voice, as makes them seem their own.POPE, ALEXANDER, 1727, Treatise on the Bathos, ch. vi. Of Broome, though it cannot be said. that he was a great poet, it would be unjust to deny that he was an excellent versifier; his lines are smooth and sonorous, and his diction is select and elegant. JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Broome, Lives of the English Poets. Broome was a smooth versifier, without a spark of originality. His style was founded upon Pope's so closely that some of what he thought were his original pieces are mere centos of Pope. He was therefore able, like Fenton, but even to a greater extent, to reproduce the style of Pope with marvellous exactitude in translating the “Odyssey." His early rudeness of manner gave way to a style of almost obsequious suavity, and his letters, though ingenious and graceful, do not give an impression of sincerity. Of his own poems not one has remained in the memory of the most industrious reader, and he owes the survival of his name entirely to his collaboration with Pope. GOSSE, EDMUND, 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. VI, p. 442. He possessed no spark of genius, but was an admirable imitator of other men's style.-COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN, 1889, The Life of Alexander Pope, Works, eds. Elwin and Courthope, vol. V, p. 197. Is chiefly known from his association. with Pope. . . . His verses are mechanically correct, but are empty of poetry.— DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p.243. Thomas Southerne 1660-1746. Thomas Southerne, or Southern, b. at Oxmanton, co. of Dublin, 1660; was admitted a student at Trinity College, Dublin, 1676; entered the Middle Temple, London, 1678, but cultivated dramatic literature in preference to law, and became a popular writer of plays; served a short time in the army, where he attained the rank of captain, and after his retirement continued his literary pursuits,-which were successful both in point of profit (by one play he cleared £700) and as an introduction to the best company (Dryden, Pope, Gray, &c.) of his day. He is said to have died "the oldest and the richest of his dramatic brethren." This would make him neither a Methuselah nor a Croesus. He died May 26, 1746, in his 86th year. A collection of his plays was published Lon., 1713, 2 vols. 12mo; again, 1721, 2 vols. 12mo; and a better one, under the following title, "Plays written by Thomas Southern, Esq., now first collected, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author," 1774, 3 vols. 12mo.-ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1870, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. II, p. 2181. PERSONAL An Author of whom I can give no further Account, than that he has two Plays in print.-LANGBAINE, GERARD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 489. We have old Mr. Southern, at a Gentle- This day Tom's fair account has run A table, with a cloth of bays; Mr. Southern died on the 26th of May, in the year 1746, in the 86th year of his age; the latter part of which he spent in a peaceful serenity, having by He his commission as a soldier, and the profits of his dramatic works, acquired a handsome fortune; and being an exact œconomist, he improved what fortune he gained, to the best advantage: enjoyed the longest life of all our poets, and died the richest of them, a very few excepted. CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 330. I remember him a grave and reserved old gentleman. He lived near Covent Garden, and used to frequent the evening prayers there [at St. Paul's Church], always neat and decently dressed, commonly in black, with his silver sword and silver locks; but latterly he seemed to reside in Westminster.-OLDYS, WILLIAM, c1761, MS. Notes to Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatick Poets. One of those dramatic writers who, without much genius, succeeded in obtaining a considerable name, and justly, by dint of genuine feeling for common nature. He began in Dryden's time, who knew and respected his talents, was known and respected by Pope, and lived to enjoy a similar regard from Gray.-Hunt, Leigh, 1848, The Town, p. 329. He was a perfect gentleman; he did not lounge away his days or nights in coffee-houses or taverns, but after labor cultivated friendship in home circles, where virtue and modest mirth sat at the hearth... . He kept the even tenor of his way, owing no man anything; never allowing his nights to be the marrer of his mornings; and at six-and-eighty carrying a bright eye, a steady hand, a clear head, and a warm heart wherewith to calmly meet and make surrender of all to the Inevitable Angel.