But this controversy concerning Aristotle and the school divinity was even prolonged. A professor in the College at Naples published in 1688 four volumes of peripatetic philosophy, to establish the principles of Aristotle. The work was exploded, and he wrote an abusive treatise under the nom de guerre of Benedetto Aletino. A man of letters, Constantino Grimaldi, replied. Aletino rejoined; he wrote letters, an apology for the letters, and would have written more for Aristotle than Aristotle himself perhaps would have done. However, Grimaldi was no ordinary antagonist, and not to be outwearied. He had not only the best of the argument, but he was resolved to tell the world so, as long as the world would listen. Whether he killed off Father Benedictus, the first author, is not affirmed; but the latter died during the controversy. Grimaldi, however, afterwards pursued his ghost, and buffeted the father in his grave. This enraged the University of Naples; and the Jesuits, to a man, denounced Grimaldi to Pope Benedict XIII. and to the Viceroy of Naples. On this the Pope issued a bull prohibiting the reading of Grimaldi's works, or keeping them, under pain of excommunication; and the viceroy, more active than the bull, caused all the copies which were found in the author's house to be thrown into the sea! The author with tears in his eyes beheld his expatriated volumes, hopeless that their voyage would have been successful. However, all the little family of the Grimaldis were not drowned—for a storm arose, and happily drove ashore many of the floating copies, and these falling into charitable hands, the heretical opinions of poor Grimaldi against Aristotle and school divinity were still read by those who were not out-terrified by the Pope's bulls. The salted passages were still at hand, and quoted with a double zest against the Jesuits!

We now turn to writers whose controversy was kindled only by subjects of polite literature. The particulars form a curious picture of the taste of the age.

"There is," says Joseph Scaliger, that great critic and reviler, "an art of abuse or slandering, of which those that are ignorant may be said to defame others much less than they show a willingness to defame."

"Literary wars," says Bayle, "are sometimes as lasting as they are terrible." A disputation between two great scholars was so interminably violent, that it lasted thirty years! He humorously compares its duration to the German war which lasted as long.

Baillet, when he refuted the sentiments of a certain author always did it without naming him; but when he found any observation which, he deemed commendable, he quoted his name. Bayle observes, that "this is an excess of politeness, prejudicial to that freedom which should ever exist in the republic of letters; that it should be allowed always to name those whom we refute; and that it is sufficient for this purpose that we banish asperity, malice, and indecency."

After these preliminary observations, I shall bring forward various examples where this excellent advice is by no means regarded.

Erasmus produced a dialogue, in which he ridiculed those scholars who were servile imitators of Cicero; so servile, that they would employ no expression but what was found in the works of that writer; everything with them was Ciceronianised. This dialogue is written with great humour. Julius Caesar Scaliger, the father, who was then unknown to the world, had been long looking for some occasion to distinguish himself; he now wrote a defence of Cicero, but which in fact was one continued invective against Erasmus: he there treats the latter as illiterate, a drunkard, an impostor, an apostate, a hangman, a demon hot from hell! The same Scaliger, acting on the same principle of distinguishing himself at the cost of others, attacked Cardan's best work De Subtilitate: his criticism did not appear till seven years after the first edition of the work, and then he obstinately stuck to that edition, though Cardan had corrected it in subsequent ones; but this Scaliger chose, that he might have a wider field for his attack. After this, a rumour spread that Cardan had died of vexation from Julius Caesar's invincible pen; then Scaliger pretended to feel all the regret possible for a man he had killed, and whom he now praised: however, his regret had as little foundation as his triumph; for Cardan outlived Scaliger many years, and valued his criticisms too cheaply to have suffered them to have disturbed his quiet. All this does not exceed the Invectives of Poggius, who has thus entitled several literary libels composed against some of his adversaries, Laurentius Valla, Philelphus, &c., who returned the poisoned chalice to his own lips; declamations of scurrility, obscenity, and calumny!

Scioppius was a worthy successor of the Scaligers: his favourite expression was, that he had trodden down his adversary.

Scioppius was a critic, as skilful as Salmasius or Scaliger, but still more learned in the language of abuse. This cynic was the Attila of authors. He boasted that he had occasioned the deaths of Casaubon and Scaliger. Detested and dreaded as the public scourge, Scioppius, at the close of his life, was fearful he should find no retreat in which he might be secure.

The great Casaubon employs the dialect of St. Giles's in his furious attacks on the learned Dalechamps, the Latin translator of Athenaeus. To this great physician he stood more deeply indebted than he chose to confess; and to conceal the claims of this literary creditor, he called out Vesanum! Insanum! Tiresiam! &c. It was the fashion of that day with the ferocious heroes of the literary republic, to overwhelm each other with invectives, and to consider that their own grandeur consisted in the magnitude of their volumes; and their triumphs in reducing their brother giants into puny dwarfs. In science, Linnaeus had a dread of controversy—conqueror or conquered we cannot escape without disgrace! Mathiolus would have been the great man of his day, had he not meddled with such matters. Who is gratified by "the mad Cornarus," or "the flayed Fox?" titles which Fuchsius and Cornarus, two eminent botanists, have bestowed on each other. Some who were too fond of controversy, as they grew wiser, have refused to take up the gauntlet.

The heat and acrimony of verbal critics have exceeded description. Their stigmas and anathemas have been long known to bear no proportion to the offences against which they have been directed. "God confound you," cried one grammarian to another, "for your theory of impersonal verbs!" There was a long and terrible controversy formerly, whether the Florentine dialect was to prevail over the others. The academy was put to great trouble, and the Anti-Cruscans were often on the point of annulling this supremacy; una mordace scritura was applied to one of these literary canons; and in a letter of those times the following paragraph appears:—"Pescetti is preparing to give a second answer to Beni, which will not please him; I now believe the prophecy of Cavalier Tedeschi will be verified, and that this controversy, begun with pens, will end with poniards!"

Fabretti, an Italian, wrote furiously against Gronovius, whom he calls Grunnovius: he compared him to all those animals whose voice was expressed by the word Grunnire, to grunt. Gronovius was so malevolent a critic, that he was distinguished by the title of the "Grammatical Cur."

When critics venture to attack the person as well as the performance of an author, I recommend the salutary proceedings of Huberus, the writer of an esteemed Universal History. He had been so roughly handled by Perizonius, that he obliged him to make the amende honorable in a court of justice; where, however, I fear an English jury would give the smallest damages.

Certain authors may be distinguished by the title of LITERARY BOBADILS, or fighting authors. One of our own celebrated writers drew his sword on a reviewer; and another, when his farce was condemned, offered to fight any one of the audience who hissed. Scudery, brother of the celebrated Mademoiselle Scudery, was a true Parnassian bully. The first publication which brought him into notice was his edition of the works of his friend Theophile. He concludes the preface with these singular expressions—"I do not hesitate to declare, that, amongst all the dead, and all the living, there is no person who has anything to show that approaches the force of this vigorous genius; but if amongst the latter, any one were so extravagant as to consider that I detract from his imaginary glory, to show him that I fear as little as I esteem him, this is to inform him that my name is "DE SCUDERY."

A similar rhodomontade is that of Claude Trellon, a poetical soldier, who begins his poems by challenging the critics, assuring them that if any one attempts to censure him, he will only condescend to answer sword in hand. Father Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit, having written against Cardinal Noris, on the monkery of St. Austin, it was deemed necessary to silence both parties. Macedo, compelled to relinquish the pen, sent his adversary a challenge, and according to the laws of chivalry, appointed a place for meeting in the wood of Boulogne. Another edict forbad the duel! Macedo then murmured at his hard fate, which would not suffer him, for the sake of St. Austin, for whom he had a particular regard, to spill either his ink or his blood.

ANTI, prefixed to the name of the person attacked, was once a favourite title to books of literary controversy. With a critical review of such books Baillet has filled a quarto volume; yet such was the abundant harvest, that he left considerable gleanings for posterior industry.

Anti-Gronovius was a book published against Gronovius, by Kuster. Perizonius, another pugilist of literature, entered into this dispute on the subject of the AEs grave of the ancients, to which Kuster had just adverted at the close of his volume. What was the consequence? Dreadful!—Answers and rejoinders from both, in which they bespattered each other with the foulest abuse. A journalist pleasantly blames this acrimonious controversy. He says, "To read the pamphlets of a Perizonius and a Kuster on the AEs grave of the ancients, who would not renounce all commerce with antiquity? It seems as if an Agamemnon and an Achilles were railing at each other. Who can refrain from laughter, when one of these commentators even points his attacks at the very name of his adversary? According to Kuster, the name of Perizonius signifies a certain part of the human body. How is it possible, that with such a name he could be right concerning the AEs grave? But does that of Kuster promise a better thing, since it signifies a beadle; a man who drives dogs out of churches?—What madness is this!"

Corneille, like our Dryden, felt the acrimony of literary irritation. To the critical strictures of D'Aubignac it is acknowledged he paid the greatest attention, for, after this critic's Pratique du Theatre appeared, his tragedies were more artfully conducted. But instead of mentioning the critic with due praise, he preserved an ungrateful silence. This occasioned a quarrel between the poet and the critic, in which the former exhaled his bile in several abusive epigrams, which have, fortunately for his credit, not been preserved in his works.

