluralities : properly used of the permission to hold 
 more than one benefice at a time. Peterborough, hke Pope, was 
 a Roman CathoUc, if he was anything. 
 
 Page 151, 1. 2. some one said : see Spence, p. 316. 
 
 Page 152, 1. 2. Bvdgdl, Eustace (1686-1737), was a cousin 
 of Addison's, who wrote thirty-seven numbers of the Spectator ; 
 later on he degenerated into a Grub Street writer, and ended by 
 taking his own life. 
 
 Tickdl : see above, note to p. 44, 1. 9. 
 Philips : see above, note to p. 134, 1. 16. 
 Carey, Henry (d. 1743), was an illegitimate son of George 
 SavUe, Marquis of Halifax. He wrote several plays, and was the 
 author of 'Sally in our AUey'. 'God save the King' has 
 often, though wrongly, been attributed to him. 
 
 1. 4. Dwroc : Napoleon's favourite officer, who was killed by 
 his side in Saxony in 1813. 
 
 Hardy was the captain of the Victory, in whose arms Nelson 
 lay dying. 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 289 
 
 1. 10. Spadille and Manille : the first and second trumps in 
 the game of Ombre. 
 
 1. 19. Wycherley's decrepit reputation; William Wyoherley 
 (1640-1715), the earliest and most depraved of the Restoration 
 dramatists, was the author of The Country Wife, The Plain 
 Dealer, and other comedies. He was sixty-four when Pope, then 
 aged sixteen, was introduced to him, and he made abundant 
 use of his young friend's genius in touching up his verses. Before 
 long, however. Pope's comments on the feeble lines submitted 
 to him grew so trenchant that Wycherley took umbrage, and 
 begged for the return of his verses. Pope at once complied, 
 advising the author to keep to prose for the future. This, at all 
 events, is Pope's version of the coolness between them, but he 
 is a very unreliable authority. 
 
 1. 36, Mr. Edward Blount, of Blagdon House, Devonshire, was 
 a distant cormexion of the Blounts of Mapledurham, mentioned 
 on p. 162 below, to which family Martha and Teresa belonged. 
 Both the .first edition and the second address this letter ' to 
 Mr. Alcourt '. 
 
 Page 153, 1. 43. ' Servetwr ad imum ', &c. : ' Let uniformity 
 and consistency be maintained from beginning to end " {Ars 
 Poetica, 126-7). 
 
 Page 154, 1. 18. The best satire that ever has been penned : 
 i.e. the character of Addison as given below, p. 156. 
 
 1. 21. rvithout a flaw : but Thackeray above, p. 69, 1. 12, 
 speaks of Addison's ' little weakness for wine ' as his only fault. 
 
 Page 155, 1. 2. Bernadotte : one of Napoleon's generals, who 
 was elected Crown Prince of Sweden in 1810, and fought against 
 Napoleon three years later. 
 
 1. 5. in the Spectator : No. 256. 
 
 1. 6. the Utile : in the first edition ' their little '- 
 
 Page 156, 1. 10. But were there one, &c. : from the Epistle 
 to Dr. Arbnthnot, which is by way of Prologue to the Satires 
 (U. 193-214). 
 
 1, 15. nice the Turk : in Eastern countries it has often been 
 held that the safest way of securing the occupant of the throne in 
 undisturbed possession is the murder of aU his nearest relations. 
 
 1. 18. Damn with faint praise : this is appropriated from the 
 Prologue to Wycherley's Plain Dealer, ' And with faint praises 
 one another damn.' 
 
 1. 26. Like Goto : M. Porcius Cato (of Utica), whom Addison 
 chose for the hero of his play, was the chief upholder of the 
 Senate in the Second Civil War. The sting in this line hes in 
 the fact that it is a quotation from Pope's Prologue to Addison's 
 Gato, written twenty-two years earlier : — 
 
 WhUe Cato gives his little Senate laws, 
 
 What bosom beats not in his Country's cause ? 
 
 1358 TJ 
 
290 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 28. raise : ' extol '. 
 
 1. 31. Atticiis : in the first edition of the satire this appeared 
 as ' Addison ' ; the alteration was made by Pope when the 
 Epistle was published in 1734. 
 
 1. 32. ' / sent the verses ', &o. : the exact words are given in 
 the footnote on p. 155 above. It appears from Messrs. Elwin 
 and Courthope s edition of Pope that this statement of his was 
 entirely untrue ; the character of Atticus first appeared as a 
 fragment in 1723, four years after the death of Addison, in 
 a miscellany of Curll's called Cythereia. Pope, being anxious 
 to escape the popular odium which attaches to those who speak 
 unpleasant truths aboutvthe dead, appears to have 'faked' 
 evidence to prove that the satire was written in 1715. Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu and Lord Oxford say they saw the lines 
 in Addison's lifetime, but there is only Pope's unsupported state- 
 ment — which can hardly be looked on as evidence — -to show that 
 Addison ever saw them. 
 
 1. 35. Johnson recounts an interview : Life of Pope, p. 63 
 (1790-1). 
 
 Page 157, 1. 3. St. Sebastian : martyred under Diocletian 
 (a. d. 284-305) by being bound to a tree and shot at with arrows. 
 
 1. 14. Godolphin, Sidney, afterwards Earl Godolphin, was 
 Treasurer in 1702 when Marlborough was in power, but fell with 
 him. He is mentioned above, p. 70. 
 
 1. 15. writing to Swift : dated March 29, 1731. Dawley was 
 the country residence of Bolingbroke ; it was near Cranford in 
 Middlesex. 
 
 1. 24. Yahoos : the disgusting bipeds whom Gulliver encoun- 
 tered on his Fourth Voyage. See above, p. 31. Swift and Gay 
 were on a visit to Pope at this time. The three are called 
 ' Triumvirs of Parnassus ', as being the three rulers in the realm 
 of the Muses. Mount Parnassus, in the north of Greece, was one 
 of the Muses' favourite haunts. 
 
 Page 158, 1. 3. Thomson, James (1700-48), author of The 
 
 1. 15. Atterbury, Francis (1662-1732), Bishop of Rochester, 
 was brought to trial in 1723 as a Jacobite and banished. Pope 
 was called as a witness to Atterbury' s character and mode of 
 life ; he ' had but few words to utter, and in those few he made 
 several blunders ' (Johnson). 
 
 1. 16. ' Homer in a nutshell ' : in a letter of Pope's to Atter- 
 bury, dated March 19, 1721-2, he writes, 'I have another 
 chariot besides that little one you laughed at when you com- 
 pared me to Homer in a nutshell.' Pliny says (Nat. Hist. 
 vii. 21) that the twenty-four books of the Iliad were written out 
 and enclosed in a nutshell. 
 
 1. 17. Mr. Dryden : his actual words were ' Dryden was not 
 a very genteel man ' {Spence, p. 261). 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 291 
 
 1. 26. with the exception of 8wift : this is an unwarranted 
 aspersion on Swift ; his Journal to Stdla shows that while he 
 was in London his society was eagerly courted by many of the 
 great ladies and most of the great men of the Court. 
 
 1. 28. Prior must he excepted : see above, p. 123, 11. 10 and 24. 
 
 1. 38. Tom Southerne : see above, note to p. 60, 1. 34. 
 
 1. 41. whom Dryden calls: in the Epistle to John Driden, 
 1. 107. 
 
 Page 159, 1. 1. whom Steele has described : in the Dedication 
 to The Lover, for which see above, p. 100, 1. 2. 
 
 1. 2. Codrington, Christopher (1668-1710), a remarkable com- 
 bination of soldier, scholar, and wit. In some lines which he 
 addressed to Garth on his Dispensary comes the couplet : — 
 Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy ; 
 Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I. 
 
 1. 4. the best of Christians : in A Farewell to London in the 
 year 1715 (it was not printed till 1756), Pope writes : — 
 And Garth, the best good Christian he. 
 Although he knows it not. 
 
 1. 18. Dr. Woodwards account, &c. : An Essay towards a 
 Natural History of the Earth, by Dr. John Woodward, appeared 
 in 1695. Arbuthnot's criticism was two years later. 
 
 1. 21. the Scriblerus Club : founded by Swift in 1714. Besides 
 the Dean and Arbuthnot, Pope, Bolingbroke, Parnell, Atterbury, 
 and Gay belonged to it. The object of the club was to satirize all 
 forms of Uterary incompetence ; the pseudonym of its members 
 was 'Martinus Scriblerus', taken from Lord Oxford's name for 
 Swift, whom he used to call ' Dr. Martin, because martin is a sort of 
 aswaUow and so isaswift' (Journal to Stella, October 11, 1711). 
 
 Page 160, 1. 1. the Alcibiades of his age : Alcibiades, the 
 famous Atheriian politician and general (d. 404 B.C.) was as 
 noted for his insolence, caprice, and free-thinking as for his 
 talents and good looks. Swift in his Inquiry into the Behaviour 
 of the QuMn's Last Ministry, written in June 1715, says, ' He 
 [Bolingbroke] was fond of mixing pleasure and business, and 
 of being esteemed excellent at both ; upon which account 
 he had a great respect for the characters of Alcibiades and 
 Petronius.' 
 
 Page 161, 1. 3. Jervas, Charles (? 1675-1739), a portrait 
 painter of no great talent, despite Pope's eulogy in his Epistle 
 to Mr. Jervas. 
 
