The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland Volume V Part 20

I come now to the last quotation, which in our examiner's handling, falls under this predicament of being a thought astonis.h.i.+ngly out of the way of common sense.

None but himself can be his parallel.

This, he hints, may seem borrowed from the thought of that master of a show in Smithfield, who wrote in large letters over the picture of his Elephant. This is the greatest Elephant in the world except himself. I like the pleasantry of the banter, but have no great doubt of getting clear from the severity of it. The lines in the play stand thus.

Is there a treachery like this in baseness, Recorded any where? It is the deepest; None but itself can be its parallel.

I am not a little surprized, to find that our examiner at last is dwindled into a word-catcher. Literally speaking, indeed, I agree with Mr. Pope, that nothing can be the parallel to itself; but allowing a little for the liberty of expression, does it not plainly imply, that it is a treachery which stands single for the nature of its baseness, and has not its parallel on record; and that nothing but a treachery equal to it in baseness can parallel it? If this were such nonsense as Pope would willingly have it, it would be a very bad plea for me to alledge, as the truth is, that the line is in Shakespear's old copy; for I might have suppressed it. But I hope it is defensible; at least if examples can keep it in countenance. There is a piece of nonsense of the same kind in the Amphytrio of Plautus: Sofia having survey'd Mercury from top to toe, finds him such an exact resemblance of himself, in dress, shape, and features, that he cries out,

Tam consimil' est, atq; ego.

That is, he is as like me, as I am to myself. Now I humbly conceive, in strictness of expression a man can no more be like himself, than a thing its own parallel. But to confine myself to Shakespear. I doubt not but I can produce some similar pa.s.sages from him, which literally examined, are stark nonsense; and yet taken with a candid lat.i.tude have never appeared ridiculous. Mr. Pope would scarce allow one man to say to another. 'Compare and weigh your mistress with your mistress; and I grant she is a very fair woman; but compare her with some other woman that I could name, and the case will be very much altered.' Yet the very substance of this, is said by Shakespear, in Romeo and Juliet; and Mr. Pope has not degraded it as any absurdity, or unworthy of the author.

Pho! pho! you saw her fair, none else being by; HERSELF poiz'd with HERSELF in either eye.

But, &c.

Or, what shall we say of the three following quotations.

ROMEO and JULIET.

-Oh! so light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.

WINTER'S TALE.

-For Cogitation Resides not in the man that does not think.

HAMLET.

-Try what repentance can, what can it not?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent.

Who does not see at once, the heaviest foot that ever trod cannot wear out the everlasting flint? or that he who does not think has no thoughts in him? or that repentance can avail nothing when a man has not repentance? yet let these pa.s.sages appear, with a casting weight of allowance, and their absurdity will not be so extravagant, as when examined by the literal touchstone.-

Your's, &c.

LEWIS THEOBALD.

By perusing the above, the reader will be enabled to discern whether Mr.

Pope has wantonly ridiculed the pa.s.sages in question; or whether Mr.

Theobald has, from a superst.i.tious zeal for the memory of Shakespear, defended absurdities, and palliated extravagant blunders.

The ingenious Mr. Dodd, who has lately favoured the public with a judicious collection of the beauties of Shakespear, has quoted a beautiful stroke of Mr. Theobald's, in his Double Falsehood, upon music.

-Strike up, my masters; But touch the strings with a religious softness; Teach sounds to languish thro' the night's dull ear, 'Till Melancholy start from her lazy couch, And carelessness grow concert to attention.

ACT I. SCENE III.

A gentleman of great judgment happening to commend these lines to Mr. Theobald, he a.s.sured him he wrote them himself, and only them in the whole play.

Mr. Theobald, besides his edition of all Shakespear's plays, in which he corrected, with great pains and ingenuity, many faults which had crept into that great poet's writings, is the author of the following dramatic pieces.

I. The Persian Princess, or the Royal Villain; a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, printed in the year 1715. The author observes in his preface, this play was written and acted before he was full nineteen years old.

II. The Perfidious Brother; a Tragedy acted at the Theatre in Little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1716. This play is written on the model of Otway's Orphan; the scene is in a private family in Brussels.

III. Pan and Syrinx; an Opera of one act, performed on the Theatre in Little Lincoln's Inn-Fields, 1717.

IV. Decius and Paulina, a Masque; to which is added Musical Entertainments, as performed at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, in the Dramatic Opera of Circe.

