were in mean circumstances, that great part of the money which he at different times received from the court of France, might have been expended in useful donations to fupport his credit and his influence with his partizans: but fuppofe it was really pocketed for his own. ufe and emolument, there is fufficient matter in the apology written by himself, and published after his death, to justify bim fully on this point. After relating feveral attempts which had been made to affaffinate him in his exile, Sidney proceeds as follows: "The afperity of this perfecution obliged me to feek the protection of fome foreign prince, and being then in the vigour of my age, I had reputation enough to have gained honourable employments; but all my defigns were broken by meffages and letters from this court, fo as none durft entertain me; and when I could not comprehend the grounds of dealing with me in fuch a way, when I knew that many others who had been my companions, and given, as I thought, more just caufes of hatred against them than I had done, were received into favour, or fuffered to live quietly, a man of quality, who well knew the temper of the court, explained the mystery to me, by letting me know that I was distinguished from the reft, because it was known that I could not be corrupted." If a Fabricius fhould arife from the dead, and make any objection to Sidney's having condefcended to accept, in these circumflances of perfecution, a decent fupport from the bounty of a liberal monarch, we should attend with gravity to his fcruples, and endeavour to remove them by entering into the nature and exigencies of modern life: we should affert, that it was a juft and competent knowledge of the value of external advantages, which gave the flamp of virtue to acts of forbearance: we should argue, that a total indifference to a ftate of poverty or affluence, as it in a manner annihilates all temptations to every fpecies of venal corruption, it in a great meafure weakens the merit of public and private integrity; and that a man's rejecting, with a becoming contempt, every external advantage which would naturally follow a deviation from principle, did not lay him under any obligation to refufe advantages which were in no manner connected with any fuch derogatory cir cumftances; and that thofe noble fentiments which led great minds to defpife the wages of iniquity, could be no rational bar to the re ceiving emoluments and favours from the liberality, the oftentation, or the perfonal affection of an individual, who did not require any facrifice of the nicest rules of honour, or the ftri&teft dictates of principle. Arguments like thefe might, in all probability, have convinced the Roman conful, that the regard which Sidney paid to the alleviating his neceffitics, when such an alleviation could be obtained without any deviation from principle or honour, rather heightens than decreases the merit of his acts of forbearance: but with what face of ferious argument can we encounter the overftrained delicacy of an age, who, on all occafions where the detraction of an illustrious character is not in question, acknowledge fuch a neceffity in the article of money as to authorife every fpecies of venality, although attended with the most deftructive confequences, and aggravated with the additional crimes of deception, treachery, and the breach of priyate and public truft. • This ridiculous charge of corruption, though it has been the loudeft, has not been the only attack which has been made on the moral character of the illuftrious patriot, whose perfecutions and fuf, ferings we have juft narrated. Mr. Hume, whofe partiality on the fide of the court in this part of his hiftory, is a greater difgrace to his admirable genius and profound fagacity than any other page of his hiftorical writings, accufes Sidney of ingratitude, in having obtained a pardon of the King, and then entering into measures to disturb his government. In all my researches on this fubject, I have not found this pardon to be ascertained; and as I have before observed, I can not difcern any occafion for fuch a particular pardon. The brutal Jeffries only reproached the prifoner with the grace he had received in the general act of indemnity, and in the letters of thanks which Sidney, wrote to the French minifter, who tranfacted this business of his return to England, there is only mention made of a paffport from the King: but provided that Sidney's having received a pardon was a proved fact, whoever reads in his Apology the ftate of the cafe, will find that all the ingratitude and bafenefs lay on the fide of the King, who, with the arm of injuftice and oppreffion, perfecuted to death the man from whom his family had received in their