The lively Voltaire could not resist the charm of abusing his adversaries. We may smile when he calls a blockhead, a blockhead; a dotard, a dotard; but when he attacks, for a difference of opinion, the morals of another man, our sensibility is alarmed. A higher tribunal than that of criticism is to decide on the actions of men.

There is a certain disguised malice, which some writers have most unfairly employed in characterising a contemporary. Burnet called Prior, one Prior. In Bishop Parker's History of his Own Times, an innocent reader may start at seeing the celebrated Marvell described as an outcast of society; an infamous libeller; and one whose talents were even more despicable than his person. To such lengths did the hatred of party, united with personal rancour, carry this bishop, who was himself the worst of time-servers. He was, however, amply paid by the keen wit of Marvell in "The Rehearsal Transposed," which may still be read with delight, as an admirable effusion of banter, wit, and satire. Le Clerc, a cool ponderous Greek critic, quarrelled with Boileau about a passage in Longinus, and several years afterwards, in revising Moreri's Dictionary, gave a short sarcastic notice of the poet's brother; in which he calls him the elder brother of him who has written the book entitled, "Satires of Mr. Boileau Despreaux!"—the works of the modern Horace, which were then delighting Europe, he calls, with simple impudence, "a book entitled Satires!"

The works of Homer produced a controversy, both long and virulent, amongst the wits of France. This literary quarrel is of some note in the annals of literature, since it has produced two valuable books; La Motte's "Reflexions sur la Critique," and Madame Dacier's "Des Causes de la Corruption du Gout." La Motte wrote with feminine delicacy, and Madame Dacier like a University pedant. "At length, by the efforts of Valincour, the friend of art, of artists, and of peace, the contest was terminated." Both parties were formidable in number, and to each he made remonstrances, and applied reproaches. La Motte and Madame Dacier, the opposite leaders, were convinced by his arguments, made reciprocal concessions, and concluded a peace. The treaty was formally ratified at a dinner, given on the occasion by a Madame De Stael, who represented "Neutrality." Libations were poured to the memory of old Homer, and the parties were reconciled.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 88: Caricaturists were employed on both sides of the question, and by pictures as well as words the war of polemics was vigorously carried on. In one instance, the head of Luther is represented as the Devil's Bagpipe; he blows into his ear, and uses his nose as a chanter. Cocleus, in one of his tracts, represents Luther as a monster with seven heads, indicative of his follies; the first is that of a disputatious doctor, the last that of Barabbas! Luther replied in other pamphlets, adorned with equally gross delineations levelled at his opponents.]

[Footnote 89: Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry will furnish an example of the coarseness of invective used by both parties during the era of the Reformation; in such rhymes as "Plain Truth and Blind Ignorance"—"A Ballad of Luther and the Pope," &c. The old interlude of "Newe Custome," printed in Dodsley's Old Plays; and that of "Lusty Juventus," in Hawkins's English Drama, are choice specimens of the vulgarest abuse. Bishop Bale in his play of King John (published in 1838 by the Camden Society), indulges in a levity and coarseness that would not now be tolerated in an alehouse—"stynkyng heretic" on one side, and "vile popysh swyne" on the other, are among the mildest epithets used in these religious satires. One of the most curious is a dialogue between John Bon, a husbandman, and "Master Parson" of his parish, on the subject of transubstantiation; it was so violent in its style as to threaten great trouble to author and printer (see Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials). It may be seen in vol. xxx. of the Percy Society's publications.]



LITERARY BLUNDERS.

When Dante published his "Inferno," the simplicity of the age accepted it as a true narrative of his descent into hell.

When the Utopia of Sir Thomas More was first published, it occasioned a pleasant mistake. This political romance represents a perfect, but visionary republic, in an island supposed to have been newly discovered in America. "As this was the age of discovery," says Granger, "the learned Budaeus, and others, took it for a genuine history; and considered it as highly expedient, that missionaries should be sent thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to Christianity."

It was a long while after publication that many readers were convinced that Gulliver's Travels were fictitious.[90]

But the most singular blunder was produced by the ingenious "Hermippus Redivivus" of Dr. Campbell, a curious banter on the hermetic philosophy, and the universal medicine; but the grave irony is so closely kept up, that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. His notion of the art of prolonging life, by inhaling the breath of young women, was eagerly credited. A physician, who himself had composed a treatise on health, was so influenced by it, that he actually took lodgings at a female boarding-school, that he might never be without a constant supply of the breath of young ladies. Mr. Thicknesse seriously adopted the project. Dr. Kippis acknowledged that after he had read the work in his youth, the reasonings and the facts left him several days in a kind of fairy land. I have a copy with manuscript notes by a learned physician, who seems to have had no doubts of its veracity. After all, the intention of the work was long doubtful; till Dr. Campbell assured a friend it was a mere jeu-d'esprit; that Bayle was considered as standing without a rival in the art of treating at large a difficult subject, without discovering to which side his own sentiments leaned: Campbell had read more uncommon books than most men, and wished to rival Bayle, and at the same time to give many curious matters little known.

Palavicini, in his History of the Council of Trent, to confer an honour on M. Lansac, ambassador of Charles IX. to that council, bestows on him a collar of the order of Saint Esprit; but which order was not instituted till several years afterwards by Henry III. A similar voluntary blunder is that of Surita, in his Annales de la Corona de Aragon. This writer represents, in the battles he describes, many persons who were not present; and this, merely to confer honour on some particular families.

Fabiana, quoting a French narrative of travels in Italy, took for the name of the author the words, found at the end of the title-page, Enrichi de deux Listes; that is, "Enriched with two lists:" on this he observes, "that Mr. Enriched with two lists has not failed to do that justice to Ciampini which he merited."[91] The abridgers of Gesner's Bibliotheca ascribe the romance of Amadis to one Acuerdo Olvido; Remembrance, Oblivion; mistaking the French translator's Spanish motto on the title-page for the name of the author.

D'Aquin, the French king's physician, in his Memoir on the Preparation of Bark, takes Mantissa, which is the title of the Appendix to the History of Plants, by Johnstone, for the name of an author, and who, he says, is so extremely rare, that he only knows him by name.

Lord Bolingbroke imagined, that in those famous verses, beginning with Excudent alii, &c., Virgil attributed to the Romans the glory of having surpassed the Greeks in historical composition: according to his idea, those Roman historians whom Virgil preferred to the Grecians were Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. But Virgil died before Livy had written his history, or Tacitus was born.

An honest friar, who compiled a church history, has placed in the class of ecclesiastical writers Guarini, the Italian poet, on the faith of the title of his celebrated amorous pastoral, Il Pastor Fido, "The Faithful Shepherd;" our good father imagined that the character of a curate, vicar, or bishop, was represented in this work.

A blunder has been recorded of the monks in the dark ages, which was likely enough to happen when their ignorance was so dense. A rector of a parish going to law with his parishioners about paving the church, quoted this authority from St. Peter—Paveant illi, non paveam ego; which he construed, They are to pave the church, not I. This was allowed to be good law by a judge, himself an ecclesiastic too.

One of the grossest literary blunders of modern times is that of the late Gilbert Wakefield, in his edition of Pope. He there takes the well-known "Song by a Person of Quality," which is a piece of ridicule on the glittering tuneful nonsense of certain poets, as a serious composition. In a most copious commentary, he proves that every line seems unconnected with its brothers, and that the whole reflects disgrace on its author! A circumstance which too evidently shows how necessary the knowledge of modern literary history is to a modern commentator, and that those who are profound in verbal Greek are not the best critics on English writers.

The Abbe Bizot, the author of the medallic history of Holland, fell into a droll mistake. There is a medal, struck when Philip II. set forth his invincible Armada, on which are represented the King of Spain, the Emperor, the Pope, Electors, Cardinals, &c., with their eyes covered with a bandage, and bearing for inscription this fine verse of Lucretius:—

O caecas hominum menteis! O pectora caeca!

The Abbe, prepossessed with the prejudice that a nation persecuted by the Pope and his adherents could not represent them without some insult, did not examine with sufficient care the ends of the bandages which covered the eyes and waved about the heads of the personages represented on this medal: he rashly took them for asses' ears, and as such they are engraved!

Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards, who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His holiness, in the voluminous catalogue of his saints, was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his existence was this inscription:—

S. VIAR.

An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar, by convincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for an ancient surveyor of the roads; and he read their saintship thus:—

PRAEFECTUS VIARUM.

Maffei, in his comparison between Medals and Inscriptions, detects a literary blunder in Spon, who, meeting with this inscription,

Maximo VI Consule

takes the letters VI for numerals, which occasions a strange anachronism. They are only contractions of Viro Illustri—V I.

As absurd a blunder was this of Dr. Stukeley on the coins of Carausius; finding a battered one with a defaced inscription of

FORTVNA AVG.

he read it

ORIVNA AVG.

