English Lands Letters and Kings

e bogs by the Finland gulf-when that mad-cap Swedish King Charles XII. was cutting his bloody swathe through Poland-when Louis XIV., tired at last of wars, and more tired of Marlboro

tch of Sara of "Blenheim"; and veering sometimes, under Harleyan influences, toward her half-brother

sooty chimney sweepers and noisy venders of eggs and butter, with high-piled baskets upon their heads. Sir Roger de Coverley coming to town-if we may believe Addison-cannot sleep the first week by reason of the

lent way"; and there were grand coaches for those who could pay for such display; evidences of wealth were growing year by year. The Venetian Re

embroidered with gold, and the richest that ever was seen in England: They had two with 8 horses, and eight with 6 horses, trimmed very f

la-"The Venetian coach is the most monstrou

ish B

nessa) a young protégé of his, whom he had known at Dublin, and who had made a great reputation there among thinkers, by an ingenious Theory of Vision,

p Ber

ness. He went over to the Continent in the wake of a British Ambassador-was four or five years there, variously employed, equipping himself in worldly knowledge, and came back to warn[3] Englishmen against that extravagance and greed for money, which had made possible the South-Sea disa

ica in ways of Christian living, and of learning. Long before, the devout George Herbert had said that Religion was "ready to pass to the American Strand;" and now Berkeley, fresh from the sight of dearth and decay in Europe, w

ourse of Empir

fanned and kept cool by sea-breezes." But his stepping-stone on the way thither was Rhode Island; and for the harbor of Newport he sailed, with a few friends

ey at

rmers about him-of the Quakers, the Methodists; sometimes he preaches at Trinity Church (still there), and his sermons are unctuous with the broadest and most liberal Churchism: "Sad," he says in one, "that Religion, which requires us to love, should become the cause of our hating one another." He corresponds with Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, Ct.;[4] also, possibly, with Mr. Jonathan Edwards, not as yet driven away into the wilds of Western Massachuse

oyal grant, he goes back with his family to England (1731). Many of his books,[5] and eventually his Whitehall farm, were bestowed upon Yale; and in that lively institution year after year, there be earnest students who contend still for Berkeley scholar

und friendly hands and hearts upon his return to England. Through the influences of Queen Caroline (consort of George II.) he was given the bishopric o

sophies all were over-topped by his sweet humanities,[6] yet American students may well cher

cho

rd Be

ade with any earnestness-you will come upon the name of Dr. Bentley;[7] i

aris, commanded attention at an early stage of his career, and showed ability to cross swords, in a scholastic and bi

large hospitalities. He had a sensible wife, courteous "for two"-as many scholars' wives have need to be-and two daughters; one of whom inheriting the father's sharp tongue, made a good

s diluted, and was inaccessible to those finer, milder, delicater graces-whether of wine or poetry-which ripen under long re

holiast, whose

l, and humbled

ill to verse, th

e shall make i

v., 211

's scho

see his slap-dash manner and his amazing command of authorities should read the Dissertation on Phalaris; not a lovable man surely, but prince of all schoolmastery lore: and how rarely we love the schoolmaster! 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,[9] or ev

Doct

the professional critics; and yet this name now brought to your attention is I think, tenderly associated with New Englanders' earliest recollections of rhyme or ver

ar, lie stil

els guar

essings wit

lling on

ar-away times, when it drifted over hundreds of New Engl

ac

ed as late as 1875. Being a dissenter, he was debarred the advantages of a university education, but he taught dissenters how to put grace into their hymns

eat admiration for the familiar W

y gates with t

heavens our

th her ten th

courts with s

ountry choirs in New England meeting-houses lift

land of p

the good Doctor to those child days when hopes were fresh, and holidays a joy, and summers long; and when flowery paths stretched out before us, over which we have gone toiling since-to quite other music than that of Dr. Isaac Watts. And if his songs are gone out of our fin

odd years-reaching almost four score-never forgetting his simplicities, his humilities, his faith, his sweet humanities, and never havi