diftrefs perfonal obligations, and to whofe interpofition he owed the prefer vation, of his life.' They who are defirous of having an intimate knowledge of our conftitutional history, within the periods of 1660 and 1683, will meet with every gratification they can reafonably hope for in the volumes before us. And though they are evidently written manu inimica tyrannis, the Hiftorian has avoided the extreme of advancing principles that are not fairly deducible from the nature of true government, and of the English Conftitution, of which fhe is fo ftrenuous an affertor. If, in the conclufions that are drawn from the feveral facts here related, the differ from fome of the more popular hiftorians that have preceded her, the fails not, however, to ftate the facts themfelves with precifion and candour. It were to be wifhed, that there had been more frequent references to the fources from whence her materials are selected. We are far from thinking, that even in those inftances in which the fountains of her intelligence are not immediately obvious to recollection, that her integrity will, by the candid and impar tial part of her readers, be called into question. But it is to be remembered, that all readers are not candid and impartial. The deficiency we have noted might in fome measure be fupplied by a faithful catalogue of the books that have been made ufe of in this very important work-it would form a valuable Appendix to the concluding volume. The ftyle of this performance, though in general it be animated and nervous, is not always uniform. It is too apt to take a tincture from that of the Authors immediately confulted and though it may be obferved that our Hiftorian Dd 4 adopts adopts not the very words, yet fhe not uncommonly imbibes the manner of those from whom her facts are selected. With refpect to the flighter inaccuracies that might be pointed out, we confign them to the word-catchers, being of opinion with Mr. Hayley, that Tho' critic cenfures on her work may shower, An Advertisement, at the end of Vol. VII. informs us, that the Eighth Volume is in the prefs, and will speedily be published ;which, with the preceding ones, and the Hiftorical Letters, will form a complete period of time, from the Acceffion of James the First, to the year 1741. C..t..t. ART. II. Johnson's Biographical Prefaces, CONTINUED. See our laft. HE eighth volume of this amufing work contains the Lives of Swift, Gay, Broome, Pitt, Parnel, A. Philips, and Watts. As it furnishes little that is new, we fhall pafs on to the fubfequent volume, which opens with that well-known fpecimen of elegant Biography, the life of Savage. The only variation from the former copies of this work that we have noted, is in the following paffage. In the publication of this performance (the Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury) he was more fuccefsful, for the rays of genius that glimmered in it, that glimmered through all the mifts which poverty and Cibber had fpread over it, procured him the notice and efteem of many perfons,' &c, To foift in a ftigma upon a man fo many years after he has lain peaceably in his grave, has the appearance of fomething fingularly difingenuous and unmanly. Indeed, whenever Dr. Johnfon has occafion to speak of Cibber, it is with an acrimony that, in any other man, we fhould fufpect must have proceeded from perfonal refentment, Cibber's dulness has been fo long the butt of ridicule with every pretender to wit, that we are furprised any writer, who affects originality of fentiment, should condefcend to divert himself and his readers with fo ftale a topic. There is no pleasure, as Dr. Johnson elsewhere obferves, in chacing a school-boy to his common-places. In characterizing Thomfon's merit as a poet, his Biographer nearly coincides with the general opinion. As a man, however, the representation of his character is not fo favourable. In the early part of life, while friend lefs and indigent, he is reprefented as foliciting kindness by fervile adulation; and when afterwards he had the means of gratification, it is infinuated, that he was grossly fenfual. What authorities there are for the former part of this character appear not: the latter, in oppofi tion to the fuffrages of the most respectable of his cotemporaries, refts folely on the teftimony of the unprincipled and profligate Savage. We are told that Thomson, in his travels on the continent, found or fancied fo many evils arifing from the tyranny of other governments, that he refolved to write a very long poem, in five parts, upon Liberty. In this paffage the Biographer feems to have brought himself into a dilemma: either there are no evils arifing from the tyranny of arbitrary governments; or Thomson was a man