Dryden, whose favour they almost all courted, was his professed adversary. He had besides given them reason for resentment; as, in his preface to "Prince Arthur," he had said of the dramatic writers almost all that was alleged afterwards by Collier; but Blackmore's censure was cold and general, Collier's was personal and ardent; Blackmore taught his reader to dislike what Collier incited him to abhor. of Lucretius in the beauty of its versification, and infinitely surpassed it in the solidity and strength of its reasoning." Why an author surpasses himself, it is natural to inquire. I have heard from Mr. Draper, an eminent bookseller, an account received by him from Ambrose Philips, "That Blackmore, as he proceeded in this poem, laid his manuscript from time to time before a club of wits with In his preface to "King Arthur" he endea- whom he associated; and that every man convoured to gain at least one friend, and propiti- tributed, as he could, either improvement or corated Congreve by higher praise of his "Mourn-rection: so that," said Philips, "there are pering Bride" than it has obtained from any other critic. The same year he published "A Satire on Wit;" a proclamation of defiance, which united the poets almost all against him, and which brought upon him lampoons and ridicule from every side. This he doubtless foresaw, and evidently despised; nor should his dignity of mind be without its praise, had he not paid the homage to greatness which he denied to genius, and degraded himself by conferring that authority over the national taste which he takes from the poots upon men of high rank and wide influence, but of less wit and not greater virtue. Here is again discovered the inhabitant of Cheapside, whose head cannot keep his poetry unmingled with trade. To hinder that intellectual bankruptcy which he affects to fear, he will erect a Bank for Wit. In this poem he justly censured Dryden's impurities, but praised his powers: though in a subsequent edition he retained the satire and omitted the praise. What was his reason, I know not; Dryden was then no longer in his way. His head still teemed with heroic poetry; and (1705) he published "Eliza,” in ten books. I am afraid that the world was now weary of contending about Blackmore's heroes: for I do not remember that by any author, serious or comical, I have found "Eliza" either praised or blamed. She "dropped," as it seems, "deadborn from the press." It is never mentioned, and was never seen by me till I borrowed it for the present occasion. Jacob says, "it is corrected and revised for another impression;" but the labour of revision was thrown away. From this time he turned some of his thoughts to the celebration of living characters; and wrote a poem on the Kit-cat Club, and Advice to the Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough; but on occasion of another year of success, thinking himself qualified to give more instruction, he again wrote a poem of "Advice to a Weaver of Tapestry." Steele was then publishing the "Tatler ;" and, looking around him for something at which he might laugh, unluckily lighted on Sir Richard's work, and treated it with such contempt, that, as Fenton observes, he put an end to the species of writers that gave Advice to Painters. Not long after (1712) he published "Creation," a philosophical poem, which has been by my recommendation inserted in the late collection. Whoever judges of this by any other of Blackmore's performances will do it injury. The praise given it by Addison (Spec. 339) is too well known to be transcribed: but some notice is due to the testimony of Dennis, who calls it a "philosophical poem, which has equalled that haps no where in the book thirty lines together that now stand as they were originally written." The relation of Philips, I suppose, was true; but when all reasonable, all credible, allowance is made for this friendly revision, the Author will still retain an ample dividend of praise: for to him must always be assigned the plan of the work, the distribution of its parts, the choice of topics, the train of argument, and, what is yet more, the general predominance of philosophical judgment and poetical spirit. Correction seldom effects more than the suppression of faults; a happy line, or a single elegance, may perhaps be added; but of a large work the general character must always remain; the original constitution can be very little helped by local remedies; inherent and radical dulness will never be much invigorated by extrinsic animation. This poem, if he had written nothing else, would have transmitted him to posterity among the first favourites of the English muse; but to make verses was his transcendent pleasure, and as he was not deterred by censure, he was not satiated with praise. He deviated, however, sometimes into other tracks of literature, and condescended to entertain his readers with plain prose. When the "Spectator" stopped, he considered the polite world as destitute of