posed to have been the joint-production of that nobleman and our author. Dr. Lockier, who has already been mentioned, thought that Dryden had the principal hand in this piece, and that Sheffield only made a few verbal alterations: but an attentive perusal of it will, I think, lead to an opposite conclusion, the very reverse of this statement being, I believe, the truth. To try the character or merits of this poem truly, it should be read in the form in which it originally appeared, and if it be compared with the first copy of the ESSAY ON POETRY, which is indisputably Sheffield's, a great similarity may be observed between them ;idem vultus et color: the same general air, the same looseness of structure, and in many places the same want of precision and harmony, will be found to characterize both poems; defects which never could have proceeded from the pen of our author at this time. Dryden, to whom without doubt the ESSAY ON SATIRE was shewn, might have made a few verbal alterations; but the distance at which they stood from each other, probably prevented him from objecting to much that he could easily have amended and improved. Though Le Sage had not yet written his entertaining work, and our author had never read the history of the Archbishop of Granada, his sagacity must have taught him not to be too free on this occasion. When the same poem, above thirty years afterwards, fell 6 Spence's ANECdotes, into the hands of Pope, to whose revision it is known Sheffield submitted his verses' preparatory to a new edition, that great poet being happily placed in a state of independence, was less scrupulous; and accordingly we find in Sheffield's two principal poems innumerable alterations. Let us then try the ESSAY ON SATIRE by this test. If Dryden's hand were to be clearly traced in any part of this poem, it might be expected almost with certainty to be found in the character of Rochester, who had treated him with so much slight. I do not say that our author might not have ventured to suggest an epithet or a hint, in this as well as in other parts of the Essay; but is it credible that when he had attained his utmost excellence of versification, he should have written several of the following lines? "Rochester I despise for 's mere want of wit, Though thought to have a tail and cloven feet, "For while he mischief means to all mankind, "Himself alone the ill effects does find; “And so, like witches, justly suffers shame, "Whose harmless malice is so much the same. "False are his words, affected is his wit, "So often does he aim, so seldom hit. "To every face he cringes, while he speaks, "But when the back is turn'd, the head he breaks. "Mean in each action, lewd in every limb, "Manners themselves are mischievous in him; "A proof that chance alone makes every creature,— “A very Killigrew, without good-nature. Spence's ANECDOTES. tively "For what a Bessus has he always lived, "For (there's the folly that's still mix'd with fear) 66 Cowards more blows than any hero bear. "Of fighting sparks Fame may her pleasure say, "But 'tis a bolder thing to run away. "The world may well forgive him all his ill, "For every fault does prove his penance still. 66 Falsely he falls into some dangerous noose, "And then as meanly labours to get loose. "A life so infamous is better quitting; 66 Spent in base injury and low submitting.— "I'd like to have left out his poetry, Forgot by all almost as well as me. "Sometimes he has some humour, never wit, "And if it rarely, very rarely hit, "'Tis under such a nasty rubbish laid, "To find it out's the cinder-woman's trade; "The wretched text deserve no comments here; 'Mongst forty bad, one tolerable line, "Without expression, fancy, or design." Such was this character, as it came originally from the hands of the author. If that author had been Dryden, what reason can be assigned, why he should not have given every part of it the polish which it received from the hands of Pope, by whom it appears to have been thus corrected and amended? The censure of Rochester's poetry, it is observable, is wholly omitted: "Last enter Rochester of sprightly wit, "Yet not for converse safe, or business fit. 66 "And we must own his very vices shine. "For (there's the folly that's still mix'd with fear,) "The world may well forgive him all his ill, "For every fault does prove his penance still. 66 Easily he falls into some dangerous noose: "And then as meanly labours to get loose: "A life so infamous is better quitting, "Spent in base injury and low submitting." In his own edition of this Essay, Sheffield says, it was written in 1675; which, from the circumstances already enumerated, seems sufficiently probable. It does not, however, appear to have got abroad in any form till November, 1679, when several manuscript copies having been handed about, one of them fell into Rochester's hands; and he thus speaks of it in a letter to his friend, Henry Saville, which is printed in his Works without a date, but from a circumstance mentioned in it must have been written on the 21st of November, 1679: "I have sent you herewith a libel, in which my own share is not the least. The King having perused it, is no way dissatisfied with his. The author is apparently Mr. Dr[yden], his patron Lord Mulgrave] having a panegyrick in the midst." 8 The mean revenge which Rochester took, by hiring some ruffians to cudgel our author on the 18th of the ensuing December, as he was returning from Will's Coffee-House through Rose-street, Covent-Garden, to his own house, is well known. If there were any doubt of his being concerned in that pusillanimous and disgraceful action, it would be removed by the following passage in another of his letters: "You write me word that I'm out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that could fiddle, or a singing owl. If In a newspaper, entitled "Domestiek Intelligence, or News from both City and Country," published on the 26th of December, is an Advertisement, offering a reward of £.50. to any person who should discover the offender by whom this assault was committed; and on the 2d of January, the same reward (and pardon) is promised to the discoverer, though he should himself have committed the fact, provided he should make known the person who incited him to this unlawful act. But neither the perpetrators of this outrage, nor their employers, were ever discovered. |