And sagaciously interpreting this to be the wife of Carausius, makes a new personage start up in history; he contrives even to give some theoretical Memoirs of the August Oriuna.[92]

Father Sirmond was of opinion that St. Ursula and her eleven thousand Virgins were all created out of a blunder. In some ancient MS. they found St. Ursula et Undecimilla V. M. meaning St. Ursula and Undecimilla, Virgin Martyrs; imagining that Undecimilla with the V. and M. which followed, was an abbreviation for Undecem Millia Martyrum Virginum, they made out of Two Virgins the whole Eleven Thousand!

Pope, in a note on Measure for Measure, informs us, that its story was taken from Cinthio's Novels, Dec. 8. Nov. 5. That is, Decade 8, Novel 5. The critical Warburton, in his edition of Shakspeare, puts the words in full length thus, December 8, November 5.

When the fragments of Petronius made a great noise in the literary world, Meibomius, an erudit of Lubeck, read in a letter from another learned scholar from Bologna, "We have here an entire Petronius; I saw it with mine own eyes, and with admiration." Meibomius in post-haste is on the road, arrives at Bologna, and immediately inquires for the librarian Capponi. He inquires if it were true that they had at Bologna an entire Petronius? Capponi assures him that it was a thing which had long been public. "Can I see this Petronius? Let me examine it!"—"Certainly," replies Capponi, and leads our erudit of Lubeck to the church where reposes the body of St. Petronius. Meibomius bites his lips, calls for his chaise, and takes his flight.

A French translator, when he came to a passage of Swift, in which it is said that the Duke of Marlborough broke an officer; not being acquainted with this Anglicism, he translated it roue, broke on a wheel!

Cibber's play of "Love's Last Shift" was entitled "La Derniere Chemise de l'Amour." A French writer of Congreve's life has taken his Mourning for a Morning Bride, and translated it L'Espouse du Matin.

Sir John Pringle mentions his having cured a soldier by the use of two quarts of Dog and Duck water daily: a French translator specifies it as an excellent broth made of a duck and a dog! In a recent catalogue compiled by a French writer of Works on Natural History, he has inserted the well-known "Essay on Irish Bulls" by the Edgeworths. The proof, if it required any, that a Frenchman cannot understand the idiomatic style of Shakspeare appears in a French translator, who prided himself on giving a verbal translation of our great poet, not approving of Le Tourneur's paraphrastical version. He found in the celebrated speech of Northumberland in Henry IV.

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone—

which he renders "Ainsi douleur! va-t'en!"

The Abbe Gregoire affords another striking proof of the errors to which foreigners are liable when they decide on the language and customs of another country. The Abbe, in the excess of his philanthropy, to show to what dishonourable offices human nature is degraded, acquaints us that at London he observed a sign-board, proclaiming the master as tueur des punaises de sa majeste! Bug-destroyer to his majesty! This is, no doubt, the honest Mr. Tiffin, in the Strand; and the idea which must have occurred to the good Abbe was, that his majesty's bugs were hunted by the said destroyer, and taken by hand—and thus human nature was degraded!

A French writer translates the Latin title of a treatise of Philo-Judaeus Omnis bonus liber est, Every good man is a free man, by Tout livre est bon. It was well for him, observes Jortin, that he did not live within the reach of the Inquisition, which might have taken this as a reflection on the Index Expurgatorius.

An English translator turned "Dieu defend l'adultere" into "God defends adultery."—Guthrie, in his translation of Du Halde, has "the twenty-sixth day of the new moon." The whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days. The blunder arose from his mistaking the word neuvieme (ninth) for nouvelle or neuve (new).

The facetious Tom Brown committed a strange blunder in his translation of Gelli's Circe. The word Starne, not aware of its signification, he boldly rendered stares, probably from the similitude of sound; the succeeding translator more correctly discovered Starne to be red-legged partridges!

In Charles II.'s reign a new collect was drawn, in which a new epithet was added to the king's title, that gave great offence, and occasioned great raillery. He was styled our most religious king. Whatever the signification of religious might be in the Latin word, as importing the sacredness of the king's person, yet in the English language it bore a signification that was no way applicable to the king. And he was asked by his familiar courtiers, what must the nation think when they heard him prayed for as their most religious king?—Literary blunders of this nature are frequently discovered in the versions of good classical scholars, who would make the English servilely bend to the Latin and Greek. Even Milton has been justly censured for his free use of Latinisms and Grecisms.

The blunders of modern antiquaries on sepulchral monuments are numerous. One mistakes a lion at a knight's feet for a curled water dog; another could not distinguish censers in the hands of angels from fishing-nets; two angels at a lady's feet were counted as her two cherub-like babes; and another has mistaken a leopard and a hedgehog for a cat and a rat! In some of these cases, are the antiquaries or the sculptors most to be blamed?[93]

A literary blunder of Thomas Warton is a specimen of the manner in which a man of genius may continue to blunder with infinite ingenuity. In an old romance he finds these lines, describing the duel of Saladin with Richard Coeur de Lion:—

A Faucon brode in hande he bare, For he thought he wolde thare Have slayne Richard.

He imagines this Faucon brode means a falcon bird, or a hawk, and that Saladin is represented with this bird on his fist to express his contempt of his adversary. He supports his conjecture by noticing a Gothic picture, supposed to be the subject of this duel, and also some old tapestry of heroes on horseback with hawks on their fists; he plunges into feudal times, when no gentleman appeared on horseback without his hawk. After all this curious erudition, the rough but skilful Ritson inhumanly triumphed by dissolving the magical fancies of the more elegant Warton, by explaining a Faucon brode to be nothing more than a broad faulchion, which, in a duel, was certainly more useful than a bird. The editor of the private reprint of Hentzner, on that writer's tradition respecting "the Kings of Denmark who reigned in England" buried in the Temple Church, metamorphosed the two Inns of Court, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn, into the names of the Danish kings, Gresin and Lyconin.[94]

Bayle supposes that Marcellus Palingenius, who wrote the poem entitled the Zodiac, the twelve books bearing the names of the signs, from this circumstance assumed the title of Poeta Stellatus. But it appears that this writer was an Italian and a native of Stellada, a town in the Ferrarese. It is probable that his birthplace originally produced the conceit of the title of his poem: it is a curious instance how critical conjecture may be led astray by its own ingenuity, when ignorant of the real fact.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 90: The first edition had all the external appearance of truth: a portrait of "Captain Lemuel Gulliver, of Redriff, aetat. suae lviii." faces the title; and maps of all the places, he only, visited, are carefully laid down in connexion with the realities of geography. Thus "Lilliput, discovered A.D. 1699," lies between Sumatra and Van Dieman's Land. "Brobdignag, discovered A.D. 1703," is a peninsula of North America. One Richard Sympson vouches for the veracity of his "antient and intimate friend," in a Preface detailing some "facts" of Gulliver's Life. Arbuthnot says he "lent the book to an old gentleman, who went immediately to his map to search for Lilliput."]

[Footnote 91: In Nagler's Kunstler-Lexicon is a whimsical error concerning a living English artist—George Cruikshank. Some years ago the relative merits of himself and brother were contrasted in an English review, and George was spoken of as "The real Simon Pure"—the first who had illustrated scenes of "Life in London." Unaware of the real significance of a quotation which has become proverbial among us, the German editor begins his Memoir of Cruikshank, by gravely informing us that he is an English artist, "whose real name is Simon Pure!" Turning to the artists under the letter P, we accordingly read:—"PURE (Simon), the real name of the celebrated caricaturist, George Cruikshank."]

[Footnote 92: The whole of Dr. Stukeley's tract is a most curious instance of learned perversity and obstinacy. The coin is broken away where the letter F should be, and Stukeley himself allows that the upper part of the T might be worn away, and so the inscription really be Fortuna Aug; but he cast all such evidence aside, to construct an imaginary life of an imaginary empress; "that we have no history of this lady," he says, "is not to be wondered at," and he forthwith imagines one; that she was of a martial disposition, and "signalized herself in battle, and obtained a victory," as he guesses from the laurel wreath around her bust on the coin; her name he believes to be Gaulish, and "equivalent to what we now call Lucia," and that a regiment of soldiers was under her command, after the fashion of "the present Czarina," the celebrated Catherine of Russia.]

[Footnote 93: One of the most curious pictorial and antiquarian blunders may be seen in Vallancey's Collectanea. He found upon one of the ancient stones on the Hill of Tara an inscription which he read Beli Divose, "to Belus, God of Fire;" but which ultimately proved to be the work of some idler who, lying on the stone, cut upside down his name and the date of the year, E. Conid, 1731; upon turning this engraving, the fact is apparent.]



A LITERARY WIFE.

Marriage is such a rabble rout; That those that are out, would fain get in; And those that are in, would fain get out.

CHAUCER.

Having examined some literary blunders, we will now proceed to the subject of a literary wife, which may happen to prove one. A learned lady is to the taste of few. It is however matter of surprise, that several literary men should have felt such a want of taste in respect to "their soul's far dearer part," as Hector calls his Andromache. The wives of many men of letters have been dissolute, ill-humoured, slatternly, and have run into all the frivolities of the age. The wife of the learned Budaeus was of a different character.

