Lives of the Poets Part 47

The History of the Heathen G.o.ds, a book composed for schools, was written by him in 1710. The work is useful; but might have been produced without the powers of King. The same year he published Rufinus, an historical essay; and a poem, intended to dispose the nation to think as he thought of the duke of Marlborough and his adherents.

In 1711, competence, if not plenty, was again put into his power. He was, without the trouble of attendance, or the mortification of a request, made gazetteer. Swift, Freind, Prior, and other men of the same party, brought him the key of the gazetteer's office. He was now again placed in a profitable employment, and again threw the benefit away. An act of insolvency made his business, at that time, particularly troublesome; and he would not wait till hurry should be at an end, but impatiently resigned it, and returned to his wonted indigence and amus.e.m.e.nts.

One of his amus.e.m.e.nts at Lambeth, where he resided, was to mortify Dr.

Tenison, the archbishop, by a publick festivity, on the surrender of Dunkirk to Hill; an event with which Tenison's political bigotry did not suffer him to be delighted. King was resolved to counteract his sullenness, and, at the expense of a few barrels of ale, filled the neighbourhood with honest merriment.

In the autumn of 1712, his health declined; he grew weaker by degrees, and died on Christmas day. Though his life had not been without irregularity, his principles were pure and orthodox, and his death was pious.

After this relation it will be naturally supposed that his poems were rather the amus.e.m.e.nts of idleness than efforts of study; that he endeavoured rather to divert than astonish; that his thoughts seldom aspired to sublimity; and that, if his verse was easy and his images familiar, he attained what he desired. His purpose is to be merry; but, perhaps, to enjoy his mirth, it may be sometimes necessary to think well of his opinions[137].

[Footnote 137: Dr. Johnson appears to have made but little use of the life of Dr. King, prefixed to his works, in three vols. 1776; to which it may not be impertinent to refer the reader. His talent for humour ought to be praised in the highest terms. In that, at least, he yielded to none of his contemporaries.]

SPRAT

Thomas Sprat was born in 1636, at Tallaton in Devonshire, the son of a clergyman; and having been educated, as he tells of himself, not at Westminster or Eton, but at a little school by the church-yard side, became a commoner of Wadham college, in Oxford, in 1651; and, being chosen scholar next year, proceeded through the usual academical course, and, in 1657, became master of arts. He obtained a fellowship, and commenced poet.

In 1659, his poem on the death of Oliver was published, with those of Dryden and Waller. In his dedication to Dr. Wilkins, he appears a very willing and liberal encomiast, both of the living and the dead. He implores his patron's excuse of his verses, both as falling "so infinitely below the full and sublime genius of that excellent poet who made this way of writing free of our nation," and being "so little equal and proportioned to the renown of the prince on whom they were written; such great actions and lives deserving to be the subject of the n.o.blest pens and most divine phansies." He proceeds: "Having so long experienced your care and indulgence, and been formed, as it were, by your own hands, not to ent.i.tle you to any thing which my meanness produces, would be not only injustice, but sacrilege."

He published, the same year, a poem on the Plague of Athens; a subject of which it is not easy to say what could recommend it. To these he added, afterwards, a poem on Mr. Cowley's death.

After the restoration he took orders, and by Cowley's recommendation was made chaplain to the duke of Buckingham, whom he is said to have helped in writing the Rehearsal. He was likewise chaplain to the king.

As he was the favourite of Wilkins, at whose house began those philosophical conferences and inquiries, which in time produced the Royal Society, he was consequently engaged in the same studies, and became one of the fellows; and when, after their incorporation, something seemed necessary to reconcile the publick to the new inst.i.tution, he undertook to write its history, which he published in 1667. This is one of the few books which selection of sentiment and elegance of diction have been able to preserve, though written upon a subject flux and transitory. The History of the Royal Society is now read, not with the wish to know what they were then doing, but how their transactions are exhibited by Sprat.

In the next year he published Observations on Sorbiere's Voyage into England, in a letter to Mr. Wren. This is a work not ill-performed; but, perhaps, rewarded with at least its full proportion of praise.

In 1668, he published Cowley's Latin poems, and prefixed, in Latin, the life of the author; which he afterwards amplified, and placed before Cowley's English works, which were by will committed to his care.

Ecclesiastical benefices now fell fast upon him. In 1668, he became a prebendary of Westminster, and had afterwards the church of St. Margaret, adjoining to the abbey. He was, in 1680, made canon of Windsor; in 1683, dean of Westminster; and, in 1684, bishop of Rochester.

The court having thus a claim to his diligence and grat.i.tude, he was required to write the History of the Rye-house Plot; and, in 1685, published a true Account and Declaration of the horrid Conspiracy against the late King, his present Majesty, and the present Government; a performance which he thought convenient, after the revolution, to extenuate and excuse.

The same year, being clerk of the closet to the king, he was made dean of the chapel royal; and, the year afterwards, received the last proof of his master's confidence, by being appointed one of the commissioners for ecclesiastical affairs. On the critical day, when the declaration distinguished the true sons of the church of England, he stood neuter, and permitted it to be read at Westminster; but pressed none to violate his conscience; and, when the bishop of London was brought before them, gave his voice in his favour.