entertainment: and, in concert with Mr. Hughes, who wrote every third paper, published three times a-week "The Lay Monastery," founded on the supposition that some literary men, whose characters are described, had retired to a house in the country to enjoy philosophical leisure, and resolved to instruct the public, by communicating their disquisitions and amusements. Whether any real persons were concealed under fictitious names, is not known. The hero of the club is one Mr. Johnson; such a constellation of excellence, that his character shall not be suppressed, though there is no great genius in the design, nor skill in the delineation. "The first I shall name is Mr. Johnson, a gentleman that owes to nature excellent faculties and an elevated genius, and to industry and application many acquired accomplishments. His taste is distinguishing, just, and delicate: his judgment clear, and his reason strong, accompanied with an imagination full of spirit, of great compass, and stored with refined ideas. He is a critic of the first rank; and, what is his peculiar ornament, he is delivered from the ostentation, malevolence, and supercilious temper, that so often blemish men of that character. His remarks result from the nature and reason of things, and are formed by a judgment free and unbiassed by the authority of those who have lazily followed each other in the same beaten track of thinking, and are arrived only at the re putation of acute grammarians and commenta- | reflections as direct motions, they become proper tors; men, who have been copying one another instruments for the sprightly operations of the many hundred years, without any improvement; mind; by which means the imagination can or, if they have ventured farther, have only ap with great facility range the wide field of nature, plied in a mechanical manner the rules of ancient, contemplate an infinite variety of objects, and, critics to modern writings, and with great labour by observing the similitude and disagreement of discovered nothing but their own want of judg- their several qualities, single out and abstract, ment and capacity. As Mr. Johnson penetrates and then suit and unite, those ideas which will to the bottom of his subject, by which means his best serve its purpose. Hence beautiful alluobservations are solid and natural, as well as sions, surprising metaphors, and admirable sendelicate, so his design is always to bring to light timents, are always ready at hand; and while something useful and ornamental; whence his the fancy is full of images, collected from incharacter is the reverse to theirs, who have emi- numerable objects and their different qualities, nent abilities in insignificant knowledge, and a relations, and habitudes, it can at pleasure dress great felicity in finding out trifles. He is no a common notion in a strange but becoming less industrious to search out the merit of an au- garb; by which, as before observed, the same thor than sagacious in discerning his errors and thought will appear a new one, to the great defects; and takes more pleasure in commending delight and wonder of the hearer. What we call the beauties than exposing the blemishes of a genius results from this particular happy comlaudable writing; like Horace, in a long work, plexion in the first formation of the person that he can bear some deformities, and justly lay enjoys it, and is Nature's gift, but diversified by them on the imperfection of human nature, which various specific characters and limitations, as its is incapable of faultless productions. When an active fire is blended and allayed by different excellent drama appears in public, and by its in- proportions of phlegm, or reduced and regulated trinsic worth attracts a general applause, he is by the contrast of opposite ferments. Therenot stung with envy and spleen; nor does he fore, as there happens in the composition of a express a savage nature, in fastening upon the facetious genius a greater or less, though still an celebrated author, dwelling upon his imaginary inferior, degree of judgment and prudence, one defects, and passing over his conspicuous excel- man of wit will be varied and distinguished from lences. He treats all writers upon the same im- another." partial footing; and is not, like the little critics, taken up entirely in finding out only the beauties of the ancient, and nothing but the errors of the modern writers. Never did any one express more kindness and good nature to young and unfinished authors; he promotes their interests, protects their reputation, extenuates their faults, and sets off their virtues, and by his candour guards them from the severity of his judgment. He is not like those dry critics who are morose because they cannot write themselves, but is himself master of a good vein in poetry; and though he does not often employ it, yet he has sometimes entertained his friends with his unpublished performances." The rest of the Lay Monks seem to be but feeble mortals, in