 Richardson, Jonathan (? 1665-1745), noted as a portrait 
 painter and writer on Art. 
 
 1. 5. and for whose picture : in this amazing sentence — prob- 
 ably the worst constructed that Thackeray ever wrote — the 
 ' and who ' (in itself a solecism) refers to ' Richardson ', the 
 ' and whose ' to ' mother '. Moreover, in 1. 6, Thackeray wrote 
 
 V 2 
 
292 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 ' thanked Jervas ' and not ' thanked Richardson ' ; this appears 
 in both editions. As the sentence stood it would mean that 
 Pope asked Jervas for a portrait of Richardson, which I cannot 
 find that he ever did. If Thackeray intended to refer to the 
 letter to Richardson given in the footnote, ' delightful ' seems 
 a strange adjective to apply to that rather pathetic efiusion. 
 Pope's love for his mother at least was genuiae, however full 
 his life was of shams and treacheries ; and Thackeray would 
 have been the last to take delight in the sad outpouring of that 
 love over a mother's dead body. A further grammatical blunder 
 in the sentence is ' was ' for ' were ' (1. 7) ; this appears in 
 both editions, though it has been piously altered by Lady 
 Ritchie, who has also substituted ' Richardson ' for ' Jervas ' 
 in 1. 6, as I have done, failing to find any other solution for 
 this unfortunate sentence. 
 
 1. 8. KneUer, Sir Godfrey (1646-1723), by birth a German, 
 came to England in the reign of Charles II, and was taken into 
 favour by him and his next three successors. He was knighted 
 by WiUiam III. 
 
 1. 39. a Guinea trader : i. e. a slave merchant. 
 
 Paob 162, 1. 8. decrees : Thackeray presumably means his 
 ' proposals ' or prospectuses. The practice of printing by sub- 
 scription was not uncommon in those days. Milton had so 
 printed his Paradise Lost in 1688, and Dryden his Virgil in 
 1697 ; the 1713 collected edition of the Tatler was also printed 
 by subscription. It was in 1713 that Pope offered his Iliad to 
 subscribers in six volumes quarto for six guineas ; 654 sets were 
 subscribed for. Pope also received £1,200 from Lintot — who 
 provided gratis the copies for subscribers and for presentation — 
 for the right to sell any other copies the pubHc might require. 
 The bargain being concluded. Pope set to work on the translation, 
 and said at first that he ' wished anybody would hang him ' 
 (Spence, p. 218). Despite the help he got from Fenton, Broome, 
 and others, the work was not finished tUl 1718. 
 
 1. 16. says she : the letter" is dated merely ' Tuesday 12 o'c.', 
 but it must have been written in February 1719-20. 
 
 1. 26. dear : in the first edition it is ' deare '. 
 
 Page 163, 1. 3. in Spence : see Spence, pp. 267-8 ; the exact 
 words are, ' 'Tis most certain that nobody ever loved money so 
 little as my brother.' ' I believe nobody ever studied so hard 
 as my brother did in his youth.' ' My brother does not seem 
 to know what fear is.' 
 
 1. 11. at Twyford : ' My brother was whipped and iU-used at 
 Twif ord school for his satire on his master, and taken from thence 
 on that account ' (ib. p. 206). 
 
 1. 18. his faithful dog: from the Essay on Man, i, 111. 'His 
 faithful dog shall bear him company.' 
 
PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 293 
 
 1. 19. I had rather die : ' he thought it better to die than to 
 live in fear of such rascals ' ; told by Spence (p. 268). 
 
 1. 27. Spence describes him : ib. p. 319. 
 
 1. 37. said Spence : ib. p. 321. 
 whom Johnson despised : ' Johnson : He was a weak con- 
 ceited man. Boswell : A good scholar, sir ? Johnson : Why 
 no, sir. Boswell : He was a pretty scholar. Johnson : You have 
 about reached him.' (BoswelVsTourto the Hebrides, October 15.) 
 
 Page 164, 1. 14. the famous Greek picture : this was by Tim- 
 anthes, a contemporary of Zeuxis, and represented the sacrifice 
 of Iphigenia, her father being depicted with a mantle drawn 
 over his face. Both in ancient and modern times critics have 
 hotly debated whether this was a touch of consummate art or 
 a mean evasion of a difficulty. 
 
 1. 26. ' If you take ', &c. : this is inaccurately quoted from 
 a letter to The Daily Journal of May 11, 1728, which possibly is 
 by Dennis, but is signed merely 'A. B.'. It concludes with 
 a list of all such persons 'whether dead or living who are abused 
 in the three volumes lately published by Pope & Company '- 
 The list begins with ' Almighty God, the King, the Queen, His 
 late Majesty, Both Houses of Parliament ', &c. ; and contains, 
 among some fifty others, the names of Shakespeare, Garth, 
 Sir William Temple, Addison, and Steele. 
 
 1. 37. Lord Hervey : John Hervey (1696-1743), son of the 
 first Earl of Bristol, was created Baron Hervey in 1733, and 
 seven years later succeeded Godolphin as Lord Privy Seal. He 
 was a vegetarian — a rare phenomenon in those days. Lord 
 Whameclffle mentions him in his Introductory Anecdotes to 
 Lady M. W. Montagu's Works, vol. i, p. 65 (1837) : — ' It has 
 been handed down as a proof of the extreme to which Lord Hervey 
 carried his effeminate nicety, that, when asked at dinner whether 
 he would have some beef, he answered, " Beef ? Oh, no ! — 
 Faugh ! Don't you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor any 
 of those things ? " ' It is interesting to-day to note that Lord 
 Whamecliffe adds, ' Could any mortal have said this in earnest ? ' 
 The origin of the quarrel between Pope and Lord Hervey is 
 obscure, but it lasted for ten years. 
 
 1. 40. Let Sporus tremble, &c. : from the Epistle to Dr. Arbuth- 
 not, 1. 305. These lines precede a very bitter and souirilous attack 
 upon Sporus. 
 
 Page 165, 1. 27. One of Gibber's pamphlets : this was ATwther 
 Occasional letter from Mr. Gibber to Mr. Pope, &c., January 
 1743-4. The anecdote was told to Dr. Johnson by Richardson ; 
 see Johnson's Life of Pope, p. 131 (1790-1). 
 
 1. 34. Horace : in Satires r. i and Epistles i. xix, Horace 
 defends himself against the attacks of his critics ; but it is 
 not easy to find proof of his ' writhing '. 
 
 Page 166, 1. 10. Tibbald : otherwise Lewis Theobald (1688- 
 
294 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1774) ; he is best known as a critic of Shakespeare, whose 
 works he edited. He was the original hero of the Dunciad 
 (see above, note to p. 120, 1. 31), being selected for that honour 
 for the freedom with which he had criticized Pope's edition of 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Wdsted, Leonard, was a voluminous writer who had assailed 
 Pope in The Triumvirate (1717). In the Dunciad Pope thus 
 addresses him: 
 
 Flow, Welsted, flow ! like thine inspirer. Beer ; 
 Tho' stale, not ripe ; tho' thin, yet never clear, 
 — a gratuitous libel on the national beverage, however appli- 
 cable to the scribbler. The first edition reads ' Webster ' ; 
 Dr. James Webster (1689-1755) was the editor of the Weekly 
 Miscellany. He is mentioned in Book II of the Dunciad. 
 
 1. 23. poor Dennis's garret : in The Narrative of Dr. Robert 
 Norris (1713), mentioned above, p. 154. 
 
 1. 24. gives instructions : in A Farther Account of the most 
 deplorable condition of Mr. Edmund Gurll (1716). Both these 
 are printed in Swift's works. 
 
 1. 26. Peity France : in Westminster, now called York Street. 
 
 1. 27. Budge Row : ofi Cannon Street, in the City of London. 
 
 Page 167, 1. 17. the poor-devil author: in the first edition 
 ' the poor devil, the author '. 
 
 1. 25. jS^e : sc. Dullness. 
 
 1. 31. Medea : daughter of the king of Colchis. She wag 
 a famous sorceress, and by her magic charms enabled Jason to 
 win the Golden Fleece. One of the usual effects of magic 
 incantation is said to be the darkening of the heavenly bodies ; 
 in savage countries eclipses are supposed to be brought about 
 by magic. 
 
 1. 33. Argus : see above, note to p. 56, I. 5. 
 
 Page 168, 1. 4. Shrinks to her second cause : Cf. Dunciad, iv. 
 472:— 
 
 tiU we doubt of God ; 
 Make Nature still encroach upon his plan ; 
 And shove him off as far as e'er we can : 
 Thrust some Mechanic Cause into his place. 
 1. 11. Anarch : enemy to all government. 
 1. 23. Truth the champion : since Thackeray wrote this glowing 
 eulogy the character of Pope has undergone a good deal of 
 investigation at the hands of his biographers, from which it has 
 emerged in a very mangled condition. No one would now 
 dream of regarding Pope as a champion of the truth or in any 
 sense a Hero. 
 
295 
 
 HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 
 
 Pase 170, 1. 4. there must always he in the story a . . . hero : 
 it is worth noting that the sub-title of Vanity Fair — published 
 1846-8 — ^is A Novel vnthout a Hero. 
 
 1. 10. honest folks come by their own : from a sajdng attributed 
 to Sir Matthew Hale, the eminent judge, ' When rogues fall out, 
 honest men come by their own '. 
 
