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please; and whilst the rich, the gay, the noble, and honourable saw how much he excelled in wit and learning, they easily forgave him all other differences. Hence it was that both his acquaintance and retirements were his own free choice. What Mr. Prior observes upon a very great character was true of him: 'that most of his faults brought their excuse with them '.'

23 'Those who blamed him most understood him least: it being the custom of the vulgar to charge an excess upon the most complaisant, and to form a character by the morals of a few who have sometimes spoiled an hour or two in good company. Where only fortune is wanting to make a great name, that single exception can never pass upon the best judges and most equitable observers of mankind; and when the time comes for the world to spare their pity we may justly enlarge our demands upon them for their admiration.

24 'Some few years before his death he had engaged himself in several considerable undertakings; in all which he had prepared the world to expect mighty things from him. I have seen about ten sheets of his English Pindar 2, which exceeded any thing of that kind I could ever hope for in our own language. He had drawn out the plan of a tragedy of the Lady Fane Grey, and had gone through several scenes of it. But he could not well have bequeathed that work to better hands than where, I hear, it is at present lodged 3; and the bare mention of two such names may justify the largest expectations, and is sufficient to make the town an agreeable invitation.

25

'His greatest and noblest undertaking was Longinus. He had finished an entire translation of the Sublime, which he sent to the reverend Mr. Richard Parker, a friend of his, late of Merton College, an exact critick in the Greek tongue, from whom it came to my hands. The French version of Monsieur Boileau, though truly valuable, was far short of it. He proposed a large addition to this work, of notes and observations of his own, with an entire system of the Art of Poetry, in three books, under the titles of Thought, Diction, and Figure. I saw the last of these perfect, and in a fair copy, in which he shewed prodigious judgement and reading; and particularly had reformed the Art of Rhetorick, by reducing that vast and confused heap of terms, with which a long succession of pedants had encumbered the world, to a very narrow compass, comprehending all that was useful and ornamental in

Prior wrote of the Earl of Dorset: His faults brought their excuse with them, and his very failings had their beauties.' Eng. Poets, xxxii. 133.

2

Post, SMITH, 53.

3 Post, SMITH, 54, 66; RowE, 16.
4' He was
an excellent classic

scholar, and was acquainted with the chief wits of the University, among whom he would be very merry and facetious, but he was very modest and even sheepish,and would be very shy in strange company. He was commonly called learned Dick Parker! HEARNE, Remains, iii. 24.

poetry. Under each head and chapter he intended to make remarks upon all the ancients and moderns, the Greek, Latin, English, French, Spanish, and Italian poets, and to note their several beauties and defects.

'What remains of his works is left, as I am informed, in the 26 hands of men of worth and judgement, who loved him. It cannot be supposed they would suppress any thing that was his, but out of respect to his memory, and for want of proper hands to finish what so great a genius had begun '.'

SUCH is the declamation of Oldisworth, written while his 27 admiration was yet fresh, and his kindness warm; and therefore such as, without any criminal purpose of deceiving, shews a strong desire to make the most of all favourable truth. I cannot much commend the performance. The praise is often indistinct, and the sentences are loaded with words of more pomp than use. There is little however that can be contradicted, even when a plainer tale comes to be told.

EDMUND NEAL, known by the name of Smith, was born 28 at Handley, the seat of the Lechmeres, in Worcestershire. The year of his birth is uncertain.

He was educated at Westminster. It is known to have been 29 the practice of Dr. Busby to detain those youths long at school, of whom he had formed the highest expectations3. Smith took his Master's degree on the 8th of July, 1696; he therefore was probably admitted into the university in 1689, when we may suppose him twenty years old.

His reputation for literature in his college was such as has been 30 told; but the indecency and licentiousness of his behaviour drew upon him, Dec. 24, 1694, while he was yet only Batchelor, a publick admonition, entered upon record, in order to his expulsion 5. Of this reproof the effect is not known. He was probably

[In 1777 the work was still unpublished. Gent. Mag. xlvii. 110, 371. In 1739 had appeared a translation of Longinus by William Smith, D.D., of New College, Oxford, afterwards Dean of Chester.]

2 Hanley Castle, near Upton upon Severn. Lewis's Top. Dict.

3 Ante, DRYDEN, 4. Four years after Busby's death W. Wogan, 'at about the age of twenty, being captain of the school, was employed

to copy the MS. of Clarendon's History, and stayed a year extraordinary at the School for this purport.' Burton's Genuineness, &c., Pp. 136, 140.

4 He matriculated at Christ Church on June 25, 1688, aged 16. Alumni Oxon.

5 Dec. 24, 1694, Ds. [Dominus] Smith was admonished for habitual irregularities in order to his expulsion.' Burton's Genuineness, &c., p. 42.

less notorious. At Oxford, as we all know, much will be forgiven to literary merit; and of that he had exhibited sufficient evidence by his excellent ode on the death of the great Orientalist, Dr. Pocock', who died in 1691, and whose praise must have been written by Smith when he had been yet but two years in the university.

31 This ode, which closed the second volume of the Muse Anglicana, though perhaps some objections may be made to its Latinity, is by far the best Lyrick composition in that collection; nor do I know where to find it equalled among the modern writers3. It expresses with great felicity images not classical in classical diction: its digressions and returns have been deservedly recommended by Trapp as models for imitation *. 32 He has several imitations of Cowley:

33

34

'Vestitur hinc tot sermo coloribus

Quot tu, Pococki, dissimilis tui
Orator effers, quot vicissim

Te memores celebrare gaudent.'

