passages too ludicrous'; but every human performance has its faults. This elegy it was the mode among his friends to purchase for 52 a guinea; and, as his acquaintance was numerous, it was a very profitable poem. Of his Pindar, mentioned by Oldisworth, I have never other- 53 wise heard. His Longinus3 he intended to accompany with some illustrations, and had selected his instances of the false Sublime from the works of Blackmore. He resolved to try again the fortune of the Stage, with the 54 story of Lady Jane Grey. It is not unlikely that his experience of the inefficacy and incredibility of a mythological tale might determine him to choose an action from English History, at no great distance from our own times, which was to end in a real event, produced by the operation of known characters. A subject will not easily occur that can give more opportuni- 55 ties of informing the understanding, for which Smith was unquestionably qualified, or for moving the passions, in which I suspect him to have had less power. Having formed his plan and collected materials he declared 56 that a few months would complete his design; and, that he might pursue his work with less frequent avocations, he was, in June 1710, invited by Mr. George Ducket to his house at Hartham in Wiltshire. Here he found such opportunities of indulgence as did not much forward his studies, and particularly some strong ale, too delicious to be resisted. He eat and drank till he found himself plethorick; and then, resolving to ease himself by evacuation, he wrote to an apothecary in the neighbourhood a prescription of a purge so forcible, that the apothecary thought it his duty to delay it till he had given notice of its For far-fetch'd rhymes makes puzzled angels strain, And in low prose dull Lucifer complain.' Eng. Poets, xxv. 113. Ante, SMITH, 24. 3 Ante, SMITH, 25, 26. 4 Ante, SMITH, 24. 5 Post, POPE, 122, 153. Duckett was a Commissioner of the Excise. He died on Oct. 6, 1732. Gent. Mag. 1732, p. 1030. Gartham in the Lives. Hartham is near Chippenham. danger. Smith, not pleased with the contradiction of a shopman, and boastful of his own knowledge, treated the notice with rude contempt, and swallowed his own medicine, which, in July 1710, brought him to the grave. He was buried at Hartham. 57 Many years afterwards, Ducket communicated to Oldmixon the historian an account, pretended to have been received from Smith, that Clarendon's History was, in its publication, corrupted by Aldrich, Smalridge, and Atterbury, and that Smith was employed to forge and insert the alterations". 58 59 This story was published triumphantly by Oldmixon, and may be supposed to have been eagerly received; but its progress was soon checked for finding its way into the Journal of Trevoux2 it fell under the eye of Atterbury, then an exile in France, who immediately denied the charge, with this remarkable particular, that he never in his whole life had once spoken to Smith3; his company being, as must be inferred, not accepted by those who attended to their characters. The charge was afterwards very diligently refuted by Dr. Burton of Eaton, a man eminent for literature, and, though not of the same party with Aldrich and Atterbury 5, too studious of truth to leave them burthened with a false charge. The testimonies which he has collected have convinced mankind that either Smith or Ducket was guilty of wilful and malicious falsehood. See Appendix A. 2 Atterbury, in his Vindication, says:—' An Holland-Journal gave me the first notice.' It was entitled Bibliothèque Raisonnée des Ouvrages des Sçavans de l'Europe, Amsterdam, 1730, p. 154. Burton's Genuineness, &c., pp. 125, 131. See also Atterbury Corres. i. 273. 3 'Atterbury learned in the ninthyear of his banishment, that he had been accused by Oldmixon, as dishonest and malignant a scribbler as any that has been saved from oblivion by The Dunciad [ii. 283], of having, in concert with other Christ-Church men, garbled Clarendon's History. He published a short vindication of himself, which is a model in its kind, luminous, temperate, and dignified.' MACAULAY, Misc. Writings, 1871, P. 351. The Vindication is reprinted in Burton's Genuineness, &c., p. 121, and in Atterbury Corres. 1783, i. 278. Oldmixon, in 1732, published a Reply. [Three years later he virtually abandoned the charge, though in a disingenuous manner. Hist. of Eng. 1735, Pref. p. 4.] In 1704 Atterbury wrote:-' The Tale of a Tub comes from Christ Church. The authors are now supposed generally at Oxford to be one Smith and one Philips, the first a Student, the second a Commoner of Christ Church.' Corres. iii. 203,214. Ante, SMITH, 2. His work was published in 1744, but we learn from the preface that part of it had appeared about twelve years earlier in the Weekly Miscellany. To this Oldmixon published a Reply, reprinted in Burton's Genuineness, &c., P. 141. 5 Burton shows on pp. 103, 113 that he was a Whig. • Oldmixon, in Duckett's lifetime, This controversy brought into view those parts of Smith's life 60 which with more honour to his name might have been concealed. Of Smith I can yet say a little more. He was a man of such 61 estimation among his companions that the casual censures or praises which he dropped in conversation were considered, like those of Scaliger, as worthy of preservation. He had great readiness and exactness of criticism, and by a 62 cursory glance over a new composition would exactly tell all its faults and beauties. He was remarkable for the power of reading with great 63 rapidity', and of retaining with great fidelity what he so easily collected. He therefore always knew what the present question required; 64 and when his friends expressed their wonder at his acquisitions, made in a state of apparent negligence and drunkenness, he never discovered his hours of reading or method of study, but involved himself in affected silence, and fed his own vanity with their admiration and conjectures. One practice he had, which was easily observed: if any thought 65 or image was presented to his mind that he could use or improve, he did not suffer it to be lost; but, amidst the jollity of a tavern or in the warmth of conversation, very diligently committed it to paper. Thus it was that he had gathered two quires of hints for his 66 new tragedy; of which Rowe, when they were put into his hands, could make, as he says, very little use, but which the collector considered as a valuable stock of materials 2. had published a letter, purporting to be written by him, in which it was stated that Smith had informed him of the interpolation. Genuineness, &c., p. 122. Burton remarks on this: -We are not told of any deathbed repentance and confession [on Duckett's part]; but he has been thoroughly convicted of the falsehood of this report, which he dared not to defend, and was ashamed to retract.' Ib. p. 45. Baker records an anecdote showing the rapidity with which he composed. 