'The deer is lodg'd, I've track'd her to her covert.'

"If he had seen her in the open field, what occasion had he to track her, when he had so many Numidian dogs at his heels, which, with one halloo, he might have set upon her haunches? If he did not see her in the open field, how could he possibly track her? If he had seen her in the street, why did he not set upon her in the street, since through the street she must be carried at last? Now here, instead of having his thoughts upon his business, and upon the present danger; instead of meditating and contriving how he shall pass with his mistress through the southern gate, where her brother Marcus is upon the guard, and where she would certainly prove an impediment to him, which is the Roman word for the baggage; instead of doing this, Sempronius is entertaining himself with whimseys:

'Semp. How will the young Numidian rave to see His mistress lost! If aught could glad my soul, Beyond th' enjoyment of so bright a prize, 'Twould be to torture that young gay barbarian. But hark! what noise? Death to my hopes! 'tis he, 'Tis Juba's self! There is but one way left! He must be murder'd, and a passage cut Through those his guards.'

"Pray, what are 'those his guards?' I thought, at present, that Juba's guards had been Sempronius's tools, and had been dangling after his heels.

"But now let us sum up all these absurdities together. Sempronius goes at noonday, in Juba's clothes, and with Juba's guards, to Cato's palace, in order to pass for Juba, in a place where they were both so very well known: he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he threatens them:

'Hah! dastards, do you tremble! Or act like men; or, by yon azure heav'n!'—

But the guards still remaining restive, Sempronius himself attacks Juba, while each of the guards is representing Mr. Spectator's sign of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Sempronius's threats. Juba kills Sempronius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries them in triumph away to Cato. Now, I would fain know, if any part of Mr. Bayes's tragedy is so full of absurdity as this?

"Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in. The question is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of swords in the governor's hall? Where was the governor himself? Where were his guards? Where were his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the person of a governor of a place of war, was enough to alarm the whole garrison: and yet, for almost half an hour after Sempronius was killed, we find none of those appear, who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise of swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman:

'Luc. Sure 'twas the clash of swords! my troubl'd heart Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows, It throbs with fear, and aches at ev'ry sound!'

And immediately her old whimsey returns upon her:

'O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake— die away with horrour at the thought.'

She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats, but it must be for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well! upon this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it seems, takes him for Juba; for says she,

'The face is muffl'd up within the garment.'

"Now, how a man could fight, and fall with his face muffled up in his garment, is, I think, a little hard to conceive! Besides, Juba, before he killed him, knew him to be Sempronius. It was not by his garment that he knew this; it was by his face then; his face, therefore, was not muffled. Upon seeing this man with the muffled face, Marcia falls a raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed defunct, begins to make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters listening, I suppose on tiptoe; for I cannot imagine how any one can enter listening in any other posture. I would fain know how it came to pass, that during all this time he had sent nobody, no, not so much as a candle-snuffer, to take away the dead body of Sempronius. Well! but let us regard him listening. Having left his apprehension behind him, he, at first, applies what Marcia says to Sempronius. But finding at last, with much ado, that he himself is the happy man, he quits his eve-dropping, and discovers himself just time enough to prevent his being cuckolded by a dead man, of whom the moment before he had appeared so jealous; and greedily intercepts the bliss which was fondly designed for one who could not be the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how comes Juba to listen here, who had not listened before throughout the play? Or how comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who listens, when love and treason were so often talked in so publick a place as a hall? I am afraid the author was driven upon all these absurdities only to introduce this miserable mistake of Marcia; which, after all, is much below the dignity of tragedy, as any thing is which is the effect or result of trick.

"But let us come to the scenery of the fifth act, Cato appears first upon the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture; in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, a drawn sword on the table by him. Now let us consider the place in which this sight is presented to us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose, that any one should place himself in this posture, in the midst of one of our halls in London; that he should appear solus, in a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard Lintot: I desire the reader to consider, whether such a person as this would pass, with them who beheld him, for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a general, or for some whimsical person who fancied himself all these? and whether the people, who belonged to the family, would think that such a person had a design upon their midriffs or his own?

"In short, that Cato should sit long enough, in the aforesaid posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that he should be angry with his son for intruding there; then, that he should leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to expire, purely to show his good-breeding, and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his bedchamber; all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible, impossible."

Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it, perhaps "too much horseplay in his raillery;" but if his jests are coarse, his arguments are strong. Yet, as we love better to be pleased than to be taught, Cato is read, and the critick is neglected.

Flushed with consciousness of these detections of absurdity in the conduct, he afterwards attacked the sentiments of Cato; but he then amused himself with petty cavils, and minute objections.

