Gawain Douglas, too obsolete for his collection; and one yet more obsolete, called Peebles in the Play,' mentioned in 'Christ's Kirk on the Green.' He met Mr. Gray in the University library, who is going to write the history of English Poetry. But, to put an end to this long article, his collection will be printed in two or three small octavos, with suitable decorations. . . . He showed me an old ballad in his folio MS. under the name of Adam Carr: three parts in four coincide so much with your Edom of Gordon, that the former name appears to me an odd corruption of the latter. His MS. will, however, tend to enrich Edom of Gordon with two of the prettiest stanzas I ever saw, beside many other improvements. He has also a MS. of Gill Morice, called in his copy Childe Morice." &c. The next series of correspondence is by Grainger, of whom a good biographical account is given. He was the friend both of Percy and Goldsmith and Shenstone. To the last named poet the second book of the Sugar Cane had been addressed, and was approved of by him; the second consulted him about the History of Fishes; and the first corrected his Tibullus. In return Dr. Grainger informs his correspondent that Home has published his tragedy of Agis; that it is much followed, and much decried; that he had no curiosity to read more than the first act; but that it is good mercantile ware, for it will bring Home in from six to seven hundred pounds. "How easily (he says) some folks make their money." And then he adds, (Oh, the flatterer!) "There is more real merit in your translation of the first Elegy of Tibullus, than in all I have read of that performance." We do not undertake the defence of Agis. Those who may read Lord Chatham's criticism on it in our Magazine for March, 1826. They may also be informed, that that worthy body the Presbytery of Edinburgh were deeply afflicted by the melancholy but notorious fact, that stage plays were written and their representation attended by ministers of the Church; and that a pamphlet was published at that godly city entitled," Arguments to prove that the Tragedy of Douglas ought to be publicly burnt by the hands of the hangman." 1757. Yet in spite of these spiritual admonitions (such is the perverseness of the unregenerate heart) Adam Ferguson acted Lady Randolph, and the grave, learned, pious Dr. Blair Anna, the delicate and gentle maid! Agis," however, is attacked in a second letter : like "It is the general opinion that Dodsley's two last volumes are, upon the whole, greatly inferior to their predecessors. Doddy himself thinks otherwise; but, as Gil Blas says, Cela sent de l'apopléxie.' His play, however, I am told, is a good one, and, though refused by that great conner of theatrical merit, Mr. G. (Garrick) greatly preferable to Agis. In truth it had need, for never did I read a tragedy with much less merit than this last of Mr. Home's. His very friends are half ashamed of it, all but Sir Harry Erskine and Lord Bute; the former of whom wrote the pro We have now done with Agis. the reception of Home's tragedies Lives of Garrick. The Merope of logue, and a pamphlet in praise of it, as the latter dragged the Prince of Wales twice to its representation. The author, in the mean while, if he has not much praise, has got much pudding, and that, you know, to a North Country bard, is no small consolation. You ought, however, to be informed, that Agis was sent to Garrick so recommended as that he could not refuse it; for I am right well assured his opinion of that play and mine are the same. He refused it three or four years ago, but then Lord Bute was not omnipotent at the Prince's Court." &c. Whoever wishes to know more about may consult Davies's and Murphy's Maffei is said to have been the real "Cleone," acted at Covent Garden, 1758. Dodsley, it is said, used to go to the theatre, and cry at the distress of Cleone in his own play; so Dr. Johnson writes to Langton, 9 Jan. 1758.