Car Scroop, who, in a poem called The Praise of Satire, had some lines like these : 'He who can push into a midnight fray 25 This was meant of Rochester, whose 'buffoon conceit' was, I suppose, a saying often mentioned, that 'every Man would be a Coward if he durst 4,' and drew from him those furious verses 5; to which Scroop made in reply an epigram, ending with these lines: 'Thou canst hurt no man's fame with thy ill word; 26 Of the Satire against Man Rochester can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away". 27 In all his works there is sprightliness and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life spent in ostentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be displayed &? * Eng. Poets, xv. p. 67. 3 I quote from memory. JOHNSON. 'Tofatal midnight quarrels can betray His brave companion, and then run away, Leaving him to be murder'd in the street, Then put it off with some buffoon conceit; This, this is he, you should beware of all, Yet him a pleasant witty man you call: To whet your dull debauches up and down, You seek him as top fidler of the town.' Roxburghe Ballads, iv. 570. The good he acts, the ill he does endure, 'Tis all from fear, to make himself secure. Merely for safety after fame they I 'Poema Cl. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, Ecce autem partes dum sese versat in omnes E cœlo quacunque Ceres sua prospicit arva, had made a selection. Johnson's 'The very name of Rochester is offensive to modest ears; yet does his poetry discover such energy of style and such poignancy of satire as give ground to imagine what so fine genius. a genius, had he fallen in a more happy age, and had followed better models, was capable of producing. The ancient satirists often used great liberty in their expressions; but their freedom no more resembles the li 28 centiousness of Rochester than the Nihil. 2 In the first edition and a later one that I examined it is 'Junonis sapiens.' Whether 'Zenonis sapiens' is Johnson's emendation, I do not know. It must be the right reading. Scire NIHIL, studio cui nunc incumbitur uni. Pura liquefaciunt simul, et patrimonia miscent, Vulneribus sævi NIHIL auxiliatur amoris. De NIHILO, NIHILI pariant [pariant Nihili] fastidia versus 1.' * According to Hawkins (Life of Johnson, p. 17) 'for the insertion of this poem Johnson had, as it is said, no other aid than his own recollection.' W ROSCOΜΜΟΝ ENTWORTH DILLON, Earl of Roscommon, was the 1 son of James Dillon and Elizabeth Wentworth, sister to the earl of Strafford. He was born in Ireland during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who, being both his uncle and his godfather, gave him his own surname. His father, the third earl of Roscommon, had been converted by Usher to the protestant religion3, and when the popish rebellion broke out Strafford, thinking the family in great danger from the fury of the Irish, sent for his godson, and placed him at his own seat in Yorkshire, where he was instructed in Latin; which he learned so as to write it with purity and elegance, though he was never able to retain the rules of grammar. Such is the account given by Mr. Fenton, from whose notes on 2 Waller most of this account must be borrowed, though I know not whether all that he relates is certain. The instructer whom he assigns to Roscommon is one Dr. Hall, by whom he cannot mean the famous Hall, then an old man and a bishop 5. When the storm broke out upon Strafford, his house was a 3 shelter no longer; and Dillon, by the advice of Usher, was sent to Caen, where the Protestants had then an university, and continued his studies under Bochart 6. * 'In the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1748 [p. 214], Johnson wrote a Life of Roscommon, with notes, which he afterwards much improved, indented the notes into text, and inserted it amongst his Lives of the English Poets.' Boswell's Johnson, i. 191. * About 1633. Dict. Nat. Biog. Strafford entered Dublin as Lord Deputy in July, 1633. Gardiner's Hist. of Engl. viii. 34. 3 Wood's Fasti Oxon. ii. 390. 'It was his grandfather, Sir Robert Dillon, second Earl, who was converted from popery; and his conversion is recited in the patent of Sir James, the first Earl, as one of the grounds of his creation.' MALONE, Johnson's Works, vii. 164 n. * Fenton's Waller, 1744: Observations, &c., p. 138. See post, FENΤΟΝ, 15. 5 It seems impossible to identify this 'Dr. Hall.' The 'famous Hall' is of course Joseph Hall, who was born in 1574 and made Bishop of Exeter in 1627, and of Norwich in 1641. He died in 1656. Samuel Bochart was minister of a Calvinist congregation at Caen, and, being professor in the Calvinist College there, was a teacher of such repute as to attract pupils from 4 Young Dillon, who was sent to study under Bochart, and who is represented as having already made great proficiency in literature, could not be more than nine years old. Strafford went to govern Ireland in 1633, and was put to death eight years afterwards. That he was sent to Caen is certain; that he was a great scholar may be doubted. 5 At Caen he is said to have had some preternatural intelligence of his father's death. 6 'The lord Roscommon, being a boy of ten years of age, at Caen in Normandy, one day was, as it were, madly extravagant in playing, leaping, getting over the tables, boards [table-boards], &c. He was wont to be sober enough; they said, God grant this bodes no ill-luck to him! In the heat of this extravagant fit he cries out, My father is dead. A fortnight after news came from Ireland that his father was dead. This account I had from Mr. Knolles, who was his governor, and then with him, since secretary to the earl of Strafford ; and I have heard his lordship's relations confirm the same.' Aubrey's Miscellany1. 7 The present age is very little inclined to favour any accounts of this kind, nor will the name of Aubrey much recommend it to credit; it ought not however to be omitted because better evidence of a fact cannot easily be found than is here offered, and it must be by preserving such relations that we may at last judge how much they are to be regarded. If we stay to examine this account, we shall see difficulties on both sides: here is a relation of a fact given by a man who had no interest to deceive and who could not be deceived himself, and here is, on the other hand, a miracle which produces no effect: the order of nature is interrupted to discover not a future but only a distant event, the knowledge of which is of no use to him to whom it is revealed. Between these difficulties, what way shall be found? Is reason or testimony to be rejected ? I believe what Osborne says of an appearance of sanctity may be applied to such impulses or anticipations as this: 'Do not wholly slight them, because England.... We may perhaps trace the "unspotted lays" of the poet [post, RosCOMMON, 24] to his Calvinist master.' PATTISON, Essays, i. 247. * Miscellanies upon various Subjects, by John Aubrey, 1784, p. 162. Johnson, after giving the evidences for second sight, continues: - 'Strong 2 reasons for incredulity will readily occur. This faculty of seeing things out of sight is local and commonly useless. It is a breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or perceptible benefit.' Works, ix. 106. |