The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) by Theophilus Cibber

T >> Theophilus Cibber >> The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753)

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The above declaration Sir Roger was obliged to make, as some of his
enemies wanted to turn those circumstances of favour he received from
the Oliverian government to his disadvantage, and prevent his rising
in court distinction.

Sir Roger having little paternal fortune, and being a man rather
profuse than oeconomical, he had recourse to writing for bread. After
the restoration he set up a news-paper, which was continued 'till
the Gazette was first set on foot by Sir Joseph Williamson, under
secretary of state, for which, however, the government allowed Mr.
L'Estrange a consideration. Mr. Wood informs us, that our author
published his paper twice every week in 4to. under the title of The
Public Intelligence and News; the first of which came out August the
31st, 1663, and the other September the 3d, the same year. 'These
continued till the 9th of January 1665, at which time Mr. L'Estrange
desisted, because in the November before, there were other News-Papers
published twice every week, in half a sheet in folio. These were
called The Oxford Gazettes, and commenced the 7th of November, 1665,
the king and queen, with their courts being then at Oxford. These for
a little while were written by one Henry Muddeman; but when the court
removed to London, they were called the London Gazette. Soon after Mr.
Joseph Williamson, under secretary of State, procured the writing
of them for himself; and thereupon employed Charles Perrot, M.A. and
fellow of Oriel College in Oxford, who had a good command of his pen,
to do that office under him, and so he did, though not constantly,
till about 1671; after which time they were constantly written by
under secretaries, belonging to those that are principal, and do
continue so to this day.'

Soon after the popish plot, when the Tories began to gain the
ascendant over the Whigs, Mr. L'Estrange became a zealous promoter of
the Tory interest. He set up a paper called the Observator, in which
he defended the court, and endeavoured to invalidate those evidences
which were given by Oates's party against the Jesuits. He likewise
wrote a pamphlet, in which he attempts to prove, that Sir Edmundbury
Godfrey's murther, for which so many suffered, and so great a flame
was raised in the nation, was really perpetrated by himself. He
attempts to shew that Sir Edmundbury was a melancholy enthusiastic
man; that he was weak in his undemanding, and absurd in his conduct.
The activity he discovered in Oates's plot, had raised him to such
reputation, that he was unable to bear it, and therefore the natural
enthusiasm of his temper prompted him to make himself a sacrifice,
from a view of advancing the Protestant cause, as he knew his murther
would be charged upon the Papists.

Mr. L'Estrange's reasoning, being only conjectural, and very
improbable, is therefore far from conclusive: It is certain that there
never was a more intricate affair than this. We have read the trials
of all those who suffered for this murther, chiefly upon the evidence
of one Prance, and one Bedloe, who pretended to have been accomplices;
but their relation is so inconsistent; their characters so very
infamous, and their reward for being evidences supposed to be so
considerable, that the most candid enquirer after truth, can determine
nothing positively concerning it. All who suffered for the popish
plot, denied their knowledge of it; the four men who were executed,
as being the perpetrators persisted to the last in protesting their
innocence of it. After all, the murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey
is perhaps one of those secrets, which will ever remain so, till the
hearts of all men are laid open.

The services, which Mr. L'Estrange rendered the court, procured him
the honour of knighthood; and he served as a member for Winchester, in
the parliament called by king James the IId. 1685. But things taking
quite a different turn in that prince's reign, in point of liberty
of conscience, to what most people expected, our author's Observators
were dropt, as not being suitable to the times. However he continued
licenser of the press 'till the accession of the prince of Orange to
the throne; in whose reign, on account of his Tory principles, and
his attachment to his late master, he met with some troubles. He was
suffered however to descend to the grave in peace, though he had in a
manner survived his understanding. He died December 12, 1705, in the
88th year of his age.

[D]Besides his Observators, which make three volumes in folio, he
published a great number of poetical and other works. Winstanley,
in his Lives of the Poets, says, 'That those who shall consider the
number and greatness of his books, will admire he should ever write so
many; and those who have read them, considering the skill and method
they are written in, will admire he should write so well. Nor is he
less happy in verse than prose, which for elegance of language, and
quickness of invention, deservedly entitles him to the honour of a
poet.'

