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 2. 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.

In the Essay on Satire he was always supposed to have had the 23 help of Dryden3. His Essay on Poetry is the great work, for which he was praised by Roscommon *, Dryden 5, 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 24 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 25 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.'

''But let a lord once own the happy

lines,

How the wit brightens! how the style refines !'

POPE, Essay on Criticism, 1. 420. * For Macaulay's estimate of him see his History, iii. 11.

3 See Appendix DD. 'Happy that author whose correct Essay [way.' Repairs so well our old Horatian ROSCOMMON, Eng. Poets, xv. 79. 5 Dryden describes the author as 'a poet and a critic of the first magnitude.' Works, xiv. 233. In Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 877, he calls him 'the Muses' friend,

Himself a Muse.' For Sheffield's sneer at Dryden see ante, DRYDEN, 105.

'Such was the Muse whose rules and practice tell,

"Nature's chief master-piece is writing well."'

Essay on Criticism, 1. 723. The line quoted is the second in the Essay on Poetry. Eng. Poets, xxxii. 69. Pope introduces him also in Prol. Sat. 1. 139:

'The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read.'

? See Appendix EE.

'Mr. Pope altered some verses in it.' Spence's Anec. p. 292.

In the first edition of the Lives, 'written after the Essay.'

The first edition of the poem appeared in 1682. Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 197. It is not in the Brit. Mus. In the second edition (1691) Mac Flecknoe and The Hind and the Panther are mentioned. See also Eng. Poets, xxxii. 74.

26

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. a perfect character

The Essay calls

'A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw 3.' 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.

27 Of this Essay, which Dryden has exalted so highly 5, 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 connection 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 Hills were Elegies?

There's no such thing in nature, and you'll draw

A faultless monster, which the world ne'er saw.'

[I cannot find 'sine labe monstrum,' but Mr. John Marshall of Lewes informs me that in De Virgilii inaccessa divinitate, which begins 'Dulcis Virgilius, Latina Siren,' is a line

'O monstrum vitio carens.' Julii Caesaris Scaligeri Poemata (ed. 1600), p. 597.]

5 Your Essay of Poetry I read over and over with much delight and as much instruction, and, without flattering you, or making myself more moral than I am-not without some envy.' DRYDEN, Works, xiv. 140. Eng. Poets, xxxii. 73.

6

7

Ante, WALLER, 128.

His verses are often insipid, but his memoirs are lively and 28 agreeable; he had the perspicuity and elegance of an historian, but not the fire and fancy of a poet'.

APPENDIX AA (PAGE 172)

In a note on Johnson's Works, vii. 482, it is stated that 'in the earliest editions of the Duke's Works he is styled Duke of Buckingham; and Walpole, in his Catalogue of Noble Authors [Works, i. 436], 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.'

Johnson's assertion is not unsupported. Salmon, in his Chronological Historian, 1733, p. 278, enters under March 9, 1702:- John Sheffield, Marquis of Normanby, created Duke of the County of Bucks and of Normanby.' The same title is given him in Cockayne's Hist. Peerage. Crull, in The Antiquities of St. Peter's, ii. 48, says that at the Duke's funeral Garter King at Arms proclaimed his title as Duke of Buckinghamshire. In An Account of the Pedigree of the Sheffield Family in the Duke's Works, ii. 351, he is so styled, though he signed his will Buckingham. Ib. p. 366. In the list of Peers in 1715 in Parl. Hist. vii. 28, he is entered as Duke of Buckinghamshire and Normanby. Bolingbroke, in 1722, wrote of him as Duke of Buckinghamshire (Swift's Works, xvi. 378), and so did Pope in 1723. SHEFFIELD, 28 n. Jacob, in 1720, so described the Duke in dedicating to him his Poetical Register. In Macky's Characters (1733) the first Duke is so described. Swift's Works, xii. 224. In Brit. Mus. Cata. the same title is given at the head of the article. The title expired in 1735. See also SHEFFIELD, 21 n.

In Dodsley's London, ii. 41, is

'Pope wrote to Caryl in 1722 :'I have the care of overlooking the Duke of Buckingham's papers, and correcting the press. That will be a very beautiful book.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vi. 280.

Lord Carteret on April 18, 1722, 'signed a royal licence to protect the copyright of the Duke's Works. Before the book appeared the ministers learnt that it contained passages in favour of the Pretender. The impression was seized and the obnoxious leaves cut out.' Pope wrote to Carteret on Feb. 16, 1722-3:-'I am told... that I've been suspected

a letter of the Duke's describing

of putting that vile thing a trick upon you, in being the procurer of your licence to the Duke of Buckinghamshire's book.... I now think myself obliged to assure you that I never look'd into those papers, or was privy to the contents of them, when that licence was procured by Mr. Barber, to secure his own property.' Ib. viii. 191, x. 139. See also ib. v. 193, x. 198.

