5 6 sections, for each of which if he received half-a-crown his reward, as writers then were paid, was very liberal'; but half-a-crown had a mean sound 2. He was employed in promoting the principles of his party by epitomising Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams. The original book is written with such depravity of genius, such mixture of the fop and pedant, as has not often appeared. The Epitome is free enough from affectation, but has little spirit or vigour3. In 1712 he brought upon the stage The Distrest Mother, almost a translation of Racine's Andromaque. Such a work requires no uncommon powers; but the friends of Philips exerted every art to promote his interest. Before the appearance of the play a whole Spectator, none indeed of the best, was devoted to its praise; while it yet continued to be acted another Spectator couplet wherein a falsehood is told in bad English.' SOUTHEY, Specimens, ii. 112. The Introduction and the first 'Ten Days' fill seventy pages of a duodecimo in fair type. Johnson, who ' wrote 48 octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting' (ante, SAVAGE, App. FF), could have probably earned his eleven half-crowns for translating these eleven sections. Pope, in 1739, described Johnson as 'choosing rather to die upon the road [on his way to Dublin] than be starved to death in translating for booksellers.' Boswell's Johnson, i. 133. In Joseph Andrews, Bk. iii. ch. 3, a gentleman says that he had by translating 'in half a year writ himself almost blind, and half-worked and half-starved himself to death.' i. 394. In Macer Pope describes how Philips 'ventur'd on the town, And with a borrow'd play out-did poor Crowne.' John Crowne, a dramatist, was notorious for plagiarism.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 467 Philips told me,' said Garrick, 'that during his writing the madscene he was so carried away by his enthusiastic rapture, that when Mr. Addison came into the room he did not know him, and that, as soon as he recovered from his fit, he said to him:-"What, Joe, is it you?" "That," said Quin, was to let you know how familiar he was with Mr. Addison.' Davies's Dram. Misc. iii. 284. 6 No. 290, Feb. 1, 1711-12, by Steele. was written, to tell what impression it made upon Sir Roger1; and on the first night a select audience, says Pope, was called together to applaud it2. It was concluded with the most successful Epilogue that was 7 ever yet spoken on the English theatre. The three first nights it was recited twice, and not only continued to be demanded through the run, as it is termed, of the play, but whenever it is recalled to the stage, where by peculiar fortune, though a copy from the French, it yet keeps its place3, the Epilogue is still expected, and is still spoken⭑. The propriety of epilogues in general, and consequently of this, 8 was questioned by a correspondent of The Spectator, whose Letter was undoubtedly admitted for the sake of the Answer, which soon followed, written with much zeal and acrimony 5. The attack and the defence equally contributed to stimulate curiosity and continue attention. It may be discovered in the defence that Prior's Epilogue to Phædra' had a little excited jealousy; and something of Prior's plan may be discovered in the performance of his rival. Of this distinguished Epilogue the reputed author was the 9 wretched Budgel, whom Addison used to denominate 'the man who calls me cousin"'; and when he was asked how such a silly fellow could write so well, replied, 'The Epilogue was quite another thing when I saw it first. It was known in Tonson's family, I No. 335, March 25, 1712, by Addison. It was puffed also, more or less directly, in Nos. 334, 338, 341. 'Many days,' writes Cibber (Apology, p. 283), had our house [Drury Lane Theatre] been filled by the influence of Steele's pen.' 'An audience was laid for The Distrest Mother? POPE, Spence's Anec. p. 46; ante, ADDISON, 59. 3' It never fails bringing tears into the eyes of a sensible audience, and will, perhaps, ever continue to be a stock play on the lists of the theatres.' Biog. Dram. ii. 167. It was in the part of Orestes in this play that Macready, in 1816, first appeared on a London stage. Macready's Reminiscences, i. 125. In Brit. Mus. Cata. sixteen editions and told to Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of it, and that when it had been at first printed with his name, he came early in the morning, before the copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to Budgel, that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then making for a place1. 