38 39 It cannot but be proper to shew what they shall have to catch and carry : "Twas now, when flowery lawns the prospect made, Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar'd Unthought presage of what met next my view; And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers, Behold a town arise, bulwark'd with walls and lofty towers! Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd; With eager eyes beholding both from far, Namur, the prize and mistress of the war'.' The Birth of the Muse is a miserable fiction. One good line it has which was borrowed from Dryden3. The concluding verses are these: 'This said, no more remain'd. Th' ethereal host The father, now, within his spacious hands, Encompass'd all the mingled mass of seas and lands; He launch'd the world to float in ambient air ".' Of his irregular poems that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt seems to be the best 5: his Ode for Eng. Poets, xxxiv. p. 141. 2 Ib. p. 146. 3 [This 'miserable fiction' is full of semi-echoes from Dryden's poems, especially recalling his Astraea Redux, often in a most irritating manner from the half imitation of some 'full resounding line' of Dryden. Thus in Congreve's Birth of the Muse: 'The Fates at length the blissful web have spun, And bid it round in endless circles run' (Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 151) recalls 'And now Time's whiter series is and Cecilia's Day, however, has seems an inversion of Dryden's line 'The Godhead took a deep considering space,' (The Hind and the Panther, i. 256). Yet it is as hard to find any entire line that Congreve may be said to have here borrowed from Dryden as it is to discern Johnson's 'one good line.'] some lines which Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own '. His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphrastical, and the additions which he makes are of little value. He sometimes retains what were more properly omitted, as when he talks of `vervain and gums to propitiate Venus 2. Of his Translations3 the satire of Juvenal was written very 40 early, and may therefore be forgiven, though it have not the massiness and vigour of the original. In all his versions strength and sprightliness are wanting: his Hymn to Venus 5 from Homer is perhaps the best. His lines are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imperfect. His petty poems are seldom worth the cost of criticism: 41 sometimes the thoughts are false, and sometimes common. In his verses on Lady Gethin the latter part is an imitation of Dryden's Ode on Mrs. Killigrew'; and Doris, that has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, has indeed some lively stanzas, but the expression might be mended, and the most striking part of the character had been already shewn in Love for Love. His Art of Pleasing is founded on a vulgar but perhaps impracticable principle, and the staleness of the sense is not concealed by any novelty of illustration or elegance of diction. xxxiv. 185; ante, DRYDEN, 150; HUGHES, 6. 1 Post, POPE, 320. Dr. Warton points out the resemblance between Congreve's fifth stanza and Pope's second. Pope's Works, 1822, i. 199. 2 Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 172. 3 Post, POPE, 271 n. Sat. xi; Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 195. 5 lb. p. 305. 6 lb. p. 191. ''Whether around the throne eternal hymns She sings amid the choir of seraphims; Or some refulgent star informs and guides, Where she, the blest intelligence, presides.' CONGREVE, ib. p. 192. 'Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race; Or, called to more superior bliss, Thou tread'st with seraphims the 8 vast abyss.' DRYDEN, Ode, 1.6; ante, DRYDEN, 278. Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 230. The most agreeable kind of raillery is when the satire is directed against vice, with an air of contempt of the fault, but no ill-will to the criminal. Mr. Congreve's Doris is a masterpiece in this kind. It is the character of a woman utterly abandoned, but her impudence by the finest piece of raillery is made only generosity.' The Spectator, No. 422. See also the Dedication of Steele's Miscellany. 'Doris is, in truth, very acutely and pleasantly written, and, to this day, not a little startling.' LEIGH HUNT, Wycherley, &c., p. 42. In the scene between Scandal and Mrs. Foresight in Act iv. 10 All rules of pleasing in this one unite, Affect not anything in Nature's spite.' Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 271. 