The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume IV Part 2

But each in some peculiar grace shall shine!

Or to excel in courts, and please the fair!

Or Conquest gain thro' all the wat'ry war!

With harmony divine the ear to charm!

Or souls with more melodious numbers warm!

By wond'rous memory shall some excel In awful senates, and in speaking well!

To hold Astraea's scales with equal hand, And call back justice to that happy land!

To teach mankind how best the G.o.ds to praise!

To fix their minds in truth's unerring ways!

'Thus all her honours, Bristol's sons shall wear, Whilst each his country's good shall make his chiefest care!'

[Footnote A: This is not designed as a parallel of the story, but the painting from a piece of t.i.tian's, at my lord Bristol's.]

[Footnote B: A sister of lord Bristol's, who was a lady of most extraordinary beauty.]

HENRY NEEDLER,

This Poet was born at Harley in Surry, in the year 1690, and educated at a private school at Ryegate in the same county[A]. He was removed from thence in 1705, and in 1708 accepted a small place in a public office; where he continued the remainder of his days.

About this time contracting a friendship with a gentleman of a like taste, who furnished him with proper books, he applied himself at his intervals of leisure, to reading the dailies, and to the study of logic, metaphysics, and the mathematics, with which last he was peculiarly delighted. And in a few years by the force of his own happy genius, and unwearied diligence, without the a.s.sistance of any master, he acquired a considerable knowledge of the most difficult branches of those useful and entertaining studies.

By so close an application, he contracted a violent pain in his head, which notwithstanding the best advice, daily encreased. This, and other unfortunate circ.u.mstances concurring, so deeply affected him, who had besides in his const.i.tution a strong tincture of melancholy, that he was at last brought under almost a total extinction of reason.

In this condition he fell into a fever; and as there were before scarce any hopes of him, it may be said to have happily put an end to the deplorable bondage of so bright a mind, on the 21st of December, 1718, in the 29th year of his age. He was buried in the church of Friendsbury, near Rochester.

Mr. Needler's life was influenced by the principles of sincere, unaffected piety, and virtue.

On all occasions (says Mr. Duncomb) 'he was a strenuous advocate for universal toleration and forbearance in matters of religion; rightly supposing that no service can be acceptable to the supreme Being, unless it proceeds from the heart; and that force serves only to make hypocrites, but adds no new lights to the understanding. He was modest to a fault, entertaining the most humble opinion of his own performances; and was always ready to do justice to those of others.

His affection for his friends indeed sometimes bia.s.sed his judgment, and led him to the commending their writings beyond their merit.'

In the volume of Mr. Needler's works, are printed some familiar Letters, upon moral, and natural subjects. They are written with elegance and taste; the heart of a good man may be traced in them all, and equally abound with pious notions, as good sense, and solid reasoning.--He seems to have been very much master of smooth versification, his subjects are happily chosen, and there is a philosophical air runs through all his writings; as an instance of this, we shall present our readers with a copy of his verses addressed to Sir Richard Blackmore, on his Poem, int.i.tled The Creation.

Dress'd in the charms of wit and fancy, long The muse has pleas'd us with her syren song; But weak of reason, and deprav'd of mind, Too oft on vile, ign.o.ble themes we find The wanton muse her sacred art debase, Forgetful of her birth, and heavenly race; Too oft her flatt'ring songs to sin intice, And in false colours deck delusive vice; Too oft she condescends, in servile lays, The undeserving rich and great to praise.

These beaten paths, thy loftier strains refuse With just disdain, and n.o.bler subjects chuse: Fir'd with sublimer thoughts, thy daring soul Wings her aspiring flight from Pole to Pole, Observes the foot-steps of a pow'r divine, Which in each part of nature's system shine; Surveys the wonders of this beauteous frame, And sings the sacred source, whence all things came.

But Oh! what numbers shall I find to tell, The mighty transports which my bosom swell, Whilst, guided by thy tuneful voice, I stray Thro' radiant worlds, and fields of native day, Wasted from orb, to orb, unwearied fly Thro' the blue regions of the yielding sky; See how the spheres in stated courses roll, And view the just composure of the whole!

Such were the strains, by antient Orpheus sung.

To such, Mufaeus' heav'nly lyre was strung; Exalted truths, in learned verse they told, And nature's deepest secrets did unfold.

How at th' eternal mind's omnisic call, Yon starry arch, and this terrestrial ball, The briny wave, the blazing source of light, And the wane empress of the silent night, Each in it's order rose and took its place, And filled with recent forms the vacant s.p.a.ce; How rolling planets trace their destin'd way, Nor in the wastes of pathless aether stray; How the pale moon, with silver beams adorn Her chearful orb, and gilds her sharpened horns; How the vast ocean's swelling tides obey Her distant reign, and own her watr'y sway; How erring floods, their circling course maintain, Supplied by constant succours from the main; Whilst to the sea, the refluent streams restore, The liquid treasures which she lent before; What dreadful veil obscures the solar light, And Phaebe's darken'd face conceals from mortal sight.

