About this time, if we mistake not, for Mr. Mason has not given the precise date, he wrote the beautiful stanzas on "Friendship," which that gentleman thinks one of his best and most finished compositions. What gives it a peculiar charm is, that it comes from the heart, and appeals with success to the experience of every man who has imagined what friendship should be, or known what it is. The celebrated Gray, according to Mr. Mason's account, "disapproved the general sentiment which it conveyed, for he said it would furnish the unfeeling and capricious with apologies for their defects; and that it ought to be entitled A Satire on Friendship." Mr. Mason repeated this opinion to the author, who, in consequence, made a cousiderable addition to the concluding part of the piece. "Still, however, as the exceptionable stanzas remained, which contained an apology for what Mr. Gray thought no apology ought to be made, he continued unsatisfied, and persisted in saying, that it had a bad tendency, and the more so, because the sentiments which he thought objectionable were so poetically and finely expressed."

This is a singular anecdote; how far Gray was right in his opinion may be left to the consideration of the reader, who is to remember that the subject of these verses is school-boy friendship. Some instances of its instability Whitehead may have experienced, and the name of Charles Townshend is mentioned as one who forgot him when he became a statesman. But it is certain that he had less to complain of, in this respect, than most young men of higher pretensions, for he retained the greater part of his youthful friendships to the last, and was, indeed, a debtor to friendship for almost all he had. What Gray seems to be afraid of, is Whitehead's admission that the decay of friendship may be mutual, and from causes for which neither party is seriously to blame.

The subject of this poem is not indirectly connected with the verses which he wrote about this time (1751) to the rev. Mr. Wright, who had blamed him for leading what some of his friends thought a dependent life, and for not taking orders, or entering upon a regular profession. For this there was certainly some plea. He had resigned his fellowship in 1746, about a year after he became one of lord Jersey's family, and with that, every prospect of advantage from his college. He had now remained five years in this family, and had attained the age of thirty-six,

without any support but what depended on the liberality
of his employer, or the sale of his poems. It was not
therefore very unreasonable in his friend to suggest, that
he had attained the age at which men in general have de-
termined their course of life, and that his
present situation
must be one of two things, either dependent or precarious.
In the verses just mentioned, Whitehead endeavours to
vindicate his conduct, and probably will be found to vin-
dicate it like one too much enamoured of present ease to
look forward to probable disappointment. He is content
with dependence, because he has made it easy to himself;
his present condition is quiet and contentment, and what
can his future be more? thus ingeniously shifting the sub-
ject from a question of dependence or independence, to
that of ambition and bustle. But although this will not ap-
ply generally, such was his temper or his treatment that it
proved a sufficient apology in his own case. Throughout
a long life, he never had cause to repent of the confidence
he placed in his noble friends, who continued to heap fa-
vours upon him in the most delicate manner, and without
receiving, as far as we know, any of those humiliating or
disgraceful returns which degrade genius and endanger

virtue.

The poems now enumerated and a few others of the lighter kind, he published in 1754 in one volume; and about the same time produced his second tragedy, "Creusa," which had not the success of the "Roman Father," although Mr. Mason seems inclined to give it the preference. But it ought not to be forgot that, with the profits arising from these theatrical productions, our author honourably discharged his father's debts.

About this time, lord Jersey determined that his son should complete his education abroad, and the late lord Harcourt having the same intentions concerning his eldest son lord viscount Nuneham, a young nobleman of nearly the same age, Mr. Whitehead was appointed governor to both, and gladly embraced so favourable an opportunity of enlarging his views by foreign travel. Leipsic was the place where they were destined to pass the winter of 1754, in order to attend the lectures of professor Mascow on the Droit publique. They set off in June, and resided the rest of the summer at Rheims, that they might habituate themselves to the French language, and then passed seven months at Leipsic, with little satisfaction or advantage, for

1

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they found the once celebrated Mascow in a state of dotage, without being quite incapacitated from reading his former lectures.

In the following spring, they visited the German courts, proceeded to Vienna, and thence to Italy. On their return homeward, they crossed the Alps, and passed through Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, being prevented from visiting France by the declaration of war, and landed at Harwich in September 1756. During this tour, Whitehead wrote those elegies and odes which relate to subjects inspired on classic ground, and in which be attempts picturesque imagery with more felicity than in any of his former pieces. He had, indeed, in this tour, every thing before his eyes which demanded grandeur of conception and elevation of language. He beheld the objects which had animated poets in all ages, and his mind appears to have felt all that local emotion can produce.