42 43 44 This tissue of poetry, from which he seems to have hoped a lasting name', is totally neglected, and known only as it is appended to his plays. While comedy or while tragedy is regarded his plays are likely to be read; but, except what relates to the stage, I know not that he has ever written a stanza that is sung or a couplet that is quoted. The general character of his Miscellanies is that they shew little wit and little virtue 3. Yet to him it must be confessed that we are indebted for the correction of a national error, and for the cure of our Pindarick madness. He first taught the English writers that Pindar's odes were regular5; and though certainly he had not the fire requisite for the higher species of lyrick poetry, he has shewn us that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in mere confusion there is neither grace nor greatness. SIR 3 BLACKMORE' IR RICHARD BLACKMORE is one of those men whose 1 writings have attracted much notice, but of whose life and manners very little has been communicated, and whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends 2. He was the son of Robert Blackmore of Corsham in Wiltshire, 2 styled by Wood 3 Gentleman, and supposed to have been an attorney: having been for some time educated in a country-school he was sent at thirteen to Westminster, and in 1668 was entered at Edmund-Hall in Oxford, where he took the degree of M.A. June 3, 16765, and resided thirteen years, a much longer time than it is usual to spend at the university; and which he seems to have passed with very little attention to the business of the place, for in his poems the ancient names of nations or places which he often introduces are pronounced by chance'. He afterwards travelled at Padua he was made doctor of physick; and, after having wandered about a year and a half on the Continent, returned home. In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence 3 compelled him to teach a school; an humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not Blackmore was included in the Collection on Johnson's recommendation. Post, WATTS, I. Southey approved of this inclusion. Cowper's Works, ii. 140. Of his poems The Creation alone is given in the English Poets. No specimen is given in Campbell's British Poets. He is in Cibber's Lives, v. 177. 2 'Johnson said the critics had done too much honour to Blackmore by writing so much against him.' Boswell's Johnson, ii. 107. 3 Ath. Oxon. iv. 791. 4 Cibber's Lives, v. 177. For Johnson's sarcasms against attorneys see Boswell's Johnson, ii. 126. 5 Dryden perhaps only alluded to medical degrees when he wrote of him (Works, viii. 482) :— 'Quack Maurus, though he never took degrees In either of our universities.' 6 In the first edition the sentence ends here. He was fourteen when he matriculated (Alum. Oxon.), so that he was born in 1654. 'Hearne, who was of St. Edmund's Hall, says that 'he was a great tutor, and much respected, as I have often heard.' Remains, ii. 169. 8 Ath. Oxon. iv. 792. Evelyn, in 1645, described Padua as 'this flourishing and ancient university.' Diary, i. 217. Gibbon, in 1765, spoke of it as 'a dying taper.' Memoirs, p. 166. It was perhaps at Padua that Goldsmith received his degree. Forster's Goldsmith, i. 71. For Johnson's resolve to go there see Boswell's Johnson, i. 73. 4 5 forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence: and let it be remembered for his honour that to have been once a school-master is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life. When he first engaged in the study of physick he enquired, as he says, of Dr. Sydenham what authors he should read, and was directed by Sydenham to Don Quixote; 'which,' said he, 'is a very good book; I read it still '.' The perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous in men of eminence to give way to merriment. The idle and the illiterate will long shelter themselves under this foolish apophthegm. Whether he rested satisfied with this direction or sought for better, he commenced physician, and obtained high eminence and extensive practice. He became Fellow of the College of Physicians, April 12, 1687, being one of the thirty which, by the new charter of king James, were added to the former Fellows 3. His residence was in Cheapside, and his friends were chiefly in the city. In the early part of Blackmore's time a citizen was a term of reproach; and his place of abode was another DR. DRAKE, quoted in Cibber's Lives, v. 177. See also ante, MILTON, 36. 2 Blackmore says that Sydenham, on the close of the Civil Wars, 'being a disbanded officer, entered upon the profession without any learning properly preparatory for it.' The advice he gave was 'to shew what contempt he had for writings in physic.' A Treatise upon the Small-Pox, 1723, Preface, p. II. Johnson, in his Life of Sydenham (Works, vi. 407), says that 'Sydenham might perhaps mean, either seriously or in jest, to insinuate that Blackmore was not adapted by nature to the study of physic, and that whether he should read Cervantes or Hippocrates he would be equally unqualified for practice.' See also ROWE, 19. 3 According to Dodsley's London, Would drink and doze at Tooting or POPE, Imit. Hor., Epis. ii. 2. 112. 5 'At Dick's and Batson's, and through Smithfield prais'd.' SMITH, Eng. Poets, xxv. 112. 'You limp, like Blackmore, on a Lord Mayor's horse.' POPE, Imit. Hor., Epis. i. 1. 16. 'The fame of this heavy poet was universally received in the city.' WARBURTON, Pope's Works, iv. 102. It was the stronghold of the 6 |