Thy learned muse, I with like pleasure hear The wonders of the lesser world declare, Point out the various marks of skill divine, Which thro' its complicated structure mine, In tuneful verse, the vital current trace, Thro' all the windings of its mazy race, And tell hew the rich purple tide bestows, Vigour, and kindly warmth where e'er it flows; By what contrivance of mechanic art The muscles, motions to the limbs impart; How at th' imperial mind's impulsive nod, Th' obedient spirits thro' the nervous road Find thro' their fib'rous cells the ready way, And the high dictates of the will obey; From how exact and delicate a frame, The channeled bones their nimble action claim; With how much depth, and subtility of thought The curious organ of the eye is wrought; How from the brain their root the nerves derive, And sense to ev'ry distant member give.

Th' extensive knowledge you of men enjoy, You to a double use of man employ; Nor to the body, is your skill confin'd, Of error's worse disease you heal the mind.

No longer shall the hardy atheist praise Lucretius' piercing wit, and philosophic lays; But by your lines convinc'd, and charm'd at once, His impious tenets shall at length renounce, At length to truth and eloquence shall yield, Confess himself subdu'd, and wisely quit the field.

[Footnote A: See his Life prefixed to his works, by William Duncomb Esq;]

JOHN HUGHES,

William Duncomb, esq; has obliged the world with an entire edition of this author's poetical and prose works, to which he has prefixed some account of his life, written with candour and spirit. Upon his authority we chiefly build the following narration; in which we shall endeavour to do as much justice as possible to the memory of this excellent poet.

Our author was the son of a worthy citizen of London, and born at Marlborough in the county of Wilts, on the 29th of January 1677; but received the rudiments of his learning at private schools in London.

In the earliest years of his youth, he applied himself with ardour to the pursuit of the sister arts, poetry, drawing and music, in each of which by turns, he made a considerable progress; but for the most part pursued these and other polite studies, only as agreeable amus.e.m.e.nts, under frequent confinement from indisposition, and a valetudinary state of health. He had some time an employment in the office of ordinance; and was secretary to two or three commissioners under the great-seal, for purchasing lands for the better securing the docks and harbours at Portsmouth, Chatham, and Harwich.

In the year 1717 the lord chancellor Cowper, (to whom Mr. Hughes was then but lately known) was pleased, without any previous sollicitation, to make him his secretary for the commissions of the peace, and to distinguish him with singular marks of his favour and affection: And upon his lordship's laying down the great-seal, he was at his particular recommendation, and with the ready concurrence of his successor, continued in the same employment under the earl of Macclesfield.

He held this place to the time of his decease, which happened on the 17th of February 1719, the very night in which his tragedy, ent.i.tled the Siege of Damascus, was first acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane.

He was cut off by a consumption, after a painful life, at the age of 42, when he had just arrived at an agreeable competence, and advancing in fame and fortune. So just is the beautiful reflexion of Milton in his Lycidas;

Fame is the spur, that the clear spirit doth raise, (That last infirmity of n.o.ble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon, when we hops to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind fury with th' abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.--

He was privately buried in the vault under the chancel of St. Andrew's Church in Holborn. Mr. Hughes, as a testimony of grat.i.tude to his n.o.ble friend, and generous patron, earl Cowper, gave his lordship a few weeks before he died, his picture drawn by Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller, which he himself had received from that masterly painter. The value lord Cowper set upon it will be best shewn, by the letter he wrote upon this occasion to Mr. Hughes. As such a testimony from so eminent a person, was considered by himself as one of the highest honours he was capable of receiving, we shall therefore insert it.

24th Jan. 1719-20.

'Sir,

'I thank you for the most acceptable present of your picture, and a.s.sure you that none of this age can set a higher value on it than I do, and shall while I live, tho' I am sensible posterity will out-do me in that particular.'

I am with the greatest esteem, and sincerity

Your most affectionate, and oblig'd humble servant

COWPER.

Mr. Hughes was happy in the acquaintance and friendship of several of the greatest men, and most distinguished genius's of the age in which he lived; particularly of the n.o.bleman just now mentioned, the present lord bishop of Winchester, lord chief baron Gilbert, Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller, Mr. Congreve, Mr. Addison, Sir Richard Steele, Mr. Southern, Mr. Rowe, &c. and might have justly boasted in the words of Horace

----me c.u.m magnis vixisse, invita fatebitu usque Invidia.----

Having given this short account of his life, which perhaps is all that is preserved any where concerning him; we shall now consider him, first, as a poet, and then as a prose writer.

The Triumph of Peace was the earliest poem he wrote of any length, that appeared in public. It was written on occasion of the peace of Ryswick, and printed in the year 1677. A learned gentleman at Cambridge, in a letter to a friend of Mr. Hughes's, dated the 28th of February 1697-8, gives the following account of the favourable reception this poem met with there, upon its first publication.

'I think I never heard a poem read with so much admiration, as the Triumph of Peace was by our best critics here, nor a greater character given to a young poet, at his first appearing; no, not even to Mr.