I will not commend the figure which makes the orator pronounce colours, or give to colours memory and delight. I quote it, however, as an imitation of these lines:

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So many languages he had in store,

That only Fame shall speak of him in more ".'

The simile by which an old man retaining the fire of his youth is compared to Ætna flaming through the snow, which Smith has

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Immane opus! crescentibusque

Vertice sideribus propinquum! Nequicquam; amici disparibus sonis Eludit aures nescius artifex, Linguasque miratur recentes,

In patriis peregrinus oris. Vestitur hinc, &c.' [for the continuation see next paragraph in the text].

Trapp continues:-'Quam eleganter ab instituto divertit, ut Babel et linguas confusas pulcherrime describat; inde quam eleganter redit ad laudes viri linguarum peritia insignissimi!' Praelectiones Poeticae, ed. 1722, p. 228.

5 'Who had so many languages in
store,' &c.

On the Death of Sir Henry Wotton,
Eng. Poets, vii. 113.

used with great pomp', is stolen from Cowley2, however little worth the labour of conveyance.

He proceeded to take his degree of Master of Arts, July 8, 1696, 35 Of the exercises which he performed on that occasion I have not heard any thing memorable.

As his years advanced, he advanced in reputation: for he 36 continued to cultivate his mind, though he did not amend his irregularities, by which he gave so much offence that, April 24, 1700, the Dean and Chapter declared 'the place of Mr. Smith void, he having been convicted of riotous misbehaviour in the house of Mr. Cole, an apothecary; but it was referred to the Dean when and upon what occasion the sentence should be put in execution 3.'

Thus tenderly was he treated: the governors of his college 37 could hardly keep him, and yet wished that he would not force them to drive him away *.

Some time afterwards he assumed an appearance of decency; 38 in his own phrase he whitened himself, having a desire to obtain the censorship, an office of honour and some profit in the college; but when the election came the preference was given to Mr. Foulkes, his junior; the same, I suppose, that joined with Freind in an edition of part of Demosthenes 5: the censor is a tutor, and it was not thought proper to trust the superintendance of others to a man who took so little care of himself.

From this time Smith employed his malice and his wit against 39 the Dean, Dr. Aldrich, whom he considered as the opponent of his claim. Of his lampoon upon him I once heard a single line too gross to be repeated.

But he was still a genius and a scholar, and Oxford was unwilling 40 to lose him: he was endured, with all his pranks and his vices, two years longer; but on Dec. 20, 1705, at the instance of all the canons the sentence declared five years before was put in execution 7.

Eng. Poets, xxv. 124.

2 Ode to Mr. Hobbes, Ib. viii. 136. 3 Burton's Genuineness, &c., p. 42. For the expulsion of six Methodists from Oxford in 1768 for 'publicly praying and exhorting' see Boswell's Johnson, ii. 187.

5 It was the same Peter Foulkes who, with John Freind, edited the

De Corona and In Ctesiphontem in 1696.

Burton's Genuineness, &c., p. 41. 7 lb. p. 42. [A writer who signs himself Philalethes Oxoniensis' contends in the Gentleman's Magazine (Sept. 1822, p. 222) that the evidence of Smith's expulsion for misconduct rests on untrustworthy report. He

41 The execution was, I believe, silent and tender; for one of his friends, from whom I learned much of his life, appeared not to know it.

42 He was now driven to London', where he associated himself with the Whigs, whether because they were in power, or because the Tories had expelled him, or because he was a Whig by principle, may perhaps be doubted. He was however caressed by men of great abilities, whatever were their party, and was supported by the liberality of those who delighted in his conversation.

43

There was once a design hinted at by Oldisworth to have made him useful. One evening, as he was sitting with a friend at a tavern, he was called down by the waiter, and, having staid some time below, came up thoughtful. After a pause, said he to his friend, 'He that wanted me below was Addison, whose business was to tell me that a History of the Revolution was intended, and to propose that I should undertake it. I said, "What shall I do with the character of lord Sunderland3?" and Addison immediately returned, "When, Rag, were you drunk last?" and went away.'

44 Captain Rag was a name which he got at Oxford by his negligence of dress*.

points out that the society of Christ Church consisted of 10 students, and of these the highest twenty (theologi) were required to enter into orders 'sub poenâ amotionis.' By 1705, sixteen years from his matriculation, according to a computation made by the list in 1822, Smith would have reached the number when he became subject to the statute, unless he obtained a faculty studentship.' He would not take orders and so ipso facto vacated his studentship.]

In 1690 he had become a student of the Inner Temple. Alumni Oxon. Ante, SMITH, 14.

2

3 Smith, I suppose, saw great difficulty in honestly drawing the character of the first Earl of Sunderland while his son, the second Earl, was Secretary of State. For the first Earl see Macaulay's Hist. i. 256.

4 Burton wrote more than twenty years after Smith's death:-' He was, and is still, commonly known by the name of Captain Rag.' Genuineness, &c., p. 40.

Lord Castledurrow wrote to Swift in 1736-'It grieves me to think that over Virgil and Horace Rag and Philips smoked many a pipe, and drank many a quart with me, besides the expense of a bushel of nuts, and that now I am scarce able to relish their beauties.' Swift's Works, xix. 17.

'The fair sex used at once to commend and reprove him by the name of the Handsome Sloven.' Biog. Brit. Supple. p. 162.

According to a writer in Gent. Mag. 1780, p. 280, he was nicknamed 'from his gown, which was always flying in rags about him, and to conceal which he wore one end of it in his pocket, a practice still common among the young Rags of the present day.' His fame lasted long. Fortythree years after his death Joseph Warton, in The Adventurer, No. 59, described how 'minute rhymers neglect to change their linen because Smith was a sloven.'

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