comparison with the gigantic Johnson; who yet, with all his abilities, and the help of the fraternity, could drive the publication but to forty papers, which were afterwards collected into a volume, and called in the title "A Sequel to the Spectators." Some years afterwards (1716 and 1717) he published two volumes of Essays in prose, which can be commended only as they are written for the highest and noblest purpose-the promotion of religion. Blackmore's prose is not the prose of a poet; for it is languid, sluggish, and lifeless; his diction is neither daring nor exact, his flow neither rapid nor easy, and his periods neither smooth nor strong. His account of wit will show with how little clearness he is content to think, and how little his thoughts are recommended by his language. "As to its efficient cause, wit owes its production to an extraordinary and peculiar temperament in the constitution of the possessor of it, in which is found a concurrence of regular and exalted ferments, and an affluence of animal spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of purity; whence, being endowed with vivacity, brightness, and celerity, as well in their In these Essays he took little care to propitiate the wits; for he scorns to avert their malice at the expense of virtue or of truth. "Several, in their books, have many sarcastical and spiteful strokes at religion in general; while others make themselves pleasant with the principles of the Christian. Of the last kind, this age has seen a most audacious example in the book entitled 'A Tale of a Tub.' Had this writing been published in a pagan or popish nation, who are justly impatient of all indignity offered to the established religion of their coun try. no doubt but the author would have received the punishment he deserved. But the fate of this impious buffoon is very different; for in a protes tant kingdom, zealous of their civil and religious immunities, he has not only escaped affronts and the effects of public resentment, but has been caressed and patronized by persons of great figure and of all denominations. Violent party men, who differed in all things besides, agreed in their turn to show particular respect and friendship to this insolent derider of the worship of his country, till at last the reputed writer is not only gone off with impunity, but triumphs in his dignity and preferment. I do not know that any inquiry or search was ever made after this writing, or that any reward was ever offered for the discovery of the author, or that the infamous book was ever condemned to be burned in public: whether this proceeds from the excessive esteem and love that men in power, during the late reign, had for wit, or their defect of zeal and concern for the Christian religion, will be determined best by those who are best acquainted with their character." In another place he speaks with becoming abhorrence of a godless author, who has burlesqued a Psalm. This author was supposed to be Pope, who published a reward for any one that would produce the coiner of the accusation, but never denied it; and was afterwards the perpetual and incessant enemy of Blackmore. One of his essays is upon the Spleen, which is | was now settled; a hero introduced by Black treated by him so much to his own satisfaction, more was not likely to find either respect or that he has published the same thoughts in the kindness; "Alfred" took his place by “Elisame words; first in the "Lay Monastery;" za," in silence and darkness; benevolence was then in the Essay; and then in the preface to a ashamed to favour, and malice was weary of Medical Treatise on the Spleen. One passage, insulting. Of his four epic poems, the first had which I have found already twice, I will here ex- such reputation and popularity as enraged the hibit, because I think it better imagined, and critics; the second was at least known enough better expressed, than could be expected from to be ridiculed; the two last had neither friends the common tenor of his prose: nor enemies. "As the several combinations of splenetic madness and folly produce an infinite variety of irregular understanding, so the amicable accommodation and alliance between several virtues and vices produce an equal diversity in the dispositions and manners of mankind; whence it comes to pass, that as many monstrous and absurd productions are found in the moral as in the intellectual world. How surprising is it to observe, among the least culpable men, some whose minds are attracted by heaven and earth with a seeming equal force; some who are proud of humility; others who are censorious and uncharitable, yet self-denying and devout; some who join contempt of the world with sordid avarice; and others who preserve a great degree of piety, with ill-nature and ungoverned passions! Nor are instances of this inconsistent mixture less frequent among bad men, where we often, with admiration, see persons at once generous and unjust, impious lovers of their