shed tears of joy at finding a large portion of Bentley's conjectures exactly coincide with his own. He once spoke to some scholars at the Gray's Inn Coffee-House, on Bentley's literary character, with such warmth of eulogy that a North Briton, who was present, asked him if Bentley was not a Scotchman. "No," replied Porson, "Bentley was a Greek scholar.” This story is told in more ways than one, but Porson's stress must have been upon the word "Greek."-WATSON, JOHN SELBY, 1861, The Life of Richard Porson, p. 28. Richard Bentley, therefore, becomes in every respect an important name in our sketch, both because he carried the experimental method, which was the method of the age, into a new region, and because he left behind some examples and some warnings as to the right and wrong use of this method. He showed that it must be applied freely and manfully if it is applied at all; he showed, by his failures. as well as his successes, that reverence for an author-for any author whatsoever, be it Horace or Milton-is not a restraint upon sound criticism, but is an indispensable condition of it. He showed that the practical habits which belong to an Englishman-his acquaintance with law courts, and with the rules by which lawyers and men of the world try the truth of testimony-may be of the greatest worth in correcting the formal canons of schoolmen, may often give them quite a new character, and prevent them from leading to utterly false conclusions. But he showed also, that this experience may be purchased very dearly; that the man of letters who aspires to be the man of affairs may become involved in petty quarrels and litigations, which weaken the moral strength if they cultivate the acuteness of the mind. A union of his amazing erudition, minute perception, and practical force, with really high aims, would constitute a critic such as the world has not yet seen.—MAURICE, FREDERICK DENISON, 1862, Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, vol. II, p. 479. the whole material of learning, gave decisions.-MÄHLY, JACOB, 1868, Richard Bentley, Eine Biographie. Incomparably the first critic of the day. --STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. I, p. 86. He had an excellent familiar knowledge of Greek, and was a great interpreter. Yet it must be remembered that he never tried his art upon the more difficult authors. He was better acquainted with the Anthology, Lucian, Suidas, Iamblichus, than with Plato, Thucydides, Sophocles, Eschylus, Pindar, Herodotus, who owe nothing to him. Upon the whole he keeps bad company in literature. JOWETT, BENJAMIN, 1880-82, Note Book, Life and Letters, ed. Abbott and Campbell, vol. II. p. 186. Bentley's reflections upon language, even when in conflict with sound philosophy, are worthy of study, for even the aberrations of true genius are suggestive. When he philosophizes upon the tendency of speech to constant change, in structure as well as in vocabulary, he seems to have a prevision of comparative philology, and we almost wonder that he has nothing to say about "consonantal interchange,' "phonetic decay," and the other comour modern science. monplaces of SHEPHERD, H. E., 1881, A Study of Bentley's English, American Journal of Philology, vol. 2, p. 27. Bentley's simple English is racy in a way peculiar to him. It has the tone of a strong mind which goes straight to the truth; it is pointed with the sarcasm of one whose own knowledge is thorough and exact, but who is accustomed to find imposture wrapped up in fine or vague words, and takes an ironical delight in using the very homeliest images and phrases which accurately fit the matter in hand. No one has excelled Bentley in the power of making a pretentious fallacy absurd by the mere force of translation into simple terms; no writer of English has shown greater skill in touching the hidden springs of its native humour.JEBB, RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE, 1882, Bentley (English Men of Letters), p. 170. He left no great work; yet what he did. in lines of classical criticism could not by any possibility have been better done by others. He supplied interpretations where the world had blundered and stumbled-which blazed their way to unquestioned acceptance. He mastered all the difficulties of language, and wore the mastership with a proud and insolent self-assertion-a very Goliath of learning, with spear like a weaver's beam, and no son of Jesse to lay him low. When you meet with that name of Bentley you may safely give it great weight in all scholarly matters, and not so much in matters of taste. Trust him in foot-notes to Aristophanes (a good mate for him!) or to Terence; trust him less in foot-notes to Milton, or even Horace (when he leaves prosody to talk of rhythmic susurrus).MITCHELL, DONALD G., 1895, English Lands Letters and Kings, Queen Anne and the Georges, p. 11. Was from the first recognized as a consummate genius by the scholars of Germany, by Grævius and Spanheim, who welcomed him as "novum et lucidum Britanniæ sidus," as "splendidissimum Britanniæ lumen." The many beginnings which he had laid for subsequent critical research among the ancient classical authors were taken up abroad by men like Heyne, Reiz, F. A. Wolf, Gottfried Hermann, and Friedrich Ritschl, in whose hands they have developed into a special school of philology, counting probably over a hundred representatives, many of whom have openly avowed their indebtedness to Bentley.-MERZ, JOHN THEODORE, 1896, A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 1, p. 169, note. Prince of textual critics.-DOWDEN, JOHN, 1897, Outlines of the History of the Theological Literature of the Church of England, p. 207. John Oldmixon Born in Somerset, 1673: died at London, 1742. An English historical writer. He was dull and insipid. He abused Pope in his "Essay on Criticism in Prose" (1728), and was promptly scarified in the "Dunciad" (ii. 283). Among his other works are "The British Empire in America" (1708), "Critical History of England, etc." (1726), "History of England" (1730-39), "Memoirs of the Press, etc."