BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DR. HURD, LATE BISHOP OF WORCESTER. CONGREVE, in the county of Stafford, gave birth to the Rev. Dr. Hurd, Lord Bishop of Worcester. He was the second son of a most respectable farmer*, in that village, and * The following account of his family forms part of a letter from Dr. Hard to Dr. Warburton, and represents his filial regard in a most amiable and advantageous point of view. "I believe I never told you how happy I am in an excellent father and mother, very plain people you may be sure, for they are farmers, but of a turn of mind that might have honoured any rank and any education. With very tolerable, but in no degree affluent circumstances, their generosity was such, they never regarded any expence that was in their power, and almost out of it, in whatever concerned the welfare of their children. We are three brothers of us. The eldest settled very reputably in their own way, and the youngest in the Birmingham trade. For myself, a poor scholar, as you know, I am ashamed to own to you how solicitous they always were to furnish me with all the opportunities of the best and most liberal education. My case in so many particulars resembles that which the Roman poet describes as his own, that with Pope's wit I could apply almost every cir cumstance of it. And if ever 1 were to wish in earnest to be a poet, it would be for the sake of doing justice to so uncommon a virtue. I should be a wretch if I did not conclude, as he does, -si Natura juberet A certis annis ævum remeare peractum, Atque alios legere ad fastum quoscunque parentes, Judicio vulgi, sanus fortasse tuo.———— In a word, when they had fixed us in such a rank of life as they his more early years were necessarily past, in the observance of those humble, but not unpleasing occupations, which usually attend an agricultural life. He received the first principles of education from a man, well known in the religious world, as the editor of the Sacred Classics, Anthony Blackwall, master of an academy at Market-Bosworth, in the county of Leicester. He was afterwards placed under the care of the Rev. William Budworth, of Breedwood, of whom he retained the most grateful remembrance in the dedication of his Horace to Sir Edward Lyttleton. We are not sufficiently informed of the plan of education, Mr. Blackwall, or Mr. Budworth adopted towards their pupil, but from the distinguished eminence that pupil afterwards obtained, it may be fairly presumed, that it partook not of a system too prevalent at that time, and which was so well calculated to cramp the powers and fetter the exertions of youthful genius. From hence he was removed at the usual age to Emanuel College, Cambridge. Here he formed an intimate friendship with Mr. Mason, and other distinguished characters, and devoted himself to those calm enjoyments, which the cultivation of letters never fails to create; and in exercising those talents, which afterwards shone with such distinguished lustre. Here it was that he first formed that kind of friendship for Dr. Warburton, which is always entertained by liberal readers, for an author whose sentiments they approve, or whose talents they admire. He gives the history of the progress of this attachment in a letter dated Dec. 30, 1756. "In the first 'years of my residence in the University, when I was labouring through the usual courses of logic, mathematics, and philosophy, I heard little of your name and writings; and the little I did hear, was not likely to encourage a young man, that was under direction, to enquire farther afdesigned, and believed would satisfy us, they very wisely left the business of the world to such as wanted it more, or liked it better. They considered what age and declining health seemed to demand of them, reserving to themselves only such a support as their few and little wants made them think sufficient. I should beg pardon for troubling you with this humble history; but the subjects of it are so much and so tenderly in my thoughts at present, that if I writ at all, I could hardly help writing about them." ter either. In the mean time, I grew up into the use of a little common sense; my commerce with the people of the. place was enlarged; still the clamours increased against you, and the appearance of your second volume opened many mouths. I was then Bachelor of Arts; and having no immediate business on my hands, I was led by a spint of perverseness to see what there was in these decried volumes, that had given such offence. "To say the truth, there had been so much apparent bigotry and insolence in the invectives I had heard, though echoed, as was said, from men of note amongst us, that I wished, perhaps out of pure spite, to find them ill-founded, and I doubt I was half determined in your favour, before I knew any thing of the merits of the case. "The effect of all this was, that I took the Divine Legation down with me into the country, where I was going to spend the summer of, I think, 1740, with my friends. I there read the three volumes at my leisure, and with the impression I shall never forget: I returned to college the winter following, not so properly your convert, as all over spleen and prejudice against your defamers. From that time, I think, I am to date my friendship with you. There was something in your mind still more than in the matter of your book, that struck me. In a word, I grew a constant reader