How delightful is it when the mind of the female is so happily disposed, and so richly cultivated, as to participate in the literary avocations of her husband! It is then truly that the intercourse of the sexes becomes the most refined pleasure. What delight, for instance, must the great Budaeus have tasted, even in those works which must have been for others a most dreadful labour! His wife left him nothing to desire. The frequent companion of his studies, she brought him the books he required to his desk; she collated passages, and transcribed quotations; the same genius, the same inclination, and the same ardour for literature, eminently appeared in those two fortunate persons. Far from withdrawing her husband from his studies, she was sedulous to animate him when he languished. Ever at his side, and ever assiduous; ever with some useful book in her hand, she acknowledged herself to be a most happy woman. Yet she did not neglect the education of eleven children. She and Budaeus shared in the mutual cares they owed their progeny. Budaeus was not insensible of his singular felicity. In one of his letters, he represents himself as married to two ladies; one of whom gave him boys and girls, the other was Philosophy, who produced books. He says that in his twelve first years, Philosophy had been less fruitful than marriage; he had produced less books than children; he had laboured more corporally than intellectually; but he hoped to make more books than men. "The soul (says he) will be productive in its turn; it will rise on the ruins of the body; a prolific virtue is not given at the same time to the bodily organs and the pen."

The lady of Evelyn designed herself the frontispiece to his translation of Lucretius. She felt the same passion in her own breast which animated her husband's, who has written, with such various ingenuity. Of Baron Haller it is recorded that he inspired his wife and family with a taste for his different pursuits. They were usually employed in assisting his literary occupations; they transcribed manuscripts, consulted authors, gathered plants, and designed and coloured under his eye. What a delightful family picture has the younger Pliny given posterity in his letters! Of Calphurnia, his wife, he says, "Her affection to me has given her a turn to books; and my compositions, which she takes a pleasure in reading, and even getting by heart, are continually in her hands. How full of tender solicitude is she when I am entering upon any cause! How kindly does she rejoice with me when it is over! While I am pleading, she places persons to inform her from time to time how I am heard, what applauses I receive, and what success attends the cause. When at any time I recite my works, she conceals herself behind some curtain, and with secret rapture enjoys my praises. She sings my verses to her lyre, with no other master but love, the best instructor, for her guide. Her passion will increase with our days, for it is not my youth nor my person, which time gradually impairs, but my reputation and my glory, of which, she is enamoured."

On the subject of a literary wife, I must introduce to the acquaintance of the reader Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. She is known, at least by her name, as a voluminous writer; for she extended her literary productions to the number of twelve folio volumes.

Her labours have been ridiculed by some wits; but had her studies been regulated, she would have displayed no ordinary genius. The Connoisseur has quoted her poems, and her verses have been imitated by Milton.

The duke, her husband, was also an author; his book on horsemanship still preserves his name. He has likewise written comedies, and his contemporaries have not been, penurious in their eulogiums. It is true he was a duke. Shadwell says of him, "That he was the greatest master of wit, the most exact observer of mankind, and the most accurate judge of humour that ever he knew." The life of the duke is written "by the hand of his incomparable duchess." It was published in his lifetime. This curious piece of biography is a folio of 197 pages, and is entitled "The Life of the Thrice Noble, High, and Puissant Prince, William Cavendish." His titles then follow:—"Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and Excellent Princess, Margaret Duchess of Newcastle, his wife. London, 1667." This Life is dedicated to Charles the Second; and there is also prefixed a copious epistle to her husband the duke.

In this epistle the character of our Literary Wife is described with all its peculiarities.

"Certainly, my lord, you have had as many enemies and as many friends as ever any one particular person had; nor do I so much wonder at it, since I, a woman, cannot be exempt from the malice and aspersions of spiteful tongues, which they cast upon my poor writings, some denying me to be the true authoress of them; for your grace remembers well, that those books I put out first to the judgment of this censorious age were accounted not to be written by a woman, but that somebody else had writ and published them in my name; by which your lordship was moved to prefix an epistle before one of them in my vindication, wherein you assure the world, upon your honour, that what was written and printed in my name was my own; and I have also made known that your lordship was my only tutor, in declaring to me what you had found and observed by your own experience; for I being young when your lordship married me, could not have much knowledge of the world; but it pleased God to command his servant Nature to endue me with a poetical and philosophical genius, even from my birth; for I did write some books in that kind before I was twelve years of age, which for want of good method and order I would never divulge. But though the world would not believe that those conceptions and fancies which I writ were my own, but transcended my capacity, yet they found fault, that they were defective for want of learning, and on the other side, they said I had pluckt feathers out of the universities; which was a very preposterous judgment. Truly, my lord, I confess that for want of scholarship, I could not express myself so well as otherwise I might have done in those philosophical writings I published first; but after I was returned with your lordship into my native country, and led a retired country life, I applied myself to the reading of philosophical authors, on purpose to learn those names and words of art that are used in schools; which at first were so hard to me, that I could not understand them, but was fain to guess at the sense of them by the whole context, and so writ them down, as I found them in those authors; at which my readers did wonder, and thought it impossible that a woman could have so much learning and understanding in terms of art and scholastical expressions; so that I and my books are like the old apologue mentioned in AEsop, of a father and his son who rid on an ass." Here follows a long narrative of this fable, which she applies to herself in these words—"The old man seeing he could not please mankind in any manner, and having received so many blemishes and aspersions for the sake of his ass, was at last resolved to drown him when he came to the next bridge. But I am not so passionate to burn my writings for the various humours of mankind, and for their finding fault; since there is nothing in this world, be it the noblest and most commendable action whatsoever, that shall escape blameless. As for my being the true and only authoress of them, your lordship knows best; and my attending servants are witness that I have had none but my own thoughts, fancies, and speculations, to assist me; and as soon as I set them down I send them to those that are to transcribe them, and fit them for the press; whereof, since there have been several, and amongst them such as only could write a good hand, but neither understood orthography, nor had any learning, (I being then in banishment, with your lordship, and not able to maintain learned secretaries,) which hath been a great disadvantage to my poor works, and the cause that they have been printed so false and so full of errors; for besides that I want also skill in scholarship and true writing, I did many times not peruse the copies that were transcribed, lest they should disturb my following conceptions; by which neglect, as I said, many errors are slipt into my works, which, yet I hope, learned and impartial men will soon rectify, and look more upon the sense than carp at words. I have been a student even from childhood; and since I have been your lordship's wife I have lived for the most part a strict and retired life, as is best known to your lordship; and therefore my censurers cannot know much of me, since they have little or no acquaintance with me. 'Tis true I have been a traveller both before and after I was married to your lordship, and some times shown myself at your lordship's command in public places or assemblies, but yet I converse with few. Indeed, my lord, I matter not the censures of this age, but am rather proud of them; for it shows that my actions are more than ordinary, and according to the old proverb, it is better to be envied than pitied; for I know well that it is merely out of spite and malice, whereof this present age is so full that none can escape them, and they'll make no doubt to stain even your lordship's loyal, noble, and heroic actions, as well as they do mine; though yours have been of war and fighting, mine of contemplating and writing: yours were performed publicly in the field, mine privately in my closet; yours had many thousand eye-witnesses; mine none but my waiting-maids. But the great God, that hitherto bless'd both your grace and me, will, I question not, preserve both our fames to after-ages.

"Your grace's honest wife, "and humble servant, "M. NEWCASTLE."

The last portion of this life, which consists of the observations and good things which she had gathered from the conversations of her husband, forms an excellent Ana; and shows that when Lord Orford, in his "Catalogue of Noble Authors," says, that "this stately poetic couple was a picture of foolish nobility," he writes, as he does too often, with extreme levity. But we must now attend to the reverse of our medal.

Many chagrins may corrode the nuptial state of literary men. Females who, prompted by vanity, but not by taste, unite themselves to scholars, must ever complain of neglect. The inexhaustible occupations of a library will only present to such a most dreary solitude. Such a lady declared of her learned husband, that she was more jealous of his books than his mistresses. It was probably while Glover was composing his "Leonidas," that his lady avenged herself for this Homeric inattention to her, and took her flight with a lover. It was peculiar to the learned Dacier to be united to woman, his equal in erudition and his superior in taste. When she wrote in the album of a German traveller a verse from Sophocles as an apology for her unwillingness to place herself among his learned friends, that "Silence is the female's ornament," it was a trait of her modesty. The learned Pasquier was coupled to a female of a different character, since he tells us in one of his Epigrams that to manage the vociferations of his lady, he was compelled himself to become a vociferator.—"Unfortunate wretch that I am, I who am a lover of universal peace! But to have peace I am obliged ever to be at war."

Sir Thomas More was united to a woman of the harshest temper and the most sordid manners. To soften the moroseness of her disposition, "he persuaded her to play on the lute, viol, and other instruments, every day." Whether it was that she had no ear for music, she herself never became harmonious as the instrument she touched. All these ladies may be considered as rather too alert in thought, and too spirited in action; but a tame cuckoo bird who is always repeating the same note must be very fatiguing. The lady of Samuel Clarke, the great compiler of books in 1680, whose name was anagrammatised to "suck all cream," alluding to his indefatigable labours in sucking all the cream of every other author, without having any cream himself, is described by her husband as entertaining the most sublime conceptions of his illustrious compilations. This appears by her behaviour. He says, "that she never rose from table without making him a curtsey, nor drank to him without bowing, and that his word was a law to her."