The following are the titles of some of his works, viz. Collections in
Defence of the King. Toleration Discussed. Relapsed Apostate. Apology
for Protestants. Richard against Baxter. Tyranny and Popery. Growth
and Knavery. Reformed Catholic. Free-born Subjects. The Case Put.
Seasonable Memorials. Answer to the Appeal. L'Estrange no Papist; in
answer to a Libel, intitled L'Estrange a Papist, &c. with Notes and
Animadversions upon Miles Prance, Silver-Smith, cum multis aliis. The
Shammer Shamm'd. Account Cleared. Reformation Reformed. Dissenters
Sayings, in two Parts. Notes on Colledge, the Protestant Joiner.
Citizen and Bumpkin, in two Parts. Further Discovery in the Plot.
Discovery on Discovery. Narrative of the Plot. Zekiel and Ephraim.
Appeal to the King and Parliament. Papist in Masquerade. Answer to the
second Character of a Popish Successor. Confederations upon a Printed
Sheet intitled, The Speech of Lord Russel to the Sheriffs: Together
with the Paper delivered by him to them at the place of execution,
on July 1683. These pieces with many more, were printed in quarto;
besides which he wrote the following, viz. The History of the Plot in
Folio. Caveat to the Cavaliers. He translated into English Cicero's
Offices; Seneca's Mora's, Erasmus's Colloquies; Quevedo's Visions;
Bona's Guide to Eternity; Five Love Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier;
Josephus's Works; Aesop's Fables.

* * * * *

Mr. Gordon, author of the Independent Whig, and translator of Tacitus,
has very freely censured L'Estrange. He bestows very freely upon him
the epithet of a buffoon, an ignorant droll, &c.----He charges him
with having no knowledge of the Latin tongue; and says, he is unfit
to be read by any person of taste. That his stile is full of technical
terms, and of phrases picked up in the streets, from apprentices and
porters.

* * * * *

Sir Roger L'Estrange translated the third Book of Tacitus, an author
of whom Mr. Gordon made an entire translation. To raise the reputation
of his own performance, he has abused that of L'Estrange, in terms
very unfit for a gentleman to use, supposing the censure had been
true. Sir Roger's works indeed are often calculated for the meanest
capacities, and the phrase is consequently low; but a man must be
greatly under the influence of prejudice, who can discover no genius
in his writings; not an intimate acquaintance with the state of
parties, human life, and manners.

* * * * *

Sir Roger was but ill-rewarded by the Tories, for having been their
champion; the latter part of his life was clouded with poverty,
and though he descended in peace to the grave, free from political
turmoils, yet as he was bowed down with age and distress, he cannot be
said to have died in comfort. He had seen much of the world, examined
many characters, experienced the vicissitudes of fortune, and was as
well instructed as any man that ever lived, in the important lesson of
human life, viz. That all things are vanity.

[Footnote A: See Gen. Dict. Art. L'Estrange.]

[Footnote B: Truth and Loyalty, ubi supra.]

[Footnote C: Sir Roger L'Estrange was called, by way of derision,
Cromwell's Fidler.]

[Footnote D: General Dictionary.]

* * * * *

Mr. EDMUND SMITH,

This distinguished poet was son of an eminent merchant, one Mr. Neal,
by a daughter of baron Lechemere[A]. Some misfortunes of his father,
which were soon followed by his death, occasioned our author's being
left very young in the care of a near relation (one who married Mr.
Neal's mother, whose name was Smith).

This gentleman treated him with as much tenderness as if he had been
his own child, and placed him at Westminster-school, under the care
of Dr. Busby. After the death of his generous guardian (whose name
in gratitude he thought proper to assume) he was removed to Christ's
Church in Oxford, and was there by his aunt handsomely supported till
her death; after which he continued a member of that learned society,
till within five years of his own. Some time before his leaving
Christ-Church, he was sent for by his mother to Worcester, and
acknowledged by her as a legitimate son. We chuse to mention this
circumstance, in order to wipe off the aspersion which folly and
ignorance cast upon; his birth[B].

In honour to Mr. Smith it should be remembered, that when he stood a
candidate for one of the universities, at the Westminster election, he
so peculiarly distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances,
that there arose no small contention between the representative
electors of Trinity College in Cambridge, and Christ-Church College
in Oxon, which of those two illustrious societies should adopt him as
their own. But the electors of Trinity College having the preference
of choice that year, they resolutely elected him; but being invited
at the same time to Christ-Church, Mr. Smith chose to accept of a
studentship there.