Of Addison's smaller poems, no particular mention is necessary; they have little that can employ or require a critick. The parallel of the princes and gods, in his verses to Kneller, is often happy, but is too well known to be quoted.

His translations, so far as I have compared them, want the exactness of a scholar. That he understood his authors cannot be doubted; but his versions will not teach others to understand them, being too licentiously paraphrastical. They are, however, for the most part, smooth and easy; and, what is the first excellence of a translator, such as may be read with pleasure by those who do not know the originals.

His poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence. He has sometimes a striking line, or a shining paragraph; but, in the whole, he is warm rather than fervid, and shows more dexterity than strength. He was, however, one of our earliest examples of correctness.

The versification which he had learned from Dryden, he debased rather than refined. His rhymes are often dissonant; in his Georgick he admits broken lines. He uses both triplets and alexandrines, but triplets more frequently in his translations than his other works. The mere structure of verses seems never to have engaged much of his care. But his lines are very smooth in Rosamond, and, too smooth in Cato.

Addison is now to be considered as a critick; a name which the present generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism is condemned as tentative or experimental, rather than scientifick; and he is considered as deciding by taste[202] rather than by principles.

It is not uncommon, for those who have grown wise by the labour of others, to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. Addison is now despised by some who, perhaps, would never have seen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote as he would think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his instructions were such as the character of his readers made propers That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk, was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity, by gentle and unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he, therefore, presented knowledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and austere, but accessible and familiar. When he showed them their defects, he showed them, likewise, that they might be easily supplied. His, attempt succeeded; inquiry was awakened, and comprehension expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and, from his time to our own, life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged.

Dryden had, not many years before, scattered criticism, over his prefaces with very little parsimony; but, though he sometimes condescended to be somewhat familiar, his manner was in general too scholastick for those who had yet their rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to understand their master. His observations were framed rather for those that were learning to write, than for those that read only to talk.

An instructer like Addison was now wanting, whose remarks being superficial, might be easily understood, and being just, might prepare the mind for more attainments.

Had he presented Paradise Lost to the publick with all the pomp of system and severity of science, the criticism would, perhaps, have been admired, and the poem still have been neglected; but, by the blandishments of gentleness and facility, he has made Milton an universal favourite, with whom readers of every class think it necessary to be pleased.

He descended, now and then, to lower disquisitions; and, by a serious display of the beauties of Chevy-Chase, exposed himself to the ridicule of Wagstaffe, who bestowed a like pompous character on Tom Thumb; and to the contempt of Dennis, who, considering the fundamental position of his criticism, that Chevy-Chase pleases, and ought to please, because it is natural, observes, "that there is a way of deviating from nature, by bombast or tumour, which soars above nature, and enlarges images beyond their real bulk; by affectation, which forsakes nature in quest of something unsuitable; and by imbecility, which degrades nature by faintness and diminution, by obscuring its appearances, and weakening its effects." In Chevy-Chase there is not much of either bombast or affectation; but there is chill and lifeless imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a manner that shall make less impression on the mind.

Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found specimens of criticism sufficiently subtile and refined: let them peruse, likewise, his essays on Wit, and on the Pleasures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions inherent in the mind of man with skill and elegance[203], such as his contemners will not easily attain. As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand, perhaps, the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestick scenes and daily occurrences. He never "outsteps the modesty of nature," nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion, nor amaze by aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity, that he can be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so much original, that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.

As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastick or superstitious: he appears neither weakly credulous, nor wantonly skeptical; his morality is neither dangerously lax, nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the author of his being. Truth is shown sometimes as the phantom of a vision; sometimes appears half-veiled in an allegory; sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy, and sometimes steps forth in the confidence of reason. She wears a thousand dresses, and in all is pleasing.

"Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet."

His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling, pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.

It was, apparently, his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction; he is, therefore, sometimes verbose in his transitions and connexions, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical, it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick[204]; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity: his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

[Footnote 154: Mr. Tyers says, he was actually laid out for dead, as soon as he was born. Addisoniana, ii. 218.

A writer, who signs himself T.J. informed Dr. Birch, (Gen. Dict. i. 62.) that Mr. Addison's mother was Jane Gulstone, a circumstance that should not have been omitted. Dr. Launcelot Addison had by his wife six children: 1. Jane, born April 23,1671. 2. Joseph, 1st May, 1672. 3. Gulstone, in April, 1673. 4. Dorothy, in May, 1674. 5. Anne, in April, 1676; and 6. Launcelot, in 1680. Both Gulstone and Launcelot, who was a fellow of Magdalen college, Oxford, were reputed to be very well skilled in the classicks, and in polite literature. Dr. Addison's living at Milston was 120l. per annum; and after his death his son Joseph was sued for dilapidations by the next incumbent. The writer abovementioned informed Dr. Birch, that "there was a tradition at Milston, that when at school in the country, (probably at Ambrosebury,) having committed some slight fault, he was so afraid of being corrected for it, that he ran away from his father's house, and fled into the fields, where he lived upon fruits, and took up his lodging in a hollow tree, till, upon the publication of a reward to whoever should find him, he was discovered and restored to his parents." M.]