-REV. parent of Home's Douglas, so we think Mr. J. C. Walker used to say. Others would refer the parentage to the old ballad of Gil Morrice. That we do not know, but we do know that Mr. Barry acted Norval, the Highland Shepherd, in rich puckered white satin breeches, and gold knee-buckles! P. 275. Dr. Grainger writes, "I have read the Odes [to Obscurity and Oblivion, by Bob Lloyd, &c.] with uncommon satisfaction, and hope they will produce a proper change in the future compositions of Mason and Gray. I ever thought those gentlemen, especially in their lyric performances, too obscure; indeed, I have read some of their stanzas which were so poetical as scarcely to be sense....... Depend upon it the Fragments [published by Macpherson] are not translated from the Erse; there is not one local or appropriated image in the whole. I once passed (for I cannot say I lived) twelve months in the wildest part of the Highlands. The author, however, is P. 287. "Sam. Johnson says he will review it (the Sugar Cane) in the Critical. He talks handsomely of you (Percy). I mentioned to him your Dissertation on the English Drama, and he expressed a desire to see it.” On the publication of Shenstone's Works by Dodsley, Grainger writes: "All the blank verse performances are languid, and too long. Blank verse must have sublimity to supply the want of the charms of rhyme, and loftiness was certainly not our friend's characteristic. He was the poet of elegance and the country. Some few of the prose pieces have merit; but the best of them are flippant, antithetical, and French. Often inaccurate in the expression, I in vain look for the author of the Schoolmistress in the thoughts and sentiments. Had Shenstone been alive, he would not have published them in their present dishabille. Even the Elegies, which are confessedly the most poetical of his works, are they not sometimes obscure?''§ This ends the extracts from Grainger's Correspondence, his death having taken place in 1766. Mr. Boswell's name succeeds; and we find him lamenting, in March 1785, the death of his illustrious friend Dr. Johnson. "I certainly need not enlarge on the shock it gave my mind. I do not expect to recover from it. I mean, I do not ex pect that I can ever in this world have so mighty a loss supplied. I gaze after him with an eager eye; and I hope again to * Without one "local or appropriate image," it is difficult to understand how the "deception could be ingenious." Muretus's consisted of a few Latin verses only.-REV. † On the alterations in successive editions of these Dialogues, see Parr's Warburtoniana, p. 156, and Green's Diary of Literature, p. 71. The strictures on Hume's History are perhaps the most material. Graves calls Hurd the Addison of the present age, which is hardly appropriate or just. See his Columella, i. p. 47.-Rev. Dr. Johnson's critique was inserted, not in the Critical Review, but in the London Chronicle, from which it was extracted in our Magazine for September last, p. 252. § We give the following inscription on an urn in a garden in Warwickshire, written by Shenstone, as it is not generally known : Ah, Musæ perfidæ ! Ah, Naiades, Dryadesque ! Nostrum prædilectum G. Shenstone.-REV. be with him. It is a great consolation to 6 work enriched with letters and other original pieces of Dr. Johnson's composition; and, as I wish to have the most ample collection I can make, it will be some time before it is ready for publication. I am indebted to your Lordship for a copy of Pope's Note' concerning him, and for a list of some of his works, which was indeed written down in his presence uncontradicted; but he corrected it for me when I pressed him. . . . Though the magnitude and lustre of his character make Dr. Johnson an object of the public attention longer than almost any person whom we have known, yet there is some danger that, if the publication of his life be delayed too long, curiosity may be fainter. I am therefore anxious to bring forth my quarto." Boswell was offended at the Bishop's not sending him the anecdotes he could collect of Johnson; the latter writes an excuse, and mentions, among other things" a Greek epitaph of Dr. Johnson's on our poor friend Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, which I procured two days ago from Mr. Archdall of this country, who had been a pupil of Dr. Sumner's at Harrow, and was recommended by him to Dr. Johnson, who gave him this epitaph,* and I send to you his (Mr. Archdall's) own transcript, hoping it will prove a peace-offering, and restore to me the pleasure of your correspondence." Bishop Percy gives an interesting account of the formation of the Literary Club at the Turk's Head, in Gerard Street. He mentions that the principal or avowed reason for the small number of members to which, for many years, it was limited (to 8, and after to 12,) was, that it should consist of such men as that if only two of them chanced to meet they should be able to entertain each other sufficiently without wishing for more company to pass the evening. When Sir John Hawkins withdrew, the number