 1. 18. Jonathan Wild : Fielding's Life of this notorious scoun- 
 drel is enriched by many fictitious circumstances. Wild was 
 the leader of a gang of criminals, acting as the receiver of the 
 goods they stole, and handing the thieves over to the police 
 when it suited his purpose. He was hanged in 1725 ; Fielding's 
 Life of him appeared eighteen years later. 
 
 1. 19. apologue : ' story with a moral '. 
 
 1. 30. Coleridge speaks, &o. : this and many other interesting 
 passages are only to be found in the weekly numbers of The 
 Friend, being omitted in the dreary revised version which 
 Coleridge issued nine years later. 
 
 Page 172, 1. 2. Goody Two Shoes : a tale for children pub- 
 lished by Newbery, and often attributed to Goldsmith ; as it 
 is dull, painfully moral, and quite devoid of humour, the attribu- 
 tion would seem to be incorrect. 
 
 1. 10. Fielding says in Amelia : Book XII, chap. vii. 
 
 1. 20. Jack Sheppard : the notorious housebreaker, who was 
 hanged in 1724, at the age of twenty- two. 
 
 1. 28. Draco : an Athenian law-giver of the seventh cen- 
 tury B. 0. His laws were said to be written in blood, so many 
 were the offences punishable by death. 
 
 Page 173, 1. 2. Marlborough Home in Pall Mall was built by 
 Wren for the first duke. It became royal property in 1817. 
 The six pictures, painted in 1745, are now in the National 
 Gallery. 
 
 1. 15. sconces : supports for candles, fixed to a wall. 
 
 1. 16. on the dogs : there is no coronet on the dogs in the 
 picture, but in the print it appears on the flank of one dog. 
 The name ' Squanderfield ' on the marriage settlement also is 
 found only in the print. 
 
 1. 18. baldaquin : (or baldachin), ' a canopy '. 
 
 1. 26. the steward : this, says Mr. Austin Dobson (Life of 
 Hogarth, p. 72), is probably the merchant's confidential clerk ; 
 he is holding out a mortgage to the earl. 
 
 1. 29. himself: in the first edition ' his countenance'. 
 
 Page 174, 1. 1. Andromeda : she was the daughter of Gepheus 
 and Cassiopeia ; her mother was so vain of her daughter's 
 beauty that she pronounced her more lovely than the Nereids ; 
 to punish such presumption, Poseidon sent a sea-monster to 
 
296 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 ravage the land, and was only induced to withdraw it on con- 
 dition that Andromeda was given up to the monster. She was 
 accordingly chained to a rock — a subject which has been depicted 
 by innumerable painters — to await the monster's arrival. The 
 usual fairy prince turned up at the right moment in the shape 
 of Perseus, who freed Andromeda, and of course married her. 
 But Andromeda is not represented in any of the pictures ; 
 among them is a Cain destrojring Abel, a St. Sebastian ' shot 
 full of arrows ', a St. Lawrence on the Gridiron, and a David 
 killing Gohath. 
 
 Jvdith : an Israelite woman who murdered Holofemes, 
 captain of the Assyrian host that was invading her country. 
 The tale is told in the Book of Judith in the Apocrypha. 
 
 1. 5. In the second picture : this should be the fourth ; the 
 second is the drawing-room scene, given below, 1. 12 sqq. 
 
 1. 14. the ' Base ' : see above, note to p. 96, 1. 7. 
 
 I. 23. faints : the label ' laudanum ' on the bottle in her 
 hand shows that she has poisoned herself. 
 
 1. 39. Bedlam : the Priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem was 
 founded in Bishopsgate in the thirteenth century. At the 
 dissolution of the monasteries it was granted by Henry VIII 
 to the mayor and citizens, and shortly after incorporated as 
 a royal foundation for the reception of lunatics. In 1815 it was 
 transferred to Lambeth, where it now stands. The corruption 
 of Bethlehem into Bedlam is at least as old as Shakespeare. 
 
 1. 40. Industry and Idleness : this series of prints was issued 
 in 1747. 
 
 Page 175, 1. 3. Whittington : chiefly known as a pantomime 
 hero; he was an historical personage, the son of another Sir Richard 
 of Gloucestershire, and M.P. for London in 1416, besides being 
 — as the bells said — thrice Lord Mayor of London. 
 
 1. 4. the London 'Prentice : plenty of the old ballads deal 
 with London apprentices, but I cannot find one with this title. 
 Possibly, as Professor Phelps suggests, it is ' The Honour of 
 a London Prentice ', given in Ritson's collection of Ancient 
 Songs and Ballads. It deals with the days of Queen EUzabeth. 
 
 1. 5. Moll Flanders : the name of a courtesan, thief, and 
 convict, whose life was written by Defoe in 1722. 
 
 1. 8. halfpenny-under-the-hat : if one may judge by N. E. D. 
 this is the only place in English literature where this game is 
 referred to. Presumably it was a kind of thimble-rigging. 
 
 1. 15. marrow-bones and cleavers : the butcher-boys used to 
 parade the town on festive occasions, striking the metal of their 
 meat-choppers with marrow-bones by way of music. 
 
 1. 34. trainbands : the militia of the City of London. 
 
 1. 37. the King : this is Frederick Prince of Wales accom- 
 panied by the Princess of Wales. See Hogarth's Works by 
 Nichols and Steevens, vol. ii, p. 188. 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 297 
 
 Page 176, 1. 12. a splendid marble arch : this clumsy edifice 
 was first erected at Buckingham Palace in 1830 ; it was removed 
 to its present site at the north-east corner of Hyde Park in 1851. 
 
 1. 14. ahode : in the first edition ' abodes '. 
 
 1. 18. apotheosis : ' exaltation to the height of glory ', literally 
 ' deification '. 
 
 1. 20. broadside : properly a sheet of paper printed only on 
 one side ; as ballads were generally so printed, the word came 
 to be used for a ballad. 
 
 1. 28. Dick Turpin : see note to p. 83, 1. 19. 
 
 1. 29. Squire Western : a quite remarkably coarse, foul- 
 mouthed and selfish specimen of the eighteenth-century country 
 gentleman. He was the father of the heroine in Tom Jones. 
 
 1. 30. the ' Hercules Pillars ' : a small inn near Hyde Park 
 Comer. See Tom Jones, Book XVI, chap. ii. 
 
 1. 34. pretty infantry : this use of the word for ' infants ' 
 was not always humorous. In the seventeenth century it appears 
 in a hymn. 
 
 Page 177, I. 17. bagnio : see above, note to p. 88, 1. 34. 
 
 1. 18. Bridewell : a prison for females near Blaokfriars, de- 
 molished in 1863. The preparation of hemp for ropes, canvas, 
 &o., stiU forms part of the occupation of the inmates of prisons 
 and the casual wards of workhouses. 
 
 1. 23. chaired : this is the reading of the third edition (1858) ; 
 the two former editions have ' cheered '. The print ' Chairing 
 the Members ' is one of a set of four issued 1755-8. Thackeray 
 says ' one of Walpole's members ', because there is only one 
 visible in the print, but the shadow of another is given on a wall. 
 
 1. 27. white Hanoverian horse : the badge of the House of 
 Brunswick. 
 
 1. 29. Johnny Cope : General Sir John Cope was defeated by 
 the Young Pretender at Prestonpans near Edinburgh in 1745 ; 
 he rode from the field of battle so fast that he is said to have 
 been the only general who brought the first tidings of his own 
 defeat. He was avenged seven months later by the Duke of 
 Cumberland at Culloden. 
 
 1. 33. Parson Adams : a delightfully honest and simple- 
 minded country parson from Pieldmg's Joseph Andrews. 
 
 1. 35. ' Angd ' : near St. Clement's in the Strand. 
 
 1. 38. hanger : a short sword, so called because it hung from 
 a loop attached to the belt. 
 
 Page 178, 1. 1. Humphry Clinker at the opening of the story 
 of that name was a postUion. 
 
 1. 4. Jack Hatchway was not a soldier, but a retired naval 
 offiper in Peregrine Pickle. 
 
 1. 5. Lismdhago : a retired army Ueutenant in Humphry 
 Clinker ; Scott took him for his model in drawing Major Dal- 
 getty. See the Introduction to the Legend of Montrose. 
 
298 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 ]. 8. Steele charmingly described : there is no such girl in the 
 Guardian, so far as I can discover. There ia a May song in 
 No. 124, but it is not sung by any one, and is of a decidedly 
 comic character. Moreover it was not Nestor Ironside of the 
 Chiardian, but Isaac Biokerstaff of the Tatler who lived in Shire 
 Lane (for which see above, p. 109, 1. 39). Lastly, Hogarth's print 
 of the ' Enraged Musician ' appeared in 1741, and the Guardian 
 expired in 1713, which is more than ' a few years before '. 
 
 1. 13. King Richard : Richard III was the part in which 
 Garrick made his name at the age of twenty-five ; Hogarth 
 painted and engraved his portrait in this character in 1746. 
 
 1. 14. Macheath and Polly : from The Beggar's Opera. 
 
 I. 16. sat on the stage : chairs were provided at the wings for 
 a few select spectators. 
 
 1. 21. with whom : i.e. on whose side. Random, as Thackeray 
 says, had enlisted in the French army, and so fought against 
 his country and its German allies at Dettingen (1743), where 
 the French were defeated. 
 