[Footnote 155: "At the Charter-house (says Oldmixon, who was personally acquainted with Addison, and as a zealous whig, probably encouraged by him) he made acquaintance with two persons, for whom he had ever after an entire friendship, Stephen Clay, esq. of the Inner Temple, author of the epistle in verse, from the elector of Bavaria to the French king after the battle of Ramilies; and sir Richard Steele, whom he served both with his pen and purse." Hist. of England, xi. 632. M.]

[Footnote 156: Spence.]

[Footnote 157: This fact was communicated to Johnson, in my hearing, by a person of unquestionable veracity, but whose name I am not at liberty to mention. He had it, as he told us, from lady Primrose, to whom Steele related it with tears in his eyes. The late Dr. Stinton confirmed it to me, by saying, that he had heard it from Mr. Hooke, author of the Roman History; and he, from Mr. Pope. H.

See in Steele's Epistolary Correspondence, 1809, vol. i. pp. 208, 356, this transaction somewhat differently related. N.

The compiler of Addisoniana is of opinion, that Addison's conduct on this occasion was dictated by the kindest motives; and that the step apparently so severe, was designed to awaken him, if possible, to a sense of the impropriety of his mode and habits of life. ED.]

[Footnote 158: He took the degree of M.A. Feb. 14, 1693. N.]

[Footnote 159: A letter which I found among Dr. Johnson's papers, dated in January, 1784, from a lady in Wiltshire, contains a discovery of some importance in literary history, viz. that by the initials H.S. prefixed to the poem, we are not to understand the famous Dr. Henry Sacheverell, whose trial is the most remarkable incident in his life. The information thus communicated is, that the verses in question were not an address to the famous Dr. Sacheverell, but to a very ingenious gentleman of the same name, who died young, supposed to be a Manksman, for that he wrote the history of the Isle of Man. That this person left his papers to Mr. Addison, and had formed a plan of a tragedy upon the death of Socrates, The lady says, she had this information from a Mr. Stephens, who was a fellow of Merton college, a contemporary and intimate with Mr. Addison in Oxford, who died near fifty years ago, a prebendary of Winchester. H.]

[Footnote 160: Spence.]

[Footnote 161: A writer already mentioned, J.P. (Gen. Dict, ut supra,) asserts that his acquaintance with Montague commenced at Oxford: but for this there is no foundation. Mr. Montague was bred at Trinity college, Cambridge.]

[Footnote 162: Lord Somers, on this poem being presented to him, according to Tickell, sent to Addison to desire his acquaintance. According to Oldmixon, he was introduced to him by Tonson. M.]

[Footnote 163: Spence.]

[Footnote 164: See Swift's libel on Dr. Delany. Addison's distress for money commenced with the death of king William, which happened in March, 1702. In June, 1703, he was at Rotterdam, and seems then to have done with his squire: for in that month the duke of Somerset wrote a letter to old Jacob Tonson, (of which I have a copy,) proposing that Addison should be tutor to his son, (who was then going abroad.) "Neither lodging, diet, or travelling," says the duke, "shall cost him sixpence: and over and above that, my son shall present him, at the year's end, with a hundred guineas, as long as he is pleased to continue in that service." Mr. Addison declined this magnificent offer in these words, as appears from another letter of the duke's to Tonson: "As for the recompence that is proposed to me, I must confess I can by no means see my account in it." M.]

[Footnote 165: In this letter he uses the phrase classick ground, which has since become so common, but never had been employed before: it was ridiculed by some of his contemporary writers (I forget which) as very quaint and affected. M.]

[Footnote 166: It is incorrect that Addison's stay in foreign countries was but short. He went to travel in 1700, and did not return till the latter end of 1703; so that he was abroad near four years. M.]

[Footnote 167: Addison's father, who was then dean of Lichfield, died in April, 1703; a circumstance which should have been mentioned on his tomb at Lichfield: he is said to have been seventy-one.]

[Footnote 168: Rosamond was first exhibited, March 4th, 1707, and, after three representations, was laid aside. M.]

[Footnote 169: Thomas earl of Wharton was constituted lord lieutenant of Ireland Dec. 4, 1708, and went there in April, 1709. He was not made a marquis till Dec. 1714. M.]

