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HAMMOND

1OF Mr. and

2

F Mr. HAMMOND, though he be well remembered as a man esteemed and caressed by the elegant and great, I was at first able to obtain no other memorials than such as are supplied by a book called Cibber's Lives of the Poets; of which I take this opportunity to testify that it was not written, nor, I believe, ever seen, by either of the Cibbers, but was the work of Robert Shiels, a native of Scotland 2, a man of very acute understanding, though with little scholastick education, who, not long after the publication of his work, died in London of a consumption. His life was virtuous, and his end was pious 3. Theophilus Cibber, then a prisoner for debt, imparted, as I was told, his name for ten guineas. The manuscript of Shiels is now in my possession. I have since found that Mr. Shiels, though he was no negligent enquirer, has been misled by false accounts; for he relates that James Hammond, the author of the following Elegies, was the son of a Turkey merchant, and had some office at the prince of Wales's court, till love of a lady, whose name was Dashwood, for a time disordered his understanding". He was unextinguishably amorous, and his mistress inexorably cruel.

Vol. v. p. 307.

2 For a curious account of the citizens of Edinburgh see Cibber's Lives, v. 164.

3 Cibber's Lives are not free from gross stories.

4 'The bookseller (said Johnson) gave Theophilus Cibber, who was then in prison, ten guineas, to allow Mr. Cibber to be put upon the titlepage as the author; by this a double imposition was intended: in the first place, that it was the work of a Cibber at all, and, in the second place, that it was the work of old Cibber.' Boswell's Johnson, iii. 29. For an attempted refutation of this see ib. 30 n. Colley Cibber died in 1757. On the title-page of vol. i 'Mr. Cibber' is given as the author; on the other volumes, Mr. Cibber and other Hands.' The Gent. Mag. 1753, P. 102, no doubt to expose the frauds,

announced the book as 'by Mr. Cibber Jun.' In the same volume, p. 590, in the notice of Robert Shiels's death, it is stated that he wrote 'great part of the Lives.' For Johnson's kindness to him see Boswell's Johnson, i. 187, 241.

Cibber received £21. In his receipt, dated Nov. 13, 1752, he undertook 'to revise... a work now printing in four volumes... that his name shall be made use of as the author.' Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 329.

5 Mrs. Pendarves (Mrs. Delany) wrote to her sister on Dec. 6, 1742:— 'I send you Hammond's Elegies on our friend; but don't name her when you show them. I am sure she must be touched when she reads them.' Mrs. Delany's Auto. ii. 203. The editor says that 'Mrs. Dashwood was the intimate friend' of the two ladies. Croker, in the Preface to Lord

Of this narrative, part is true, and part false. He was the 3 second son of Anthony Hammond, a man of note among the wits, poets, and parliamentary orators in the beginning of this century, who was allied to Sir Robert Walpole by marrying his sister'. He was born about 17102, and educated at Westminster-school; but it does not appear that he was of any university. He was equerry to the prince of Wales 3, and seems to have come very early into publick notice, and to have been distinguished by those whose friendship prejudiced mankind at that time in favour of the man on whom it was bestowed; for he was the companion of Cobham, Lyttelton, and Chesterfield'. He is said to have divided his life between pleasure and books; in his retirement forgetting the town, and in his gaiety losing the student. Of his literary hours all the effects are here' exhibited,

Hervey's Memoirs, p. 30, says:-
'Lady Corke, who died in 1840, at
the age of ninety-four, told me she
had known Kitty Dashwood very well,
and that Hammond undoubtedly
died for love; "the only instance of
the kind," she said, "that she had
ever known in her long life." Kitty
had at first accepted, but afterwards
rejected him on-Lady Corke thought
-prudential reasons. She died in
1779, bedchamber-woman to Queen
Charlotte.' As Hammond died four
years before Lady Corke was born,
all she had known was a woman for
whom a man was said to have died
for love. The bricks are alive at
this day to testify it.'

Horace Walpole wrote in 1761 :— 'It is comical to see Kitty Dashwood, the famous old beauty of the Oxfordshire Jacobites, living in the palace as Duenna to the Queen.' Letters, iii. 435.

Walpole's brother-in-law was neither the wit nor the father of the poet. For Horace Walpole's scornful mention of his uncle, a Norfolk squire, see ib. i. 247. The poet's father was Anthony Hammond, of Somersham Place, Huntingdonshire, M.P. for Shoreham. Gent. Mag. 1787, p. 780. Dr. Maty describes him as 'a good speaker in parliament, and well known by the name of "silvertongued Hammond" given to him by Lord Bolingbroke. He was a

man of wit, but wanted conduct, and
had, as Lord Chesterfield used to
say, "all the senses but common
sense. ." Chesterfield's Misc. Works,
i. 90.
He married Jane Clarges,
daughter of a nephew of the Duchess
of Albemarle. N. & Q. 2 S. xi.
493.

2 On May 22, 1710. Ib.
3 Frederick, Prince of Wales.
In the first edition 'patronage
and friendship.'

5 Johnson, speaking of Pope's 'noble friends,' says 'he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham.' Post, POPE, 272. To him Pope 'inscribed his Characters of Men Post, POPE, 202.

6

Lyttelton was the Prince's Secretary. Post, LYTTELTON, 6. In 1736, writing to Pope from Bath, he speaks of Hammond as 'the joy and dread of Bath.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ix. 173. Hammond praises Lyttelton in Elegy xiv. Eng. Poets, xxxix. 332.