10 Philips was now high in the ranks of literature. His play was applauded; his translations from Sappho had been published in The Spectator; he was an important and distinguished associate of clubs witty and political; and nothing was wanting to his happiness, but that he should be sure of its continuance. 11 The work which had procured him the first notice from the publick was his six Pastorals3, which, flattering the imagination with Arcadian scenes, probably found many readers, and might have long passed as a pleasing amusement had they not been unhappily too much commended. 12 The rustick Poems of Theocritus were so highly valued by the Greeks and Romans that they attracted the imitation of Virgil, whose Eclogues seem to have been considered as precluding all attempts of the same kind; for no shepherds were taught to sing by any succeeding poet till Nemesian and Calphurnius ventured their feeble efforts in the lower age of Latin literature *. 13 At the revival of learning in Italy it was soon discovered that a dialogue of imaginary swains might be composed with little difficulty, because the conversation of shepherds excludes profound 'Johnson's wife had heard much the same story from 'Draper, Tonson's partner.' Boswell's Johnson, iii. 46. Warton had it from Garrick, who had it from some of the Tonsons. Essay on Pope, ii. 303. Budgell did not get a place till the accession of George I. Dict. Nat. Biog. 2 Nos. 223, 229; Eng. Poets, lvii.108. You have an admirable 3 Ib. p. 5. hand at a sheep-crook,' Addison wrote to him. Works, v. 383*. For Blake's 'twenty drawings to illustrate Philips's Pastorals' Gilchrist's Blake, i. 273. see Gibbon, writing of the year A.D. 282, says: The voice of congratulation and flattery was not however silent; and we may still peruse, with pleasure and contempt, an eclogue which was composed on the accession of the Emperor Carus.' In a note he adds:See the first eclogue of Calphurnius.' The Decline and Fall, ed. 1897, i. 338. Of Numerian, the son of Carus, he says that 'in an age very far from being destitute of poetical merit he contended for the prize with the most celebrated of his contemporaries.... He won all the crowns from Nemesianus, with whom he vied in didactic poetry.' Ib. p. 347. According to Professor Bury, 'Calpurnius wrote under Nero. Some of the idylls which were ascribed to him were written by Nemesianus.' Ib. p. 311 n. *This letter is conjecturally dated 'Dublin Castle, August, 1710.' The Pastorals, first printed in Tonson's Misc. 1709, were published independently in 1710. or refined sentiment; and, for images and descriptions, Satyrs and Fauns, and Naiads and Dryads, were always within call, and woods and meadows, and hills and rivers, supplied variety of matter, which, having a natural power to sooth the mind, did not quickly cloy it'. Petrarch entertained the learned men of his age with the 14 novelty of modern Pastorals in Latin. Being not ignorant of Greek 2, and finding nothing in the word Eclogue of rural meaning, he supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his own productions Eglogues, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by subsequent writers, and amongst others by our Spenser 3. More than a century afterwards (1498) Mantuan published his 15 Bucolicks with such success that they were soon dignified by Badius with a comment, and, as Scaliger complained, received into schools and taught as classical; his complaint was vain, For pastoral poetry see ante, MILTON, 181. Burns, in his lines On Pastoral Poetry, shows how Allan Ramsay succeeded in it where modern poets failed. 2 'As Petrarch advanced in life the attainment of the Greek language was the object of his wishes rather than of his hopes.... Boccace composed and transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey, which satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch.' GIBBON, The Decline and Fall, vii. 119, 121. 3 Johnson, in 1754, wrote to T. Warton:-'There is an old English and Latin book of poems by Barclay, called The Ship of Fools; at the end of which are a number of Eglogues; so he writes it, from Egloga, which are probably the first in our language.' Boswell's Johnson, i. 277. 4 'HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor, gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice; Venetia, Venetia, Chi non ti vede non ti pretia. Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.' Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2. 90. Johnson in his Shakespeare, ii. 160, quotes from Warburton a note of La Monnaye's:-'Il désigne le Carme de Baptiste Mantuan, dont au commencement du 16 me siècle on lisait publiquement à Paris les Poésies, si célèbres alors que, comme dit plaisamment Farnabe dans sa préface sur Martial, les Pédans ne faisaient nulle difficulté de préférer à l'Arma virumque cano le Fauste, precor, gelida, c'est-à-dire à l'Enéide de Virgile les Eglogues de Mantuan.' Mantuan was included by Colet in the list of Christian authors' to be taught in St. Paul's School. Masson's Milton, i. 76. [These are Bucolica F. Baptistae [Spagnuoli] Mantuani in Aeglogas divisa: Mantuae, 1498. The reference is to the elder Scaliger, who, after praising Baptista Fiera, also of Mantua, as doctus valde, valde accuratus sed durus,' continues, 'Eius popularis Carmelita (his fellow townsman the Carmelite) longe diversissimus, mollis, languidus, fluxus, incompositus.... Hoc propterea dico quia in nostro tyrocinio literarum triviales quidam paedagogi etiam Virgilianis pastoribus huius hircos praetulere. Adeo sui quisque sequitur Ideam ingenii.' Iul. Caesaris Scaligeri Poetices, 1561, libr. vi. p. 304 D. and the practice, however injudicious, spread far and continued long. Mantuan was read, at least in some of the inferior schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present century'. The speakers of Mantuan carried their disquisitions beyond the country, to censure the corruptions of the Church2; and from him Spenser learned to employ his swains on topicks of controversy. 16 The Italians soon transferred Pastoral Poetry into their own language: Sannazaro wrote Arcadia in prose and verse3; Tasso and Guarini wrote Favole Boscareccie, or Sylvan Dramas*; and all nations of Europe filled volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and Thestylis and Phyllis. 17 Philips thinks it'somewhat strange to conceive how, in an age so addicted to the Muses, Pastoral Poetry never comes to be so much as thought upon 5. His wonder seems very unseasonable; there had never, from the time of Spenser, wanted writers to talk occasionally of Arcadia and Strephon, and half the book in which he first tried his powers consists of dialogues on queen Mary's death, between Tityrus and Corydon or Mopsus and Menalcas 6. A series or book of Pastorals, however, I know not that any one had then lately published 7. There are in the British Museum five English editions of Mantuan's Bucolics printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they were translated into English verse by George Turbervile in 1567 and by Thomas Harvey in 1656.] Casimir's Latin poems were reprinted at 'Staraviesia ' in 1892 (624 pages) ad usum alumnorum S. I.' A copy is in the British Museum. For Casimir see ante, COWLEY, 137. 2 So did Milton in Lycidas. 3 Sannazaro introduces sea-calves in the room of kids and lambs, and presents his mistress with oysters instead 'of fruits and flowers.' The Guardian, No. 28. See also No. 32; The Rambler, No. 36; ante, COWLEY, 121 n. 6. 'The Bachelor bid Don Quixote be of good courage, and rouse himself to enter upon his pastoral exercise ; telling him he had already composed an eclogue for the occasion not inferior to any written by Sannazarius.' Jervas's Don Quixote, iv. 411. It was in the Court of Ferrara that the Italians invented and refined the pastoral comedy, a romantic Arcadia which violates the truth of manners and the simplicity of nature, but which commands our indulgence by the elaborate luxury of eloquence and wit. The Aminta of Tasso was written for the amusement of Alphonso II.... Of the numerous imitations the Pastor Fido of Guarini, which alone can vie with the fame and merit of the original, is the work of the Duke's Secretary of State.' GIBBON, Misc. Works, iii. 456. 5 For Guarini see ante, WALLER, 153. Johnson quotes Philips's Preface. Eng. Poets, lvii. 5. Addison wrote of it to Philips :-'I am wonderfully pleased with your little essay of Pastoral in your last, and think you very just in the theory as well as in the practical part. Our poetry in England at present runs all into lampoon, which has seldom anything of true satire in it besides rhyme and ill-nature.' Works, v. 381. "Ante, PHILIPS, I. ? For interesting remarks on pasto |