[Footnote 170: The first number of the Tatler was published April 12, 1709. The last (271) Jan. 2, 1710-11. The first number of the Spectator appeared March 1, 1710-11, and N deg.. 555, which is the last of the seventh volume, was published Dec. 6, 1712. The paper was then discontinued, and was recommenced, June 18, 1714, when N deg.. 556 appeared. From thence, to N deg.. 635 inclusive, forms the eighth volume. M.]

[Footnote 171: This particular number of the Spectator, it is said, was not published till twelve o'clock, that it might come out precisely at the hour of her majesty's breakfast, and that no time might be left for deliberating about serving it up with that meal, as usual. See the edition of the Tatler with notes, vol. vi. No. 271, note; p. 462, Sec. N.]

[Footnote 172: Newspapers appear to have had an earlier date than here assigned. Cleiveland, in his Character of a London Diurnal, says, "the original sinner of this kind was Dutch; Gallo-belgicus the Protoplast, and the Modern Mercuries but Hans en kelders." Some intelligence given by Mercurius Gallo-belgicus is mentioned in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 126, originally published in 1602. These vehicles of information are often mentioned in the plays of James and Charles the first. R.

See Idler, N. 7, and note; and Idler, N. 40, and note. Ed.]

[Footnote 173: The errors in this account are explained at considerable length in the preface to the Spectator, prefixed to the edition in the British Essayists. The original delineation of sir Roger undoubtedly belongs to Steele.

See, however, Addisoniana, vol. i.]

[Footnote 174: That this calculation is not exaggerated, that it is even much below the real number, see the notes on the Taller, edit. 1786, vol. vi. 452. N—See likewise prefatory notice to the Rambler, vol. ii. p. viii. of the present edition. ED.]

[Footnote 175: Tickell says, "he took up a design of writing a play upon this subject when he was at the university, and even attempted something in it then, though not a line as it now stands. The work was performed by him in his travels, and retouched in England, without any formed design of bringing it on the stage." Cibber (Apol. 377.) says, that in 1704 he had the pleasure of reading the first four acts of Cato (which were all that were then written) privately with sir Richard Steele; and Steele told him they were written in Italy. M.]

[Footnote 176: The story about Hughes was first told by Oldmixon, in his Art of Criticism, 1728. M.]

[Footnote 177: Spence.]

[Footnote 178: Alluding to the duke of Marlborough, at that time suspected of an ambitious aim to obtain the post of general in chief for life. ED.]

[Footnote 179: Spence.]

[Footnote 180: The Guardian was published in the interval between the Spectator's being laid down and taken up again. The first number was published March 12, 1713; and the last appeared October 1st, 1713. M.]

[Footnote 181: From a tory song in vogue at the time, the burden whereof is,

And he, that will this health deny, Down among the dead men let him lie.

H.]

[Footnote 182: Addison wrote twenty-three papers out of forty-five, viz. Numbs. 556, 557, 558, 559, 561, 562. 565. 567, 568, 569. 571. 574, 575. 579, 580. 582,583, 584, 585. 590. 592. 598. 600; so that he produced more than one half.]

[Footnote 183: When lord Sunderland was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, in 1714, Addison was appointed his secretary. Johnson has omitted another step in his promotions. He was, in 1715, made a lord of trade. M.]

[Footnote 184: August 2.]

[Footnote 185: Spence.]

[Footnote 186: It has been said, that Addison first discovered his addresses to the countess of Warwick would not be unacceptable, from the manner of her receiving such an article in the newspapers, of his own inserting, at which, when he read it to her, he affected to be much astonished. Many anecdotes are on record of Addison's tavern resorts when Holland-house was rendered disagreeable by the haughty caprices of his aristocratic bride. When he had suffered any vexation from her, he would propose to withdraw the club from Button's, who had been a servant in the countess's family. ED.]

[Footnote 187: Spence.]

[Footnote 188: Spence.]

[Footnote 189: This is inaccurately stated. Pope does not mention the conjecture of Tonson at all. Spence himself has mentioned it from Tonson's own information; for he has subscribed the name of Tonson to the paragraph in question, according to his constant practice of stating the name of his informer. M.]

[Footnote 190: Spence.]

[Footnote 191: This account of Addison's death is from Dr. Young, who calls lord Warwick a youth finely accomplished; and does not give the least ground for the representation in the text, that he was of irregular life, and that this was a last effort of Addison's to reclaim him. M.—Dr. Young was far too much of a courtier to see the vices of a peer, but even his guarded statement does give ground for Dr. Johnson's conclusion. His words are, "finely accomplished, but not above being the better for good impressions from a dying friend." ED.]

