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When he came to London his way of life connected him with the licentious and dissolute, and he affected the airs and gaiety of a man of pleasure; but his dress was always deficient ; scholastick cloudiness still hung about him; and his merriment was sure to produce the scorn of his companions.

With all his carelessness and all his vices he was one of the murmurers at Fortune; and wondered why he was suffered to be poor when Addison was caressed and preferred; nor would a very little have contented him, for he estimated his wants at six hundred pounds a year2.

69 In his course of reading it was particular that he had diligently perused and accurately remembered the old romances of knight errantry.

70 He had a high opinion of his own merit, and something contemptuous in his treatment of those whom he considered as not qualified to oppose or contradict him. He had many

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frailties; yet it cannot but be supposed that he had great merit, who could obtain to the same play a prologue from Addison and an epilogue from Prior3, and who could have at once the patronage of Halifax and the praise of Oldisworth.

For the power of communicating these minute memorials I am indebted to my conversation with Gilbert Walmsley, late register of the ecclesiastical court of Litchfield, who was acquainted both with Smith and Ducket; and declared that, if the tale concerning Clarendon were forged, he should suspect Ducket of the falsehood; 'for Rag was a man of great veracity.'

Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice.

He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy; yet he

'Dr Jortin told me that Smith thus saved the hire of a dress at a masquerade. To a grey stuff-damask man's night-gown [dressinggown] he stuck as many ballads printed on slips as would cover it. The company followed him up and down, reading the songs that stuck to his back, till one of them pulled one off. The example was followed, and in a short time Smith deplumed.' HAWKINS, Johnson's

was

Works, 1787, ii. 471.

For Savage's scarlet cloak and 'naked toes peeping through his shoes' see post, SAVAGE, 229 n.

2 Here too he was like Savage, who appeared to think himself born to be supported by others, and dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself.' Post, SAVAGE, 336. Ante, SMITH, 46. Boswell's Johnson, i. 81, 102.

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never received my notions with contempt. He was a Whig, with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him, and he endured me.

He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from 74 its vices or its follies, but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind; his belief of Revelation was unshaken; his learning preserved his principles: he grew first regular, and then pious.

His studies had been so various that I am not able to name a 75 man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great; and what he did not immediately know he could at least tell where to find. Such was his amplitude of learning and such his copiousness of communication that it may be doubted whether a day now passes in which I have not some advantage from his friendship.

At this man's table I enjoyed many chearful and instructive 76 hours, with companions such as are not often found: with one who has lengthened and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James, whose skill in physick will be long remembered; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend: but what are the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the publick stock of harmless pleasure 2.

In the Library at Oxford is the following ludicrous Analysis 77 of Pocockius 3:

'EX AUTOGRAPHO.

[Sent by the Author to Mr. Urry".]

'OPUSCULUM hoc, Halberdarie 5 amplissime, in lucem pro

'Boswell's Johnson, i. 159. The inventor of Dr. James's Powder. Ib. iii. 4. 2 'I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in his Lives of the Poets. "You say, Sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations." JOHNSON. "I could not have said more nor less. It is the truth; eclipsed, not extinguished; and his death did eclipse; it was like a storm." BOSWELL." But why nations? Did his gaiety extend farther than his own nation?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said—if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have gaiety,-which they have

not." Boswell's Johnson, iii. 387.
3 Ante, SMITH, 14, 30.

* Hearne (Remains, i. 314) records on March 19, 1714-15, the death of 'my great and good friend, Mr. John Urry, student of Christ Church. He bore arms against Monmouth in the rebellion called Monmouth's rebellion, as several other Oxford scholars did. He was a stout, lusty man, and of admirable principles. His integrity and honesty and loyalty gained him great honour and respect. He refused the oaths, and died a nonjuror.'

5 This, I suppose, means that Urry had been a halberdier.

ferre hactenus distuli, judicii tui acumen subveritus magis quam bipennis. Tandem aliquando Oden hanc ad te mitto sublimem, teneram, flebilem, suavem, qualem demum divinus (si Musis vacaret) scripsisset Gastrellus; adeo scilicet sublimem ut inter legendum dormire, adeo flebilem ut ridere velis. Cujus elegantiam ut melius inspicias, versuum ordinem et materiam breviter referam. Imus versus de duobus præliis decantatis. 2dus et 3us de Lotharingio, cuniculis subterraneis, saxis, ponto, hostibus, et Asia. 4tus et 5tus de catenis, sudibus, uncis, draconibus, tigribus et crocodilis. 6us, 7us, 8us, gus, de Gomorrha, de Babylone, Babele, et quodam domi suæ peregrino. Ious, aliquid de quodam Pocockio. 11, 12us, de Syriâ, Solymâ. 13us, 14a, de Hoseâ, et quercu, et de juvene quodam valde sene. 15us, 16us, de Ætnâ et quomodo Ætna Pocockio sit valde similis. 178, 18us, de tubâ, astro, umbrâ, flammis, rotis, Pocockio non neglecto. Cætera de Christianis, Ottomanis, Babyloniis, Arabibus, et gravissimâ agrorum melancholiâ; de Cæsare, Flacco, Nestore, et miserando juvenis cujusdam florentissimi fato, anno ætatis suæ centesimo præmaturè abrepti. Quæ omnia cum accuratè expenderis, necesse est ut Oden hanc meam admirandâ planè varietate constare fatearis. Subito ad Batavos proficiscor lauro ab illis donandus. Prius vero Pembrochienses voco ad certamen Poeticum 2. Vale.