of no observation. To which will Dr. Johnfon fubfcribe ? Of Hammond, he fays, though he be well remembered as a man efteemed and carefled by the elegant and great, I was at firft able to obtain no other memorials than fuch as are fupplied by a book called Cibber's Lives of the Poets; of which I take this opportunity to teftify that it was not written, nor, I believe, ever seen, by either of the Cibbers; but was the work of Robert Shiells, a native of Scotland, a man of very acute understanding, though with little fcholaftic education, who, not long after the publication of his work, died in London of a confumption. His life was virtuous, and his end was pious. Theophilus Cibber, then a prifoner for debt, imparted, as I was told, his name for ten guineas. The manufcript of Shiells is now in my poffeffion.'"His life was virtuous (De mortuis nil nifi verum, fays the Doctor's able coadjutor, Mr. Crofts), &c." In the above paffage the Doctor has advanced more than he knew to be true. Cibber's receipt, which we are informed is ftill extant, is for twenty guineas, in confideration of which he engaged to "revife, correct, and improve" the work, and allo to affix his name to the title-page. Cibber very punctually revised every sheet; he made numerous corrections, and added many improvements, particularly in thofe lives which came down to his own times, and brought him within the circle of his own and his father's numerous literary acquaintance, efpecially in the dramatic line, Befides inferting paragraphs, notes, anecdotes and remarks, in those lives that were written by Shiells and others (for the beft pieces of Biography in that collection were not written by Shiels, but by fuperior hands), fome of the lives, if we are not greatly mistaken, were folely of his own compofition. The engagement of Cibber, or fome other Englifhman, to fuperintend and correct what Shiells in particular fhould offer, was a measure abfolutely neceffary, not only to guard against his Scotticifms, and other defects of expreffion, but (what was worse) his virulent Jacobitifm, which inclined him to abuse every one who held principles different from his own. But enough of Cibber and Shiells. Hammond's Elegies are thus characterized The The Elegies were published after his death; and while the writer's name was remembered with fondnefs, they were read with a refolution to admire them. The recommendatory Preface of the editor, who was then believed, and is now affirmed by Dr. Maty, to be the Earl of Chesterfield, railed strong prejudices in their favour. But of the prefacer, whoever he was, it may be reasonably fufpected that he never read the poems; for he professes to value them for a very high fpecies of excellence, and recommends them as the genuine effufions of the mind, which expreís a real paffion in the language of nature, But the truth is, these elegies have neither paffion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no paffion; he that defcribes himself as a fhepherd, and his Neæra or Delia as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no paffion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deferves to lofe her; for the may with good reason fufpect his fincerity. Hammond has few fentiments drawn from nature, and few images from modern life. He produces nothing but frigid pedantry. It would be hard to find in all his productions three ftanzas that deserve to be remembered.' Dr. Johnfon appears not to have recollected that Hammond's Elegies, the two laft excepted, are taken almoft literally from Tibullus. Confidered merely in the light of translations they have To fave the Reader, who may wish to fatisfy himself on this head, the trouble of fearching for the correfpondent paffages in Tibullus, they are as follow: Hammond's first Elegy is taken from Tib. B. 2. E. 4. to the 38th line; his fecond from B. 2. E. 6.; his 3d from B. 2. E. 4. L. 38th to the 50th; his 4th from B. 3. E. 5.9 his 5th from B. 1. E. 2.; his 6th from B. 2. E. 7.; his 7th from B. 2. E. 3.; his 8th from B. 3. E. 3.; his 9th from B. 3. E. 2.; his roth from B. 4. E. 5.; his 11th from B. 1. E. 1.; his 12th from B. 3. E. 7.; his 13th from B. 1、 E. 1. Mr. Hammond has not, however, confined himself to a fervile translation; there is fcarcely an elegy but contains fome flanzas, or sentiments at least, that are original. Sometimes he interweaves a paffage from a different elegy from that which he is immediately copying, as in the following inftance, in the 13th elegy, which is taken from the firft of TibulJus, he introduces a compliment to the late Lord Chesterfield: Stanhope, in wifdom as in wit divine, May rife and plead Britannia's glorious caufe, Let Stanhope speak his liftening country's wrong, Stanhope |
