Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Part 73

" 'I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with S-- for a new version of _Lucretius_, to publish against Tonson's, agreeing to pay the author so many shillings at his producing so many lines. He made a great progress in a very short time, and I gave it to the corrector to compare with the Latin; but he went directly to Creech's translation, and found it the same, word for word, all but the first page. Now, what d'ye think I did? I arrested the translator for a cheat; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay, too, upon the proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the original.'

" 'Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics?' 'Sir,' said he, 'nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them; the rich ones for a sheet a-piece of the blotted ma.n.u.script, which cost me nothing; they'll go about with it to their acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, who submitted it to their correction: this has given some of them such an air, that in time they come to be consulted with and dedicated to as the tip-top critics of the town.-As for the poor critics, I'll give you one instance of my management, by which you may guess the rest: a lean man, that looked like a very good scholar, came to me, t'other day; he turned over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders, and pish'd at every line of it. "One would wonder," says he, "at the strange presumption of some men; Homer is no such easy task as every stripling, every versifier-" He was going on, when my wife called to dinner; "Sir," said I, "will you please to eat a piece of beef with me?" "Mr. Lintot," said he, "I am very sorry you should be at the expense of this great book, I am really concerned on your account." "Sir, I am much obliged to you: if you can dine upon a piece of beef together with a slice of pudding-?" "Mr.

Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of learning-" "Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath, that the book is commendable, and the pudding excellent.'

" 'Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, 'in return for the frankness I have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at Court that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar or not?' I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my lord being one I had particular obligations to.-'That may be,' replied Mr. Lintot; 'but by G- if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good trial.'

"These, my lord, are a few traits with which you discern the genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord Carleton, at Middleton....

"I am," &c.

DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE.

"Sept. 29, 1725.

"I am now returning to the n.o.ble scene of Dublin-into the _grand monde_-for fear of burying my parts; to signalize myself among curates and vicars, and correct all corruptions crept in relating to the weight of bread-and-b.u.t.ter through those dominions where I govern. I have employed my time (besides ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my _Travels_ [_Gulliver's_], in four parts complete, newly augmented, and intended for the press when the world shall deserve them, or rather, when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and dissensions; but the chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it; and if I could compa.s.s that design without hurting my own person and fortune, I would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, without reading. I am exceedingly pleased that you have done with translations; Lord Treasurer Oxford often lamented that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of misemploying your genius for so long a time; but since you will now be so much better employed, when you think of the world, give it one lash the more at my request. I have ever hated all societies, professions, and communities; and all my love is towards individuals-for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Councillor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one: it is so with physicians (I will not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But princ.i.p.ally I hate and detest that animal called man-although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so on.

"... I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of that definition _animal rationale_, and to show it should be only _rationis capax_.... The matter is so clear that it will admit of no dispute-nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that you and I agree in the point....

"Dr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the world, have lost that hardness of heart contracted by years and general conversation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking nor getting others. Oh, if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my _Travels_!"

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.

"October 15, 1725.

"I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer.

It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends.... Here is one [Lord Bolingbroke]

who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) learned to be content with returning to his first point without the thought or ambition of shining at all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you again than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long despised but what is made up of a few men like yourself....

"Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs-and generally by Tories too. Because he had humour, he was supposed to have dealt with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil....

"Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall; I wish he had received no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most improved mind since you saw him, that ever was improved without shifting into a new body, or being _paullo minus ab angelis_. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after so many varieties and changes, after so much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single thought of the one, any more than a single action of the other, remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that we should meet like the righteous in the millennium, quite at peace, divested of all our former pa.s.sions, smiling at our past follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity.

"I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter."

125 Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says:-"He was one of those men of careless wit, and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand _bons mots_ and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and h.o.a.rd, till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was this lord, of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant as Amadis and as brave; but a little more expeditious in his journeys; for he is said to have seen more kings and more postilions than any man in Europe.... He was a man, as his friend said, who would neither live nor die like any other mortal."

FROM THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH TO POPE.

"You must receive my letter with a just impartiality, and give grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day; I sink grievously with the weather-gla.s.s, and am quite spiritless when oppressed with the thoughts of a birthday or a return.