rd Y

Fragments of his sombre-colored and magniloquent Night Thoughts are still frequently encountered in Commonplace Books

ut astronom

sweet restorer

ion is the th

or Y

to King William III. He was an Oxford man, lived a wild life there-attaching himself to a fast young Duke of Wharton, who led him into many awkward scrapes-and developing an early love, which clu

acred is a D

ssport thro' th

partial read

ory round the s

d incapable of using any colors but gaudy or resplendent ones, and is nothing if not exagg

arthquake, whe

ent, and lays t

nds his jaws'

ews the cavern

onstrous teeth

ondering eyes f

session of the

re within the

and ended by taking church orders somewhat late in life-staying one of his plays,[12] which was just then in rehearsal, as inconsistent with his new duties. He married the elegant widowed daughter of an earl, who died not many years thereafter; and from this affliction, and his brooding over it, came his best-k

Night

latives and of wordy exaggerations served him in good stead when he came to talk of the shortness of time, and the length of eternity, and the depth of the grave, and the shadows of

s Apostrop

estic

ancestor! Day

survive the t

d immortals s

wn thy raven

y waist; clouds

h varieties of

tle form, and h

pour thy po

t pomp of language, chase each other over his mind, as vagrant high-sweeping clouds chase over the sky. You may watch and fol

he did not; we find him back at court long after the funeral bells had sounded in his verse:-back th

of original letters were shown, she was specially anxious to see one of her dear Dr. Young, for whose N

etter that was perhaps ever penned by a clergyman, imploring the

was, of frugality and piety-of love for reputation and emotional religion. He essayed the writing of some of his tragic epis

e range. But his was an imagination not chastened by a severe taste or held in check by the discretions of an elevated

rtley M

rtley M

Swift (who was one of the few men she feared). She knew and greatly admired Congreve, had free entrée to the palace in time of George I., could and did translate Epictetus before she was t

ary Mo

rightliness there, very likely fastened upon her that greed for public triumphs which clung to her all her life. She presided at her father's table, was taught in Greek, Latin, French, Italian; was full of accomplishments, and at twenty-one fell in with Mr. Montagu, similarly accomplished, whom she had a half mind to marry. Her fa

ettles him; and the nettles creep into their future correspondence. But her husband being appointed (1716) ambassador to Constantinople, her Ladyship sets

who has addressed her in almo

it and raillery; and, it may be, it would be taking them right. But I never in

ribe a Sunday at the opera in the

her. It was a bold thing to do, and she always loved boldnesses. It was a humane thing to do, and her humanities were always active. The medical professors looked doubtingly upon it; even the clergy preached against it as contravening the in

of London, where the poet was then residing, and at the zenith of his fame. His poetic worship at her shrine was renewed with all the old ar

ls really at my heart, and I have made a perfect pa

nfer from this bit of verse, wr

uctures rise, m

ames reflects t

ntains and of

here; to happier

where Wortley

y parterre and

ower, the eve

cesses of u

rd into the p

deer in some s

die, the arro

unseen, in cove

drop and pants

el, which is so sharp and bitter, and with such echoes in

t the crippled sensitive poet had forgotten himself to so impudent an avowal of love

ing couplets; and though he denied her tale with unction, he never told a story of his o

ervey and the Montagu were both put to the torture. It must have been uncomfortable weather for her ladyship at Twickenham in those days. True, Hervey, Peterborough, Bolingbroke, and many of the courtiers were at her service; and she was a favorite of George I.-so far as any respectable woman co

d its suburbs; happy, yet not happy; courted and not cour

live upon cordials, when one can have no other nourishment. These are my present endeavors, and I run about though I have five thousand pins and needles running into my heart. I try to con

a vagrant, had gone out into the world and the night, Lady Mary-believing in "cordials"-gath

ce, and Milan. The appetite for this life grows with feeding; so it becomes virtually a separation from her husband, though cool, business-like letters regularly pass between them. He

parkling and have passed into a certain place in English literature, but they are not Sévigné letters. Toward the last of her residence abroad she bought an old ruinous palace in Lombardy

