As a wit and scholar, the character in which he is best know to us, Arbuthnot may justly be ranked among the most eminent men of an age distinguished by a high cultivation of intellect, and an almost exuberant display of wit and genius. To have been an equal sharer in the reputation of such men as Swift, Pope, Addison, Gay, were alone the highest praise; but as a satirist, and a writer of humour, Arbuthnot has been acknowledged by some of his most celebrated contemporaries to have been their superior. "His good morals," Pope used to say, 66 were equal to any man's; but his wit and humour superior to all mankind." “He has more wit than we all have," said Dean Swift to a lady, "and his humanity is equal to his wit." In addition to these brilliant qualities, the higher praise of benevolence and goodness is most deservedly due to him. His warmth of heart, and cheerfulness of temper, rendered him much beloved by his family and friends, towards whom he displayed the most constant affection and attachment. The character Swift has left of him is forcible in itself, most honourable to its subject, and written in the dean's own peculiar style: "Mr Lewis sends me an account of Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible affliction to me, who, by living out of the world, have lost that hardness of heart, contracted by years and general conversation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking nor getting others. O, if the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my travels! But, however, he is not without a fault. There is a passage in Bede highly commending the piety and learning of the Irish in that age, when, after abundance of praises, he overthrows them all, by lamenting that, alas, they kept Easter at the wrong time of the year! so our doctor has every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable and useful, but, alas! he hath a sort of a slouch in his walk! I pray God protect him, for he is an excellent Christian, though not a catholic." Pope observed of him, that "he is a man that can do every thing but walk.' As a politician, Arbuthnot was firmly and conscientiously attached to those high tory principles, from the evil operation of which the country was happily rescued by the seasonable accession of the house of Hanover. The part which he acted as a courtier and a favourite was probably a more important one than can now be ascertained, and the influence which both his situation and talents gave him over the affairs of the country must necessarily have been very extensive. Lord Orrery's character of him is on the whole so able and correct, that with it we shall conclude this brief account of his life: "Although he was justly celebrated for his wit and learning, there was an excellence in his character more amiable than all his other qualifications,—I mean the goodness of his heart. He has showed himself equal to any of his contemporaries in humour and vivacity, and he was superior to most men in acts of benevolence and humanity. His very sarcasms are the satirical sarcasms of good nature; they are like slaps on the face given in jest, the effects of which will raise a blush, but no blackness will appear after the blows. He laughs as jovially as an attendant upon Bacchus, but continues as sober and considerate as a disciple of Socrates. He is seldom serious, except in his attacks upon vice, and there his spirit rises with a manly strength, and a noble indignation. No man exceeded him in the moral duties of life, a merit still more to his honour, as the united powers of wit and genius are seldom submissive enough to confine themselves within the limitations of morality." Sir Richard Blackmore. DIED A. D. 1729. THIS Voluminous author was the son of an attorney at Corsham in Wilts. Cibber says that he was sent to Westminster school in his 13th year; and, according to Anthony Wood, he matriculated at St Edmund's hall, Oxford, in 1668. He is said to have been engaged for some time as a teacher in a school-establishment. But he cannot have long remained in that situation, for he spent a considerable time abroad soon after leaving the university, and studied physic and graduated at Padua. On his return to London, he engaged in the practice of medicine, and became a fellow of the Royal college of physicians. In 1697 he was appointed physician in ordinary to William III., from whom he also received the honour of knighthood. His majesty was perhaps an admirer of Blackmore's poetry, as well as of his skill in physic: for Blackmore had already favoured the world with a heroic poem, in ten books, entitled 'Prince Arthur,' which, whatever fastidious readers may think of it now, had its admirers when it first appeared. "'Tis strange," says a contemporary writer, "that an author should have a gamester s fate, and not know when to give over. Had the city-bard stopped his hand at Prince Arthur,' he had missed knighthood, 