(1742), etc.-SMITH, BENJAMIN E., 1894-97, ed., The Century Cyclopedia of Names, p. 756. PERSONAL In naked majesty Oldmixon stands, And Milo-like surveys his arms and hands; Then, sighing thus, "And am I now threescore? "Ah why, ye Gods, should two and two make four? He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height, Shot to the black abyss, and plung'd downright. The Senior's judgment all the crowd admire, Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher. -POPE, ALEXANDER, 1728-43, The Dunciad, bk. II, v. 283, 290. When we meet with the name of Oldmixon, who thinks of the real man, the tiresome old Whig pamphleteer, with his insipid pastorals and his petulant essays? We think of a figure created entirely by Pope; we think of the aged athlete, “in naked majesty," climbing the side of the stranded lighter, to plunge the deeper into the dreadful sluice of mud. interest is quickened, indeed, but not created by the consciousness that there Our Mr. Oldmixon wrote a history of the Stuarts in folio, and a Critical History of England, in two volumes octavo. The former of these pieces was undertaken to blacken the family of the Stuarts. The most impartial writers and candid critics, on both sides, have held this work in contempt, for in every page there breathes a malevolent spirit, a disposition to rail and calumniate: So far from observing that neutrality and dispassionate evenness of temper, which should be carefully attended to by every historian, he suffers himself to be transported with anger: He reviles, wrests particular passages, and frequently draws forced conclusions. A history written in this spirit has no greater claim to a reader's faith.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. IV, p. 203. Oldmixon, who was a Whig historian, if a violent party-writer ought ever to be dignified by so venerable a title, ---unmercifully rigid to all other historians, was himself guilty of the crimes with which he so loudly accused others.—Disraeli, ISAAC, 1812-13, Authors by Profession, Calamities of Authors, note. Oldmixon's assertion, unsupported by evidence, is of no weight whatever. MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1849, History of England, ch. xi, note. His chief work was a history of the reign of the Stuarts in folio, a production. which no doubt suggested to Hume the plan and title of his first two volumes. This work, although highly popular in its own time, has had little success with posterity. It wants fidelity, accuracy of research, a pleasing style and a philosophic tone; and it was no doubt a great encouragement to Hume that he had no more formidable rival than the imperfect volumes of Oldmixon. A few lines of bitter satire in the Dunciad have done more to preserve the name of John Oldmixon to posterity than all his own labored productions. LAWRENCE, EUGENE, 1855, The Lives of the British Historians, vol. I, 322. Oldmixon could do nothing but rant and abuse given to the world the worst history of England that ever was or is ever likely to be written. The student who resorts to his voluminous work for information rises from the perusal with disgust and wonder that a man who lived through a considerable part of the period he professes to pourtray, who was personally acquainted with many of the characters whose actions he undertakes to record, should have contented himself with drawing his materials wholly from party squibs, without contributing one atom of intelligence upon matters which fell under his own observation, or making one comment which is not either extravagantly laudatory or extravagantly abusive. -WYON, FREDERICK WILLIAM, 1876, The History of Great Britain During the Reign of Queen Anne, vol. 11, pp. 262, 327. John Oldmixon, the pamphleteer, was a waspish person. He was continually attacking somebody, and even ventured to have his fling at Pope, who promptly gibbeted him in "The Dunciad." As he was universally disliked, his verses were usually kept out of the miscellanies of the time; but from his little volume of poems in the manner of Anacreon, published in 1696, I have chosen some dainty trifles. -BULLEN, A. H., 1895, Musa Proterva, Preface, p. xii. His historical work has little value now, and his main object in writing it was to promote the cause of the party. He never hesitated in attacking those on the other side, whether dead or living.—AITKEN, GEORGE A., 1895, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XLII, p. 118. Unfortunately, the great Whig historian and essayist sometimes allowed political bias to influence his brilliant literary productions; and he sacrificed accuracy to his love of rhetorical antithesis. Incomparably superior in attainments and character to Oldmixon (16731732), one of the heroes of the "Dunciad," both are remarkable for their overmastering spirit of Whig partisanship, though it is a degradation to Macaulay to imply a comparison in literary style with Oldmixon's dull, careless, and unveracious. compilations.-AUBREY, W. H. S., 1896, The Rise and Growth of the English Nation, vol. III, p. 238. William Somerville 1675-1742. Born at the family seat, Edston, Warwickshire, in 1677, (?) (not 1692, as Dr. Johnson states), was admitted to Winchester school in 1690; in the same year became Fellow of New College, Oxford; resigned on succeeding to his patrimonial estate in 1704; divided his time between his justiceship of the peace, his books, hounds, and bottle, and died July 19, 1742. . 1. "The Two Springs; a Fable," London, 1725. 2. "Occasional Poems, Translations, Fables Tales," &c., 1727. 3. "The Chace; a Poem, 1735," 4th ed., 1743. 