Mr. Mason complains that these elegies were not popular, and states various objections made to them; he does not add by whom: but takes care to inform us that the poet bore his fate contentedly, because he was no longer under the necessity of adapting himself to the public taste in order to become a popular writer. He had received, while yet in Italy, two genteel patent places, usually united, the badges of secretary and register of the order of the Bath; and two years after, on the death of old Cibber, he was appointed poet laureat. This last place was offered to Gray, by Mr. Mason's mediation, and an apology was made for passing over Mr. Mason himself, "that being in orders, he was thought, merely on that account, less eligible for the office than a layman." * Mr. Mason says, he was glad to hear this reason assigned, and did not think it a weak one. It appears, however, that a higher respect was paid to Gray than to Whitehead, in the offer of the appointment. Gray was Gray was to hold it as a sinecure, but Whitehead was expected to do the duties of the Laureat. In this dilemma, if it may be so called, Mr. Mason endeavoured to relieve his friend by an expedient not very promising. He advised him to employ a deputy to write his annual odes, and reserve his own pen for certain great occasions, as a peace, or a royal marriage: and he pointed out to him two or three needy poets who, for the reward of

*This office was held from 1716 to 1730 by Eusden, a clergyman.

five or ten guineas, would be humble enough to write under the eye of the musical composer. Whitehead had more confidence in his powers, or more respect for his royal patron, than to take this advice, and set himself to compose his annual odes with the zeal that he employed on his voluntary effusions. But although he had little to fear from the fame of his predecessor, he was not allowed to enjoy all the benefits of comparison. His odes were confessedly superior to those of Cibber, but the office itself, under Cibber's possession, had become so ridiculous, that it was no easy task to restore it to some degree of public respect. Whitehead, however, was perhaps the man of all others, his contemporaries, who could perform this with most ease to himself. Attacked as he was, in every way, by "the little fry" of the poetical profession, he was never provoked into retaliation, and bore even the more dangerous abuse of Churchill, with a real or apparent indifference, which to that turbulent libeller must have been truly mortifying. He was not, however, insensible of the inconvenience, to say the least, of a situation which obliges a man to write two poems yearly upon the same subjects; and with this feeling wrote "The Pathetic Apology for all Laureats," which, from the motto, he appears to have intended to reach that quarter where only redress could be obtained, but it was not published till after his death.

For some years after his return to England, he lived almost entirely in the house of the earl of Jersey, no longer as a tutor to his son, but as a companion of amiable manners and accomplishments, whom the good sense of that nobleman and his lady preferred to be the partner of their familiar and undisguised intimacy, and placed at their table as one not unworthy to sit with guests of whatever rank. The earl and countess were now advanced in years, and his biographer informs us, that Whitehead "willingly devoted the principal part of his time to the amusement of his patron and patroness, which, it will not be doubted by those who know with what unassuming ease, and pleasing sallies of wit, he enlivened his conversation, must have made their hours of sickness or pain pass away with much more serenity." The father of lord Nuneham also gave him a general invitation to his table in town, and to his delightful seat in the country; and the two young lords, during the whole of his life, bestowed upon him every mark of affection and respect.

During this placid enjoyment of high life, he produced "The School for Lovers," a comedy which was performed at Drury-lane in 1762. In the advertisement prefixed to it, he acknowledges his obligations to a small dramatic piece written by M. de Fontenelle. This comedy was not unsuccessful, but was written on a plan so very different from all that is called comedy, that the critics were at a loss where to place it. Mr. Mason, who will not allow it to be classed among the sentimental, assigns it a very high station among the small list of our genteel comedies. In the same year, he published his "Charge to the Poets," in which, as Laureat, he humorously assumes the dignified mode of a bishop giving his visitatorial instructions to his clergy. He is said to have designed this as a continuation of "The Dangers of writing verse." There seems, however, no very close connection, while as a poem it is far superior, not only in elegance and harmony of verse, but in the alternation of serious advice and genuine humour, the whole chastened by candour for his brethren, and a kindly wish to protect them from the fastidiousness of criticism, as well as to heal the mutual animosities of the genus irritabile. But, laudable as the attempt was, he had not even the happiness to conciliate those whose cause he pleaded. Churchill, from this time, attacked him whenever he attacked any, but Whitehead disdained to reply, and only adverted to the animosity of that poet in a few lines which he wrote towards the close of his life, and which appear to be part of some longer poem. They have already been noticed in the life of Churchill. One consequence of Churchill's animosity, neither silence nor resentment could avert. Churchill, at this time, had possession of the town, and made some characters unpopular, merely by joining them with others who were really so. Garrick was so frightened at the abuse he threw out against Whitehead, that he would not venture to bring out a tragedy which the latter offered to him. Such is Mr. Mason's account, but if it was likely to succeed, why was it not produced when Churchill and bis animosities were forgotten? The story, however, may be true, for when in 1770, he offered his "Trip to Scotland," a farce, to Mr. Garrick, he conditioned that it should be produced without the name of the author. The secret was accordingly preserved both in acting and publishing, and the farce was performed and read for a considerable time, without a suspicion that the grave author of "The School for Lovers"