? For his friendship with Chesterfield see Chesterfield's Misc. Works, i. 90, 225; Mahon's Chesterfield, iii. 452, v. 434; and Eng. Poets, xxxix. 329.

91.

Chesterfield's Misc. Works, i.

9 'Here': i. e. Eng. Poets, to which Johnson contributed the Lives as Prefaces. See also 'following,' ante, HAMMOND, 2.

4

of which the Elegies were written very early, and the Prologue not long before his death 2.

In 1741 he was chosen into parliament for Truro in Cornwall, probably one of those who were elected by the Prince's influence3; and died next year in June at Stowe, the famous seat of the lord Cobham. His mistress long outlived him, and in 1779 died unmarried 5. The character which her lover bequeathed her was indeed not likely to attract courtship.

5 The Elegies were published after his death'; and while the writer's name was remembered with fondness they were read with a resolution to admire them. The recommendatory preface of the editor, who was then believed, and is now affirmed by Dr. Maty, to be the earl of Chesterfield, raised strong prejudices in their favour 8.

6 But of the prefacer, whoever he was, it may be reasonably /suspected that he never read the poems; for he professes to value

According to Chesterfield they were written before the author was two-and-twenty years old.' Misc. Works, ii. 394; Eng. Poets, xxxix. 309.

2 The Prologue to Lillo's Elmerick. Ib. p. 336. Elmerick was published in March, 1740. Gent. Mag. 1740, p. 152.

3 According to Dr. Maty it was Chesterfield who procured Hammond a seat in parliament. Chesterfield's Misc. Works, i. 225. Chesterfield was one of the Prince's party. Hammond's brother-member was Clerk of the Household to the Prince. Parl. Hist. xii. 196. Mr. W. P. Courtney informs me that the Boscawens ruled Truro borough from 1659 to 1832. In 1741 Lord Falmouth [the head of the family] was in opposition to Walpole. It was no doubt through arrangement with him that the Prince of Wales in 1741 put in two of his sycophants.'

Thomson, describing Hammond as 'the darling pride, The friend and lover of the tuneful throng,' goes on to speak of

'that eager zeal To serve thy country, glowing in the band

Of YOUTHFUL PATRIOTS, who sustain her name.' Winter, 1. 555.

He died on June 7, 1742. Gent. Mag. 1742, p. 330. In Elegy xv he

says:

'To Stowe's delightful scenes I now repair,

In Cobham's smile to lose the gloom of care.' Eng. Poets, xxxix. 333. Pope, in Moral Essays, iv. 69, ends a passage on 'architecture and gardening' :

Nature shall join you; Time shall
make it grow

A work to wonder at-perhaps a
Stowe.'

5 On Feb. 17, 1779. Gent. Mag. 1779, p. 103.

Addressing Venus he says:'Deceived by thee, I loved a beauteous maid,

Who bends on sordid gold her low desires:

Nor worth nor passion can her heart persuade,

But Love must act what Avarice requires.' Eng. Poets, xxxix. 312. ? They appeared in 1743.

8 'Chesterfield,' wrote Maty, 'was greatly affected with his loss, and testified his regard by taking care of what he left behind him, his Delia and his works.' Chesterfield's Misc. Works, i. 226. For Chesterfield's Preface see ib. ii. 394; Eng. Poets, xxxix. 309.

them for a very high species of excellence, and recommends them as the genuine effusions of the mind, which expresses a real passion in the language of nature'. But the truth is these elegies have neither passion, nature, nor manners. Where there is

fiction, there is no passion; he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neæra or Delia 3 as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no passion*. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason suspect his sincerity. Hammond has few sentiments drawn from nature, and few images from modern life. He produces nothing but frigid pedantry. It would be hard to find in all his productions three stanzas that deserve to be remembered.

Like other lovers he threatens the lady with dying '; and what 7 then shall follow?

'Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corse attend;
With eyes averted light the solemn pyre,
Till all around the doleful flames ascend,
Then, slowly sinking, by degrees expire?
To sooth the hovering soul be thine the care,
With plaintive cries to lead the mournful band,
In sable weeds the golden vase to bear,

And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand:

Panchaia's odours be their costly feast,

And all the pride of Asia's fragrant year;
Give them the treasures of the farthest East,

And, what is still more precious, give thy tear '.'

Surely no blame can fall upon the nymph who rejected a swain of so little meaning.

His verses are not rugged, but they have no sweetness: they 8

'It was nature and sentiment only that dictated to a real mistress, not youthful and poetic fancy to an imaginary one.' Eng. Poets, xxxix. 309. * 'I saw Neaera, and her instant slave,

Though born a Briton, hugg'd the servile chain.' Ib. p. 311. 3 'No wakeful guard, no doors to stop desire,

Thrice happy times !—But oh!
I fondly rave.
Lead me to Delia; all her eyes
inspire

I'll do. I'll plough or dig, as
Delia's slave.'
Ib. p. 321.

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never glide in a stream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiack it is difficult to tell. The character of the elegy is gentleness and tenuity, but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge of English metre was not inconsiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our language affords'.

I

' Johnson quotes this opinion of Dryden (ante, DRYDEN, 24), with the variance of majestic for magnificent.

Dryden says of Annus Mirabilis : -'I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in

alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us.' Works, ix. 92.

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