'Illustrissima tua deosculor crura.

'E. SMITH.'

APPENDIX A (PAGE 18)

According to Oldmixon (Hist. of Eng. 1730, p. 227) Smith, on his death-bed, confessed the forgery, with great remorse, 'to the gentleman in whose house he died.' He mentioned, in particular, as his insertion, the passage where Hampden is compared to Cinna (Clarendon's Hist. 1826, iv. 94).

'The authenticity of Clarendon's History, though printed with the sanction of one of the first universities in the world, had not an unexpected manuscript been happily discovered, would, with the help of factious credulity, have been brought into question by the two lowest of all human beings, a scribbler for a party and a Commissioner of Excise.' JOHNSON, The Idler, No. 65.

[The first edition of Clarendon's History, published 1702-4, was not printed from the originals, but from a transcript. The editors (the Earl of Rochester, assisted by Dr. Aldrich and Bishop Sprat), 'in accordance with the discretion given them by Clarendon's will, softened

''Pro Flacco, animo paulo attentiore, scripsissem Marone.' SMITH. Pembroke College, one of the smallest of the Oxford Colleges,

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stands over against the great gate of Christ Church. It was not yet known as 'a nest of singing birds.' Boswell's Johnson, i. 75.

and altered a few expressions, but made no material changes in the text.' FIRTH, Dict. Nat. Biog. xxviii. 387. The actual MS. of the History seems to have reached the Bodleian from the hands of Dean Aldrich some time between 1711 and 1743. Macray's Annals of the Bodleian, 1890, p. 225 n. In 1826 the Clarendon Press published an edition of the History 'carefully collated with the original MSS. now in the Bodleian Library.' Preface, p. 5. See also the preface to W. D. Macray's edition of the History (Clarendon Press, 1888).]

For Oldmixon see post, Addison, 83. Aldrich, Atterbury, and Smalridge were successively Deans of Smith's College, Christ Church. For Aldrich see ante, J. PHILIPS, 3; for Atterbury, post, POPE, 131; for Smalridge, post, SWIFT, 27. Atterbury is the Dean of The Tatler, No. 66, who never attempts your passions till he has convinced your reason.

. When he thinks he has your head he very soon wins your heart.' Smalridge is Favonius of Nos. 72, 114, who 'abounds with that sort of virtue and knowledge which makes religion beautiful.' See the Preface to vol. iv of The Tatler.

[For many references to Atterbury, Smalridge, and Francis Gastrell, one of the Christ Church canons (alluded to as 'Gastrellus' in Smith's Latin letter on p. 22), see Canon Stratford's letters to Edward Lord Harley published in the Portland MSS. vol. vii Hist. MSS. Comm. 1901. For Gastrell's character see also Hearne's Remains, ii. 239.]

[George Duckett of Hartham (not Gartham, as Johnson gives it) was an intimate friend and regular correspondent of Gilbert Walmesley, to whose early kindness Johnson pays such graceful tribute (SMITH, 71-6). Some unpublished letters written by Walmesley to Duckett between 1711-15, which the kindness of Mr. C. E. Doble has permitted me to examine, very much bear out Johnson's remarks on Walmesley's character (SMITH, 73, 74). On Jan. 1, 1715, he writes:-'I see Capta Ragg's (SMITH, 44) Works are printed together..., with a hasty imperfect account of the author wrote by Oldisworth' (SMITH, 2).]

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DUKE'

F Mr. RICHARD DUKE I can find few memorials. was

He was bred at Westminster and Cambridge 2; and Jacob 3 relates that he was some time tutor to the duke of Richmond.

He appears from his writings to have been not ill qualified for poetical compositions; and being conscious of his powers, when he left the university he enlisted himself among the wits. He was the familiar friend of Otway; and was engaged, among other popular names, in the translations of Ovid and Juvenal". In his Review, though unfinished, are some vigorous lines. His poems are not below mediocrity; nor have I found much in them to be praised.

With the wit he seems to have shared the dissoluteness of the times; for some of his compositions are such as he must have reviewed with detestation in his later days, when he published those Sermons which Felton has commended 8.

Perhaps, like some other foolish young men, he rather talked than lived viciously, in an age when he that would be thought a wit was afraid to say his prayers; and whatever might have

Duke is not included in Campbell's British Poets.

* He was born about 1659, entered Westminster School in 1670, was elected to a scholarship in Trinity College in 1675 and took his M.A. degree in 1682. Dict. Nat. Biog. According to a statement in N. & Q. 3 S. xii. 21 he was born on June 13, 1658; but see ib. p. 69.

Poetical Register, ii. 50. The Duke was the son of Charles II and the Duchess of Portsmouth. Evelyn wrote on Oct. 24, 1684:-'What the Dukes of Richmond and St. Alban's will prove their youth does not yet discover; they are very pretty boys.' Diary, ii. 209.

He contributed to vol. i. of Dryden's Misc.

5 Otway addressed to him a poem

beginning:

'My much loved friend, when thou art from my eyes,

How do I loathe the day, and light

despise.' Eng. Poets, xv. 209. He replied in two Epistles, one in English, the other in Latin. 16. xxv. 229, 231.

6 lb. xxv. 144, 214; ante, DRYDEN, 107, 140.

It is an attack on the first Earl of Clarendon, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the Duke of Buckingham, and a laudation of the Duke of York. Eng. Poets, xxv. 133.

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Fifteen Sermons preach'd on Several Occasions, 1714. His preaching had been commended by Felton in 1710 in his Dissertation on the Classics, ed. 1753, p. 181.

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