'tis true, but he had gone off with some applause." That Sir Richard had sufficiently exalted notions of the dignity of the poetical art is sufficiently evident from the terms in which he speaks of it in his preface to Prince Arthur.' After speaking of the respective design of tragedy, comedy, and lyric poetry, and representing the great aim and end of all true poetry, in whatever form, to be to excite men to virtue, and to deter them from vice; he proceeds: "But above all other kinds, epic poetry, as it is first in dignity, so it mostly conduces to this end. In an epic poem, where characters of the first rank or dignity, illustrious for their birth and high employment, are introduced, the fable, the action, the particular episodes, are so contrived and conducted, or at least ought to be, that either fortitude, wisdom, piety, moderation, generosity, some or other noble and princely virtues should be recommended with the highest advantage, and their contrary vices made as odious. To give men right and just conceptions of religion and virtue, to aid their reason in restraining their exorbitant appetites and impetuous passions, and to bring their lives under the rules and guidance of true wisdom, and thereby to promote the public good of mankind, is undoubtedly the end of all poetry. 'Tis true, indeed, that one end of poetry is to give men pleasure and delight; but this is but a subordinate, subaltern end, which is in itself a means to the greater and ultimate one before mentioned. A poet should employ all his judgment and wit, exhaust all the riches of his fancy, and abound in beautiful and noble expression, to divert and entertain others; but then it must be with this prospect, that he may hereby engage their attention, insinuate more easily 1 T. Brown's works, vol. iv. p. 118. into their minds, and more effectually convey to them wise instructions. 'Tis below the dignity of a true poet to take his aim at any inferior end. They are men of little genius, of mean and poor design, that employ their wit for no higher purpose than to please the imagination of vain and wanton people." He then proceeds to declare his conviction that his brother-poets "seem engaged in a general confederacy to ruin the end of their own art,-to expose religion and virtue, and bring vice and corruption of manners into esteem and reputation." It was perhaps with the intention of better exemplifying his view of the true and legitimate province of poetry as the handmaid of virtue and religion, that Sir Richard's subsequent effusions partook so decidedly of a serious cast. In 1700 he published sundry paraphrases of portions of Scripture; and-unfortunately for himself—in the same year he ventured to employ his powers on a satirical poem, which drew down upon him the most incessant and bitter ridicule of all the leading wits, and even of some of the witlings of the day. In T. Brown's works there are upwards of twenty different satirical pieces in verse against Blackmore, said to be written by Colonel Codrington, Sir Charles Sedley, Colonel Blount, Sir Samuel Garth, Sir Richard Steele, Dr Smith, Mr William Burnaby, the earl of Anglesy, the countess of Sandwich, Mr Manning, Mr Mildmay, Dr Drake, Colonel Johnson, Mr Richard Norton, &c. and most of these pieces are particularly levelled at our author's Satire upon Wit.' One topic of abuse against Blackmore was that he lived in Cheapside. He was sometimes called 'The Cheapside Knight,' and 'The City Bard;' and Garth's verses, in the collection just cited, are addressed 'to the merry Poetaster at Sadlers' Hall in Cheapside.' In some of the lampoons against him he was joined with Bentley; as in the following lines: A monument of dulness to erect, Bentley should write, and Blackmore should correct. Like which no other piece can e'er be wrought, For decency of style and life of thought, Sir Richard was certainly not happy in the title of his piece A Satire upon Wit;' for it was not wit, but the abuse or rather prostitution of it, that the worthy knight meant to censure. Nevertheless, from the day of his appearance as a satirist, Sir Richard became the butt and sport of all who could wag a pen against him. Even such men as Dryden and Pope lost no opportunity of ridiculing him. The former somewhere says of Blackmore that he wrote his poetry "to the rumbling of his chariot wheels ;" and the latter has a niche for him in the Dunciad. In 1713 Sir Richard began a periodical paper called 'The Lay Monk' It appeared twice a-week, and was devoted to ethical and literary essays. Only forty numbers of it were published. The work which procured him the greatest reputation was his Creation, or a Philosophical poem, demonstrating the Existence and Providence of a God.' The fourth edition of this work appeared in 1718. Addison himself speaks of it in the following high terms. This work "was un T. Brown's works, vol. iv. p. 70. dertaken with so good an