V. Electra, a Tragedy; translated from the Greek of Sophocles, with notes, printed in the year 1714, dedicated to Joseph Addison, Esq;

VI. Oedipus King of Thebes; a Tragedy translated from Sophocles, with notes, translated in the year 1715, dedicated to the earl of Rockingham.

VII. Plutus, or the World's Idol; a Comedy translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, with notes, printed in the year 1715. The author has to this Translation prefixed a Discourse, containing some Account of Aristophanes, and his two Comedies of Plutus and the Clouds.

VIII. The Clouds, a Comedy; translated from Aristophanes, with notes, printed in the year 1715.

IX. The Rape of Proserpine; a Farce acted at the Theatre-Royal in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1727.

X. The Fatal Secret; a Tragedy acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden, 1725.

XI. The Vocal Parts of an Entertainment, called Apollo and Daphne, or the Burgo Master Trick'd; performed at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 1726.

XII. Double Falsehood; which we have already mentioned.

Mr. Theobald's other Works are chiefly these.

The Gentleman's Library, containing Rules for Conduct in all Parts of Life, in 12mo. 1722.

The first Book of Homer's Odyssey translated, with notes, 8vo. 1716.

The Cave of Poverty, written in imitation of Shakespear.

Pindaric Ode on the Union, 1707.

A Poem sacred to the Memory of Queen Anne, Folio 1714.

Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Lives of Antiochus, and Berenice, from the French, 1717.

The Revd. Dr. SAMUEL CROXALL,

The celebrated author of the Fair Circa.s.sian, was son of the revd. Mr. Samuel Croxall, rector of Hanworth, Middles.e.x, and vicar of Walton upon Thames in Surry, in the last of which places our author was born. He received his early education at Eton school, and from thence was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge. Probably while he was at the university, he became enamoured of Mrs. Anna Maria Mordaunt, who first inspired his breast with love, and to whom he dedicates the poem of the Circa.s.sian, for which he has been so much distinguished. This dedication is indeed the characteristic of a youth in love, but then it likewise proves him altogether unacquainted with the world, and with that easiness of address which distinguishes a gentleman. A recluse scholar may be pa.s.sionately in love, but he discovers it by strains of bombast, and forced allusions, of which this dedication is a very lively instance.

'The language of the Fair Circa.s.sian, says he, like yours, was natural poetry; her voice music, and the excellent colouring and formation of her features, painting; but still, like yours, drawn by the inimitable pencil of nature, life itself; a pattern for the greatest master, but copying after none; I will not say angels are not cast in the same mould.' And again in another place, 'Pardon, O lovely deity, the presumption of this address, and favour my weak endeavours. If my confession of your divine power is any where too faint, believe it not to proceed from a want of due respect, but of a capacity more than human. Whoever thinks of you can no longer be himself; and if he could, ought to be something above man to celebrate the accomplishment of a G.o.ddess. To you I owe my creation as a lover, and in the beams of your beauty only I live, move, and exist. If there should be a suspension of your charms, I should fall to nothing. But it seems to be out of your power to deprive us of their kind influence; wherever you s.h.i.+ne they fill all our hearts, and you are charming out of necessity, as the author of nature is good.' We have quoted enough to shew the enthusiasm, or rather phrenzy, of this address, which is written in such a manner as if it were intended for a burlesque on the False Sublime, as the speeches of James I. are upon pedantry.