I was much surprised in looking over a correspondence of the times, that in 1590 the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury on the subject of his living separate from his countess, uses as one of his arguments for their union the following curious one, which surely shows the gross and cynical feeling which the fair sex excited even among the higher classes of society. The language of this good bishop is neither that of truth, we hope, nor certainly that of religion.

"But some will saye in your Lordship's behalfe that the Countesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore licke enough to shorten your lief, if shee should kepe yow company, Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a juste cause of separation between a man and wiefe, I thinck fewe men in Englande would keepe their wives longe; for it is a common jeste, yet trewe in some sense, that there is but one shrewe in all the worlde, and everee man hath her: and so everee man must be ridd of his wiefe that wolde be ridd of a shrewe." It is wonderful this good bishop did not use another argument as cogent, and which would in those times be allowed as something; the name of his lordship, Shrewsbury, would have afforded a consolatory pun!

The entertaining Marville says that the generality of ladies married to literary men are so vain of the abilities and merit of their husbands, that they are frequently insufferable.

The wife of Barclay, author of "The Argenis," considered herself as the wife of a demigod. This appeared glaringly after his death; for Cardinal Barberini having erected a monument to the memory of his tutor, next to the tomb of Barclay, Mrs. Barclay was so irritated at this that she demolished his monument, brought home his bust, and declared that the ashes of so great a genius as her husband should never be placed beside a pedagogue.

Salmasius's wife was a termagant; Christina said she admired his patience more than his erudition. Mrs. Salmasius indeed considered herself as the queen of science, because her husband was acknowledged as sovereign among the critics. She boasted that she had for her husband the most learned of all the nobles, and the most noble of all the learned. Our good lady always joined the learned conferences which he held in his study. She spoke loud, and decided with a tone of majesty. Salmasius was mild in conversation, but the reverse in his writings, for our proud Xantippe considered him as acting beneath himself if he did not magisterially call every one names!

The wife of Rohault, when her husband gave lectures on the philosophy of Descartes, used to seat herself on these days at the door, and refused admittance to every one shabbily dressed, or who did not discover a genteel air. So convinced was she that, to be worthy of hearing the lectures of her husband, it was proper to appear fashionable. In vain our good lecturer exhausted himself in telling her, that fortune does not always give fine clothes to philosophers.

The ladies of Albert Durer and Berghem were both shrews. The wife of Durer compelled that great genius to the hourly drudgery of his profession, merely to gratify her own sordid passion: in despair, Albert ran away from his Tisiphone; she wheedled him back, and not long afterwards this great artist fell a victim to her furious disposition.[95] Berghem's wife would never allow that excellent artist to quit his occupations; and she contrived an odd expedient to detect his indolence. The artist worked in a room above her; ever and anon she roused him by thumping a long stick against the ceiling, while the obedient Berghem answered by stamping his foot, to satisfy Mrs. Berghem that he was not napping.

AElian had an aversion to the married state. Sigonius, a learned and well-known scholar, would never marry, and alleged no inelegant reason; "Minerva and Venus could not live together."

Matrimony has been considered by some writers as a condition not so well suited to the circumstances of philosophers and men of learning. There is a little tract which professes to investigate the subject. It has for title, De Matrimonio Literati, an coelibem esse, an vero nubere conveniat, i.e., of the Marriage of a Man of Letters, with an inquiry whether it is most proper for him to continue a bachelor, or to marry?

The author alleges the great merit of some women; particularly that of Gonzaga the consort of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino; a lady of such distinguished accomplishments, that Peter Bembus said, none but a stupid man would not prefer one of her conversations to all the formal meetings and disputations of the philosophers.

The ladies perhaps will be surprised to find that it is a question among the learned, Whether they ought to marry? and will think it an unaccountable property of learning that it should lay the professors of it under an obligation to disregard the sex. But it is very questionable whether, in return for this want of complaisance in them, the generality of ladies would not prefer the beau, and the man of fashion. However, let there be Gonzagas, they will find converts enough to their charms.

The sentiments of Sir Thomas Browne on the consequences of marriage are very curious, in the second part of his Religio Medici, sect, 9. When he wrote that work, he said, "I was never yet once, and commend their resolutions, who never marry twice." He calls woman "the rib and crooked piece of man." He adds, "I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to procreate the world without this trivial and vulgar way." He means the union of sexes, which he declares, "is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life; nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed." He afterwards declares he is not averse to that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful: "I could look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a horse." He afterwards disserts very profoundly on the music there is in beauty, "and the silent note which Cupid strikes is far sweeter than the sound of an instrument." Such were his sentiments when youthful, and residing at Leyden; Dutch philosophy had at first chilled his passion; it is probable that passion afterwards inflamed his philosophy—for he married, and had sons and daughters!

Dr. Cocchi, a modern Italian writer, but apparently a cynic as old as Diogenes, has taken the pains of composing a treatise on the present subject enough to terrify the boldest Bachelor of Arts! He has conjured up every chimera against the marriage of a literary man. He seems, however, to have drawn his disgusting portrait from his own country; and the chaste beauty of Britain only looks the more lovely beside this Florentine wife.

I shall not retain the cynicism which has coloured such revolting features. When at length the doctor finds a woman as all women ought to be, he opens a new string of misfortunes which must attend her husband. He dreads one of the probable consequences of matrimony—progeny, in which we must maintain the children we beget! He thinks the father gains nothing in his old age from the tender offices administered by his own children: he asserts these are much better performed by menials and strangers! The more children he has, the less he can afford to have servants! The maintenance of his children will greatly diminish his property! Another alarming object in marriage is that, by affinity, you become connected with the relations of the wife. The envious and ill-bred insinuations of the mother, the family quarrels, their poverty or their pride, all disturb the unhappy sage who falls into the trap of connubial felicity! But if a sage has resolved to marry, he impresses on him the prudential principle of increasing his fortune by it, and to remember his "additional expenses!" Dr. Cocchi seems to have thought that a human being is only to live for himself; he had neither heart to feel, a head to conceive, nor a pen that could have written one harmonious period, or one beautiful image! Bayle, in his article Raphelengius, note B, gives a singular specimen of logical subtlety, in "a reflection on the consequence of marriage." This learned man was imagined to have died of grief, for having lost his wife, and passed three years in protracted despair. What therefore must we think of an unhappy marriage, since a happy one is exposed to such evils? He then shows that an unhappy marriage is attended by beneficial consequences to the survivor. In this dilemma, in the one case, the husband lives afraid his wife will die, in the other that she will not! If you love her, you will always be afraid of losing her; if you do not love her, you will always be afraid of not losing her. Our satirical celibataire is gored by the horns of the dilemma he has conjured up.

James Petiver, a famous botanist, then a bachelor, the friend of Sir Hans Sloane, in an album signs his name with this designation:—

"From the Goat tavern in the Strand, London, Nov. 27. In the 34th year of my freedom, A.D. 1697."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 94: Erroneous proper names of places occur continually in early writers, particularly French ones. There are some in Froissart that cannot be at all understood. Bassompierre is equally erroneous. Jorchaux is intended by him for York House; and, more wonderful still, Inhimthort, proves by the context to be Kensington!]

[Footnote 95: Leopold Schefer, the German novelist, has composed an excellent sketch of Durer's married life. It is an admirably philosophic narrative of an intellectual man's wretchedness.]



DEDICATIONS.

Some authors excelled in this species of literary artifice. The Italian Doni dedicated each of his letters in a book called La Libraria, to persons whose name began with the first letter of the epistle, and dedicated the whole collection in another epistle; so that the book, which only consisted of forty-five pages, was dedicated to above twenty persons. This is carrying literary mendicity pretty high. Politi, the editor of the Martyrologium Romanum, published at Rome in 1751, has improved on the idea of Doni; for to the 365 days of the year of this Martyrology he has prefixed to each an epistle dedicatory. It is fortunate to have a large circle of acquaintance, though they should not be worthy of being saints. Galland, the translator of the Arabian Nights, prefixed a dedication to each tale which he gave; had he finished the "one thousand and one," he would have surpassed even the Martyrologist.

Mademoiselle Scudery tells a remarkable expedient of an ingenious trader in this line—One Rangouze made a collection of letters which he printed without numbering them. By this means the bookbinder put that letter which the author ordered him first; so that all the persons to whom he presented this book, seeing their names at the head, considered they had received a particular compliment. An Italian physician, having written on Hippocrates's Aphorisms, dedicated each book of his Commentaries to one of his friends, and the index to another!