[Footnote 192: Who died at Bilton, in Warwickshire, at a very advanced age, in 1797. See Gent. Mag. vol. lxvii. p. 256. 385. N.]

[Footnote 193: Spence.]

[Footnote 194: Tonson and Spence.]

[Footnote 195: Spence.]

[Footnote 196: Spence.]

[Footnote 197: Spence.]

[Footnote 198: "Paint means," says Dr. Warton, "express, or describe them."]

[Footnote 199: But, according to Dr. Warton, "ought not to have intended."]

[Footnote 200: Spence.]

[Footnote 201: The person meant by the initials, J.G. is sir John Gibson, lieutenant-governor of Portsmouth in the year 1710, and afterwards. He was much beloved in the army, and by the common soldiers called Johnny Gibson. H.]

[Footnote 202: Taste must decide. WARTON.]

[Footnote 203: Far, in Dr. Warton's opinion, beyond Dryden.]

[Footnote 204: But, says Dr. Warton, he sometimes is so; and, in another manuscript note, he adds, often so.]



HUGHES

John Hughes, the son of a citizen of London, and of Anne Burgess, of an ancient family in Wiltshire, was born at Marlborough, July 29, 1677. He was educated at a private school; and though his advances in literature are in the Biographia very ostentatiously displayed, the name of his master is somewhat ungratefully concealed[205].

At nineteen he drew the plan of a tragedy; and paraphrased, rather too diffusely, the ode of Horace which begins "Integer vitas." To poetry he added the science of musick, in which he seems to have attained considerable skill, together with the practice of design, or rudiments of painting.

His studies did not withdraw him wholly from business, nor did business hinder him from study. He had a place in the office of ordnance; and was secretary to several commissions for purchasing lands necessary to secure the royal docks at Chatham and Portsmouth; yet found time to acquaint himself with modern languages.

In 1697 he published a poem on the Peace of Ryswick: and, in 1699, another piece, called the Court of Neptune, on the return of king William, which he addressed to Mr. Montague, the general patron of the followers of the muses. The same year he produced a song on the duke of Gloucester's birthday.

He did not confine himself to poetry, but cultivated other kinds of writing with great success; and about this time showed his knowledge of human nature by an essay on the Pleasure of being deceived. In 1702, he published, on the death of king William, a Pindarick ode, called the House of Nassau; and wrote another paraphrase on the "Otium Divos" of Horace.

In 1703, his ode on Musick was performed at Stationers' hall; and he wrote afterwards six cantatas, which were set to musick by the greatest master of that time, and seem intended to oppose or exclude the Italian opera, an exotick and irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed.

His reputation was now so far advanced, that the publick began to pay reverence to his name; and he was solicited to prefix a preface to the translation of Boccalini, a writer whose satirical vein cost him his life in Italy, but who never, I believe, found many readers in this country, even though introduced by such powerful recommendation.

He translated Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead; and his version was, perhaps, read at that time, but is now neglected; for by a book not necessary, and owing its reputation wholly to its turn of diction, little notice can be gained but from those who can enjoy the graces of the original. To the dialogues of Fontenelle he added two composed by himself; and, though not only an honest but a pious man, dedicated his work to the earl of Wharton. He judged skilfully enough of his own interest; for Wharton, when he went lord lieutenant to Ireland, offered to take Hughes with him, and establish him; but Hughes, having hopes or promises from another man in power, of some provision more suitable to his inclination, declined Wharton's offer, and obtained nothing from the other.

He translated the Miser of Moliere, which he never offered to the stage; and occasionally amused himself with making versions of favourite scenes in other plays.

Being now received as a wit among the wits, he paid his contributions to literary undertakings, and assisted both the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. In 1712, he translated Vertot's History of the Revolution of Portugal; produced an Ode to the Creator of the World, from the Fragments of Orpheus; and brought upon the stage an opera, called Calypso and Telemachus, intended to show that the English language might be very happily adapted to musick. This was impudently opposed by those who were employed in the Italian opera; and, what cannot be told without indignation, the intruders had such interest with the duke of Shrewsbury, then lord chamberlain, who had married an Italian, as to obtain an obstruction of the profits, though not an inhibition of the performance.

There was, at this time, a project formed by Tonson for a translation of the Pharsalia by several hands; and Hughes englished the tenth book. But this design, as must often happen where the concurrence of many is necessary, fell to the ground; and the whole work was afterwards performed by Rowe.

His acquaintance with the great writers of his time appears to have been very general; but of his intimacy with Addison there is a remarkable proof. It is told, on good authority, that Cato was finished and played by his persuasion. It had long wanted the last act, which he was desired by Addison to supply. If the request was sincere, it proceeded from an opinion, whatever it was, that did not last long; for when Hughes came in a week to show him his first attempt, he found half an act written by Addison himself.