 1. 24. the student, &c. : this is, I suppose, the print ' Scholars 
 at a Lecture ' (1736). 
 
 1. 25. Broughton the boxer : John Broughton (1705-89) is 
 usually considered the father of British pugilism ; combats 
 before his time having been usually decided by backsword or 
 quarter-staff. His portrait was painted by Hogarth, in what 
 year is not known. 
 
 Sarah Malcolm was executed for miirder in 1733. She was 
 painted by Hogarth in the condemned cell. 
 
 1. 26. Simon Lovat : executed in 1747 for comphcity in the 
 Jacobite rising of 1746. Hogarth painted him at St. Albans, on 
 his way to stand his trial in London. 
 
 John Wilkes : (1727-97) he was the founder of the North 
 Briton, in No. 45 of which he published a famous criticism of 
 George III, which led to his arrest. He was expelled from 
 Parliament for a scandalous Essay on Woman, and was after- 
 wards outlawed and imprisoned. Later on he was readmitted 
 to Parliament, and became in succession alderman, sheriff, and 
 Lord Mayor. For Hogarth's portrait of him see below, p. 184, 
 1.25. 
 
 Page 179, 1. 4. in 1697 : Thackeray wrote ' 1698 '. The" 
 true date was November 10, 1607. He was bom in Bartholomew 
 Close. 
 
 1. 36. in twelves : i. e. each set consisted of twelve prints. 
 
 1. 41. The Ta^te of the Town : this is generally known as 
 'Masquerades and Operas. Burlington Gate' (1724). 
 
 1. 43. vending at half-price : to stop this piracy was passed 
 the Act of 1735, which gave designers the copyright in their 
 designs. This Act is often spoken of as ' Hogarth's Act ', it 
 having been mainly through his representations that it became 
 law. 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 299 
 
 Page 180, 1. 8. serjeant-painter : an old-fashioned term for 
 court painter. Cf. serjeant-surgeon. 
 
 1. 12. Gonversation Pieces : paintings of groups of persons 
 taken from ordinary life. 
 
 1. 18. plate against Pope : called ' The Man of Taste '. 
 
 1. 30. St. Bartholomew's Hospital : these two pictures were 
 painted in 1736. 
 
 1. 46. Vanloo : Jean Baptiste van Loo (or Vanloo), a French 
 painter who in 1737 came to England, where he soon became 
 the most popular portrait-painter of the day, to the great 
 indignation of the native talent. 
 
 Page 181, 1. 4. by opposing end it : Hamlet m. i. 60. 
 
 1. 12. the Academy in St. Martin's Lane : in 1734 Hogarth 
 joined with a number of other artists to hire a room where 
 thirty or forty persons could copy from the nude ; this academy 
 was still flourishing thirty years later. 
 
 1. 21. the Academy : the Royal Academy of Arts — to give it 
 its full title — ^was founded in 1768 by George III, Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds being its first president. 
 
 1. 22. the three great estates of the empire : no doubt Hogarth 
 meant — as do most people who use this phrase — the Crown 
 and the two Houses of ParMament. The real three estates in 
 this country are the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and 
 the Commons. 
 
 1. 44. his Sigismunda : now in the National Gallery ; his 
 wife was the model. 
 
 Page 182, 1. 14. Churchill, Charles (1731-64), a poet and 
 satirist, perhaps best known for his Bosciad, a satire on con- 
 temporary actors. 
 
 1. 17. ' The Times ' : this appeared September 1762, and 
 represented Europe in flames with Mr. Pitt fanning the fire 
 with bellows and the Duke of Newcastle wheeling up a barrow- 
 load of Monitors and North Britons as fuel. Wilkes replied in 
 the North Briton for the following week — No. 17. Wilkes's 
 portrait came out in May 1763, and Churchill's in the following 
 August. 
 
 1. 21. One : sc. Wilkes. 
 
 1. 29. A Brutus : ' a saviour of his country '. Lucius Junius 
 Brutus had been instrumental in driving out the Kings of Rome 
 (509 B.C.). 
 
 Page 183, 1. 1. his friend : this is from the 1858 edition ; 
 the first and second have ' friends '. 
 
 1. 3. wooden shoes : see above, note to p. 23, 1. 18. 
 
 1. 7. Correggio : Antonio Allegri, bom at Correggio in North 
 Italy in 1494, is commonly called by the name of his birthplace. 
 The ' Sigismunda ' then ascribed to him — but which, says 
 Mr. Austin Dobson, is really by Fran. Furini — had been sold in 
 1758 for £400. 
 
300 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 the Garacci : two brothers and a cousin, all born at Bologna 
 in the latter half of the sixteenth century. 
 
 1. 12. altar piece at St. Mary Bedcliffe, Bristol : this is in three 
 compartments, and was painted in 1756. It is now in the Pine 
 Arts Academy at CBf ton. The church is famous for the Rowley 
 chest, where Chatterton professed to have found his MSS. 
 
 1.13. PavlheforeFdix: painted for Lincoln's Inn Hall in 1748. 
 
 1. 41. Chesdden, William (1688-1752), a, famous surgeon and 
 anatomist. 
 
 1. 43. Dick's Coffee-house : on the south side of Meet Street, 
 near Temple Bar. 
 
 1. 44. Greene, Maurice (? 1696-1755), was successively organist 
 at St. Paul's, organist at the Chapel Royal, Professor of Music 
 at Cambridge, and Master of the King's Band of Music. 
 
 Page 184, 1. 3. Smft could not see the difference : according to 
 Dr. Ward the epigram on the feuds between the admirers of 
 Handel and those of Bononcini is incorrectly assigned to Swift ; 
 it is really by Pope, and runs : — - 
 
 Strange ! aU this difference should be 
 'Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee ! 
 
 1. 17. Liston, John (1776-1846), was a famous comic actor ; 
 one of the most successful of his parts was that of Pavd Pry. 
 
 1. 35. Florimel : i. e. a mere counterfeit. Florimel was a damsel 
 in the Faerie Queene, of great beauty but extreme timidity. 
 A witch made a counterfeit maiden in her likeness, who vanished 
 when confronted with the real Florimel (Spenser, Faerie Queene, 
 III. iv. 8). 
 
 Page 185, 1. 19. A queer account, &o. : the title is An account 
 of what seemed most remarkable in the five days' peregrination of 
 the five following persons. . . . Begun on Saturday 27 May 1732 
 and finished on the 31st of the same month (London, 1782). It was 
 written by Ebenezer Forrest, an attorney, who was one of the five. 
 
 1. 21. Mr. Pickwick and his companions started from the 
 ' Golden Cross ' in ' The Commodore ' coach bound for Rochester 
 on May 13, 1827. (See chap. ii). 
 
 Page 186, 1. 25. flip : a mixture of beer and spirit, warmed 
 and sweetened. 
 
 1. 26. tradesmen : i. e. they behaved as such. TothaU, a draper, 
 was the only one in trade, three of the others being painters, 
 and the fourth an attorney. 
 
 1. 31. Dr. Johnson made four lines : it is thanks to this note 
 of Mrs. Piozzi's that these lines are so often misquoted ; Johnson 
 wrote : — 
 
 The Hand of Art here torpid lies 
 
 That traced the essential form of Grace ; 
 Here death has closed the curious eyes 
 That saw the manners in the face. 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 301 
 
 Garrick, after writing his epitaph, submitted it to Johnson, who 
 criticized it in his reply of December 12, 1771, and suggested 
 the version, f oiu: lines of which are given above. The final form 
 the epitaph took in Garriok's hand was : — 
 
 Parewel, great Painter of Mankind ! 
 
 Who reach'd the noblest point of Art, 
 Whose piotur'd Morals charm the Mind, 
 And through the Eye correct the Heart. 
 
 If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay : 
 
 If Nature touch thee, drop a tear ; • 
 If neither move thee, turn away, 
 For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here. 
 Page 187, 1. 7. Hudsm's: Thomas Hudson (1701-79) 
 succeeded Jervas and Richardson as the most popular portrait- 
 painter of his day. Reynolds studied under him for two years. 
 1. 15. AU men are liars : Psalm cxvi. II. It is worth noting 
 that the Revised Version has ' are a lie ', which yields an entirely 
 difierent sense. 
 
 1. 35. grubs ; i. e. Grub Street writers, for whom see above, 
 p. II. 1. 21. 
 
 1. 45. covid not enjoy it : people could not be arrested for 
 debt on Sunday. 
 
 Page 188, 1. 21. flapped : ' with the brim turned down ', 
 
 Page 190, 1. 13. irritable tribe: 'genus irritabile vatum', 
 Horace, Epis. II. ii. 102. 
 
 1. 16. Bolingbroke's metaphysical works : Bolingbroke did not 
 write these tUl his poUtical career was over ; he had made no 
 study of philosophy till he was over forty. His philosophical 
 works — the greatest of which is his Letters on the Study of History 
 — were first published in 1753, two years after his death. 
 
 1. 38. Shoe Lane runs from Fleet Street to Holbom ; there 
 was formerly a cockpit there, much frequented by the nobility. 
 
 Page 191, 1. 11. the King's Bench was a debtors' prison in 
 Southwark ; its Uberties were the district immediately outside 
 the prison where the prisoners were allowed to reside on pay- 
 ment of certain fees. If they wished to go beyond the liberties 
 they were accompanied by an officer of the Court to ensure 
 their return. 
 