country and flagitious heroes, good-natured sharpers, immoral men of honour, and libertines who will sooner die than change their religion; and though it is true that repugnant coalitions of so high a degree are found but in a part of mankind, yet none of the whole mass, either good or bad, are entirely exempted from some absurd mixture." He about this time (Aug. 22, 1716) became one of the Elects of the College of Physicians; and was soon after (Oct. 1) chosen Censor. He seems to have arrived late, whatever was the reason, at his medical honours. Having succeeded so well in his book on "Creation," by which he established the great principle of all religion, he thought his undertaking imperfect, unless he likewise enforced the truth of revelation; and for that purpose added another poem, on "Redemption." He had likewise written, before his "Creation," three books on the "Nature of Man." The lovers of musical devotion have always wished for a more happy metrical version than they have yet obtained of the "Book of Psalms." This wish the piety of Blackmore led him to gratify; and he produced (1721) "A new Version of the Psalms of David, fitted to the Tunes used in Churches;" which, being recommended by the archbishops and many bishops, obtained a license for its admission into public worship; but no admission has it yet obtained, nor has it any right to come where Brady and Tate had got possession. Blackmore's name must be added to those of many others who, by the same attempt, have obtained only the praise of meaning well. He was not yet deterred from heroic poetry. There was another monarch of this island (for ne did not fetch his heroes from foreign countries) whom he considered as worthy of the epic muse; and he dignified "Alfred" (1723) with twelve books. But the opinion of the nation Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. Black more, being despised as a poet, was in time neglected as a physician; his practice, which was once invidiously great, forsook him in the latter part of his life; but being by nature, or by principle, averse from idleness, he employed his unwelcome leisure in writing books on physic, and teaching others to cure those whom he could himself cure no longer. 1 know not whether I can enumerate all the treatises by which he has endeavoured to diffuse the art of healing; for there is scarcely any distemper, of dreadful name, which he has not taught the reader how to oppose. He has written on the small-pox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on consumption, the spleen, the gout, the rheumatism, the king's evil, the dropsy, the jaundice, the stone, the diabetes, and the plague. Of those books, if I had read them, it could not be expected that I should be able to give a critical account. I have been told that there is something in them of vexation and discontent, discovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade physic from its sublimity, and to represent it as attainable without much previous or concomitant learning. By the transient glances which I have thrown upon them, I have observed an affected contempt of the ancients, and a supercilious derision of transmitted knowledge. Of this indecent arrogance the following quotation from his preface to the "Treatise on the Smallpox" will afford a specimen: in which, when the reader finds, what I fear is true, that, when he was censuring Hippocrates, he did not know the difference between aphorism and apophthegm, he will not pay much regard to his determinations concerning ancient learning. "As for his book of Aphorisms, it is like my Lord Bacon's of the same title, a book of jests, or a grave collection of trite and trifling observations; of which though many are true and certain, yet they signify nothing, and may afford diversion, but no instruction; most of them being much inferior to the sayings of the wise men of Greece, which yet are so low and mean, that we are entertained every day with more valuable sentiments at the table conversation of ingenious and learned men." I am unwilling, however, to leave him in total disgrace, and will therefore quote from another preface a passage less reprehensible. "Some gentlemen have been disingenuous and unjust to me, by wresting and forcing my meaning, in the preface to another book, as if I condemned and exposed all learning, though they knew I declared that I greatly honoured and esteemed all men of superior literature and erudition; and that I only undervalued false or superficial learning, that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; and that as to physic, A [expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native genius to make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents are separated, I asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native sagacity and diligence will prove a more able and useful practiser than a heavy notional scholar, encumbered with a heap of confused ideas." He was not only a poet and a physician, but