Thus far he suffered interest or obedience to carry him; but further he refused to go. When he found that the powers of the ecclesiastical commission were to be exercised against those who had refused the declaration, he wrote to the lords, and other commissioners, a formal profession of his unwillingness to exercise that authority any longer, and withdrew himself from them. After they had read his letter, they adjourned for six months, and scarcely ever met afterwards.

When king James was frighted away, and a new government was to be settled, Sprat was one of those who considered, in a conference, the great question, Whether the crown was vacant, and manfully spoke in favour of his old master.

He complied, however, with the new establishment, and was left unmolested; but, in 1692, a strange attack was made upon him by one Robert Young and Stephen Blackhead, both men convicted of infamous crimes, and both, when the scheme was laid, prisoners in Newgate. These men drew up an a.s.sociation, in which they whose names were subscribed, declared their resolution to restore king James, to seize the princess of Orange, dead or alive, and to be ready with thirty thousand men to meet king James when he should land. To this they put the names of Sancroft, Sprat, Marlborough, Salisbury, and others. The copy of Dr. Sprat's name was obtained by a fict.i.tious request, to which an answer in his own hand was desired. His hand was copied so well, that he confessed it might have deceived himself. Blackhead, who had carried the letter, being sent again with a plausible message, was very curious to see the house, and particularly importunate to be let into the study; where, as is supposed, he designed to leave the a.s.sociation. This, however, was denied him; and he dropped it in a flower-pot in the parlour. Young now laid an information before the privy council; and May 7, 1692, the bishop was arrested, and kept at a messenger's, under a strict guard, eleven days.

His house was searched, and directions were given that the flower-pots should be inspected. The messengers, however, missed the room in which the paper was left. Blackhead went, therefore, a third time; and finding his paper where he had left it, brought it away.

The bishop having been enlarged, was, on June the 10th and 13th, examined again before the privy council, and confronted with his accusers. Young persisted, with the most obdurate impudence, against the strongest evidence; but the resolution of Blackhead, by degrees, gave way. There remained at last no doubt of the bishop's innocence, who, with great prudence and diligence, traced the progress, and detected the characters of the two informers, and published an account of his own examination and deliverance; which made such an impression upon him, that he commemorated it through life by a yearly day of thanksgiving.

With what hope or what interest, the villains had contrived an accusation which they must know themselves utterly unable to prove, was never discovered.

After this he pa.s.sed his days in the quiet exercise of his function.

When the cause of Sacheverell put the publick in commotion, he honestly appeared among the friends of the church. He lived to his seventy-ninth year, and died May 20, 1713.

Burnet is not very favourable to his memory; but he and Burnet were old rivals. On some publick occasion they both preached before the house of commons. There prevailed, in those days, an indecent custom: when the preacher touched any favourite topick, in a manner that delighted his audience, their approbation was expressed by a loud _hum_, continued in proportion to their zeal or pleasure. When Burnet preached, part of his congregation _hummed_ so loudly and so long, that he, sat down to enjoy it, and rubbed his face with his handkerchief. When Sprat preached, he likewise was honoured with the like animating _hum_; but he stretched out his hand to the congregation, and cried, "Peace, peace, I pray you, peace."

This I was told in my youth by my father, an old man, who had been no careless observer of the pa.s.sages of those times.

Burnet's sermon, says Salmon, was remarkable for sedition, and Sprat's for loyalty. Burnet had the thanks of the house; Sprat had no thanks, but a good living from the king, which, he said, was of as much value as the thanks of the commons.

The works of Sprat, besides his few poems, are, the History of the Royal Society, the Life of Cowley, the Answer to Sorbiere, the History of the Rye-house Plot, the Relation of his own Examination, and a volume of sermons. I have heard it observed, with great justness, that every book is of a different kind, and that each has its distinct and characteristical excellence[138].

My business is only with his poems. He considered Cowley as a model; and supposed that, as he was imitated, perfection was approached. Nothing, therefore, but Pindarick liberty was to be expected. There is in his few productions no want of such conceits as he thought excellent; and of those our judgment may be settled by the first that appears in his praise of Cromwell, where he says, that Cromwell's "fame, like man, will grow white as it grows old."

[Footnote 138: This observation was made to Dr. Johnson by the right hon.

Wm. Gerard Hamilton, as he told me, at Tunbridge, August, 1792. M.]

HALIFAX

The life of the earl of Halifax was properly that of an artful and active statesman, employed in balancing parties, contriving expedients, and combating opposition, and exposed to the vicissitudes of advancement and degradation; but, in this collection, poetical merit is the claim to attention; and the account which is here to be expected may properly be proportioned not to his influence in the state, but to his rank among the writers of verse.

Charles Montague was born April 16, 1661, at Horton, in Northamptonshire, the son of Mr. George Montague, a younger son of the earl of Manchester.