He passed through the exercises of the college, and the university,
with unusual applause; and tho' he often suffered his friends to call
him off from his retirement; yet his return to his studies was so much
the more passionate, and his love of reading and thinking being so
vehement, the habit grew upon him, and the series of meditation and
reflexion being kept up whole weeks together, he could better arrange
his ideas, and take in sundry parts of a science at one view without
interruption or confusion. Some of his acquaintance, who were
pleased to distinguish between the wit and the scholar, extoll'd him
altogether on account of the first of these excellencies; but others,
who were more candid, admired him as a prodigy in both. He had
acquired reputation in the schools, both as a philosopher and polemic
of extensive knowledge, and deep penetration, and went through all the
courses with a proper regard to the dignity, and importance of each
science. Mr. Smith had a long and perfect intimacy with all the Greek
and Latin Classics; with whom he had industriously compared whatever
was worth perusing in the French, Spanish, and Italian, and all the
celebrated writers in his own country. He considered the antients and
moderns, not as parties, or rivals for fame, but as architects upon
one and the same plan, the Art of Poetry. If he did not always commend
the compositions of others, it proceeded not from ill-nature (for that
was foreign to his temper) but a strict regard to justice would not
suffer him to call a few flowers elegantly adorned, without much art,
and less genius, by so distinguished a name as poetry. He was of Ben
Johnson's opinion, who could not admire,

----Verses, as smooth and soft as cream,
In which their was neither depth nor stream.

Mr. Smith's Bodleian Oration, printed with his other works, though
taken from a remote and imperfect copy, has shewn the world, how great
a matter he was of Ciceronian Eloquence. Since Temple and Roscommon
(says Mr. Oldisworth) 'No man understood Horace better, especially
as to his happy diction, rolling numbers, beautiful imagery, and
alternate mixture of the soft and sublime. His friend Mr. Philips's
Ode to Mr. St. John, after the manner of Horace's Lusory, or Amatorian
Odes, is certainly a master-piece: But Mr. Smith's Pocockius is of the
sublimer kind; though like Waller's writings upon Cromwell, it wants
not the most delicate and surprizing turns, peculiar to the person
praised.'

He was an excellent judge of humanity, and so good a historian, that
in familiar conversation, he would talk over the most memorable fads
in antiquity; the lives, actions, and characters of celebrated men,
with amazing facility and accuracy. As he had carefully read and
distinguished Thuanus's Works, so he was able to copy after him: And
his talent in this kind was so generally confess'd, that he was made
choice of by some great men, to write a history, which it was their
interest to have executed with the utmost art, and dexterity; but
this design was dropp'd, as Mr. Smith would not sacrifice truth to the
caprice, and interested views of a party.

* * * * *

Our author's Poem, condoling the death of Mr. Philips, is full of the
noblest beauties, and pays a just tribute to the venerable ashes of
that great man. Mr. Smith had contracted for Mr. Philips the most
perfect friendship, a passion of which he was very susceptible, and
whole laws he considered as sacred and inviolable.

* * * * *

In the year 1707 Mr. Smith's Tragedy called Phaedra and Hippolitus was
acted at the Theatre-Royal. This play was introduced upon the stage,
at a time when the Italian Opera so much engrossed the attention of
the polite world, that sense was sacrificed to sound. It was dress'd
and decorated, at an extraordinary expence:----and inimitably
perform'd in all its parts, by Betterton, Booth, Barry, and Oldfield.
Yet it brought but few, and slender audiences.----To say truth,
'twas a fine Poem; but not an extraordinary Play. Notwithstanding the
intrinsic merit of this piece, and the countenance it met with from
the most ingenious men of the age, yet it languished on the stage,
and was soon neglected. Mr. Addison wrote the Prologue, in which he
rallies the vitiated taste of the public, in preferring the unideal
entertainment of an Opera, to the genuine sense of a British Poet.

The PROLOGUE.

Long has a race of Heroes fill'd the stage,
That rant by note, and thro' the gamut rage;
In songs, and airs, express their martial fire,
Combat in trills, and in a feuge expire;
While lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit,
Calm and serene, you indolently fit;
And from the dull fatigue of thinking free,
Hear the facetious fiddle's rapartee;
Our home-spun authors must forsake the field,
And Shakespear to the soft Scarlatti yield.
To your new taste, the poet of this day,
Was by a friend advis'd to form his play;
Had Valentini musically coy,
Shun'd Phaedra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy,
It had not mov'd your wonder to have seen,
An Eunuch fly from an enamour'd queen.
How would it please, should me in English speak,
And could Hippolitus reply in Greek?

We have been induced to transcribe these lines of Mr. Addison, in
order to have the pleasure of producing so great an authority in
favour of the English drama, when placed in contradistinction to an
entertainment, exhibited by Eunuchs and Fidlers, in a language, of
which the greatest part of the audience are ignorant; and from the
nature of which no moral instruction can be drawn.