-DORAN, JOHN, 1863, Annals of the English Stage, vol. 1. GENERAL In this ["Oroonoko"] piece Mr. Southern has touched the tender passions with so much skill, that it will perhaps be injurious to his memory to say of him, that he is second to Otway. Besides the tender and delicate strokes of passion, there are many shining and manly sentiments in "Oroonoko;" and one of the greatest genius's of the present age, has often observed, that in the most celebrated play of Shakespear, so many striking thoughts, and such a glow of animated. poetry cannot be furnished. This play is so often acted, and admired, that any illustration of its beauties here, would be entirely superfluous.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 330. The repulsive qualities of some of those characters, joined to the little which has been allotted for the heroine to perform, have been obstacles to the attraction of this ["Oroonoko"] drama, and it is seldom acted. Yet, some years past, Mr. Pope, in his very first appearance upon any stage, encountered, and triumphantly overcame, all impediments to the favourable reception of "Oroonoko;" and made the play so impressive, by his talents in the representation of that character, that for many nights it drew to the theatre a crowded audience.. If any defect can be attributed to Southern in the tragic fable, either of this play or of "Isabella," it is, that in the one, his first male character wants importance, and in the other, his principal female. Still, in both plays, he makes his tale, a tale of wo, though only a single personage becomes the object of deep concern. INCHBALD, MRS. ELIZABETH, 1806-9, The British Theatre. Southern's "Fatal Discovery," latterly represented under the name of "Isabella, is almost as familiar to the lovers of our theatre as "Venice Preserved" itself; and for the same reason,-that, whenever an actress of great tragic powers arises, the part of Isabella is as fitted to exhibit them as that of Belvidera. The choice and conduct of the story are, however, Southern's chief merits; for there is little vigor in the language, though it is natural, and free from the usual faults of his age. A similar character may be given to his other tragedy, "Oroonoko;" in which Southern deserves the praise of having, first of any English writer, denounced the traffic in slaves, and the cruelties of their West-Indian bondage. The moral feeling is high in this tragedy, and it has sometimes been acted with a certain success; but the execution is not that of a superior dramatist.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iv, chap. vi, par. 46. There is not a little of nature and pathos in Southerne.-SPALDING, WILLIAM, 1852-82, A History of English Literature, p. 298. Neither the thoughts nor the style of his tragedies rise above the common-place. -ARNOLD, THOMAS, 1868-75, Chaucer to Wordsworth, p. 314. The flimsy liveliness of his former comedies failed him in "Money's the Mistress," which is trash too stupid to have forced its way to the stage, except for his previous dramatic reputation. ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1872, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, vol. VIII, p. 111, note. The pathetic plot of this play ["Fatal Marriage"], which is founded on Mrs. Behn's novel of "The Nun, or the Fair Vow-Breaker," may be described as a dramatic treatment of the motive familiar to modern readers from Tennyson's "Enoch Arden" and a larger number of other narrative or dramatic versions than it would be worth while to enumerate. After continuing to command popular favour during the life-time of its author, this tragedy was in 1757 revived by Garrick with great success; nor can we wonder that it should have suited the highly-sentimental tastes of this later age. Yet it would be unjust to Southerne, and it would obscure the continuity in the history of the English seventeenthcentury drama, which, however partial and imperfect, should not be overlooked, were we to ignore the remnant of Elisabethan intensity noticeable in the passage, where the thought transiently occurs to Isabella of murdering her first husband on his unexpected return, and in the scene of her lapse into madness. -WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 421. He business, and he was the first dramatist in England who contrived to make a fortune out of play-writing. He became justly distinguished as a tragic poet. rebelled against the rant and fustian of the heroic playwrights, and modelled himself upon Otway, whose tenderness is successfully reflected in his scenes, though with some exaggeration. His blank verse runs easily, and owes something to a respectful study of Shakespeare; but we recognise that it is in the process of fossilising into the dead dramatic verse of the succeeding century. Southerne's best plays were produced when the Orange dramatists had completely come to the front, and he answers as a tragic writer to Congreve as a comic one, but with less talent. His comedies are very weak, and strained beyond the custom of the age with cynical indecency.