was increased to 12. As the account here given differs from that in Boswell's Johnson in some few particulars, we give a partial extract from it :— * Neither Johnson's Greek lines nor Latin epitaph are free from faults. We translate the Greek lines thus : Stranger, the tomb inscrib'd with Goldsmith's name GENT. MAG. VOL. XXIX. 2 Z years after) the door to the admission of an enlarged number of members. But Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Langton can tell you more, as they were more constant in their attendance than Mr. Burke, thes three being all that now remain of the an ginal members." P. 884. Among the correspondents of Dr. Percy was the Rev. George Ashby, of Barrow, Suffolk, a scholar and antiquary of much erudition and knowledge. He was well acquainted with Gray; and in a Linnæus in our possession, which came from Mr. Ashby's library, with numerous MS. notes and additions by him, we find two or three original letters by Gray inserted in answer to questions asked by Ashby, relating to the subjects of the book. The correspondence of Mr. Ashby in this volume is not wanting in interest or curiosity, but is employed too much in particular details and minute antiquarian criticism to be detached without injury; but we make one short extract as a specimen. It is addressed, "To Mr. Nichols, the Historian of Leicestershire." "Should you not take some notice of Whitaker, who makes your heroine a devil incarnate (Queen Elizabeth) so early as to be at the bottom of forging the loveletters. That she and her counsellors were crocodiles I can easily believe, but not that she interfered in this particular manoeuvre so early. I think I have as sharp a look as another at detecting a forgery. I never saw Rowley but for a day or two, when, as far as I knew, Dr. Glynn, Tyson, and all the world had not a scruple: yet the Gentleman's Magazine † will testify that I declared myself freely, and at large, though not so lucky as to be honoured with notice. I have seen Whitaker only in a review, where he is praised most devoutly, but for my life I could not see for what; the whole seemed to be a mere verbiage, or confident assertions. I have read Jebb, Goodall, Anderson, &c. and I am persuaded that Mary wrote the letters, and went out of her husband's chamber in order to his being blown up. copies we have, French, Scotch, or Latin, I do not believe that any of the three fell from her pen; and the only difficulty I have is, that what she did write, or was charged to have written, doth not appear in the Cotton, Yelverton, or any other of the numerous collections of the times. One may wonder too why many of the papers sent up from the English Comperusal were in Scotch. This I cannot missioners at York for Queen Elizabeth's account for, yet so it is. How strange seems the men giving a virgin-queen smocks! &c."‡ We next have the Correspondence of Dr. M. Lort, a scholar, divine, and antiquary of the last century, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but whose name, singularly enough, does not appear in Boswell's Anecdotes of Johnson, though Lort was all his life a scholar about town. He was, too, a man of sense, though the suppression of the chaplains' table at St. James's, and abolishing Lady Charlotte Finch's kitchen, made him tremble for the consequences which such a reform, pushed on by hot zealots, would produce! It is curious in such past recollections as these to see things now long familiar to us, in their first aspect of novelty, truth in its garb of timid and modest suggestion, and new facts bursting from their shell, under the power of scientific or learned discovery. As"At the opening of the Royal Society's Bath astronomer, in a very formal letter meeting last Thursday, Mr. Herschel, the to the president, announced his having *Mary Queen of Scots vindicated by Rev. S. Whitaker, 3 vols. 1787. See Gent. Mag. 1777, p. 205-208. Ashby mentions in one letter, "Sir J. Cullum has nicely transcribed and made great additions to Sir Richard Gippes's (I write without book) Suffolk Gentry; it fills a snug quarto on one side. He has also, of his own painful collection, two such volumes of Suffolk Epitaphs: so that these melted down with those in Weever, and with ecclesiastical transcripts from the Bishop's office and the Suffolk Traveller, would make a tolerable county history."-Vid. p. 409.