 Page 192, 1. 6. cadets : ' younger sons '. 
 
 1. 27. Dr. Johnson : in 1737 Johnson, then aged twenty-eight, 
 came to London ' to try his fate with a tragedy ' ; this was 
 the halt-finished Irene, which was only produced in 1749 (Boswell, 
 anno 1737). 
 
 1. 32. Carthagena : in the war with Spain, which was declared 
 in 1739, Admiral Vernon attacked Carthagena in Columbia, the 
 strongest Spanish settlement in America. The assault, which 
 
302 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Smollett describes in Roderick Randmn, was repulsed with great 
 loss. 
 
 1. 37. 174:7 : this is the date given by Mr. Thomas Seccombe 
 in Diet. Nat. Biog. Mr. Austin Dobson in a note to the World's 
 Classics edition of Scott's Lives of the Novelists, says the marriage 
 probably took place before Smollett left Jamaica. 
 
 Page 193, 1. 17. Bochfort expedition : in 1757 an expedition 
 sailed from England with orders to make a descent on Roche- 
 fort, a town a little to the south of La RocheUe. Owing to 
 a difference of opinion between the general and the admiral the 
 town had time to fortify itself so strongly that the English fleet 
 returned without attempting its capture. 
 
 1. 19. said our author : as Scott quotes these words, they 
 are presumably in the Critical Review, but I have been unable 
 to fvnd them. There are reviews of several pamphlets on the 
 Rochefort expedition, which not unnaturally brought a good 
 deal of criticism on the government. According to Diet. Nat. 
 Biog. and^avid Hannay's Life of Hogarth, the article for which 
 Smollett was put on his trial is in vol. v, p. 439 (May 1758) ; 
 and this is couched in a much milder strain than the language 
 quoted by Scott, the strongest remark being ' If the persons 
 employed on this service were afraid . . .'. 
 
 1. 28. an owl : this remark about Dr. Grainger is in vol. vii, 
 p. 88. 
 
 1. 30. Dr. Moore^s biography : prefixed to his edition of Smollett 
 (1797). The tale is told in vol. i, p. oxxxvi, but Scott's transcrip- 
 tion of it has two or three verbal variations. 
 
 Page 194, 1. 18. Dr. Gains : a French physician from The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 
 1. 20. Major Dalgetty : from Scott's Legend of Montrose. 
 
 1. 22. Humphry Clinker was Smollett's last work, and was 
 pubhshed in 1771, before his death. As a humorous and satirical 
 description of the manners of the time, and as a picture-gallery 
 both of persons and places, it is probably unrivalled. Its epis- 
 tolary form too admirably Ulustrates the different effects that 
 the same incident may produce on different people — a useful 
 lesson for the student of human nature. It is, moreover, almost 
 entirely free from the coarseness of language and incident which 
 are to be found in Smollett's other novels. But it may be 
 doubted whether any one to-day will find it ' laughable ', and 
 it is about as deficient in ' story ' as a novel can well be. 
 
 1. 34. Monte Nero : Scott, following Moore, wrote ' Monte 
 Novo ', an error which is corrected in all the editions of these 
 Lectures. 
 
 1. 37. sweetest in the close : Richard II, n. i. 12 : — 
 The setting sun, and music at the close, 
 As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last. 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 303 
 
 Page 195, 1. 2. Bladvd's well : Bath, according to the legend, 
 was built by Bladud, father of King Lear. 
 1. 10. Captain Booth : the hero in Amelia. 
 
 Page 196, 1. 1. Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, &c. : the letter is 
 addressed to the Countess of Bute, and dated September 22, 
 1755 : — ^' I am sorry for H. Fielding's death, not only as I shall 
 read no more of his writings, but I believe he lost more than 
 others, as no man enjoyed life more than he did, though few 
 had less reason to do so, the highest of his preferment being 
 raking in the lowest sinks of vice and misery. . . . His happy 
 constitution (even when he had with great pains half demolished 
 it) made him forget everything when he was before a venison 
 pasty, or over a flask of champagne, and I am persuaded he has 
 known more happy moments than any prince upon earth. His 
 natural spirits gave him rapture with his cookmaid [see below, 
 p. 203, 1. 21 sqq.], and cheerfulness when he was starving in 
 a garret. There was a great similitude between his character 
 and that of Sir Richard Steele. He had the advantage, both in 
 learning and, in my opinion, genius ; they both agreed in 
 wanting money in spite of all their friends, and would have 
 wanted it if their hereditary lands had been as extensive as 
 their imagination ; yet each of them was so formed for happi- 
 ness, it is pity he was not immortal.' The letter is quoted in 
 Scott's Life, p. 92 (1827). 
 
 1. 13. that Homeric feast : i. e. prodigious in quantity. 
 
 1. 41. Peregrine Pickle's performances : this work was issued 
 without the author's name, as was Roderick Random. There 
 was much speculation as to the authorship of both. 
 
 Page 197, 1. 11. as Walpole tdls us : ' Rigby, who had seen 
 him [Fielding] so often come to b^ a guinea of Sir C. Williams, 
 and Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals ' 
 {Letter to George Montagu, May 18, 1749). 
 
 1. 13. to write theatrical pieces : between 1727 and 1736 he 
 wrote eighteen comedies and farces, none of which proved 
 a great success. In 1737 he produced the Historical Register, 
 in which, without aiming at any special individual, he held up 
 politicians in general to contempt. This very reasonable attitude, 
 however, provoked the government of the day to impose on the 
 stage the Dramatic Censorship under which it still labours. It 
 was no doubt this effective muzzling order which diverted 
 Fielding from the stage to the novel. 
 
 1. 15. Oldflelds and Bracegirdles : for the latter see above, 
 note to p. 48, 1. 19. Anne Oldfidd was born twenty years after 
 her rival, but from about the age of twenty-three she divided 
 the popular favour with the older actress. In 1707 they agreed 
 to settle their rivalry by an appeal to the audience, and accord- 
 ingly played the same part — Mrs. Brittle in Betterton's Amorous 
 Widow — on alternate nights. The preference being given to 
 
304 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Mrs. Oldfield, her rival abandoned the stage. Mrs. Oldfleld died 
 in 1730, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 1. 17. %i/pon one occasion : this was a scene in The Wedding 
 Day ; it was Garriok who had to utter the passage about which 
 he had warned Fielding. See Murphy's Life prefixed to Field- 
 ing's W<yrks (p. 50, ed. of 1771). 
 
 Page 198, 1. 38. Lugei Britannia, &c. : ' Britain laments her 
 son whom she is not allowed to cherish in her bosom.' Accord- 
 ing to Mr. Austin Dobson, who has had the inscription verified 
 at Lisbon, the word ' datum ' should be ' dari ', 
 
 1. 40. Dr. Warton: Thomas Warton (1728-90), critic and 
 poet, was Professor of Poetry at Oxford and Poet Laureate. 
 He is best known by his History of English Poetry. 
 
 Page 199, 1. 12. Pamela, by Samuel Richardson, ' the puny 
 Cockney bookseller ', depicts the trials of a virtuous maidservant 
 who comes unscathed through all temptations, and ends by 
 marrying and reforming her master. In ridicule of this edifjnng 
 tale Fielding drew his hero, Joseph Andrews, as a footman, and 
 subjected his virtue to the same assaults as Pamela had met 
 with, to emerge equally triumphant. 
 
 1. 26. MoTwch : [fr. Mohawk — a tribe of American Indians] 
 a class of aristocratic ruffians who ranged the streets of London 
 at night in the early part of the eighteenth century to the terror 
 of innocent pedestrians. 
 
 1. 31. Mrs. BarbauM : Anna Letitia Aikin (1743-1826), an 
 English essayist and poet, married the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, 
 a dissenting minister. She was a literary lady of indefatigable 
 industry ; Coleridge termed her ' the pleonasm of nakedness ', 
 for she was not only ' bare ' but also ' bald '. 
 
 Page 200, 1. 6. sickening : this is a strong adjective to use 
 for a feeling which Thackeray admits was natural ; Fielding had 
 made Richardson look ridiculous, and the latter — who had at 
 least a double dose of vanity in his composition — was not a big 
 enough man to forgive him. 
 
 1. 14. WaVpole , . . spoke of them : ' Fielding had as much 
 humour perhaps as Addison ; but, having no idea of grace, is 
 perpetually disgusting ' {Letter to John Pinkerton, June 26, 1785). 
 
 1. 20. Johnson would not sit down with him : Johnson called 
 him a ' blockhead ', which term of general abuse he explained 
 by saying he was ' a barren rascal and drew pictures of very 
 low life ' (Boswdl, anno 1772). But see the footnote on this 
 page. 
 
 1. 25. Gibbon writes : in the second edition (1814) of his 
 Memoirs, at the end of the third paragraph ; the passage does 
 not appear in the first edition (1796). 
 
 1. 27. Counts of Hapshurgh : the reigning house of Austria, 
 to which belonged the Emperor Charles V (abdicated 1556). 
 
 1. 31. the Escurial or Escorial : a monastery, palace, and 
 
HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 305 
 
 mausoleum of the Spanish sovereigns, twenty-seven miles 
 north-west of Madrid. 
 
 Page 201, 1. 11. Charles Lamb says ; ' One cordial, honest 
 laugh of a Tom Jones absolutely clears the atmosphere that was 
 reeking with the black putrifying breathings of a hypocrite 
 Blifil ' {On the Genius and Character of Hogarth). 
 