"Dutiful affection was bringing me to town, but undutiful laziness, and being much out of order keep me in the country: however, if alive, I must make my appearance at the birthday....

"You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you on this point, I doubt, every jury will give a verdict against me. So, sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favourite privileges of our Church.

"I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you must not think of women in a reasonable way; you know we always make G.o.ddesses of those we adore upon earth; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the Deity?

"... I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray when you write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a place as odd and as out of the way as himself.

"Yours."

Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer.

126 "b.u.t.ton had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to a.s.semble. It is said that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the Countess, he withdrew the company from b.u.t.ton's house.

"From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late and drank too much wine."-DR. JOHNSON.

Will's coffee-house was on the west side of Bow Street, and "corner of Russell Street". See _Handbook of London_.

127 "My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712: I liked him then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his conversation. It was very soon after that Mr. Addison advised me 'not to be content with the applause of half the nation'. He used to talk much and often to me, of moderation in parties: and used to blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of a party man. He encouraged me in my design of translating the _Iliad_, which was begun that year, and finished in 1718."-POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

128 "Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the selfishness of Pope's friendship; and, resolving that he should have the consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis by Steele that he was sorry for the insult."-JOHNSON (_Life of Addison_).

129 "While I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr.

Addison, to let him know 'that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I was to speak of him severely in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; that I should rather tell him himself fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner.' I then subjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and never did me any injustice, that I know of, from that time to his death, which was about three years after."-POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

130 "That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable; that Addison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable; but that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany, seems, to us, improbable in a tenfold degree."-MACAULAY.

131 LORD BOLINGBROKE TO THE THREE YAHOOS OF TWICKENHAM.

"July 23, 1726.

"JONATHAN, ALEXANDER, JOHN, MOST EXCELLENT TRIUMVIRS OF PARNa.s.sUS,-

"Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that you have sent at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neighbourhood again, by the end of next week: by which time I hope that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, _la bagatelle_. Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, John, mirth be with you!"

132 Prior must be excepted from this observation. "He was lank and lean."

133 Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the _Iliad_ subscription; and also introduced Pope to Harley and Bolingbroke.-Pope realized by the _Iliad_ upwards of 5,000_l._, which he laid out partly in annuities, and partly in the purchase of his famous villa. Johnson remarks that "it would be hard to find a man so well ent.i.tled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money".

134 Garth, whom Dryden calls "generous as his Muse", was a Yorkshireman.

He graduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. in 1691. He soon distinguished himself in his profession, by his poem of the _Dispensary_, and in society, and p.r.o.nounced Dryden's funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable member of the Kit-Kat and a friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted by George I, with the Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718.

135 "Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergyman in Scotland, and belonged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was educated at Aberdeen; and, coming up to London-according to a Scotch practice often enough alluded to-to make his fortune-first made himself known by 'an examination of Dr. Woodward's account of the Deluge'. He became physician, successively to Prince George of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have been the most learned, as well as one of the most witty and humorous members of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of him by the humourists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their correspondence. When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift:

"Hampstead, Oct. 4, 1734.

"MY DEAR AND WORTHY FRIEND,-

"You have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful friends, for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer. The first was about your health; the last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar. I can a.s.sure you with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart towards you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world, and you, among the rest of my friends, shall have my last prayers and good wishes.

"... I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most earnestly desired and begged of G.o.d that he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had forborne for some years), I recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again.... What I did, I can a.s.sure you was not for life, but ease; for I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to sea-who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family and from the kindness of my friends as any man; but the world, in the main, displeases me, and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are to befall my country. However, if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine why you are frightened from a journey to England: the reasons you a.s.sign are not sufficient-the journey I am sure would do you good. In general, I recommend riding, of which I have always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own experience.

"My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sustained in one of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well a.s.sured you will never leave the paths of virtue and honour; for all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from the way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none are with more sincerity than I am, my dear friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant."

"Arbuthnot," Johnson says, "was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his ma.s.s of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit who in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a n.o.ble ardour of religious zeal."

Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a department of which he was particularly qualified to judge: "Let me add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of _Martinus Scriblerus_ ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable pa.s.sages in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the princ.i.p.al share."-See Preliminary Dissertation to _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, note to p. 242, and also note B. B. B., p. 285.