On Some Modern Quacks and Reformists

On Some Modern Quacks And Reformists

In tracing of the human mind
Through all its various courses,
Though strange, 'tis true, we often find
It knows not its resources:
And men through life assume a part
For which no talents they possess,
Yet wonder that, with all their art,
They meet no better with success, etc., etc.]

['A Familiar Epistle, etc.', by T. Vaughan, Esq., was published in the 'Morning Chronicle', October 7, 1811. Gifford, in the 'Baviad' (l. 350), speaks of "Edwin's mewlings," and in a note names "Edwin" as the "profound Mr. T. Vaughan." 'Love's Metamorphoses', by T. Vaughan, was played at Drury Lane, April 15, 1776. He also wrote 'The Hotel, or Double Valet', November 26, 1776, which Jephson rewrote under the title of 'The Servant with Two Masters.' Compare 'Children of Apollo', p. 49:—

"Jephson, who has no humour of his own,
Thinks it no crime to borrow from the town;
The farce (almost forgot) of 'The Hotel'
Or 'Double Valet' seems to answer well.
This and his own make 'Two Strings to his Bow'."]]
[Footnote 74: See Milton's 'Lycidas'.]

[Footnote 75: Minerva being the first by Jupiter's head-piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, etc. etc.]

[Footnote 76:

"A crust for the critics."

'Bayes, in "the Rehearsal"' [act ii. sc. 2].

[Footnote 77: And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz. with bad wine, or worse poetry) "me servavit Apollo!"

[See 'English Bards', line 1 and 'note' 3.]]

[Footnote 78: Lines 813-816 not in 'MS. L. (a)' or 'MS. L. (b)'.]

[Footnote 79: On his table were found these words:—"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve;" and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope!

[Eustace Budgell (1686-1737), a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames" to escape the dishonour which attached to him in connection with Dr. Tindal's will, and the immediate pressure of money difficulties. He was, more or less, insane.

"We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. I put the case of Eustace Budgell.

'Suppose, sir,' said I, 'that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society?'

JOHNSON. 'Then, sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is 'not' known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he 'is' known.'"

Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (1886), p. 281.]]

[Footnote 80: If "dosed with," etc. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," etc. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present.]

[Footnote i:

ATHENS, 'March 2nd, 1811'.

['MS. L.' (a).]

ATHENS, 'March 12th, 1811'.

['MS. L. (i), MS. M.']]

[Footnote ii:

'If [A] West or Lawrence, (take whichever you will)
Sons of the Brush, supreme in graphic skill,
Should clap a human head-piece on a mare,
How would our Exhibition's loungers stare!
Or should some dashing limner set to sale
My Lady's likeness with a Mermaid's tail.'
['MS. L.' (a).]

'The features finished, should superbly deck
My Lady's likeness with a Filly's neck;
Or should some limner mad or maudlin group
A Mermaid's tail and Maid of Honour's Hoop.'
['MS. L. '(b).] ]

[Sub-Footnote A: I have been obliged to dive into the "Bathos" for the simile, as I could not find a description of these Painters' merits above ground.

"Si liceat parvis
Componere magna"—
"Like London's column pointing to the skies
Like a 'tall Bully', lifts its head and lies"
I was in hopes might bear me out, if the monument be like a Bully. West's glory may be reduced by the scale of comparison. If not, let me have recourse to 'Tom Thumb the Great' [Fielding's farce, first played 1730] to keep my simile in countenance.—['MS. L. (b) erased]]

[Footnote iii: After line 6, the following lines (erased) were inserted:—

'Or patch a Mammoth up with wings and limbs,
And fins of aught that flies or walks or swims'.
['MS. M'.]

Another variant ran—

'Or paint (astray from Truth and Nature led)
A Judge with wings, a Statesman with a Head'!
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote iv:

'Believe me, Hobhouse'.

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote v:

'as we scribblers'.

['MSS. L'. ('a' and 'b'), 'MS. M'.]]

[Footnote vi:

'Like Wardle's'[A] 'speeches'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Sub-Footnote A: [Gwyllim Lloyd Wardle (1762-1834), who served in Ireland in 1798, as Colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers, known as "Wynne's lambs," was M.P. for Okehampton 1807-12. In January, 1809, he brought forward a motion for a parliamentary investigation into the exercise of military patronage by the Duke of York, and the supposed influence of the Duke's mistress, Mary Anne Clarke.]]

[Footnote vii:

'As pertness lurks beneath a legal gown.
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]

or,

'Which covers all things like a Prelate's gown'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

or,

'Which wraps presumption'.

['MS. M. erased'.]]