 1. 24. with manners morals appear to change : and necessarily, 
 the morality of a country being that which the majority of people 
 in that country consider right ; nowhere — not even in England 
 — is this necessarily coincident with virtue. 
 
 1. 36. tinct. lyttae : ' incitements to sexual desire'. 
 
 Pa(Sb202, 1. 3. as is the plan of some aiithors : see above, note 
 to p. 170, 1. 4. 
 
 1. 21. Charles and Joseph Swface : from Sheridan's School for 
 Scandal. 
 
 Page 203, 1. 40. an estate of £300 : this statement rests on the 
 authority of Murphy, who says he succeeded to the property 
 at about the time of his marriage, on his mother's death. She, 
 however, died in 1718, when Harry Fielding was eleven. There 
 is nothing to show that he had anything more than his wife's 
 money when he retired for what can only have been a few months 
 to Dorsetshire. 
 
 1. 42. Three years : he married in November 1734, and was 
 in London at the beginning of 1735, as appears from the preface 
 to The Universal Gallant ; in the spring of 1736 he took the 
 theatre in the Haymarket. 
 
 Page 204, 1. 13. Colonel Bath : an eccentric person with 
 a profound belief in his own dignity ; he was a friend of Booth's 
 in Amelia. 
 
 1. 14. Colonel Gardiner : killed at Prestonpans in 1745. He 
 is chiefly known to the world through his conversion ' ; he 
 led a dissolute life in his youth, till one day, when waiting for 
 an assignation, he saw — or fancied he saw — a vision of Christ ; 
 from that day he became conspicuous for his piety. His death 
 is described in a note to Scott's Wa/verley. 
 
 the Duke of Cwnberland : see above, note to p. 136, 1. 13. 
 
 Page 205, 1. 38. elsewhere : see Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, 
 iii. 384. 
 
 Page 206, 1. 33. as regular a plan as / could form : in the 
 Critical Review for February 1758 there is a review of a pamphlet 
 giving the details of Fielding's scheme ; the pamphlet was 
 entitled An Account of the origin and effects of a police, &c. The 
 reviewer says, ' Among the acting justices, no man has been 
 more active and successful than Mr. Fielding.' 
 
 1.45. my physical acquaintances : ' my physicians'. 
 
 Page 207, 1. 40. the dirtiest money upon earth : a magistrate 
 
 1356 X 
 
306 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 was entitled to a fee of 2s. id. for every person he let out on 
 bail ; unscrupulous justices made a considerable addition to 
 their incomes by releasing on bail persons who ought to have 
 been discharged or kept in custody. Other and more disreput- 
 able ways in which magistrates added to their incomes are given 
 in the second chapter of Amelia. 
 
 STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 
 
 Page 208, 1. 5. James II : this should be Charles II, as 
 Richard Sterne, Laurence's great-grandfather, died in 1683. 
 
 1. 8. Handyside's regiment : this is from Sterne's Autobio- 
 graphy — where it is spelt Handaside — but it is incorrect. Handy- 
 side's regiment was the 22nd Foot ; Roger Sterne was an ensign 
 in the 34th, under Colonel Hans Hamilton, and does not appear 
 to have ever reached higher rank than lieutenant. 
 
 1. 10. sutler : ' army caterer '. 
 
 his son twites : in the Autobiography prefixed to his Letters. 
 
 1. 19. died presently : in 1731 when Laurence was eighteen. 
 
 1. 24. one relative, &o. ; these events took place before Roger 
 Sterne's death. 
 
 1. 28. the famous starling : see the chapter headed ' The 
 Starling ' in the Sentimental Journey, where the crest and coat 
 of arms are drawn. 
 
 Page 209, U. 9, 10. Trim, Le Feme, and Unde Toby all appear 
 in Tristram Shandy. 
 
 1. 9. montero cap : a Spanish horseman's cap, with a spherical 
 crown and flaps that could be drawn over the ears. 
 
 1. 10. roqudaure : a cloak reaching to the knees. 
 
 U. 13, 14. Bamillies and Malplaquet : see above, note to 
 p. 84, 1. 30. 
 
 1.21. understrapper: 'subordinate'. 
 
 1. 25. where he remained five years : he was admitted a sizar 
 in July 1733, and an exhibitioner a year later ; but he did not 
 matriculate tUl March 1735, and took his B.A. in 1736. 
 
 1. 27. prebendary : a residential canonry at a cathedral. 
 
 1. 28. his wife's connexions : in 1741, five years after his 
 ordination, Sterne married Miss Elizabeth Lumley, whom he had 
 courted for two years. 
 
 1. 35. she said : this appears in Sterne's Autobiography. 
 
 Page 210, 1. 2. one of his friends : his college friend, John 
 Hall-Stevenson. The letter is No. 119 in the Collected Letters, 
 and bears no date, but has been with good reason assigned to 
 1758, which is seventeen, not twenty-five years after his mar- 
 riage. 
 
 L 10. We will be as merry, &o. : from Letter 1. 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 307 
 
 1.21. tutelar: 'protecting'. 
 1. 25. As I take wp, &c. : from Letter 2. 
 1. 30. and then adds : these three words were inserted in the 
 second edition of the Lectures. 
 
 Page 211, 1. 1. supposed : in the first edition ' expected '. 
 
 1. 3. arroser : ' to water '. 
 
 1. 5. It was in December 1767 : as said above, this is not 
 correct. 
 
 1. 7. Yorich : the name under which Sterne wrote his Senti- 
 mental Journey and published his Sermons. 
 
 1. 9. public : in the first edition ' world '. 
 Rabelais, Francois (d. 1533), the most famous of mediaeval 
 humorists, and author of Oargantua and Pantagruel, is often 
 caUed ' the our6 ' — which does not mean curate — ' of Meudon ', 
 though he held that post for two years only. Meudon is a little 
 town five miles from Paris. 
 
 1. 24. the same gentleman : i. e. J. Hall-Stevenson. The letter 
 is printed in the Seven Letters mentioned above. 
 
 1. 30. two up, two down : in cantering a horse raises his two 
 fore feet together, and then his two hind feet. 
 
 upon my hanches, i. e. prancing ; hanch is an eighteenth- 
 century spelling of haunch, though probably here it is French. 
 
 1. 38. louden'd : this adjective appears in no dictionary 
 I have consulted ; I take it to mean ' loutish', ' lumpish '. Fitz- 
 gerald, in his Life of Sterne, prints ' condemned carl ', but the 
 word appears as ' louden'd ' in the Seven Letters. 
 
 Page 213, 1. 6. Daniel Draper, Esq., &c. : this description of 
 the fair Eliza's husband is by Sterne's daughter Lydia in her 
 preface to her father's Letters (1775). Elizabeth Sclater had 
 been married in Bombay at the age of fourteen to a man twenty 
 years older than herself. She was in England for only three 
 months at this time. Some five years after Sterne's death she 
 ran away from her husband — ^unaccompanied — and shortly 
 after returned to England, where she died in 1778, at the age 
 of thirty-four. 
 
 1. 8. I got thy letter, &c. : from Letter 83, undated. 
 
 1. 9. Lord Bathurst's : AUen Bathurst, first Earl Bathurst 
 (1684-1775), was an ardent Tory politician : it was to him that 
 Pope addressed the third of his Moral Essays. 
 
 1. 42. famous ' Captive ' : in the chapter so headed in the 
 Sentimental Journey Steme says, ' I began to figure to myself 
 the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and 
 so I gave full scope to my imagination.' Having duly worked 
 himself up, Yorick ' burst into tears ' — hoping, no doubt, that 
 his readers would follow suit. 
 
 1. 44. the fllle-de-charnbre : it was not the fille-de-chambre, but 
 'the beautiful Grisset', who caused Yorick to exclaim, ' Surely 
 — surely, man ! it is not good for thee to sit alone — thou wast 
 
 X 2 
 
308 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 made for social intercourse and gentle greetings.' See the 
 chapter headed ' The Husband ' in the same work. 
 
 Page 214, 1. 39. Dulcinea : ' lady-love ', from the country 
 wench to whom Don Quixote paid his devotions. 
 
 Page 215, 1. 14. dispense mth : in the obsolete sense of ' put 
 up with', ' endure ' ; the exact opposite of the ordinary meaning. 
 
 1. 25. Bramin, or Brahmin : the highest or priestly caste 
 among the Hindoos. 
 
 Page 216, 1. 5. I fear the best, &c. : from Letter 87, undated. 
 
 1. 11. You know who : Mr. Ktzgerald says this refers to one 
 of her City friends, who had warned her that she was rvmning 
 the risk of scandal by her intercourse with Sterne ; this Sterne 
 resented as a piece of gross interference. But Thackeray's 
 seems the more natural interpretation. . 
 
 1. 16. I honour you, Eliza : from Letter 89, undated. 
 
 1. 22. Uncle Toby's widow : i. e. the Widow Wadman, who 
 wished to become Uncle Toby's. 
 
 1. 30. Scarron : Paul Scarron, a French poet and dramatist 
 (1610-60), married MdUe d'Aubign^, who after his death was 
 taken into favour by Louis XIV ; he gave her the title of 
 Marquise de Maintenon, and it is said secretly married her. 
 
 1. 31. Waller, Edmund, a poet of the Commonwealth and 
 Restoration, who celebrated Lady Dorothy Sidney imder the 
 name of Saccharissa. 
 