es her d

y are almost as scarce as valuable men.... As I approach a second childhood I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it.... I am reading an

o this misanthropic spirit; has grown strangely neglectful of her person

ng her return; so she brings back that shrunken, unseemly face, and figure of hers to London;

delivers it to a Frenchman. The Frenchman to a Swiss, and the Swiss to a Polander; so that by the time you get

e was old, dirty, tawdry, and painted." But he

f service and her flush purse, thought to call back the old trail of flatterers? I

grateful person to perpetuate the memory of the Lady Mary's benevolence in introducing inoculation; and I think it is the only

nder

nder

ve caught shadowy glimpses in the story of Wortley Montagu. There are scores of litt

ather and a c

's the nobles

s truth, eno' f

e is happin

ame from no c

art; there all

these or other such, from the same author, have not one time done service as sna

e with some spinal weakness which did give a measure of excuse to the coarse and brutal satirists of those days. His height was much below that of ordinary men, so that cushions or a higher chair were always necessary at table to bring him to the level of his friends; his legs were thin and shrunken and he walked feebly; his countenance was drawn and pinched; yet he

ct, because it serves to explain, or at least largely to qu

and Reading, where they show now a grove of beaches which was a favorite haunt of the boy poet. He caught schooling in a hap-hazard way, as Romanists needed to do in those times; but had a quick, big brain,

tch sight of old John Dryden, then drawing near to the end of his worldly honors. And this thin, white-faced, crippled boy looking stealthily

ere parties: He seeming in those romantic days (upon the edge of Windsor Forest) sometimes in love with one and sometimes the other; and they, in this mixing of letters getting probably as confused as he, and a great deal more vexed; and so came coldness and s

d Wycherly too, and scores of men about town; even Jacob Tonson, the famous publisher of those times, had written to Pope before he was twenty, asking the privilege

etic M

y of

dnight routs; perhaps he tried it for a while; but his feeble frame could stand no such neck-breaking gallop. He can, however, put more of wearisome elaboration and pains-taking skill to his rhymes than any of the verse-makers of his time. He has by nature a m

f the Lock, all belonged to those early years at Binfi

nd 'the cooling

, it 'whispers t

ms 'with pleasin

atened (not in va

ast and only c

ning thing they

lexandrine e

d snake, drags its

ing bit, from W

rake the whirrin

ulting on tri

*

l his glossy,

st, and scarle

n his shining

, and breast that

s, from the Ra

rissa drew with

eapon from he

romance assis

ar, and arm him

ft with reveren

gine on his f

nd Belinda's n

grant steams sh

ock a thousand

, by turns, thro

twitched the dia

back, and thrice t

rthier excerpt from t

well-drest youth

e was fixed

east a sparklin

ht kiss, and i

ks a sprightly

yes, and as un

, to all she s

ts, but never

llops under a loose rein; the couplets fetter him; may be they cramp him; but there is a blithe, strong resonance of true metal, in the clinking chains that bind him. No, I do not think that Pope is to be laughed out of court, in our day, or i

ociation with the Literary Guild of that paper; he wrote for the Spectator on several occasions. An early contribution is that o

earning, who agreed that they showed a gayety unworthy th

vagula,

omes que

rigida, n

ans a gay, but a very serious soliloquy t

lly (if Pope ever did anything casually) to the Spectator, came

rk of heav

it, this mo

oping, linge

, the bliss

e of th

of th

ll as biographers, his masterpiece, and a beautiful work of the highest literary art. I recognize the superior authority, but cannot share the exalted admiratio

pon a synopsis of so delicate a feat of workmanship, it might run in this way:-Belinda, the despoiled heroine, sleeps; sprites put dreams in her he

e mazy ringle

n the pendant

game, and twist all into a fairy cable. The covetous baron snips off a lock of Belinda's hair, while she bends over the tea-pot. The nimble sylphs bring from the "Cave of Spleen" a stock of shrieks, and tears, and megrims. Sir Plume ("of amber snuff-box justly vain")

muse [thus] con

tars inscribes

are as small as the sylphs; toy creatures, and creatures of toys; no nobility, in or about them; and very muc

intrusion; I cannot forget that they were an afterthought of Pope himself; I cannot bring myself to think of the charming fairy-folk of Fletcher, or of Drayton's Nymphidia, or of the Midsummer Night's

of his moral essays. There could be few more helpful rhetorical lessons, for boy or girl, than the effort to pack some of Pope's stinging couplets, or decades of lines, into an equal number of lines in prose; the difficulties would be great indeed and