-REY, named the new planet in our system, which he has discovered, Georgium Sydus ' Georgium Sydus, Tu nunc assuere vocari.' The Astronomer Royal (Dr. Maskelyne) gave his fiat in as formal a manner to this nomination, and recommended it to the president to give directions to the secretary to announce this nomination to all the academies in Europe. . Mr. Ritson, a young lawyer of Gray's Inn, is the author of the attack on Warton; he has been digging hard in the Museum mines for some time past, and is quite a Drawcansir, for I am told he has a pamphlet ready to be published against Steevens and Malone's Shakspeare, and also a Collection of Old Ballads, in which I presume a former editor (Bishop_Percy) is to be handled as roughly. Poor Dr. Johnson is said to be in a bad way with water on his breast; he is bled often, and takes laudanum frequently, but whether by his own or better advice I cannot say." The following are miscellaneous remembrances of small matters : "The Prince of Wales has been very ill, even in much danger, and only saved by bleeding and blistering, which it is hoped will make him more cautious of eating and drinking for the future. Sir John Eliot told the Queen that he had been preaching as much to the prince against intemperance as any bishop could have done. The Queen replied, 'And probably with like success.' "In the papers of this week you will probably have seen some strange papers concerning Mrs. Thrale's marriage with Piozzi. It is, I am afraid, * too true; for I have no certain intelligence concerning it from any person; they are in town I am told, and invisible to most of their old acquaintance. It is said that Dr. Johnson had written her a long letter to prevent, if possible, the match taking place, but to no purpose; that Miss Thrale is going to a Mrs. Beaver's in Albemarle-street, where there is a sort of academy for grown-up ladies, and the three younger children to some boarding school. Mrs. Thrale, it is supposed, will go to reside in Italy." "T. Warton was made Poet Laureate, as some say, at the King's own motion; others say Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned him to the Lord Chamberlain. The place is worth clear money 1201. a year.' "There is a prebendary of this church, Mr. Travis, who has published an excellent book against Gibbon, chiefly in defence of a text that has almost been given up as desperate, 1 John v. 3, 'There are three that bear witness,' &c. The genuineness of this he has asserted with wonderful acuteness, and has attacked several other places in Gibbon with equal success. Pray get a sight of it, and then I know you will commend and recommend it. Gibbon is now settled at Lausanne, there to complete his History." "Strahan the printer's son is about to publish Johnson's Prayers, having_attended him during his last illness. Boswell's book, I suppose, will be out in the winter. The King at his levee talked to him, as was natural, on this subject. Boswell told his Majesty that he had another work on the anvil-a History of the Rebellion in 1745; but that he was at a loss how to style the principal person who figured in it. How would you style him, Mr. Boswell?' 'I was thinking, Sire, of calling him the grandson of the unfortunate James the Second.' 'That I have no objection to my title to the crown stands on firmer ground-on an Act of Parliament.' This is said to be the substance of a conversation which passed at the levee. I wish I was certain of the exact words." (Vid. p. 472.) "On my return hither I found a letter from Mrs. Piozzi, dated Leghorn, Sept. 21, in which she says, that her Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson are finished and transcribed for the press, and only wait a safe hand to convey them to Cadell's for publication. She also says, We kept our wedding anniversary with great gaiety and splendour at Florence, where all the English and many of the Tuscan nobility and gentry dined with us. But the English are the friends my husband hourly gains upon the hearts of: I never saw any of them yet who did not like him the first day, and love him the second.'"' We think this is sufficiently decisive on the point, which was so vexatious a one to Madame D'Arblay and her clique. *Why Dr. Lort should be afraid of the truth of the marriage we do not understand. Mr. Piozzi was an accomplished gentleman, of pleasing manners, and good conduct; and why should not a teacher of music marry a brewer's widow? But Dr. Johnson gave the tone of feeling against this marriage; and it is one of the worst instances of his prejudices and passions. Vide our extract from p. 473 confirming what we have said.-REV. |