produced likewise a work of a different kind, A true and impartial History of the Conspiracy against King William, of glorious Memory, in the Year 1695." This I have never seen, but suppose it at least compiled with integrity. He engaged likewise in theological controversy, and wrote two books against the Arians: "Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothesis ;" and "Modern Arians unmasked." Another of his works is "Natural Theology, or Moral Duties considered apart from Positive; with some Observations on the Desirableness and Necessity of a supernatural Revelation." This was the last book that he published. He left behind him "The Accomplished Preacher, or an Essay upon Divine Eloquence;" which was printed after his death by Mr. White, of Nayland, in Essex, the minister who attended his death-bed, and testified the fervent piety of his last hours. He died on the eighth of October, 1729. BLACKMORE, by the unremitted enmity of the wits, whom he provoked more by his virtue than his dulness, has been exposed to worse treatment than he deserved. His name was so long used to point every epigram upon dull writers, that it became at last a by-word of contempt; but it deserves observation, that malignity takes hold only of his writings, and that his life passed without reproach, even when his boldness of reprehension naturally turned upon him many eyes desirous to espy faults, which many tongues would have made haste to publish. But those who could not blame could at least forbear to praise, and therefore of his private life and domestic character there are no memorials. As an author he may justly claim the honours of magnanimity. The incessant attacks of his enemies, whether serious or merry, are never discovered to have disturbed his quiet or to have lessened his confidence in himself; they neither awed him to silence nor to caution; they neither provoked him to petulance nor depressed him to complaint. While the distributors of literary fame were endeavouring to depreciate and degrade him, he either despised or defied them, wrote on as he had written before, and never turned aside to quiet them by civility or repress them by confutation. I He depended with great security on his own powers, and perhaps was for that reason less diligent in perusing books. His literature was, I think, but small. What he knew of antiquity suspect him to have gathered from modern compilers; but, though he could not boast of much critical knowledge, his mind was stored with general principles, and he left minute researches to those whom he considered as little minds. With this disposition he wrote most of his poems. Having formed a magnificent design, he was careless of particular and subordinate elegancies; he studied no niceties of versification, he waited for no felicities of fancy, but caught his first thoughts on the first words in which they were presented; nor does it appear that he saw beyond his own performances, or had ever elevated his views to that ideal perfection which every genius born to excel is condemned always to pursue, and never overtake. In the first suggestions of his imagination he acquiesced; he thought them good, and did not seek for better. His works may be read a long time without the occurrence of a single line that stands prominent from the rest. The poem on "Creation" has, however, the appearance of more circumspection; it wants neither harmony of numbers, accuracy of thought, nor elegance of diction; it has either been wit ten with great care, or, what cannot be imagined of so long a work, with such felicity as made care less necessary. Its two constituent parts are ratiocination and description. To reason in verse is allowed to be difficult; but Blackmore not only reasons in verse, but very often reasons poetically, and finds the art of uniting ornament with strength, and ease with closeness. This is a skill which Pope might have condescended to learn from him, when he needed it so much in his "Moral Essays." In his descriptions, both of life and nature, the poet and the philosopher happily co-operate; truth is recommended by elegance, and elegance sustained by truth. In the structure and order of the poem, not only the greater parts are properly consecutive, but the didactic and illustrative paragraphs are so happily mingled, that labour is relieved by pleasure, and the attention is led on through a long succession of varied excellence to the original position, the fundamental principle of wisdom and of virtue. As the heroic poems of Blackmore are now little read, it is thought proper to insert, as a specimen from "Prince Arthur," the song of Mopas, mentioned by Molineux: But that which Arthur with most pleasure heard, Were noble strains, by Mopas sung, the bard, Who to his harp in lofty verse began, And through the secret maze of Nature ran. He the Great Spirit sung, that all things fill'd, whose nod dispos'd the jarring seeds to peace, That the tumultuous waves of Chaos still'd; And