In the copy of this edition in the British Museum these passages are not cut out. The edition of 1729 contains 'The Castrations' in an Appendix.

Buckingham House. From the roof there is 'a far distant prospect of hills and dales, and a near one of parks and gardens.'

In Biog. Brit. p. 3661 it is stated that through his gaming 'a good part of the garden came into the hands of a person who insultingly grazed his sheep and oxen close under his Grace's window.'

The house (the site of Buckingham Palace) was bought by George III in 1761, and settled on Queen Charlotte. It was in the library that Johnson met the King. Boswell's Johnson, ii. 33 n.

APPENDIX BB (PAGE 173)

The Duke of Buckingham thought that the 'interests of the Catalans were too much sacrificed to the peace with Spain. He thought no sort of terms ought to be agreed on without first securing the lives and liberties of those poor people, who had entirely relied on England for protection.' Works, ii. 338.

In 1705, in the War of the Succession in Spain, Catalonia had risen against Philip V in favour of the Archduke Charles. Macaulay's Essays, ii. 73. In 1712, in the stipulations of the Peace of Utrecht, they were neglected. Swift, in The Public Spirit of the Whigs, answering Steele's Crisis, writes:-'Having mentioned the Catalonians Mr. Steele puts the question, "Who can name the Catalonians without a tear?" That can I.' Swift's Works, iv. 262. See also Parl. Hist. vi. 1308, for Steele's quotation of this passage in his Apology. Their abandonment made the sixth article in the impeachment of the Earl of Oxford in 1715. Parl. Hist. vii. 124.

APPENDIX CC (PAGE 174)

For the Duke of Buckingham's lines On Mr. Hobbes and his Writings see Eng. Poets, xxxii. 94. In his will he directed the following lines to be put on his monument :-'In one place :—

"Pro Rege saepe, Pro Republica semper."

In another place :

"Dubius, sed non improbus, vixi,

Incertus morior, sed inturbatus;
Humanum est nescire et errare:
Christum adveneror, Deo confido
Omnipotenti, benevolentissimo:

Ens entium, miserere mei." Works, ii. 364.

This epitaph gave rise to controversey. In 1721 Richard Fiddes, in an Answer to a Letter from a Freethinker occasioned by the late Duke of Buckinghamshire's Epitaph, quotes the letter of 'a Lady of the first Quality,' testifying to the frequency with which the Duke had taken the Sacrament.

'I like the Duke's epitaph,' wrote Erasmus Darwin. C. Darwin's Life of E. Darwin, 1887, p. 15. For Prior's epigram On Bishop Atterbury's Burying the Duke of Buckingham see Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 63.

APPENDIX DD (PAGE 175)

The Essay on Satire is included in Dryden's Works, xv. 200, and Eng. Poets, xviii. 124, where it is attributed to both poets. It is in Sheffield's Works, 1729, i. 111: Wood says that after a time Sheffield was generally thought to be the author.' Ath. Oxon. iv. 210.

Dean Lockier, who first met Dryden in 1685, said that 'Sheffield's Essay was a good deal corrected by Dryden. Could anything,' he continues, 'be more impudent than his publishing that satire, for writing which Dryden was beat in Rose Alley (and which was known as the Rose Alley Satire), as his own? He made, indeed, a few alterations in it first; but these were only verbal.' Spence's Anec. p. 63. Lockier seems to say that Dryden and Sheffield corrected the poem of some unknown author.

Malone shows that the defective versification proves that it is not Dryden's. 'If it be compared with the first copy of the Essay on Poetry, which is Sheffield's, a great similarity may be observed between them.' Malone's Dryden, i. 129. See ante, DRYDEN, 105.

APPENDIX EE (PAGE 175)

Rochester praised him in An Epistolary Essay: Eng. Poets, xv. 38. Walsh described him as 'a great modern critic.' Ib. xvii. 338. Garth, in the first edition of The Dispensary, paid him a compliment which he afterwards suppressed:

'The Tiber now no courtly Gallus sees,

But smiling Thames enjoys his Normanbys.'

Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ii. 80. Addison, in The Spectator, No. 253, calls the Essay 'a masterpiece.' The Hon. Simon Harcourt (post, POPE, 401) begins his lines To Mr. Pope:

'He comes, he comes! bid every bard prepare
The song of triumph, and attend his car.

Great Sheffield's muse the long procession heads
And throws a lustre o'er the pomp she leads.'

Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), i. 30.

Prior exclaims in Alma, ii. 305:—

'Happy the poet, blest the lays,

Which Buckingham has deigned to praise.'

Gay, in Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece, describes him as

'Sheffield, who knows to strike the living lyre,
With hand judicious, like thy Homer skilled.'

Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), v. 174.

Goldsmith writes of the Essay :-'It is enrolled among our great English productions. The precepts are sensible, the poetry not indifferent, but it has been praised more than it deserves.' Works, iii. 439.