More than one of our own authors have dedications in the same spirit. It was an expedient to procure dedicatory fees: for publishing books by subscription was then an art undiscovered. One prefixed a different dedication to a certain number of printed copies, and addressed them to every great man he knew, who he thought relished a morsel of flattery, and would pay handsomely for a coarse luxury. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, in his "Counsel to Builders," has made up half the work with forty-two dedications, which he excuses by the example of Antonio Perez; but in these dedications Perez scatters a heap of curious things, for he was a very universal genius. Perez, once secretary of state to Philip II. of Spain, dedicates his "Obras," first to "Nuestro sanctissimo Padre," and "Al Sacro Collegio," then follows one to "Henry IV.," and then one still more embracing, "A Todos." Fuller, in his "Church History," has with admirable contrivance introduced twelve title-pages, besides the general one, and as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty of those by inscriptions which are addressed to his benefactors; a circumstance which Heylin in his severity did not overlook; for "making his work bigger by forty sheets at the least; and he was so ambitious of the number of his patrons, that having but four leaves at the end of his History, he discovers a particular benefactress to inscribe them to!" This unlucky lady, the patroness of four leaves, Heylin compares to Roscius Regulus, who accepted the consular dignity for that part of the day on which Cecina by a decree of the senate was degraded from it, which occasioned Regulus to be ridiculed by the people all his life after, as the consul of half a day.

The price for the dedication of a play was at length fixed, from five to ten guineas from the Revolution to the time of George I., when it rose to twenty; but sometimes a bargain was to be struck when the author and the play were alike indifferent. Sometimes the party haggled about the price, or the statue while stepping into his niche would turn round on the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, actually composed the superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the apparent author by subscribing it with his name. This circumstance was so notorious at the time, that it occasioned a satirical dialogue between Motteux and his patron Heveningham. The patron, in his zeal to omit no possible distinction that might attach to him, had given one circumstance which no one but himself could have known.

PATRON.

I must confess I was to blame, That one particular to name; The rest could never have been known I made the style so like thy own.

POET.

I beg your pardon, Sir, for that.

PATRON.

Why d——e what would you be at? I writ below myself, you sot! Avoiding figures, tropes, what not; For fear I should my fancy raise Above the level of thy plays!

Warton notices the common practice, about the reign of Elizabeth, of an author's dedicating a work at once to a number of the nobility. Chapman's Translation of Homer has sixteen sonnets addressed to lords and ladies. Henry Lock, in a collection of two hundred religious sonnets, mingles with such heavenly works the terrestrial composition of a number of sonnets to his noble patrons; and not to multiply more instances, our great poet Spenser, in compliance with this disgraceful custom, or rather in obedience to the established tyranny of patronage, has prefixed to the Faery Queen fifteen of these adulatory pieces, which in every respect are the meanest of his compositions. At this period all men, as well as writers, looked up to the peers as if they were beings on whose smiles or frowns all sublunary good and evil depended. At a much later period, Elkanah Settle sent copies round to the chief party, for he wrote for both parties, accompanied by addresses to extort pecuniary presents in return. He had latterly one standard Elegy, and one Epithalamium, printed off with blanks, which by ingeniously filling up with the printed names of any great person who died or was married; no one who was going out of life, or was entering into it, could pass scot-free.

One of the most singular anecdotes respecting DEDICATIONS in English bibliography is that of the Polyglot Bible of Dr. Castell. Cromwell, much to his honour, patronized that great labour, and allowed the paper to be imported free of all duties, both of excise and custom. It was published under the protectorate, but many copies had not been disposed of ere Charles II. ascended the throne. Dr. Castell had dedicated the work gratefully to Oliver, by mentioning him with peculiar respect in the preface, but he wavered with Richard Cromwell. At the Restoration, he cancelled the two last leaves, and supplied their places with three others, which softened down the republican strains, and blotted Oliver's name out of the book of life! The differences in what are now called the republican and the loyal copies have amused the curious collectors; and the former being very scarce, are most sought after. I have seen the republican. In the loyal copies the patrons of the work are mentioned, but their titles are essentially changed; Serenissimus, Illustrissimus, and Honoratissimus, were epithets that dared not shew themselves under the levelling influence of the great fanatic republican.

It is a curious literary folly, not of an individual but of the Spanish nation, who, when the laws of Castile were reduced into a code under the reign of Alfonso X. surnamed the Wise, divided the work into seven volumes; that they might be dedicated to the seven letters which formed the name of his majesty!

Never was a gigantic baby of adulation so crammed with the soft pap of Dedications as Cardinal Richelieu. French flattery even exceeded itself.—Among the vast number of very extraordinary dedications to this man, in which the Divinity itself is disrobed of its attributes to bestow them on this miserable creature of vanity, I suspect that even the following one is not the most blasphemous he received. "Who has seen your face without being seized by those softened terrors which made the prophets shudder when God showed the beams of his glory! But as He whom they dared not to approach in the burning bush, and in the noise of thunders, appeared to them sometimes in the freshness of the zephyrs, so the softness of your august countenance dissipates at the same time, and changes into dew, the small vapours which cover its majesty." One of these herd of dedicators, after the death of Richelieu, suppressed in a second edition his hyperbolical panegyric, and as a punishment to himself, dedicated the work to Jesus Christ!

The same taste characterises our own dedications in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. The great Dryden has carried it to an excessive height; and nothing is more usual than to compare the patron with the Divinity—and at times a fair inference may be drawn that the former was more in the author's mind than God himself! A Welsh bishop made an apology to James I. for preferring the Deity—to his Majesty! Dryden's extravagant dedications were the vices of the time more than of the man; they were loaded with flattery, and no disgrace was annexed to such an exercise of men's talents; the contest being who should go farthest in the most graceful way, and with the best turns of expression.

An ingenious dedication was contrived by Sir Simon Degge, who dedicated "the Parson's Counsellor" to Woods, Bishop of Lichfield. Degge highly complimented the bishop on having most nobly restored the church, which had been demolished in the civil wars, and was rebuilt but left unfinished by Bishop Hacket. At the time he wrote the dedication, Woods had not turned a single stone, and it is said, that much against his will he did something, from having been so publicly reminded of it by this ironical dedication.



PHILOSOPHICAL DESCRIPTIVE POEMS.

The "BOTANIC GARDEN" once appeared to open a new route through the trodden groves of Parnassus. The poet, to a prodigality of IMAGINATION, united all the minute accuracy of SCIENCE. It is a highly-repolished labour, and was in the mind and in the hand of its author for twenty years before its first publication. The excessive polish of the verse has appeared too high to be endured throughout a long composition; it is certain that, in poems of length, a versification, which is not too florid for lyrical composition, will weary by its brilliance. Darwin, inasmuch as a rich philosophical fancy constitutes a poet, possesses the entire art of poetry; no one has carried the curious mechanism of verse and the artificial magic of poetical diction to a higher perfection. His volcanic head flamed with imagination, but his torpid heart slept unawakened by passion. His standard of poetry is by much too limited; he supposes that the essence of poetry is something of which a painter can make a picture. A picturesque verse was with him a verse completely poetical. But the language of the passions has no connexion with this principle; in truth, what he delineates as poetry itself, is but one of its provinces. Deceived by his illusive standard, he has composed a poem which is perpetually fancy, and never passion. Hence his processional splendour fatigues, and his descriptive ingenuity comes at length to be deficient in novelty, and all the miracles of art cannot supply us with one touch of nature.

Descriptive poetry should be relieved by a skilful intermixture of passages addressed to the heart as well as to the imagination: uniform description satiates; and has been considered as one of the inferior branches of poetry. Of this both Thomson and Goldsmith were sensible. In their beautiful descriptive poems they knew the art of animating the pictures of FANCY with the glow of SENTIMENT.

Whatever may be thought of the originality of Darwin's poem, it had been preceded by others of a congenial disposition. Brookes's poem on "Universal Beauty," published about 1735, presents us with the very model of Darwin's versification: and the Latin poem of De la Croix, in 1727, entitled "Connubia Florum," with his subject. There also exists a race of poems which have hitherto been confined to one subject, which the poet selected from the works of nature, to embellish with all the splendour of poetic imagination. I have collected some titles.

Perhaps it is Homer, in his battle of the Frogs and Mice, and Virgil in the poem on a Gnat, attributed to him, who have given birth to these lusory poems. The Jesuits, particularly when they composed in Latin verse, were partial to such subjects. There is a little poem on Gold, by P. Le Fevre, distinguished for its elegance; and Brumoy has given the Art of making Glass; in which he has described its various productions with equal felicity and knowledge. P. Vaniere has written on Pigeons, Du Cerceau on Butterflies. The success which attended these productions produced numerous imitations, of which several were favourably received. Vaniere composed three on the Grape, the Vintage, and the Kitchen Garden. Another poet selected Oranges for his theme; others have chosen for their subjects, Paper, Birds, and fresh-water Fish. Tarillon has inflamed his imagination with gunpowder; a milder genius, delighted with the oaten pipe, sang of Sheep; one who was more pleased with another kind of pipe, has written on Tobacco; and a droll genius wrote a poem on Asses. Two writers have formed didactic poems on the Art of Enigmas, and on Ships.

Others have written on moral subjects. Brumoy has painted the Passions, with a variety of imagery and vivacity of description; P. Meyer has disserted on Anger; Tarillon, like our Stillingfleet, on the Art of Conversation; and a lively writer has discussed the subjects of Humour and Wit.