made the wars of hostile atons cease. All beings we in fruitful nature find, Streams of his unexhausted spring of pow'r, And, cherish'd with his influence, endure. He spread the pure cerulean fields on high, And arch'd the chambers of the vaulted sky, Adorn'd with globes that reel, as drunk with light. Which he, to suit their glory with their height, His hand directed all the tuneful spheres, He turn'd their orbs, and polish'd all the stars. He fill'd the Sun's vast lamp with golden light, He spread the airy ocean without shores, And bid the silver Moon adorn the night. Where birds are wafted with their feather'd oars. Then sung the bard how the light vapours rise From the warm earth, and cloud the smiling skies; Fall scatter'd down in pearly dew by night; He sung how some, chill d in their airy flight, How some rais'd higher, sit in secret steams On the reflected points of bounding beams, Till, chill'd with cold, they shape the ethercal plain. Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain; How some, whose parts a slight contexture show, Sink, hovering through the air, in fleecy snow; How part is spun in si ken threads, and clings Low others stamp to stones, with rushing sound Entangled in the grass in glewy strings; Fall from their crystal quarries to the ground; Proceeded from the Great Eternal mind; Was broke, and heav'n's bright tow'rs were downwards It makes that wider where 'tis forc'd to stay; THE brevity with which I am to write the account of ELIJAH FENTON is not the effect of indifference or negligence. I have sought intelligence among his relations in his native country, but have not obtained it. He was born near Newcastle, in Staffordshire, of an ancient family, whose estate was very considerable; but he was the youngest of eleven children, and being, therefore, necessarily destined to some lucrative employment, was sent first to school, and afterwards to Cambridge;t but, with many other wise and virtuous men, who, at that time of discord and debate, consult ed conscience, whether well or ill-informed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the government, and, refusing to qualify himself for public employment by the oaths required, He was born at Shelton, near Newcastle, May 20, 1693; and was the youngest of eleven children of John Fenton, an attorney at law, and one of the coroners of the county of Stafford. His father died in 1694; and his grave, in the churchyard of Stoke upon Trent, is distinguished by the tollowing elegant Latin inscription, from the pen of his son: H. S. E. de Shelton formâ, moribus, pietate, intemeratâ in ecclesiam fide, et virtutibus intaminatis enituit, necnon ingenii lepore bonis artibus expoliti, ac animo erga omnes benevolo, sibi suisque jucundus vixit. Decem annos uxori dilectæ superstes magnum sui desiderium bonis omnibus reliquit, salutis humanæ 1694, ætatis su 56. Anno See Gent. Mag. 1791, vol. LXI. p. 703.-N He was entered of Jesus College, and took a bache lor's degree in 1704; but it appears by the list of Cambridge graduates that he removed in 1726 to Trinity Hall.-N. left the university without a degree; but I never heard that the enthusiasm of opposition impelled him to separation from the church. By this perverseness of integrity he was driven out a commoner of Nature, excluded from the regular modes of profit and prosperity, and reduced to pick up a livelihood uncertain and fortuitous; but it must be remembered that he kept his name unsullied, and never suffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the same sect, to mean arts and dishonourable shifts. Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him with honour. The life that passes in penury must necessarily pass in obscurity. It is impossible to trace Fenton from year to year, or to discover what means he used for his support. He was awhile secretary to Charles, Earl of Orrery, in Flanders, and tutor to his young son, who afterwards mentioned him with great esteem and tenderness. He was at one time assistant in the school of Mr. Bonwicke, in Surrey; and at another kept a school for himself, at Sevenoaks, in Kent, which he brought into reputation; but was persuaded to leave it (1710) by Mr. St. John, with promises of a more honourable employment. His opinions, as he was a nonjuror, seem not to have been remarkably rigid. He wrote with great zeal and affection the praises of Queen Anne, and very willingly and liberally extolled the Duke of Marlborough, when he was (1707) at the height of his glory. He expressed still more attention to Marlborough and his family, by an elegiac pastoral on the Marquis of Blandford, which could be prompted only by respect or kindness; for neither the Duke nor Dutchess desired the praise, or liked the cost of patronage. The elegance of his poetry entitled him to the bleness of his manners made him loved wherecompany of the wits of his time, and the amiaever he was known. Of his friendship to Southern and Pope there are lasting monuments. |