4. "Field Sports; a Poem," 1742, 5. "Hobbinol; or, The Rural Games; a Burlesque Poem in Blank Verse," 1740.ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1870, Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. II, p. 2175. PERSONAL Our old friend Somerville is dead; I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion. Sublatum. fuærimus, I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age and to distressed circumstances. The last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on; for a man of high spirit, conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery.-SHENSTONE, WILLIAM, 1742, Letters, p. 318. Somerville was a handsome noisy squire, a strapping fellow six feet high, a hard rider, a crack shot. No more characteristic specimen of the sporting country gentleman, pure and simple, could be imagined, or one less likely to develop into a poet. It was, in fact, not until fast living begun to break down his constitution that he took to literature as a consolation. One of his earliest exercises was an epistle addressed to Addison, who had bought a property in Warwickshire, and so had become Somerville's neighbour.GOSSE, EDMUND, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. III, p. 189. THE CHASE 1734 which denotes the genius of superior rank. Somerville is best known by his poem, Somerville has the merit of being inspired by a genuine love for the subject. He writes directly from the testimony of his own eyes, and the impulses of his own heart. He has obviously had the mould of his poem suggested by Thomson's "Seasons," but it is the mould only; the thoughts and feelings which are poured into it are his own.-GILFILLAN, GEORGE, 1859, ed. Somerville Chase, p. 319. This epic, which is in four books, discusses in its first part the origin of hunting, the economy of kennels, the physical To this poem praise cannot be totally and moral accomplishments of hounds, denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to and the choosing of a good or bad scenting write with great intelligence of his sub- day. The second book, which possesses ject, which is the first requisite to excel- more natural language and a finer litlence; and though it is impossible to inter- erary quality than the others, commences est the common readers of verse in the with directions for hare-hunting, and dangers or pleasures of the chase, he has closes with a moral reproof of tyranny. done all that transition and variety could In the third book hunting is treated from easily effect; and has with great propriety an antiquarian and an exotic standpoint, enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting while the fourth deals with the breeding used in other countries.-JOHNSON, SAM- of hounds, their diseases and the diseases UEL, 1779-81, Somerville, Lives of the Eng- they cause, such as hydrophobia. It will lish Poets. He is strictly and almost solely a descriptive poet; and his talent lies in delineating actual scenes with fidelity and spirit, adorning them with the beauties of diction, but leaving them to act upon the imagination by their own force, without aid from the creations of fancy. In classical allusion he is not deficient, but it is of the more common kind; and little occurs in his writings that indicates a mind inspired by that exalted enthusiasm. hardly be guessed from such a sketch of 1 fire he "plied his function of the woodland" no less admirably than he had done in the saddle in his athletic youth.—GOSSE, EDMUND, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. III, p. 190. In "The Chase" Somerville had the advantage of knowing his subject, but knowledge is not poetry, and the interest of the poem is not due to its poetical qualities. He deserves some credit for his skill in handling a variety of metres as well as blank verse, in which his principal poem is written.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 112. GENERAL Like Matt. and Swift ye sing with ease, And can be Waller when you please. -RAMSAY, ALLAN, 1730? Answer to Epistle from William Somerville. Somerville's fame rests chiefly on "The the collections of Johnson, Anderson, John Hervey Lord Hervey of Ickworth John, Lord Hervey (born 1696, died 1743), succeeded to the peerage on the death of his brother in 1723. During the greater part of his career he was a supporter of Sir Robert Walpole. In 1731 he fought a duel with Pulteney, on account of a libel against himself which Pulteney refused to disavow. Both combatants were slightly wounded. In 1740 he was appointed Lord Privy Seal against the wish of the Duke of Newcastle, and we find him subsequently intriguing with Pulteney and Chesterfield against Sir Robert Walpole. In 1743 he distinguished himself by a speech against the Gin Act. Lord Hervey left behind him certain memoirs of his own time, which form a most valuable addition to the history of the period of which they treat. He had the misfortune to offend Pope, who has handed his name down to posterity under the pseudonym of Sporus in the "Prologue to the Satires." Lord Hervey's "Memoirs of the Reign of George II." were first published by Mr. J. W. Croker in 1848.-Low AND PULLING, 1884, eds., Dictionary of English History, p. 564. PERSONAL Let Sporus tremble--A. What? that thing of silk, P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, In mumbling of the game they dare not bite, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad, His wit all see-saw, between that and this And he himself one vile Antithesis. Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the -POPE, ALEXANDER, 1735, Epistle to Dr. Lord Hervey is at this time always with the king, in vast favour. He has certainly parts and wit, but is the most wretched, profligate man that ever was born, besides ridiculous; a painted face and not a tooth. |