He was educated first in the country, and then removed to Westminster, where, in 1677, he was chosen a king's scholar, and recommended himself to Busby by his felicity in extemporary epigrams. He contracted a very intimate friendship with Mr. Stepney; and, in 1682, when Stepney was elected to Cambridge, the election of Montague being not to proceed till the year following, he was afraid lest, by being placed at Oxford, he might be separated from his companion, and, therefore, solicited to be removed to Cambridge, without waiting for the advantages of another year.

It seems, indeed, time to wish for a removal; for he was already a schoolboy of one-and-twenty.

His relation, Dr. Montague, was then master of the college in which he was placed a fellow-commoner, and took him under his particular care.

Here he commenced an acquaintance with the great Newton, which continued through his life, and was at last attested by a legacy[139].

In 1685, his verses on the death of king Charles made such an impression on the earl of Dorset, that he was invited to town, and introduced by that universal patron to the other wits. In 1687, he joined with Prior in the City Mouse and Country Mouse, a burlesque of Dryden's Hind and Panther. He signed the invitation to the prince of Orange, and sat in the convention. He, about the same time, married the countess dowager of Manchester, and intended to have taken orders; but afterwards altering his purpose, he purchased, for 1500_l_. the place of one of the clerks of the council.

After he had written his epistle on the victory of the Boyne, his patron Dorset introduced him to king William, with this expression: "Sir, I have brought a _mouse_ to wait on your majesty." To which the king is said to have replied, "You do well to put me in the way of making a _man_ of him;" and ordered him a pension of five hundred pounds. This story, however current, seems to have been made after the event. The king's answer implies a greater acquaintance with our proverbial and familiar diction than king William could possibly have attained.

In 1691, being member of the house of commons, he argued warmly in favour of a law to grant the a.s.sistance of counsel in trials for high treason; and, in the midst of his speech falling into some confusion, was for awhile silent; but, recovering himself, observed, "how reasonable it was to allow counsel to men called as criminals before a court of justice, when it appeared how much the presence of that a.s.sembly could disconcert one of their own body[140]."

After this he rose fast into honours and employments, being made one of the commissioners of the treasury, and called to the privy council. In 1694, he became chancellor of the exchequer; and the next year engaged in the great attempt of the recoinage, which was in two years happily completed. In 1696, he projected the _general fund_ and raised the credit of the exchequer; and, after inquiry concerning a grant of Irish crown-lands, it was determined, by a vote of the commons, that Charles Montague, esquire, "had deserved his majesty's favour." In 1698, being advanced to the first commission of the treasury, he was appointed one of the regency in the king's absence; the next year he was made auditor of the exchequer, and the year after created baron Halifax. He was, however, impeached by the commons; but the articles were dismissed by the lords.

At the accession of queen Anne he was dismissed from the council; and in the first parliament of her reign was again attacked by the commons, and again escaped by the protection of the lords. In 1704, he wrote an answer to Bromley's speech against occasional conformity. He headed the inquiry into the danger of the church. In 1706, he proposed and negotiated the union with Scotland; and when the elector of Hanover received the garter, after the act had pa.s.sed for securing the protestant succession, he was appointed to carry the ensigns of the order to the electoral court. He sat as one of the judges of Sacheverell; but voted for a mild sentence.

Being now no longer in favour, he contrived to obtain a writ for summoning the electoral prince to parliament, as duke of Cambridge.

At the queen's death he was appointed one of the regents; and at the accession of George the first was made earl of Halifax, knight of the garter, and first commissioner of the treasury, with a grant to his nephew of the reversion of the auditorship of the exchequer. More was not to be had, and this he kept but a little while; for, on the 19th of May, 1715, he died of an inflammation of his lungs.

Of him, who from a poet became a patron of poets, it will be readily believed that the works would not miss of celebration. Addison began to praise him early, and was followed or accompanied by other poets; perhaps, by almost all, except Swift and Pope, who forbore to flatter him in his life, and after his death spoke of him, Swift with slight censure, and Pope, in the character of Bufo, with acrimonious contempt[141].

He was, as Pope says, "fed with dedications;" for Tickell affirms that no dedicator was unrewarded. To charge all unmerited praise with the guilt of flattery, and to suppose that the encomiast always knows and feels the falsehoods of his a.s.sertions, is, surely, to discover great ignorance of human nature and human life. In determinations depending not on rules, but on experience and comparison, judgment is always, in some degree, subject to affection. Very near to admiration is the wish to admire.

Every man willingly gives value to the praise which he receives, and considers the sentence pa.s.sed in his favour as the sentence of discernment. We admire, in a friend, that understanding that selected us for confidence; we admire more, in a patron, that judgment which, instead of scattering bounty indiscriminately, directed it to us; and, if the patron be an author, those performances which grat.i.tude forbids us to blame, affection will easily dispose us to exalt.

To these prejudices, hardly culpable, interest adds a power always operating, though not always, because not willingly, perceived. The modesty of praise wears gradually away; and, perhaps, the pride of patronage may be in time so increased, that modest praise will no longer please.