Giannetazzi, an Italian Jesuit, celebrated for his Latin poetry, has composed two volumes of poems on Fishing and Navigation. Fracastor has written delicately on an indelicate subject, his Syphilis. Le Brun wrote a delectable poem on Sweetmeats; another writer on Mineral Waters, and a third on Printing. Vida pleases with his Silk-worms, and his Chess; Buchanan is ingenious with the Sphere. Malapert has aspired to catch the Winds; the philosophic Huet amused himself with Salt and again with Tea. The Gardens of Rapin is a finer poem than critics generally can write; Quillet's Callipedia, or Art of getting handsome Children, has been translated by Rowe; and Du Fresnoy at length gratifies the connoisseur with his poem on Painting, by the embellishments which his verses have received from the poetic diction of Mason, and the commentary of Reynolds.

This list might be augmented with a few of our own poets, and there still remain some virgin themes which only require to be touched by the hand of a true poet. In the "Memoirs of Trevoux," they observe, in their review of the poem on Gold, "That poems of this kind have the advantage of instructing us very agreeably. All that has been most remarkably said on the subject is united, compressed in a luminous order, and dressed in all the agreeable graces of poetry. Such writers have no little difficulties to encounter: the style and expression cost dear; and still more to give to an arid topic an agreeable form, and to elevate the subject without falling into another extreme.—In the other kinds of poetry the matter assists and prompts genius; here we must possess an abundance to display it."



PAMPHLETS.

Myles Davis's "ICON LIBELLORUM, or a Critical History Pamphlets," affords some curious information; and as this is a pamphlet-reading age, I shall give a sketch of its contents.

The author observes: "From PAMPHLETS may be learned the genius of the age, the debates of the learned, the follies of the ignorant, the bevues of government, and the mistakes of the courtiers. Pamphlets furnish beaus with their airs, coquettes with their charms. Pamphlets are as modish ornaments to gentlewomen's toilets as to gentlemen's pockets; they carry reputation of wit and learning to all that make them their companions; the poor find their account in stall-keeping and in hawking them; the rich find in them their shortest way to the secrets of church and state. There is scarce any class of people but may think themselves interested enough to be concerned with what is published in pamphlets, either as to their private instruction, curiosity, and reputation, or to the public advantage and credit; with all which both ancient and modern pamphlets are too often over familiar and free.—In short, with pamphlets the booksellers and stationers adorn the gaiety of shop-gazing. Hence accrues to grocers, apothecaries, and chandlers, good furniture, and supplies to necessary retreats and natural occasions. In pamphlets lawyers will meet with their chicanery, physicians with their cant, divines with their Shibboleth. Pamphlets become more and more daily amusements to the curious, idle, and inquisitive; pastime to gallants and coquettes; chat to the talkative; catch-words to informers; fuel to the envious; poison to the unfortunate; balsam to the wounded; employ to the lazy; and fabulous materials to romancers and novelists."

This author sketches the origin and rise of pamphlets. He deduces them from the short writings published by the Jewish Rabbins; various little pieces at the time of the first propagation of Christianity; and notices a certain pamphlet which was pretended to have been the composition of Jesus Christ, thrown from heaven, and picked up by the archangel Michael at the entrance of Jerusalem. It was copied by the priest Leora, and sent about from priest to priest, till Pope Zachary ventured to pronounce it a forgery. He notices several such extraordinary publications, many of which produced as extraordinary effects.

He proceeds in noticing the first Arian and Popish pamphlets, or rather libels, i. e. little books, as he distinguishes them. He relates a curious anecdote respecting the forgeries of the monks. Archbishop Usher detected in a manuscript of St. Patrick's life, pretended to have been found at Louvain, as an original of a very remote date, several passages taken, with little alteration, from his own writings.

The following notice of our immortal Pope I cannot pass over: "Another class of pamphlets writ by Roman Catholics is that of Poems, written chiefly by a Pope himself, a gentleman of that name. He passed always amongst most of his acquaintance for what is commonly called a Whig; for it seems the Roman politics are divided as well as popish missionaries. However, one Esdras, an apothecary, as he qualifies himself, has published a piping-hot pamphlet against Mr. Pope's 'Rape of the Lock,' which he entitles 'A Key to the Lock,' wherewith he pretends to unlock nothing less than a plot carried on by Mr. Pope in that poem against the last and this present ministry and government."

He observes on Sermons,—"'Tis not much to be questioned, but of all modern pamphlets what or wheresoever, the English stitched Sermons be the most edifying, useful, and instructive, yet they could not escape the critical Mr. Bayle's sarcasm. He says, 'Republique des Lettres,' March, 1710, in this article London, 'We see here sermons swarm daily from the press. Our eyes only behold manna: are you desirous of knowing the reason? It is, that the ministers being allowed to read their sermons in the pulpit, buy all they meet with, and take no other trouble than to read them, and thus pass for very able scholars at a very cheap rate!'"

He now begins more directly the history of pamphlets, which he branches out from four different etymologies. He says, "However foreign the word Pamphlet may appear, it is a genuine English word, rarely known or adopted in any other language: its pedigree cannot well be traced higher than the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. In its first state wretched must have been its appearance, since the great linguist John Minshew, in his 'Guide into Tongues,' printed in 1617, gives it the most miserable character of which any libel can be capable. Mr. Minshew says (and his words were quoted by Lord Chief Justice Holt), 'A PAMPHLET, that is Opusculum Stolidorum, the diminutive performance of fools; from [Greek: pan], all, and [Greek: pletho], I fill, to wit, all places. According to the vulgar saying, all things are full of fools, or foolish things; for such multitudes of pamphlets, unworthy of the very names of libels, being more vile than common shores and the filth of beggars, and being flying papers daubed over and besmeared with the foams of drunkards, are tossed far and near into the mouths and hands of scoundrels; neither will the sham oracles of Apollo be esteemed so mercenary as a Pamphlet.'"

Those who will have the word to be derived from PAM, the famous knave of LOO, do not differ much from Minshew; for the derivation of the word Pam is in all probability from [Greek: pan], all; or the whole or the chief of the game.

Under this first etymological notion of Pamphlets may be comprehended the vulgar stories of the Nine Worthies of the World, of the Seven Champions of Christendom, Tom Thumb, Valentine and Orson, &c., as also most of apocryphal lucubrations. The greatest collection of this first sort of Pamphlets are the Rabbinic traditions in the Talmud, consisting of fourteen volumes in folio, and the Popish legends of the Lives of the Saints, which, though not finished, form fifty folio volumes, all which tracts were originally in pamphlet forms.

The second idea of the radix of the word Pamphlet is, that it takes its derivations from [Greek: pan], all, and [Greek: phileo], I love, signifying a thing beloved by all; for a pamphlet being of a small portable bulk, and of no great price, is adapted to every one's understanding and reading. In this class may be placed all stitched books on serious subjects, the best of which fugitive pieces have been generally preserved, and even reprinted in collections of some tracts, miscellanies, sermons, poems, &c.; and, on the contrary, bulky volumes have been reduced, for the convenience of the public, into the familiar shapes of stitched pamphlets. Both these methods have been thus censured by the majority of the lower house of convocation 1711. These abuses are thus represented: "They have republished, and collected into volumes, pieces written long ago on the side of infidelity. They have reprinted together in the most contracted manner, many loose and licentious pieces, in order to their being purchased more cheaply, and dispersed more easily."

The third original interpretation of the word Pamphlet may be that of the learned Dr. Skinner, in his Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae, that it is derived from the Belgic word Pampier, signifying a little paper, or libel. To this third set of Pamphlets may be reduced all sorts of printed single sheets, or half sheets, or any other quantity of single paper prints, such as Declarations, Remonstrances, Proclamations, Edicts, Orders, Injunctions, Memorials, Addresses, Newspapers, &c.

The fourth radical signification of the word Pamphlet is that homogeneal acceptation of it, viz., as it imports any little book, or small volume whatever, whether stitched or bound, whether good or bad, whether serious or ludicrous. The only proper Latin term for a Pamphlet is Libellus, or little book. This word indeed signifies in English an abusive paper or little book, and is generally taken in the worst sense.

After all this display of curious literature, the reader may smile at the guesses of Etymologists; particularly when he is reminded that the derivation of Pamphlet is drawn from quite another meaning to any of the present, by Johnson, which I shall give for his immediate gratification.

PAMPHLET [par un filet, Fr. Whence this word is written anciently, and by Caxton, paunflet] a small book; properly a book sold unbound, and only stitched.

The French have borrowed the word Pamphlet from us, and have the goodness of not disfiguring its orthography. Roast Beef is also in the same predicament. I conclude that Pamphlets and Roast Beef have therefore their origin in our country.

Pinkerton favoured me with the following curious notice concerning pamphlets:—

"Of the etymon of pamphlet I know nothing; but that the word is far more ancient than is commonly believed, take the following proof from the celebrated Philobiblon, ascribed to Richard de Buri, bishop of Durham, but written by Robert Holkot, at his desire, as Fabricius says, about the year 1344, (Fabr. Bibl. Medii AEvi, vol. i.); it is in the eighth chapter.