He afterwards published the works of Spenser, with his life, a glossary, and a discourse on allegorical poetry; a work for which he was well qualified as a judge of the beauties of writing, but, perhaps, wanted an antiquary's knowledge of the obsolete words. He did not much revive the curiosity of the publick; for near thirty years elapsed before his edition was reprinted. The same year produced his Apollo and Daphne, of which the success was very earnestly promoted by Steele, who, when the rage of party did not misguide him, seems to have been a man of boundless benevolence.

Hughes had hitherto suffered the mortifications of a narrow fortune; but, in 1717, the lord chancellor Cowper set him at ease, by making him secretary to the commissions of the peace; in which he afterwards, by a particular request, desired his successor, lord Parker, to continue him. He had now affluence; but such is human life, that he had it when his declining health could neither allow him long possession, nor quick enjoyment.

His last work was his tragedy, the Siege of Damascus, after which, a Siege became a popular title. This play, which still continues on the stage, and of which it is unnecessary to add a private voice to such continuance of approbation, is not acted or printed according to the author's original draught, or his settled intention. He had made Phocyas apostatize from his religion; after which the abhorrence of Eudocia would have been reasonable, his misery would have been just, and the horrours of his repentance exemplary. The players, however, required, that the guilt of Phocyas should terminate in desertion to the enemy; and Hughes, unwilling that his relations should lose the benefit of his work, complied with the alteration.

He was now weak with a lingering consumption, and not able to attend the rehearsal; yet was so vigorous in his faculties, that only ten days before his death he wrote the dedication to his patron lord Cowper. On February 17, 1719-20, the play was represented, and the author died. He lived to hear that it was well received; but paid no regard to the intelligence, being then wholly employed in the meditations of a departing Christian.

A man of his character was, undoubtedly, regretted; and Steele devoted an essay, in the paper called the Theatre, to the memory of his virtues. His life is written in the Biographia with some degree of favourable partiality; and an account of him is prefixed to his works by his relation, the late Mr. Buncombe, a man whose blameless elegance deserved the same respect.

The character of his genius I shall transcribe from the correspondence of Swift and Pope.

"A month ago," says Swift, "were sent me over, by a friend of mine, the works of John Hughes, esquire. They are in prose and verse. I never heard of the man in my life, yet I find your name as a subscriber. He is too grave a poet for me; and I think among the mediocrists, in prose as well as verse."

To this Pope returns: "To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes; what he wanted in genius, he made up as an honest man; but he was of the class you think him[206]."

In Spence's Collections Pope is made to speak of him with still less respect, as having no claim to poetical reputation but from his tragedy.

[Footnote 205: He was educated in a dissenting academy, of which the reverend Mr. Thomas Rowe was tutor; and was a fellow-student there with Dr. Isaac Watts, Mr. Samuel Say, and other persons of eminence. In the Hora Lyricae of Dr. Watts, is a poem to the memory of Mr. Rowe. H.]

[Footnote 206: This, Dr. Warton asserts, is very unjust censure; and in a note in his late edition of Pope's works, asks if "the author of such a tragedy as the Siege of Damascus was one of the mediocribus? Swift and Pope seem not to recollect the value and rank of an author who could write such a tragedy."]



SHEFFIELD DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

John Sheffield, descended from a long series of illustrious ancestors, was born in 1649, the son of Edmund, earl of Mulgrave, who died in 1658[207]. The young lord was put into the hands of a tutor, with whom he was so little satisfied, that he got rid of him in a short time, and, at an age not exceeding twelve years, resolved to educate himself. Such a purpose, formed at such an age, and successfully prosecuted, delights as it is strange, and instructs as it is real.

His literary acquisitions are more wonderful, as those years in which they are commonly made were spent by him in the tumult of a military life, or the gaiety of a court. When war was declared against the Dutch, he went, at seventeen, on board the ship in which prince Rupert and the duke of Albemarle sailed, with the command of the fleet; but, by contrariety of winds, they were restrained from action. His zeal for the king's service was recompensed by the command of one of the independent' troops of horse, then raised to protect the coast.

Next year he received a summons to parliament, which, as he was then but eighteen years old, the earl of Northumberland censured as at least indecent, and his objection was allowed. He had a quarrel with the earl of Rochester, which he has, perhaps, too ostentatiously related, as Rochester's surviving sister, the lady Sandwich, is said to have told him with very sharp reproaches.

When another Dutch war, 1672, broke out, he went again a volunteer in the ship which the celebrated lord Ossory commanded; and there made, as he relates, two curious remarks.