intention, and executed with so great a mastery, that it deserves to be looked upon as one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse. The reader cannot but be pleased to find the depths of philosophy, enlivened with all the charms of poetry, and to see so great a strength of reason amidst so beautiful a redundancy of the imagination. The author has shown us that design in all the works of nature, which necessarily leads us to the knowledge of its first cause. In short, he has illustrated, by numberless and uncontestable instances, that divine wisdom which the son of Sirach has so nobly ascribed to the supreme Being in his formation of the world, when he tells us that he created her, and saw her, and numbered her, and poured her out upon all his works." The following lines are a favourable specimen of Sir Richard's "rumbling" versification: "See how sublime th' uplifted mountains rise, How the sweet glades and openings charm the sight? Th' extended earth, and beautify her face ?1" Sir Richard died at an advanced age, in 1729. If we cannot assign to him a high rank among the poets of his country, we feel warranted in attributing to him the higher praise of being one who never wrote but in the cause of virtue, and that at a time when vice had the countenance of the great, and piety was out of fashion. Duncombe, speaking of Sir Richard Blackmore, says, "this writer, though the butt of the wits, especially of Dryden and Pope, was treated with more contempt than he deserved. In particular, his poem on the creation has much merit. And let it be remembered that the resentment of those wits was excited by Sir Richard's zeal for religion and virtue; by censuring the libertinism of Drvden, and the (supposed) profaneness of Pope. Mr Addison appon ve had a great personal regard for Sir Pope and our poetical knight were hard Blackmor b. i. edit. 1718. pon terms of friendship so late as in the year 1714. This friendship was first broken by Sir Richard's accusing Mr Pope of profaneness and immorality, on a report from Curl, that he was author of a 'Travestie on the first Psalm.' Had it not been for this, all the knight's bad poetry would scarcely have procured him a place in the Dunciad. Perhaps Sir Richard was blameable in taking the fact for granted on so poor an authority as that of Curl. Whoever reads his censure of Mr Pope will not wonder at the severity of that eminent poet's resentment. It was as follows: 'I cannot but here take notice, that one of these champions in vice is the reputed author of a detestable paper, that has lately been handed about in manuscript, and now appears in print, in which the godless author has burlesqued the first psalm of David in so obscene and profane a manner, that perhaps no age ever saw such an insolent affront offered to the established religion of their country, and this, good heaven! with impunity. A sad demonstration this, of the low ebb to which the British virtue is reduced in these degenerate times.3 Thomas Hearne. BORN A. D. 1680.-DIED A. D. 1735. THOMAS HEARNE, one of the most enthusiastic and indefatigable antiquaries that ever lived, was the son of George Hearne, parish-clerk of White Waltham, Berkshire. He was born at Littlefield-green in 1680, and received the first elements of instruction from his father, who kept a small school in the vicarage house of White Waltham. The poverty of the father induced him early to seek a menial employment for the son; but his natural abilities recommending him to the notice of his master, Mr Cherry of Shottesbrooke, he was placed by that gentleman at the free school of Bray, where, by dint of steady application, he made excellent progress in Greek and Latin, and in a short time so commended himself to his patron, that he entered him at Oxford under Dr White Kennet of Edmund-hall. Here the bent of his mind was early noticed by Dr Mill, who was at this time employed upon the appendix to his edition of the Greek Testament, and who gladly availed himself of Hearne's assistance in collating manuscripts. His patron, and other friends, also found him a good deal to do in this way. In 1699 he took his bachelor's degree, and soon afterwards declined a proposal which was made to him by Dr Kennet to go to Maryland as one of Dr Bray's missionaries. He now became a daily visitor at the Bodleian library, where he gradually but rapidly amassed such an extensive and varied acquaintance with books, that, at the suggestion of Dr Hudson the librarian, he was appointed assistant-librarian in that noble repository of learning. Hearne had now nearly reached the summit of his ambition; his subsequent appointment as janitor of the public library crowned his wishes, and left him nothing more to desire of this world's honours. The keys of the library were to him the sceptres of a prouder kingdom than Britain's monarch ruled. His unwearied in Sir Richard Blackmore's Essays, vol. ii. p. 270. |