 1. 35. sneering allusions : I have not been able to find any 
 such. Sterne was in some respects a sufficiently despicable 
 person, but it does not appear to have been one of his vices to 
 sneer at the women he fancied himself in love with. He took 
 his emotions far too seriously for that. 
 
 1. 36. Her ship was, &c. : as the letter to Lady P is dated 
 
 merely ' Tuesday, 3 o'clock ' — it is No. 92 in the collection — 
 one would like to know Thackeray's authority for thus fixing 
 the date. Mr. Fitzgerald places it much earlier. 
 
 1. 37. the Downs : the part of the English Channel off Deal 
 between the Goodwin Sands and the coast. 
 
 1. 38. ' Mount ' Coffee-house : in Mount Street, off Park 
 Lane. 
 
 1. 40. Lady P : Lady Percy, daughter of Lord Bute. 
 
 Page 217, 1. 10. at Letter 112 : the letter printed in the foot- 
 note is 114 and not 112. The latter runs : — 
 'To Mrs. H. 
 
 ' Coxwould, October 12, 1767. 
 Ever since my dear H. wrote me word she was mine, more 
 than ever woman was, I have been racking my memory to 
 inform me where it was that you and I had that affair together. 
 — -People think that I have had many, some in body, some in 
 mind ; but as I told you before you have had me more than 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 309 
 
 any woman — therefore you must have had me, H , both in 
 
 mind and in body. — ^Now I cannot recollect where it was, nor 
 exactly when — it could not be the lady in Bond Street, or 
 
 Grosvenor Street, or Square, or Pall Mail. We shall make 
 
 it out, H., when we meet — I impatiently long for it. . . . God 
 bless you. 
 
 'Yours 
 
 'L. Stebnb.' 
 Neither of these letters goes to show that Sterne ' was paying 
 his addresses ' to ' a No. 3 '. 
 
 Page 218, 1. 1. In his last letter : No. 128, to Mrs. James, 
 written conjeoturally March 8, 1768, ten days before his death. 
 
 1. 22. at ifo. 41: it is now Agnew's Picture Gallery. 
 
 1. 28. detailed hy Mrs. Quickly : ' So 'a bade me lay more 
 clothes on his feet ; I put my hand into the bed and felt them, 
 and they were as cold as any stone ; then I felt to his knees, 
 and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone ' 
 (Henry V, n. iii). 
 
 Page 219, 1. 13. des chansons grivoises : ' loose songs '. 
 
 Page 220, 1. 9. Dessein's Hotel : at Calais ; now a museum. 
 
 1. 12. the d6sobligeante : (which Sterne and Thackeray write 
 ' d6sobhgeant '), a chaise so called because it would hold only 
 one passenger. 
 
 1. 16. Mount Sennis : there was only a mule track over Mont 
 Cenis till the time of Napoleon, so a chaise would have to be 
 taken to pieces to be carried over. 
 
 1. 23. Paillasse : a clown or Merry Andrew. 
 
 1. 29. ' The Man who,' die. die. : e. g. ' the man who can break 
 the laws of hospitality ' — ' the man who is entrusted with his 
 friend's distresses ' — ' the man who shuts out conviction ' — 
 these three are aU from the famous ' screen scene ' in the School 
 for Scandal (iv. iii). 
 
 1. 32. turning that notorious old monk to good account : i. e. 
 in the ' lucrative gift of weeping '. Both Sterne and Thackeray 
 ignore the fact that a Franciscan is not a monk, but a friar. 
 
 Page 221, 1. 2. like M. de Sovbise's cook : Charles de Bohan, 
 Prince de Soubise (1715-87), was a French general who fought 
 in the Seven Years' War and was defeated by Frederick II at 
 Rossbaoh. He carried a crowd of cooks and confectioners in his 
 train, but I have been unable to trace the incident to which 
 Thackeray here alludes. 
 
 1. 16. turned in : sc. to the gateway of the inn at Lyons. 
 
 1. 18. eleemosynary : ' given in charity '. 
 
 Page 223, 1. 1. A page or two farther : Tristram Shandy, 
 Book VII, chap, xliii. 
 1. 6. Nismes and hand : two towns near the mouth of the Rhone. 
 1. 7. Muscalto wine : made from Muscatel grapes. 
 
310 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 1. 10. made a dead point : ' pulled up dead and gazed at the 
 spot '. 
 
 1. 11. tdbourin: (or taborin), a kind of small drum struck 
 vrith one stick only. Thackeray substituted ' tambourine ', 
 which is not at aU the same. 
 
 1. 26. whom ApoUo had recompensed, &c. : the distinction is 
 well made ; ability to plfiy on the pipe is the gift of the God of 
 Music, but the drum can be beaten without divine inspiration. 
 
 1. 37. ' Vim la joia ', &c. : ' Hurrah for joy ! away with 
 sadness ! ' 
 
 Page 225, 1. 3. the last words the famous author wrote : the 
 Sentimental Journey was published in 1768, the year of Sterne's 
 death. 
 1. 4. the last lines : see above, p. 218, 1. 1. 
 1. 10. Jete sur cette hoide, &c. : — 
 
 Mean, ugly, suffering, hurled 
 Into this weary world. 
 Half stifled 'mid the shoulders of the throng, 
 
 I raised a piteous cry ; 
 The good God made reply, 
 ' Nay, sing, poor little one, sing all day long ! ' 
 
 To sing then — be it so — 
 Is my lot here below. 
 And gain perchance their love who hear my song. 
 1. 22. Beranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857), a famous French 
 lyric poet ; the lines are from a poem of five stanzas called ' Ma 
 Vocation '. 
 
 Page 226, 1. 10. Avhurn and Wakefield : the scenes of The 
 Deserted Village and The Vicar of Wahefidd. 
 
 1. 11. Lissoy : see below, p. 229, 1. 4. 
 
 1. 38. Herder, Johann Gottfried von (1744-1803), a German 
 critic and poet. In 1776, ten years after the appearance of 
 The Vicar of Wakefield, he went as court chaplain to Weimar, 
 where Goethe also Uved. 
 
 Pagi! 227, 1. 1. hamlet : in the first edition follow the words 
 ' in Europe '. 
 
 1. 8. Melchizedeok : see Hebrews vii. 1. ' This Melchisedec, 
 king of Salem, priest of God.' 
 
 1. 33. our excdlent Wakefield : the practice of calling a clergy- 
 man by the name of his parish is, so far as I can learn, no more 
 usual in Germany than in England. 
 
 Page 228, 1. 1. Doctor Primrose : the Vicar was no doubt 
 drawn in part from the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, but in many 
 features he was a copy of the William Whiston so often men- 
 tioned in the novel, who was Professor of Mathematics at Cam- 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 311 
 
 bridge, translator of Josephiis, and the firm upholder of some 
 very wild theology (1667-1752). 
 1. 21. the Inny : the river in Longford near Pallas. 
 
 Page 229, 1. 4. Lissoy has since adopted the name ' Auburn '. 
 
 1. 15. the kitchen turf: turf or peat is the usual fuel in Ireland. 
 
 1. 23. a half-dozen of Irish dependants : it was not only for 
 purposes of spunging that Irishmen kept together. See the 
 Journal to Stdla, December 19, 1711, 'Patrick [the Dean's 
 servant] is gone to the biu-ial of an Irish footman. . . . The Irish 
 servants always club to bury a countryman.' 
 
 Page 230, 1. 11. Paddy Byrne: an old soldier, whose true 
 first name was Thomas. 
 
 1. 26. by his brother's lines : see The. Deserted Village, 141-2 : — 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 
 
 Page 231, 1. 4. Mistake of a Night : the sub-title of She 
 Stoops to Conquer — which was based on this incident — was The 
 Mistakes of a Night. 
 
 1. 17. the queer : in the first edition ' a queer '. 
 
 1. 33. the heirs of Mr. Filby : the first edition has ' heirs and 
 assignees of Mr. Pilby '. 
 
 Page 232, 1. 1. until lately : the pane was cut out of the 
 window in 1837, and is now in Trinity College Library. 
 
 1. 4. sizar's : a sizar was a poor scholar at a University who . 
 received free education in return for certain menial offices. 
 These are no longer required from the modern sizar, who is 
 merely the holder of a small exhibition. /> 
 
 1. 19. buckeen : a young Irishman of the inferior gentry. 
 
 1. 20. one patron : he held a tutorship with one Mr. Flinn for 
 a time. 
 
 . 1. 24. the woolsack : the seat of the Lord Chancellor in the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 Page 233, L 4. Farheim, Du Petit, and Duhamel du Monceau : 
 in the letter the last two are called ' Petit ' and ' Du Hamel 
 de Monceau '. Professor Phelps says the names should be 
 Antoine Perrein, Petit and Duhamel-Dumonceau ; the first 
 was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Jardin 
 des Plantes, Paris, in 1758, before which he held the Chair of 
 Medicine at the College de France. Petit was, I suppose, Antoine 
 Petit, who succeeded Perrein at the Jardin des Plantes. Henri- 
 Louis Duhamel du Monceau was a famous botanist, who wrote 
 many useful works on agriculture. 
 
 1. 19. BaUymahon : the nearest town to the hamlet of Lissoy ; 
 his mother's home after his father's death in 1747. 
 