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, pp. 62, 63. Congreve's one tragedy is more often. consulted to see what is the context which Johnson praised so highly than for any other reason. Few need go farther. Southerne's two masterpieces, "The Fatal Marriage" and "Oroonoko," are perhaps more unknown still, despite the traditional fame of great actresses in Isabella and Imoinda, the constant references in contemporary and rather later literature to both, and the jokes made on the unlucky second title of "The Fatal Marriage." They have much less elegance of diction than the work of either Rowe or Congreve, but much greater tragic quality; being, in fact, Otway a little further prosed.SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1898, A Short HisSoutherne was a very smart man of tory of English Literature, p. 505. Robert Blair Robert Blair; Scottish poet; born in Edinburgh, 1699; a relative of Hugh Blair. He was ordained minister of Athelstaneford in 1731. He wrote a poem of undoubted merit, entitled "The Grave," which was not printed until after his death. Died in Athelstaneford, Feb. 4, 1746.-ADAMS, CHARLES KENDALL, ed. 1897, Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia, vol. 1, p. 650. PERSONAL I got away time enough next day to reach Haddington before dinner, having passed by Athelstaneford, where the minister, Mr. Robert Blair, author of "The Grave," was said to be dying slowly; or, at any rate, was so austere and void of urbanity as to make him quite disagreeable to young people. His wife, who was in every respect the opposite (a sister of Sheriff Law), was frank and open, and uncommonly handsome; yet, even with her allurements and his acknowledged ability, his house was unfrequented.CARLYLE, ALEXANDER, 1744-1805-60, Autobiography. THE GRAVE The door of Death is made of gold, -BLAKE, WILLIAM, 1808, Dedication of the Designs to Blair's "Grave" to Queen Charlotte. The eighteenth century has produced few specimens of blank verse of so powerful and simple a character as that of "The Grave." It is a popular poem, not merely because it is religious, but because its language and imagery are free, natural and picturesque. The latest editor of the poets has, with singularly bad taste, noted some of this author's most nervous and expressive phrases as vulgarisms, among which he reckons that of friendship "the solder of society." Blair may be a homely and even a gloomy poet in the eye of fastidious criticism; but there is a masculine and pronounced character even in his gloom and homeliness that keeps it most distinctly apart from either dullness or vulgarity. His style pleases us like the powerful expression of a countenance without regular beauty.CAMPBELL, THOMAS, 1819, Specimens of the British Poets. A brawny contemplative Orson.BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, 184263, The Book of the Poets. It is a complete and powerful poem, of limited design, but of masterly execution. -MILLS, ABRAHAM, 1851, The Literature and the Literary Men of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. II, p. 300. gold; he had thrown out one mass of ore, and was, as it were, resting on his pickaxe ere recommencing his labour, when he was smitten down by a workman who never rests nor slumbers. Still let us thankfully accept what he had produced; the more as it is so distinctively original, so free from any serious alloy, and so impressively religious in its spirit and tone. This masterpiece of Blair's genius is not a great poem so much as it is a magnificent portion, fragment, or book of a great poem. The most, alike of its merits and its faults, spring from the fact, that it keeps close to its subject-it daguerreotypes its dreadful theme.-GILFILLAN, GEORGE, 1854, ed., The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair and Falconer, p. 124. This poem met with but little attention at first, but the commendation of Hervey, Pinkerton, and others, brought it into general notice. Of late years it seems to be but little read.-ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1854-58, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. 1, p. 202. It is remarkable for its masculine vigor of thought and expression, and for the imaginative solemnity with which it invests the most familiar truths; and it has always been one of our most popular religious poems.--CRAIK, GEORGE L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. II, p. 286. "The Grave" is a complete and powerful poem, of limited design, but masterly execution. The subject precluded much originality of conception, but, at the same time, is recommended by its awful importance and its universal application. The style seems to be formed upon that of the old sacred and puritanical poets, elevated by the author's admiration of Milton and Shakspeare. There is a Scottish Presbyterian character about the whole, relieved by occasional flashes and outbreaks of true genius.-CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers. Blair's singular little poem, which has perhaps been more widely read than any other poetical production of a writer who wrote no other poetry, was, it is said, rejected by several London publishers on the ground that it was "too heavy for the times. As its introducer was Dr. Watts, He had found a vein of rich and virgin it is not likely that he suggested it to any but serious members of the trade. "The Grave" thus adds one to the tolerably long list of books respecting the chances of which professional judgment has been hopelessly out. It acquired popularity almost as soon as it was published, and retained it for at least a century; indeed its date is not yet gone by in certain circles. Long after its author's death it obtained an additional and probably a lasting hold on a new kind of taste by the fact of Blake's illustrating it. The artist's designs indeed were, as he expresses it in the beautiful Dedication to Queen Charlotte, rather "visions that his soul has seen" than representations of anything directly contained in Blair's verse. But that verse itself is by no means to be despised. Technically its only fault is the use and abuse of the redundant syllable. The quality of Blair's blank verse is in every respect rather moulded upon dramatic than upon purely poetical models, and he shows. little trace of imitation either of Milton, or of his contemporary Thomson. Whether his studies-contrary to the wont of Scotch divines at that time-had really been much directed to the drama, I cannot say; but the perusal of his poem certainly suggests such a conclusion, not merely the licence just mentioned, but the generally declamatory and rhetorical tone helping to produce the impression. The matter of the poem is good. General plan it has none, but in so short a composition a general plan is hardly wanted. It abounds with forcible and original ideas expressed in vigorous and unconventional phraseology, nor is it likely nowadays that this phraseology will strike readers, as it struck the delicate critics of the eighteenth century, as being "vulgar." Vigorous single lines are numerous; and it is at least as much a tribute to the vigour of the poem as to its popularity, that many of its phrases have worked their way into current speech.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. III, p. 217. The "Grave" was the first and best of a whole series of mortuary poems. In spite of the epigrams of conflicting partisans, "Night Thoughts" must be considered as contemporaneous with it, and neither preceding nor following it. There can be no doubt, however, that the success of Blair encouraged Young to persevere in his far longer and more laborious undertaking. Blair's verse is less rhetorical, more exquisite, than Young's, and, indeed, his relation to that writer, though too striking to be overlooked, is superficial. He forms a connecting link between Otway and Crabbe, who are his nearest poetical kinsmen. His one poem, the "Grave," contains seven hundred and sixty-seven lines of blank verse. It is very unequal in merit, but supports the examination of modern criticism far better than most productions of the second quarter of the eighteenth century. As philosophical literature it is quite without value; and it adds nothing to theology; it rests solely upon its merit as romantic poetry.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. v, p. 165. The choice of such a subject as the grave does not necessarily imply anything morbid in the treatment; but it must be admitted that there is a morbid element in Blair's poem. He has no reticence about the worm that surfeits on the damask cheek of beauty, about the awful pangs attending the strong man's dissolution, or about the all-devouring appetite of the "great maneater;" and he has been praised, most injudiciously, for being so out-spoken. Shakespeare has used much the same images; but a comparison of Blair with the parts of "Hamlet" and "Measure for Measure," which he evidently had in his mind in more passages than one, shows at once what a change the stronger imagination has worked, how much more skillful in the execution, how much deeper the moral, how widelydifferent in consequence the work of the two poets. Yet Blair has learnt not a little, and often has learnt well, from his master; and it is to his honour that he, a Scotch clergyman of a century and a half ago, is found imitating him at all. Often his lines sound simply like distant echoes of Shakespearean lines; but sometimes. there is originality combined with a considerable share of Shakespeare's strength. And this is Blair's highest praise. his best he shows a masculine vigour of language and an language and an austere dignity of imagination more than sufficient to atone for the harshness of his verse, marred, At |