The chief excellence of this play certainly consists in the beauty and
harmony of the verification. The language is luxuriantly poetical. The
passion of Phaedra for her husband's son has been considered by some
critics as too unnatural to be shewn on the stage; and they have
observed that the poet would have written more successfully if he
had converted the son into a brother. Poetical justice is carefully
distributed; Phaedra and Lycon are justly made the sufferers, while
Hippolitus and Ismena escape the vengeance of Theseus. The play is not
destitute of the pathetic, tho' much more regard is paid to the purity
and elegance of the language, than a poet more acquainted with the
workings of the heart would have done. We shall give an example to
illustrate this observation. When Theseus reproaches Hippolitus for
his love to Ismena, and at the same time dooms him as the victim, of
his revenge and jealousy, he uses these words,

Canst thou be only clear'd by disobedience,
And justified by crimes?--What! love my foe!
Love one descended from a race of tyrants,
Whose blood yet reeks on my avenging sword!
I'm curst each moment I delay thy fate:
Haste to the shades, and tell, the happy Pallas,
Ismena's flames, and let him taste such joys
As thou giv'st me; go tell applauding Minos,
The pious love you bore his daughter Phaedra;
Tell it the chatt'ring ghosts, and hissing furies,
Tell it the grinning fiends, till Hell found nothing
To thy pleas'd ears, but Phaedra and Ismena.

We cannot suppose that a man wrought up to fury, by the flame of
jealousy, and a sense of afronted dignity, could be so particular in
giving his son directions how to behave in hell, and to whom he should
relate the story of his fate. When any passion violently overwhelms
the soul, the person who feels it, always speaks sententiously, avoids
repetitions, and is not capable of much recollection, at least of
making a minute detail of circumstances. In how few words, and with
greater force would Shakespear have conduced this speech of Theseus.
An example will prove it: when Othello is informed that Cassio is
slain, he replies,

Had all his hairs been lives,
My great revenge had stomach for them all.

When Phaedra is made acquainted with the ruin of Hyppolitus, the poet
makes her utter the following beautiful speech, which, however, is
liable to the same objection as the former, for it seems rather a
studied declamation, than an expression of the most agonizing throes
she is then supposed to experience.

What's life? Oh all ye Gods! can life attone
For all the monstrous crimes by which 'tis bought?
Or can I live? when thou, O Soul of honour!
O early hero! by my crimes art ruin'd.
Perhaps even now, the great unhappy youth,
Falls by the sordid hands of butchering villains;
Now, now he bleeds, he dies,--O perjur'd traitor!
See his rich blood in purple torrents flows,
And nature sallies in unbidden groans;
Now mortal pangs distort his lovely form,
His rosy beauties fade, his starry eyes
Now darkling swim, and fix their closing beams;
Now in short gasps his lab'ring spirit heaves,
And weakly flutters on his falt'ring tongue,
And struggles into sound. Hear, monster hear,
With his last breath, he curses purjured Phaedra:
He summons Phaedra to the bar of Minos;
Thou too shalt there appear; to torture thee
Whole Hell shall be employ'd, and suff'ring Phaedra
Shall find some care to see thee still more wretched.

No man had a juster notion of the difficulty of composing, than Mr.
Smith, and he sometimes would create greater difficulties than he
had reason to apprehend. Mr. Smith had, indeed, some defects in his
conduct, which those are more apt to remember, who could imitate him
in nothing else. Amongst the blemishes of an innocent kind, which
attended Mr. Smith, was his extreme carelessness in the particular of
dress; this oddity procured him the name of Captain Ragg. His person
was so well formed, and he possessed so much natural gracefulness,
that notwithstanding the disadvantage of his appearance, he was
called, by the Ladies, the Handsome Sloven.

It is to be wondered at (says Mr. Oldisworth) that a man under
poverty, calamities, and disappointments, could make so many friends,
and those so truly valuable. He had, indeed, a noble idea of the
passion of friendship, in the success of which, consisted the
greatest, if not the only happiness of his Life. He was serene and
chearful under the dispensations of providence; he avoided having any
dealings with mankind in which he could not be just, and therefore
refused to embrace some opportunities of amending his fortune.