 1. 22. BiU me, &c. ; from The Traveller, 23-30 ; 
 object of the verb ' leads ' six lines below. 
 
 1. 26. the circle, &c. : i. e. the horizon. 
 
312 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Page 234, 1. 6. London court : Green Arbour Court, ofi Old 
 Bailey; Goldsmith took rooms at No. 12 in 1758. Holbom 
 Viaduct Station now occupies the site. 
 
 1. 7. that qtieer coal-scuttle : ' While they were conversing . . . 
 a poor ragged little girl of very decent behaviour entered, who, 
 dropping a curtsey, said, " My mama sends her compliments 
 and begs the favour of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of 
 coals " ' (from Bishop Percy's Memoir, quoted by Forster, Life, 
 Book II, chap. vi). 
 
 1. 17. the print of me : this was by Marchi, and appeared in 
 December 1770, the picture having been exhibited the previous 
 April. Porster gives this incident in his Life, the old pupU 
 being a Mr. Samuel Bishop. 
 
 1. 29. an " inspired idiot ' : the term applied to Goldsmith by 
 Horace Walpole. 
 
 1. 30. the ' gooseberry-fool ' : Goldsmith's term for himself in 
 Retaliation, 1. 16. 
 
 Page 235, 1. 8. Beattie, James (1735-1803), a Scottish poet, 
 essayist, and philosophical writer ; he was sometime Professor 
 at Aberdeen. 
 
 Page 236, 1. 1. Kdly, Hugh, a writer of sentimental comedies ; 
 his False Delicacy had been a huge success just before Goldsmith 
 produced The Good-natured Man (1768). 
 
 1. 8. Colman's actors : George Colman, the elder (1732-94), 
 was manager at Covent Garden. Goldsmith offered bim She 
 Stoops to Conquer in 1772, but Colman could not make up his 
 mind to accept it for a twelvemonth ; and when he had at last 
 agreed, some of the actors threw up their parts at rehearsal, 
 feehng sure the play would prove a failure, so different was 
 it from the stilted comedies of sentiment which were then 
 the rage. 
 
 1. 33. a letter: printed in Porster's Life, Book II, chap, v; the 
 books had been sent to Goldsmith to review. 
 
 Page 237, 1. 1. 'He was wHd, sir ' : ' Dr. Goldsmith is one of 
 the first men we now have as an author, and he is a very worthy 
 man too. He has been loose in his principles, but he is coming 
 right ' {Boswdl, anno 1763). 
 
 1. 21. who has touched on almost every subject, &c. : from the 
 Latin epitaph written for Goldsmith by Johnson, which contains 
 the lines : — 
 
 Qui nullum fere scribendi genus 
 
 Non tetigit ; 
 Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit. 
 
 1. 35. the Spectator appeared : i. e. as a silent, reserved person 
 (see Spectator, No. 12). 
 
 1. 36. the Lusiad : the national epic of the Portuguese by 
 Camoens (1572), which Goldsmith, despite his entire ignorance 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 313 
 
 of the language, professed himself ready to translate. He was 
 fortunately induced to transfer the work to Mickle, a Scot, who 
 is best known in England as author of Theresa nae luoh aboot 
 the Hooae. 
 
 Page 238, 1. 7. Was ever poet, &o. : from a letter to BosweU, 
 July 4, 1774. 
 
 1. 28. the chambers in the Temple : Goldsmith moved to 
 2 Brick Court, Temple, in the early part of 1768. He had 
 before had chambers in Garden Court and in King's Bench 
 Walk. 
 
 1. 41. in BosweU : from a letter to Bennet Langton. 
 
 Page 239, 1. 8. Here as I take, &o. : from The Deserted Village, 
 I. 77 sqq. As quoted by Thackeray these lines sometimes 
 draw from the first edition, sometimes from the fourth, and 
 sometimes from his imagination. Seven editions appeared in 
 Goldsmith's lifetime, six of them in 1700 and one in 1772. A 
 few changes were made in the third and more in the fourth, 
 none subsequently. I have corrected from the fourth edition. 
 1. 11. After this in the first three editions comes : — 
 
 Here, as with doubtful, pensive steps I range. 
 Trace every scene and wonder at the change, 
 Remembrance, &o. 
 U. 18, 19. In the first three editions these ran : — 
 My anxious day to husband near the close 
 And keep life's flame, &c. 
 1. 25. she is the reading of aU seven editions ; ' he ' appears 
 in an edition of 1788, in Cunningham's edition of 1854 — which 
 professes to foUowthe fourth edition — ^inthe Globe edition (1871) 
 and in Lady Ritchie's edition of these Lectures. 
 
 Page 240, 1. 5. How happy : in the first two editions ' How 
 blest is '. 
 
 1. 12. the gate : in the first edition ' his '. 
 
 1. 15. Bends : in the first two editions ' Sinks '. 
 
 1. 29. Utopia : ' ideal community ', from Sir Thomas More's 
 work of that name ; the term UteraUy means ' nowhere '. 
 
 Tvetot : ' Le Roi d'Yvetot ' was the title of a song by 
 Beranger (for whom see above, note to p. 225, 1. 22) ; it was 
 written in 1813 to celebrate the blessings of a small dominion 
 whose ruler aimed at happiness rather than conquest. Thackeray 
 made a translation of the ballad, which is to be found in his 
 works. Yvetot is a small town in the north of France, which, 
 with its adjacent territory, had a king of its own during part of 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 Page 241, 1. 2. my Lord Gla/re and m,y Lord Nugent were the- 
 same person, viz. Mr. Robert Nugent, Comptroller of the Prince 
 of Wales' Household ; he was raised to the Irish peerage as 
 
314 EDITOR'S NOTES 
 
 Viscount Clare in 1766, and Earl Nugent ten years later. He 
 was Goldsmith's soUtary patron, to whom The Haunch of Venison 
 was addressed. He was never a member of the Club, neither 
 was he related to the Dr. Nugent who was an original 
 member. 
 
 my Lord Bishop : several bishops were at one time or 
 another members of the Club, among them being the Bishop 
 Percy mentioned in the note to p. 234, 1. 7. 
 
 1. 19. Qoldy's play : various names were suggested for She 
 Stoops to Conquer, ' The Mistakes of a Night,' ' The Old House 
 a New Inn,' and ' The Belle's Stratagem ' being some of them. 
 The name finally chosen was Goldsmith's own suggestion, pos- 
 sibly prompted, Mr. Doble suggests, by Dryden's line — ' But 
 kneels to conquer and but stoops to rise.' 
 
 Page 242, 1. 5. Randagh : these famous gardens were at the 
 east of Chelsea Hospital ; the Rotunda was built in. 1740 for 
 the performance of masquerades and concerts. For a time 
 Ranelagh quite eclipsed Vauxhall, but it gradually fell into 
 disrepute, and was closed in 1805. 
 
 1. 6. the Pantheon, in Oxford Street, was opened in 1771 as 
 a place for dancing and theatricals : it was burnt down in 1792, 
 and when rebuilt was agaia biunt down. The site is now occu- 
 pied by Messrs. GUbey, the wine merchants. 
 
 Madame Gomdys' : a Venetian who was the manager of 
 Carlisle House, Soho Square, where balls and concerts were held. 
 After twelve very profitable years, during which her rooms were 
 thronged by all the rank and fashion of the day, she was reduced 
 to bankruptcy by the opening of the Pantheon. 
 
 1. 7. the Jessamy Bride : the pet name Goldsmith gave to the 
 younger of the Miss Homeoks — Jessamy is another form of 
 Jasmine. She afterwards married Colonel Gwyn (see p. 239, 
 1. 39). If Goldsmith ever was in love, it was with this charming 
 girl ; but, so far as we know, he never confessed it either to her 
 or to any one else. 
 
 1. 11. her beautiful sister : Catherine, caUed by Goldsmith 
 ' Little Comedy '. 
 
 1. 13. QiUray, James (1757-1815), the famous caricaturist ; 
 about twelve or fifteen hundred works are ascribed to him, 
 most of them reflecting on the king or the ooiu't. 
 
 1. 27. Northcote, James, R.A. (1746-1831), a well-known 
 portrait painter, and the author of a Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 1. 29. The younger Colman : George, son of the George Colman 
 mentioned above, p. 236, 1. 8 ; like his father he was a dramatist, 
 his best known play being The Heir at Law. The passage quoted 
 is from his Bandom, Records. 
 
 Page 243, 1. 31. plucked his gown, &c. : from The Deserted 
 Village, 1. 184. 
 
 40. compassion for another's woe : I cannot find this quota- 
 
STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 315 
 
 tion, if it be one. Professor Kegel suggests that Colman was 
 thinking of the lines in The Deserted ViUage (371-2) : — 
 The good old sire the first prepar'd to go 
 To new-found worlds, and wept for other's woe. 
 
 Page 244, 1. 9. the righteous pen : see above, note to p. 237, 
 1.21. 
 
 Page 245, 1. 7. shall : in the first edition ' should '. 
 1. 27. running races vnth the constable : the more usual phrase 
 is ' outrunning the constable ', i. e. getting into debt. 
 
 Page 246, 1. 3. Counsellor : see above, note to p, 147, 1. 42. 
 1. 40. a publisher might keep his rrtasterpiece i see above, 
 p. 236, I. 5. 
 
OX¥OBD : HORACE HAET 
 PBINTBE TO THE UNIVBKSITY 
 

 II