Mr. Croxall, who was intended for holy orders, and, probably, when he published the Circa.s.sian, had really entered into them, was cautious lest he should be known to be the author of this piece, since many divines have esteemed the Song of Solomon, from which it is taken, as an inspired poem, emblematic of the Messiah and the Church. Our author was of another opinion, and with him almost all sensible men join, in believing that it is no more than a beautiful poem, composed by that Eastern monarch, upon some favourite lady in his Seraglio. He artfully introduces it with a preface, in which he informs us, that it was the composition of a young gentleman, his pupil, lately deceased, executed by him, while he was influenced by that violent pa.s.sion with which Mrs. Mordaunt inspired him. He then endeavours to ascertain who this Eastern beauty was, who had charms to enflame the heart of the royal poet. He is of opinion it could not be Pharaoh's daughter, as has been commonly conjectured, because the bride in the Canticles is characterised as a private person, a shepherdess, one that kept a vineyard, and was ill used by her mother's children, all which will agree very well with somebody else, but cannot, without great straining, be drawn to fit the Egyptian Princess. He then proceeds, 'seeing we have so good reason to conclude that it was not Pharaoh's daughter, we will next endeavour to shew who she was: and here we are dest.i.tute of all manner of light, but what is afforded us by that little Arabian ma.n.u.script, mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions of Amsterdam, 1558, said to be found in a marble chest among the ruins of Palmyra, and presented to the university of Leyden by Dr. Herma.n.u.s Hoffman. The contents of which are something in the nature of Memoirs of the Court of Solomon; giving a sufficient account of the chief offices and posts in his houshold; of the several funds of the royal revenue; of the distinct apartments of his palace there; of the different Seraglios, being fifty two in number in that one city. Then there is an account given of the Sultanas; their manner of treatment and living; their birth and country, with some touches of their personal endowments, how long they continued in favour, and what the result was of the King's fondness for each of them. Among these, there is particular mention made of a slave of more exceeding beauty than had ever been known before; at whose appearance the charms of all the rest vanished like stars before the morning sun; that the King cleaved to her with the strongest affection, and was not seen out of the Seraglio, where she was kept, for about a month. That she was taken captive, together with her mother, out of a vineyard, on the Coast of Circa.s.sia, by a Corsair of Hiram King of Tyre, and brought to Jerusalem. It is said, she was placed in the ninth Seraglio, to the east of Palmyra, which, in the Hebrew tongue, is called Tadmor; which, without farther particulars, are sufficient to convince us that this was the charming person, sung with so much rapture by the Royal poet, and in the recital of whose amour he seems so transported. For she speaks of herself as one that kept a vineyard, and her mother's introducing her in one of the gardens of pleasure (as it seems she did at her first presenting her to the King) is here distinctly mentioned. The ma.n.u.script further takes notice, that she was called Saphira, from the heavenly blue of her eyes.'

Notwithstanding the caution with which Mr. Croxall published the Fair Circa.s.sian, yet it was some years after known to be his. The success it met with, which was not indeed above its desert, was perhaps too much for vanity (of which authors are seldom entirely divested) to resist, and he might be betrayed into a confession, from that powerful principle, of what otherwise would have remained concealed.

Some years after it was published, Mr. Cragg, one of the ministers of the city of Edinburgh, gave the world a small volume of spiritual poems, in one of which he takes occasion to complain of the prost.i.tution of genius, and that few poets have ever turned their thoughts towards religious subjects; and mentions the author of the Circa.s.sian with great indignation, for having prost.i.tuted his Muse to the purposes of lewdness, in converting the Song of Solomon (a work, as he thought it, of sacred inspiration) into an amorous dialogue between a King and his mistress. His words are,

Curss'd be he that the Circa.s.sian wrote, Perish his fame, contempt be all his lot, Who basely durst in execrable strains, Turn holy mysteries into impious scenes.

The revd. gentleman met with some remonstrances from his friends, for indulging so splenetic a temper, when he was writing in the cause of religion, as to wish any man accursed. Of this censure he was not insensible; in the next edition of his poems, he softened the sarcasm, by declaring, in a note, that he had no enmity to the author's person, and that when he wished him accursed, be meant not the man, but the author, which are two very distinct considerations; for an author may be accursed, that is, d.a.m.ned to fame, while the man may be in as fair a way to happiness as any body; but, continues he, I should not have expected such prophanation from a clergyman.

The Circa.s.sian, however, is a beautiful poem, the numbers are generally smooth, and there is a tender delicacy in the dialogue, though greatly inferior to the n.o.ble original.

Mr. Croxall had not long quitted the university, e'er he was inst.i.tuted to the living of Hampton in Middles.e.x; and afterwards to the united parishes of St. Mary Somerset, and St. Mary Mounthaw, in the city of London, both which he held 'till his death. He was also chancellor, prebend, and canon residentiary and portionist of the church of Hereford. Towards the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne he published two original Cantos, in imitation of Spenser's Fairy Queen, which were meant as a satire on the earl of Oxford's administration. In the year 1715 he addressed a poem to the duke of Argyle, upon his obtaining a Victory over the Rebels, and the same year published The Vision, a poem, addressed to the earl of Halifax. He was concerned, with many others, in the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, of which the following were performed by him:

The Story of Nisus and Scylla, from the sixth Book.