Upon Mr. Smith's coming to town, no man was more surrounded by all
those who really had, or pretended to wit, or more courted by the
great men, who had then a power and opportunity of encouraging arts
and sciences. Mr. Smith's character grew upon his friends by intimacy,
and exceeded the strongest prepossessions which had been conceived in
his favour. A few years before his death, Mr. Smith engaged in some
considerable Undertakings; in all which he raised expectations in the
world, which he lived not to gratify. Mr. Oldisworth observes, that he
had seen about ten sheets of Pindar translated into English, which, he
says, exceeded any thing of that kind, he could ever hope for in our
language. He had drawn out a plan for a tragedy of Lady Jane Grey, and
had written several scenes of it: a subject afterwards nobly executed
by Mr. Rowe. His greatest undertaking was Longinus, which he executed
in a very masterly manner. He proposed a large addition to this work,
of notes and observations of his own, with an intire system of the
art of poetry in three books, under the title of Thoughts, Action,
and Figure; in this work he proposed to reform the art of Rhetoric, by
reducing that confused heap of Terms, with which a long succession
of Pedants had incumbered the world, to a very narrow compass;
comprehending all that was useful and ornamental in poetry under each
head, and chapter. He intended to make remarks upon all the ancients
and moderns, the Greek, Latin, English, French, Spanish, and Italian
poets, and to anamadvert upon their several beauties and defects.

Mr. Smith died in the year 1710, in the 42d of his age, at the seat of
George Ducket esq; called Hartham, in Wiltshire; and was buried in the
parish church there. We shall give the character of this celebrated
poet in the words of Mr. Oldisworth:--"He had a quickness of
apprehension and vivacity of understanding, which easily took in, and
surmounted, the most knotty parts of mathematics and metaphysics.
His wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and piercing; his taste
delicate, his head clear, and his manner of expressing his thoughts
perspicuous, and engaging; an eager, but generous, emulation grew
up in him, which push'd him upon striving to excel in every art and
science, that could make him a credit to his college: and it was his
happiness to have several cotemporaries, and fellow students, who
exercised and excited this virtue in themselves and others: his
judgment naturally good, soon ripened into an exquisite fineness, and
distinguishing sagacity, which as it was active and busy, so it
was vigorous and manly, keeping even pace with a rich and strong
imagination, always on the wing, and never tired with aspiring; there
are many of his first essays in oratory, in epigram, elegy and epic,
still handed about the university in manuscript, which shew a masterly
hand, and though maimed and injured by frequent transcribing, make
their way into our most celebrated miscellanies, where they mine with
uncommon lustre. As his parts were extraordinary, so he well knew how
to improve them; and not only to polish the diamond, but enchase it in
the most solid and durable metal.

"Though he was an academic the greatest part of his life, yet he
contracted no sourness of temper, no tincture of pedantry, no itch of
disputation, or obstinate contention for the old, or new philosophy,
no assuming way of dictating to others, which are faults which some
are insensibly led into, who are constrained to dwell within the walls
of a private college." Thus far Mr. Oldisworth, who has drawn the
character of his deceased friend, with a laudable fondness. Mr. Smith,
no doubt, possessed the highest genius for poetry; but it is certain
he had mixed but too little in life. His language, however luxuriously
poetical, yet is far from being proper for the drama, and there is
too much of the poet in every speech he puts in the mouths of his
characters, which produces an uniformity, that nothing could teach him
to avoid, but a more general knowledge of real life and characters.
It is acknowledged that Mr. Smith was much inclined to intemperance,
though Mr. Oldisworth has glossed it over with the hand of a friend;
nor is it improbable, that this disposition sunk him in that vis
inertiae, which has been the bane of many of the brightest geniuses of
the world. Mr. Smith was, upon the whole, a good natured man, a great
poet, a finished scholar, and a discerning critic.

[Footnote A: See the Life and Character of Mr. Smith, by Mr.
Oldisworth, prefixed to his Phaedra and Hippolitus, edit. 1719.]

[Footnote B: Oldisworth, ubi supra.]

* * * * *

DANIEL DE FOE,

This gentleman acquired a very considerable name by his political and
poetical works; his early attachment to the revolution interest, and
the extraordinary zeal and ability with which he defended it. He
was bred, says Mr. Jacob, a Hosier, which profession he forsook, as
unworthy of him, and became one of the most enterprizing authors
this, or any other age, ever produced. The work by which he is most
distinguished, as a poet, is his True Born Englishman, a Satire,
occasioned by a poem entitled Foreigners, written by John Tutchin,
esq;[A]. This gentleman (Tutchin) was of the Monmouth faction, in the
reign of King Charles II. and when that unhappy prince made an attempt
upon his uncle's crown, Mr. Tutchin wrote a political piece in his
favour, for which, says Jacob, he was so severely handled by Judge
Jeffries, and his sentence was so very uncommon, and so rigorously
executed, that he petitioned King James to be hanged.

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