"Sed, revera, libros non libras maluimus; codicesque plus dileximus quam florenos: ac PANFLETOS exiguos phaleratis praetulimus palescedis."

"But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer small pamphlets to war horses."

This word is as old as Lydgate's time: among his works, quoted by Warton, is a poem "translated from a pamflete in Frenshe."



LITTLE BOOKS.

Myles Davies has given an opinion of the advantages of Little Books, with some humour.

"The smallness of the size of a book was always its own commendation; as, on the contrary, the largeness of a book is its own disadvantage, as well as the terror of learning. In short, a big book is a scare-crow to the head and pocket of the author, student, buyer, and seller, as well as a harbour of ignorance; hence the inaccessible masteries of the inexpugnable ignorance and superstition of the ancient heathens, degenerate Jews, and of the popish scholasters and canonists, entrenched under the frightful bulk of huge, vast, and innumerable volumes; such as the great folio that the Jewish rabbins fancied in a dream was given by the angel Raziel to his pupil Adam, containing all the celestial sciences. And the volumes writ by Zoroaster, entitled The Similitude, which is said to have taken up no more space than 1260 hides of cattle: as also the 25,000, or, as some say, 36,000 volumes, besides 525 lesser MSS. of his. The grossness and multitude of Aristotle and Varro's books were both a prejudice to the authors, and an hindrance to learning, and an occasion of the greatest part of them being lost. The largeness of Plutarch's treatises is a great cause of his being neglected, while Longinus and Epictetus, in their pamphlet Remains, are every one's companions. Origen's 6000 volumes (as Epiphanius will have it) were not only the occasion of his venting more numerous errors, but also for the most part of their perdition.—Were it not for Euclid's Elements, Hippocrates' Aphorisms, Justinian's Institutes, and Littleton's Tenures, in small pamphlet volumes, young mathematicians, fresh-water physicians, civilian novices, and les apprentices en la ley d'Angleterre, would be at a loss and stand, and total disencouragement. One of the greatest advantages the Dispensary has over King Arthur is its pamphlet size. So Boileau's Lutrin, and his other pamphlet poems, in respect of Perrault's and Chapelain's St. Paulin and la Pucelle. These seem to pay a deference to the reader's quick and great understanding; those to mistrust his capacity, and to confine his time as well as his intellect."

Notwithstanding so much may be alleged in favour of books of a small size, yet the scholars of a former age regarded them with contempt. Scaliger, says Baillet, cavils with Drusius for the smallness of his books; and one of the great printers of the time (Moret, the successor of Plantin) complaining to the learned Puteanus, who was considered as the rival of Lipsius, that his books were too small for sale, and that purchasers turned away, frightened at their diminutive size; Puteanus referred him to Plutarch, whose works consist of small treatises; but the printer took fire at the comparison, and turned him out of his shop, for his vanity at pretending that he wrote in any manner like Plutarch! a specimen this of the politeness and reverence of the early printers for their learned authors; Jurieu reproaches Calomies that he is a great author of little books!

At least, if a man is the author only of little books, he will escape the sarcastic observation of Cicero on a voluminous writer—that "his body might be burned with his writings," of which we have had several, eminent for the worthlessness and magnitude of their labours.

It was the literary humour of a certain Maecenas, who cheered the lustre of his patronage with the steams of a good dinner, to place his guests according to the size and thickness of the books they had printed. At the head of the table sat those who had published in folio, foliissimo; next the authors in quarto; then those in octavo. At that table Blackmore would have had the precedence of Gray. Addison, who found this anecdote in one of the Anas, has seized this idea, and applied it with his felicity of humour in No. 529 of the Spectator.

Montaigne's Works have been called by a Cardinal, "The Breviary of Idlers." It is therefore the book for many men. Francis Osborne has a ludicrous image in favour of such opuscula. "Huge volumes, like the ox roasted whole at Bartholomew fair, may proclaim plenty of labour, but afford less of what is delicate, savoury, and well-concocted, than SMALLER PIECES."

In the list of titles of minor works, which Aulus Gellius has preserved, the lightness and beauty of such compositions are charmingly expressed. Among these we find—a Basket of Flowers; an Embroidered Mantle; and a Variegated Meadow.



A CATHOLIC'S REFUTATION.

In a religious book published by a fellow of the Society of Jesus, entitled, "The Faith of a Catholic," the author examines what concerns the incredulous Jews and other infidels. He would show that Jesus Christ, author of the religion which bears his name, did not impose on or deceive the Apostles whom he taught; that the Apostles who preached it did not deceive those who were converted; and that those who were converted did not deceive us. In proving these three not difficult propositions, he says, he confounds "the Atheist, who does not believe in God; the Pagan, who adores several; the Deist, who believes in one God, but who rejects a particular Providence; the Freethinker, who presumes to serve God according to his fancy, without being attached to any religion; the Philosopher, who takes reason and not revelation for the rule of his belief; the Gentile, who, never having regarded the Jewish people as a chosen nation, does not believe God promised them a Messiah; and finally, the Jew, who refuses to adore the Messiah in the person of Christ."

I have given this sketch, as it serves for a singular Catalogue of Heretics.

It is rather singular that so late as in the year 1765, a work should have appeared in Paris, which bears the title I translate, "The Christian Religion proved by a single fact; or a dissertation in which is shown that those Catholics of whom Huneric, King of the Vandals, cut the tongues, spoke miraculously all the remainder of their days; from whence is deduced the consequences of this miracle against the Arians, the Socinians, and the Deists, and particularly against the author of Emilius, by solving their difficulties." It bears this Epigraph, "Ecce Ego admirationem faciam populo huic, miraculo grandi et stupendo." There needs no further account of this book than the title.



THE GOOD ADVICE OF AN OLD LITERARY SINNER.

Authors of moderate capacity have unceasingly harassed the public; and have at length been remembered only by the number of wretched volumes their unhappy industry has produced. Such an author was the Abbe de Marolles, otherwise a most estimable and ingenious man, and the patriarch of print-collectors.

This Abbe was a most egregious scribbler; and so tormented with violent fits of printing, that he even printed lists and catalogues of his friends. I have even seen at the end of one of his works a list of names of those persons who had given him books. He printed his works at his own expense, as the booksellers had unanimously decreed this. Menage used to say of his works, "The reason why I esteem the productions of the Abbe is, for the singular neatness of their bindings; he embellishes them so beautifully, that the eye finds pleasure in them." On a book of his versions of the Epigrams of Martial, this critic wrote, Epigrams against Martial. Latterly, for want of employment, our Abbe began a translation of the Bible; but having inserted the notes of the visionary Isaac de la Peyrere, the work was burnt by order of the ecclesiastical court. He was also an abundant writer in verse, and exultingly told a poet, that his verses cost him little: "They cost you what they are worth," replied the sarcastic critic. De Marolles in his Memoirs bitterly complains of the injustice done to him by his contemporaries; and says, that in spite of the little favour shown to him by the public, he has nevertheless published, by an accurate calculation, one hundred and thirty-three thousand one hundred and twenty-four verses! Yet this was not the heaviest of his literary sins. He is a proof that a translator may perfectly understand the language of his original, and yet produce an unreadable translation.

In the early part of his life this unlucky author had not been without ambition; it was only when disappointed in his political projects that he resolved to devote himself to literature. As he was incapable of attempting original composition, he became known by his detestable versions. He wrote above eighty volumes, which have never found favour in the eyes of the critics; yet his translations are not without their use, though they never retain by any chance a single passage of the spirit of their originals.

The most remarkable anecdote respecting these translations is, that whenever this honest translator came to a difficult passage, he wrote in the margin, "I have not translated this passage, because it is very difficult, and in truth I could never understand it." He persisted to the last in his uninterrupted amusement of printing books; and his readers having long ceased, he was compelled to present them to his friends, who, probably, were not his readers. After a literary existence of forty years, he gave the public a work not destitute of entertainment in his own Memoirs, which he dedicated to his relations and all his illustrious friends. The singular postscript to his Epistle Dedicatory contains excellent advice for authors.

"I have omitted to tell you, that I do not advise any one of my relatives or friends to apply himself as I have done to study, and particularly to the composition of books, if he thinks that will add to his fame or fortune. I am persuaded that of all persons in the kingdom, none are more neglected than those who devote themselves entirely to literature. The small, number of successful persons in that class (at present I do not recollect more than two or three) should not impose on one's understanding, nor any consequences from them be drawn in favour of others. I know how it is by my own experience, and by that of several amongst you, as well as by many who are now no more, and with whom I was acquainted. Believe me, gentlemen! to pretend to the favours of fortune it is only necessary to render one's self useful, and to be supple and obsequious to those who are in possession of credit and authority; to be handsome in one's person; to adulate the powerful; to smile, while you suffer from them every kind of ridicule and contempt whenever they shall do you the honour to amuse themselves with you; never to be frightened at a thousand obstacles which may be opposed to one; have a face of brass and a heart of stone; insult worthy men who are persecuted; rarely venture to speak the truth; appear devout, with every nice scruple of religion, while at the same time every duty must be abandoned when it clashes with your interest. After these any other accomplishment is indeed superfluous."