"I have observed two things, which I dare affirm, though not generally believed. One was, that the wind of a cannon bullet, though flying never so near, is incapable of doing the least harm; and, indeed, were it otherwise, no man above deck would escape. The other was, that a great shot may be sometimes avoided, even as it flies, by changing one's ground a little; for, when the wind sometimes blew away the smoke, it was so clear a sunshiny day, that we could easily perceive the bullets, that were half-spent, fall into the water, and from thence bound up again among us, which gives sufficient time for making a step or two on any side; though, in so swift a motion, 'tis hard to judge well in what line the bullet comes, which, if mistaken, may, by removing, cost a man his life, instead of saving it."

His behaviour was so favourably represented by lord Ossory, that he was advanced to the command of the Catharine, the best second-rate ship in the navy.

He afterwards raised a regiment of foot, and commanded it as colonel. The land-forces were sent ashore by prince Rupert; and he lived in the camp very familiarly with Schomberg. He was then appointed colonel of the old Holland regiment, together with his own; and had the promise of a garter, which he obtained in his twenty-fifth year. He was, likewise, made gentleman of the bedchamber. He afterwards went into the French service, to learn the art of war under Turenne, but staid only a short time. Being, by the duke of Monmouth, opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of horse-guards, he, in return, made Monmouth suspected by the duke of York. He was not long after, when the unlucky Monmouth fell into disgrace, recompensed with the lieutenancy of Yorkshire and the government of Hull.

Thus rapidly did he make his way both to military and civil honours and employments; yet, busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, but, at least, cultivated poetry; in which he must have been early considered as uncommonly skilful, if it be true which is reported, that, when he was yet not twenty years old, his recommendation advanced Dryden to the laurel.

The Moors having besieged Tangier, he was sent, 1680, with two thousand men to its relief. A strange story is told of danger to which he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship, to gratify some resentful jealousy of the king, whose health he, therefore, would never permit at his table, till he saw himself in a safer place. His voyage was prosperously performed in three weeks; and the Moors, without a contest, retired before him.

In this voyage he composed the Vision; a licentious poem, such as was fashionable in those times, with little power of invention or propriety of sentiment.

At his return he found the king kind, who, perhaps, had never been angry; and he continued a wit and a courtier, as before.

At the succession of king James, to whom he was intimately known, and by whom he thought himself beloved, he naturally expected still brighter sunshine; but all know how soon that reign began to gather clouds. His expectations were not disappointed; he was immediately admitted into the privy council, and made lord chamberlain. He accepted a place in the high commission, without knowledge, as he declared after the revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the king to mass, and kneeled with the rest, but had no disposition to receive the Romish faith, or to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God, who made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily persuaded "that man was quits, and made God again."

A pointed sentence is bestowed by successive transmission on the last whom it will fit: this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the protestant religion, who, in the time of Henry the eighth, was tortured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the historian of the reformation.

In the revolution he acquiesced, though he did not promote it. There was once a design of associating him in the invitation of the prince of Orange; but the earl of Shrewsbury discouraged the attempt, by declaring that Mulgrave would never concur. This king William afterwards told him; and asked what he would have done if the proposal had been made? "Sir," said he, "I would have discovered it to the king whom I then served." To which king William replied, "I cannot blame you."

Finding king James irremediably excluded, he voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, upon this principle, that he thought the titles of the prince and his consort equal, and it would please the prince, their protector, to have a share in the sovereignty. This vote gratified king William; yet, either by the king's distrust or his own discontent, he lived some years without employment. He looked on the king with malevolence, and, if his verses or his prose may be credited, with contempt. He was, notwithstanding this aversion or indifference, made marquis of Normanby, 1694; but still opposed the court on some important questions; yet, at last, he was received into the cabinet council, with a pension of three thousand pounds.

At the accession of queen Anne, whom he is said to have courted when they were both young, he was highly favoured. Before her coronation. 1702, she made him lord privy seal, and, soon after, lord lieutenant of the north Riding of Yorkshire. He was then named commissioner for treating with the Scots about the union; and was made, next year, first, duke of Normanby, and then of Buckinghamshire, there being suspected to be somewhere a latent claim to the title of Buckingham[208].

Soon after, becoming jealous of the duke of Marlborough, he resigned the privy seal, and joined the discontented tories in a motion, extremely offensive to the queen, for inviting the princess Sophia to England. The queen courted him back with an offer no less than that of the chancellorship; which he refused. He now retired from business, and built that house in the Park, which is now the queen's, upon ground granted by the crown.

When the ministry was changed, 1710, he was made lord chamberlain of the household, and concurred in all transactions of that time, except that he endeavoured to protect the Catalans. After the queen's death, he became a constant opponent of the court; and, having no publick business, is supposed to have amused himself by writing his two tragedies. He died February 24, 1720-21.