[Footnote viii:

'As when the poet to description yields
Of waters gliding through the goodly fields;
The Groves of Granta and her Gothic Halls,
Oxford and Christchurch, London and St. Pauls,
Or with a ruder flight he feebly aims
To paint a rainbow or the River Thames.
Perhaps you draw a fir tree or a beech,
But then a landscape is beyond your reach;
Or, if that allegory please you not,
Take this—you'ld form a vase, but make a pot'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote ix:

'Although you sketch a tree which Taste endures,
Your ill-daubed Shipwreck shocks the Connoisseurs.'
['MS. M.']]

[Footnote x:

'The greater portion of the men of rhyme
Parents and children or their Sires sublime'.
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xi:

'But change the malady they strive to cure'.

['MS. L. (a').]]

[Footnote xii:

'Fish in the woods and wild-boars in the waves'.

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xiii:

'For Coat and waistcoat Slowshears is your man,
But Breeches claim another Artisan;
Now this to me I own seems much the same
As one leg perfect and the other lame'.
['MSS. M., L. (a').]

'Sweitzer is your man'.

[MS. M. 'erased'.]]

[Footnote xiv:

'Him who hath sense to make a skilful choice
Nor lucid Order, nor the Siren Voice
Of Eloquence shall shun, and Wit and Grace
(Or I'm deceived) shall aid him in the Race:
These too will teach him to defer or join
To future parts the now omitted line:
This shall the Author like or that reject,
Sparing in words and cautious to select:
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who well compounds a wanting word,
And if, by chance, 'tis needful to produce
Some term long laid and obsolete in use'.—
['MSS. M., L'. ('a' and 'b'). 'The last line partly erased.']

[Footnote xv:

'The dextrous Coiner of a' wanting 'word'.—

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xvi:

'Adroitly grafted.'

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xvii:

'Since they enriched our language in their time
In modern speeches or Black letter rhyme.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xviii:

'Though at a Monarch's nod, and Traffic's call
Reluctant rivers deviate to Canal'.
['MSS. M., L'. ('a' and 'b').]]

[Footnote xix:

'marshes dried, sustain'.

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xx:

'Thus—future years dead volumes shall revive'.

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xxi:

'As Custom fluctuates whose Iron Sway
Though ever changing Mortals must obey'.
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xxii:

'To mark the Majesty of Epic song'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote xxiii:

'But which is preferable rhyme or blank
Which holds in poesy'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]

[Footnote xxiv:

—'ventures to appear.—'

['MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum'.]

[Footnote xxv:

'And Harry Monmouth, till the scenes require,
Resigns heroics to his sceptred Sire.'
['MS. L'. (a).]]

[Footnote xxvi:

'To "hollaing Hotspur" and the sceptred sire.'—

['MS. Corr. in Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xxvii:

'Dull as an Opera, I should sleep or sneer.'

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote xxviii:

'And for Emotion's aid 'tis said and sung'.

['MS. L, (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxix:

'or form a plot'.

['Proof b, British Museum'.]]

[Footnote xxx:

'Whate'er the critic says or poet sings
'Tis no slight task to write on common things'.
['MS. L. (a).']]

[Footnote xxxi:

'Ere o'er our heads your Muse's Thunder rolls.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxii:

'Earth, Heaven and Hell, are shaken with the Song.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxiii:

'Through deeds we know not, though already done,'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxiv:

'What soothes the people's, Peer's, and Critic's ear.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxv:

'And Vice buds forth developed with his Teens.'

[MS. M.]]

[Footnote xxxvi:

'The beardless Tyro freed at length from school.

[MSS. L. (b), M. erased'.]

'And blushing Birch disdains all College rule.

[MS. M. erased'.]

'And dreaded Birch.

[MS. L.' (a' and 'b').]]

[Footnote xxxvii:

'Unlucky Tavell! damned to daily cares
By pugilistic Freshmen, and by Bears.'
['MS. M. erased'.]]

[Footnote xxxviii:

'Ready to quit whatever he loved before,
Constant to nought, save hazard and a whore.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xxxix:

'The better years of youth he wastes away.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xl:

'Master of Arts, as all the Clubs proclaim.'

['MS. L. (b)'.]]

[Footnote xli:

'Scrapes wealth, o'er Grandam's endless jointure grieves.'

['MS. erased'.]

'O'er Grandam's mortgage, or young hopeful's debts.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

'O'er Uncle's mortgage.'

['MS. L. (b)'.]]

[Footnote xlii:

'Your plot is told or acted more or less.'

['MS. M.']]