'Mrs. Barry, who acted Phaedra, complaining to him at the rehearsal that she thought her exit in the third act too tame, he told her he would add something to it. While taking two or three turns across the stage he made the six following lines: "Now wider still my growing horrors spread, My fame, my virtue, nay my frenzy's fled. Then view thy wretched blood, imperial Jove. If crimes enrage you, or misfor tunes move, On me your flames, on me your bolts employ, Me, if your anger spares, your pity should destroy.' Biog. Dram. iii. 141. 2 Ante, SMITH, 24; post, ROWE, 16. 67 68 When he came to London his way of life connected him with the licentious and dissolute, and he affected the airs and gaiety of a man of pleasure; but his dress was always deficient1; scholastick cloudiness still hung about him; and his merriment was sure to produce the scorn of his companions. With all his carelessness and all his vices he was one of the murmurers at Fortune; and wondered why he was suffered to be poor when Addison was caressed and preferred; nor would a very little have contented him, for he estimated his wants at six hundred pounds a year". 69 In his course of reading it was particular that he had diligently perused and accurately remembered the old romances of knight errantry. 70 He had a high opinion of his own merit, and something contemptuous in his treatment of those whom he considered as not qualified to oppose or contradict him. He had many 71 72 frailties; yet it cannot but be supposed that he had great merit, who could obtain to the same play a prologue from Addison and an epilogue from Prior3, and who could have at once the patronage of Halifax and the praise of Oldisworth. For the power of communicating these minute memorials I am indebted to my conversation with Gilbert Walmsley, late register of the ecclesiastical court of Litchfield, who was acquainted both with Smith and Ducket; and declared that, if the tale concerning Clarendon were forged, he should suspect Ducket of the falsehood; 'for Rag was a man of great veracity.' Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice. 73 He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy; yet he ''Dr Jortin told me that Smith thus saved the hire of a dress at a masquerade. To a grey stuff-damask man's night-gown [dressinggown] he stuck as many ballads printed on slips as would cover it. The company followed him up and down, reading the songs that stuck to his back, till one of them pulled one off. The example was followed, and in a short time Smith deplumed.' HAWKINS, Johnson's was Works, 1787, ii. 471. For Savage's scarlet cloak and 'naked toes peeping through his shoes' see post, SAVAGE, 229 n. 2 Here too he was like Savage, who 'appeared to think himself born to be supported by others, and dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself.' Post, SAVAGE, 336. Ante, SMITH, 46. Boswell's Johnson, i. 81, 102. 3 4 never received my notions with contempt. He was a Whig, with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him, and he endured me. He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from 74 its vices or its follies, but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind; his belief of Revelation was unshaken; his learning preserved his principles: he grew first regular, and then pious. His studies had been so various that I am not able to name a 75 man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great; and what he did not immediately know he could at least tell where to find. Such was his amplitude of learning and such his copiousness of communication that it may be doubted whether a day now passes in which I have not some advantage from his friendship. At this man's table I enjoyed many chearful and instructive 76 hours, with companions such as are not often found: with one who has lengthened and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James, whose skill in physick will be long remembered '; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend: but what are the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the publick stock of harmless pleasure 2. In the Library at Oxford is the following ludicrous Analysis 77 of Pocockius 3: 'EX AUTOGRAPHO. [Sent by the Author to Mr. Urry".] 'OPUSCULUM hoc, Halberdarie 5 amplissime, in lucem pro 66 'Boswell's Johnson, i. 159. The inventor of Dr. James's Powder. Ib. iii. 4. 21 presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in his Lives of the Poets. You say, Sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations." JOHNSON. "I could not have said more nor less. It is the truth; eclipsed, not extinguished; and his death did eclipse; it was like a storm." BOSWELL. But why nations? Did his gaiety extend farther than his own nation? JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said-if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have gaiety,-which they have not."' Boswell's Johnson, iii. 387. * Hearne (Remains, i. 314) records on March 19, 1714-15, the death of 'my great and good friend, Mr. John Urry, student of Christ Church. He bore arms against Monmouth in the rebellion called Monmouth's rebellion, as several other Oxford scholars did. He was a stout, lusty man, and of admirable principles. His integrity and honesty and loyalty gained him great honour and respect. He refused the oaths, and died a nonjuror.' 5 This, I suppose, means that Urry had been a halberdier. |