He was thrice married; by his first two wives he had no children; by his third, who was the daughter of king James, by the countess of Dorchester, and the widow of the earl of Anglesey, he had, besides other children that died early, a son born in 1716, who died in 1735, and put an end to the line of Sheffield. It is observable, that the duke's three wives were all widows. The dutchess died in 1742.

His character is not to be proposed as worthy of imitation. His religion he may be supposed to have learned from Hobbes; and his morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions. His sentiments with respect to women he picked up in the court of Charles; and his principles concerning property were such as a gaming-table supplies. He was censured as covetous, and has been defended by an instance of inattention to his affairs; as if a man might not at once be corrupted by avarice and idleness. He is said, however, to have had much tenderness, and to have been very ready to apologize for his violences of passion.

He is introduced into this collection only as a poet; and, if we credit the testimony of his contemporaries, he was a poet of no vulgar rank. But favour and flattery are now at an end; criticism is no longer softened by his bounties, or awed by his splendour; and, being able to take a more steady view, discovers him to be a writer that sometimes glimmers, but rarely shines; feebly laborious, and, at best, but pretty. His songs are upon common topicks; he hopes, and grieves, and repents, and despairs, and rejoices, like any other maker of little stanzas: to be great, he hardly tries; to be gay, is hardly in his power[209].

In the Essay on Satire he was always supposed to have had the help of Dryden. His Essay on Poetry is the great work for which he was praised by Roscommon, Dryden, and Pope; and, doubtless, by many more, whose eulogies have perished.

Upon this piece he appears to have set a high value; for he was all his life improving it by successive revisals, so that there is scarcely any poem to be found of which the last edition differs more from the first. Amongst other changes, mention is made of some compositions of Dryden, which were written after the first appearance of the essay.

At the time when this work first appeared, Milton's fame was not yet fully established, and, therefore, Tasso and Spenser were set before him. The two last lines were these. The epick poet, says he,

Must above Milton's lofty flights prevail, Succeed where great Torquato, and where greater Spenser, fail.

The last line in succeeding editions was shortened, and the order of names continued; but now Milton is at last advanced to the highest place, and the passage thus adjusted:

Must above Tasso's lofty flights prevail, Succeed where Spenser, and ev'n Milton, fail.

Amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent: lofty does not suit Tasso so well as Milton.

One celebrated line seems to be borrowed. The essay calls a perfect character,

A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw.

Scaliger, in his poems, terms Virgil "sine labe monstrum." Sheffield can scarcely be supposed to have read Scaliger's poetry; perhaps he found the words in a quotation.

Of this essay, which Dryden has exalted so highly, it may be justly said, that the precepts are judicious, sometimes new, and often happily expressed; but there are, after all the emendations, many weak lines, and some strange appearances of negligence; as, when he gives the laws of elegy, he insists upon connexion and coherence; without which, says he,

'Tis epigram, 'tis point, 'tis what you will; But not an elegy, nor writ with skill, No Panegyrick, nor a Cooper's Hill.

Who would not suppose that Waller's Panegyrick and Denham's Cooper's Hill were elegies?

His verses are often insipid; but his memoirs are lively and agreeable; he had the perspicuity and elegance of an historian, but not the fire and fancy of a poet.

[Footnote 207: His mother was Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Lionel Cranfield, earl of Middlesex. M.]

[Footnote 208: In the earliest editions of the duke's works he is styled duke of Buckingham; and Walpole, in his Catalogue of Noble Authors, mentions a wish, cherished by Sheffield, to be confounded with his predecessor in the title; "but he would more easily," remarks Walpole, sarcastically, "have been mistaken with the other Buckingham, if he had not written at all." Burnet also, and other authorities, speak of him under the title of duke of Buckingham. His epitaph, being in Latin, will not settle the point. It is to be regretted, therefore, that Johnson adduced no better evidence for his doubt than his own unsupported assertion. ED.]

[Footnote 209: "The life of this peer takes up fourteen pages and a half in folio, in the General Dictionary, where it has little pretensions to occupy a couple: but his pious relict was always purchasing places for him, herself, and their son, in every suburb of the temple of fame; a tenure, against which, of all others, quo-warrantos are sure to take place. The author of the article in the dictionary calls the duke one of the most beautiful prose writers, and greatest poets, of his age: which is also, he says, proved by the finest writers, his contemporaries; certificates that have little weight, where the merit is not proved by the author's own works. It is certain, that his grace's compositions in prose have nothing extraordinary in them; his poetry is most indifferent, and the greatest part of both is already fallen into total neglect." Walpole's Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 436 of his works.]

END OF VOL. VII.