of you. I enquired after your other works. I got the Alliance into my hands; and met with the Essay on Portents and Prodigies; which last I liked the better and still like it, because I understood it was abused by those who owed you no good will. Things were in this train, when the comment on Pope appeared; that comment and the connexion I chanced then to have with Sir Edward Littleton, made me a poor critic; and in that condition you found me. I became on a sudden your acquaintance, and am now happy in being your friend." Such is Mr. Hurd's interesting account of the dawn of that friendship which subsisted, encreasing and undivided to the last: a friendship scarcely to be paralleled among men of letters, if we except the examples of Pliny and Tacitus, Boileau and Racine, Rucellai and Trissino. * Mr. Hurd was Sir Edward Littleton's Tutor when at college, VOL. I. 3 F Mr. Hurd continued rising gradually in his College, when the rectory of Thurcaston, in Leicestershire, becoming vacant, was presented to him by the fellows of Emanuel, and he therefore retired to that sequestered village, without forming a hope, or indulging a wish, for future promotion. Ambition, "that last infirmity of noble minds" appears to have had few charms for him, and he would probably have been as happy and contented in the humble possession of this rectory, as he was afterwards in receiving the homage of an extensive diocess. Previous to this he had devoted many hours to the writing an English Commentary and Notes upon Horace's Epistle to the Pisoes. The result of his labours was published in an octavo pamphlet in 1749. The text was printed from the edition of Dr. Bentley, with a few occasional deviations in those passages which appeared to Mr. Hurd, not exactly to correspond with the sense, the taste, or manner of the poet. These variations not being numerous, where any liberty of that nature was taken, the critic did not neglect to mark it with an appropriate note; for the rest, the apology of Heinsius formed the basis of Mr. Hurd's "Nobis viri doct: ignosceat, si hæc fusius præsertim si cogitent, veri critici e se, non literulam alibi ejicere, alibi innocentem syllabam et quæ nunquam male merita de patria fuerit, per jocum & ludum trucidare & configere; verum recte de autoribus & rebus judicare, quod et solidæ & absolutæ eruditionis est." This edition was accompanied by an introduction on epistolary writing, copious notes, and a commentary: the commentary was distinguished by a new consideration of the subject, and by a fancied discovery of a systematic plan, which Mr. Hurd supposed to have been adopted by Horace. Mr. Hurd was not satisfied with the idea, which Scaliger and Heinsius in common with many other critics had entertained, that the Ars Poetica was a collection, though not a system, of criticisms on poetry in general. This dissatisfaction originated in an idea, which he had formed, that the proper and sole purpose of the author, was not to abridge the Greek critics, nor to amuse himself with composing a short critical system, for the *The first literary effort of Mr. Hurd, was a porm inserted in the Cambridge Verses, on the pace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748. He proceeded A. B. 1738. A. M. 1742 general use of poets, but simply to criticize the Roman Drama. To this idea we have to remark, first, that the title will not by any means admit such a position; secondly, that the text will not warrant any inference of that nature; and thirdly, that by admitting such an inference, we must admit also, that Horace has most violently outraged one of his own fundamental principles; for no one can be said to be clear and perspicuous in design, who suffers eighteen centuries to elapse before that design is comprehended and explained. With respect to the system on which Horace is supposed to have erected his superstructure, we cannot do better than suffer his learned commentator to explain it himself. "The subject of this piece being, as I suppose, one, viz The State of the Roman Drama, and common sense requiring even in the freest forms of composition, some kind of method, the intelligent reader will not be surprized to find the poet presenting his subject in a regular well-ordered plan, which for the more exact description of it, I distinguish into three parts: I. The first of them (from 1. 1 to 89,) is preparatory to the main subject of the epistle, containing rules and reflections on poetry, but principally with an eye to the following parts, by which means it serves as an useful introduction to the poet's design, and opens with an air of ease and negligence, essential to the epistolary form. II. The main body of the Epistle (from 1. 89 to 295) is laid out in regulating the Roman stage; but chiefly in giving rules for tragedy, not only as that was the sublimer species of the drama, but as it should seem less cultivated and understood. III. The last part (from 1. 295 to the end) exhorts to correctness in writing, yet still with an eye, principally, to the dramatic species, and is taken up partly in removing the causes that prevented it, and partly in directing to the use of such means, as might serve to promote it. Such is the general plan of the Epistle: in order to enter fully into it, it will be necessary to trace the poet, attentively, through the elegant connections of his own method." To these distinctions we must merely allow the praise of |