, and Life a

r of

and Jacob Tonson was the screw which some publishers are. There can be no doubt that the poet, with his fine tastes, felt the restraints of a limited income; his old father, who perhaps did not carry sharp business habits into his retirement, had been com

it probable that there can never be an English Homer that will quite match it. There are juster ones; there are faithfuller ones; but not one that has been so enduringly popular. Steeping himself in the mythologies and the Trojan traditions, he has grafted thereupon his s

reat men of Court, and swore that he must have a hundred or a thousand pounds su

ew Homer-the sum reaching, for both Iliad and Odyssey, some ￡9,000; with which the shrewd poet bought an annuity (cheaper then than now) of so

Thames banks. He put the same polish upon his grounds he did upon his verse: his grotto flashed with curious spars, glass jewels, and prismatic tinted shells; his walks were decorously paved and rolled and his turf shorn to a nicety. He entertained there in his thrifty way, watching his butler very sharply, and by reason of his infirmities, was very measured in his wine-drinking. Swift, who used to come and pass days with him, may have made the glasses jingle: and there were other

e his walks unobserved. He had his vanities, but he did not love to be pointed at. He carried a mind of extreme sensitiveness under that dwarfed figure; and is mad-maybe, sometimes, with destiny, that has crippled him so; and bites that thin lip of his till the blood starts. But he does not waste force or pride on repinings; he feels an altitude in that supple mind

s van

and taste; but not one, I think, as yet, so thoroughly and highly conscious that his clevernes

ing them over to himself-growing heated with the flames that flash and play in them-his slight, frail figure trembling with the rhythmic outburst, and

Last

ays of

of his to writhe again-all the more because he pretended a stoicism that felt no such attack. To say that he often made his thrusts without reason, and that much of his satire was dastardly, is saying what all the world knows, and what every admirer of his fine powers must lament. But he had his steady friendships, too, and his tendernesses. Nothing could exceed the kindly consideration and affectionate watchfulness which belonged to his protection and shelter of his old mother, lingering in that poet's faery home of Twickenham till over ninety. A strange, close friendship knit him to Dean Swift, who had seemed incapable of rallying this sensitive man's-or, indeed, any man's-affections. Pope, and Bolingbroke-the brilliant and the courted-were long bound together in very close and friendly communion; the tears of this latter were among the honeste

h of

e said. Two days thereafter he entered very quietly upon the visions all men see after death; leaving that poor, scathed, misshapen body-I should think gladly-leav

orical Relation of State affairs f

tters (1 vol.); edited by Fraser, in 1871. See also very interesting monog

reventing the Ruin of

sident of King's (now Columbia) College, New York;

me know whether they [the college authorities] would admit the writings

inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water." And it is remarkable that its arguments

Lecturer, 1692; Master of Trinity, 1700; Works, edited by Dyce, London, 1836 (only

6; among his plays is False Impressions, in which ap

ame, and flare; and he closes a bristling preface with this droll caveat;-"I made [these] notes extempore, and put th

l. ix., Sacred Classics: London, 1834). Lowndes (Bib. Manual) says, th

, with memoir, by J. Mitford

rs) was brought out in 1753, some twenty years a

62. Works (3 vols.), edited by her great grandson, Lord W

exiled for his engagement in

ers, etc., vol.

ose by Bowles and Roscoe, with that of Elwin and Courthope; see also Dilke's Papers

gton, etc. De Quincey says, "It is the most exquisite mo

Court oculist) in or about 1807. Pope loved landscape gardening and was aided by Kent and Bri