[Footnote xliii:

'To greater sympathy our feelings rise
When what is done is done before our eyes.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xliv:

'Appalls an audience with the work of Death—
To gaze when Hubert simply threats to sere.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xlv:

'Nor call a Ghost, unless some cursed hitch
Requires a trapdoor Goblin or a Witch.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xlvi:

'This comes from Commerce with our foreign friends
These are the precious fruits Ausonia sends.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote xlvii:

'Our Giant Capital where streets still spread
Where once our simpler sins were bred.'
['MS. L. (a).']

'Our fields where once the rustic earned his bread.'

['MS. L. (b)'.]]

[Footnote xlviii:

'Aches with the Orchestra he pays to hear.

[MS. M.']]

[Footnote xlix:

'Scarce kept awake by roaring out encore.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote l:

'Ere theatres were built and reverend clerks
Wrote plays as some old book remarks.'
[MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote li:

'Who did what Vestris—yet, at least,—cannot,
And cut his kingly capers "Sans culotte."'
['MS. M.']]

[Footnote lii:

'Who yet squeaks on nor fears to be forgot
If good Earl Grosvenor supersede them not'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]

'Who still frisk on with feats so vastly low
'Tis strange Earl Grosvenor suffers such a show'.
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote liii:

'Suppressing Peer! to whom all vice gives place,
Save Gambling—for his Lordship loves a Race'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote liv:

'Hobhouse, since we have roved through Eastern climes,
While all the Ægean echoed to our rhymes,
And bound to Momus by some pagan spell
Laughed, sang and quaffed to "Vive la Bagatelle!'"—
['MS. L'. ('a').]

'Hobhouse, with whom once more I hope to sit
And smile at what our Stage retails for wit.
Since few, I know, enjoy a laugh so well
Sardonic slave to "Vive la Bagatelle"
So that in your's like Pagan Plato's bed
They'll find some book of Epigrams when dead'.
['MS. L'. ('b').]]

[Footnote lv:

'My wayward Spirit weakly yields to gloom,
But thine will waft thee lightly to the Tomb,
So that in thine, like Pagan Plato's, bed
They'll find some Manuscript of Mimes, when dead'.
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote lvi:

'And spite of Methodism and Collier's curse'.

['MS. M'.]

'He who's seduced by plays must be a fool'

'If boys want teaching let them stay at school'.

[MS. L. (a).]]

[Footnote lvii:

'Whom Nature guides so writes that he who sees
Enraptured thinks to do the same with ease'.
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote lviii:

'But after toil-inked thumbs and bitten nails
Scratched head, ten quires—the easy scribbler fails'.—
['MS. L'. ('a').]

[Footnote lix:

'The one too rustic, t'other too refined'.

['MS. L'. ('a' and 'b').]]

[Footnotes lx:

'Offensive most to men with house and land
Possessed of Pedigree and bloody hand'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]

Footnote lxi:

'Composed for any but the lightest strain'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

Footnote lxii:

'And must I then my'—

['MS.L'. ('a').]

[Footnote lxiii:

'Ye who require Improvement'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote lxiv:

'And Tragedy, whatever stuff he spoke
Now wants high heels, long sword and velvet cloak'.—
['MS. L'. ('a') 'erased'.]]

[Footnote lxv:

'Curtail or silence the offensive jest'.

['MS. M'.]

'Curtail the personal or smutty jest'.

['MS. L'. ('a') 'erased'.]]

[Footnote lxvi:

'Overthrow whole books with all their hosts of faults'.—

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnotes lxvii:

'So that not Hellebore with all its juice'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote lxviii:

'I'll act instead of whetstone—blunted, but
Of use to make another's razor cut'.
['MS. L.' ('a').]]

[Footnote lxix:

'From Horace show the better arts of song'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote lxx:

'To Trade, but gave their hours to arms and arts'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]

'With traffic'.

['MS. L'. ('b').]]

[Footnote lxxi:

'Babe of old Thelusson' [A]——.

['MS. L'. ('a' and 'b').]]

[Sub-Footnote A: [Peter Isaac Thellusson, banker (died July 21, 1797), by his will directed that his property should accumulate for the benefit of the unborn heir of an unborn grandson. The will was, finally, upheld, but, meanwhile, on July 28, 1800, an act (39 and 40 Geo. III.c.98) was passed limiting such executory devises.]]

[Footnote lxxii:

'A groat—ah bravo! Dick's the boy for sums
He'll swell my fifty thousand into plums'.
['MS. L'. ('a').]]

[Footnote lxxiii:

'Are idle dogs and (damn them!) always poor'.—

['MS. L'. ('a' and 'b').]]

[Footnote lxxiv:

'Unlike Potosi holds no silver mine'.

['MS. L'. ('a').]

'Keeps back his ingots like'}
'Is rather costive—like' } 'an Irish Mine'.
'Is no Potosi, but' }
['MS. L'. ('b').]]

[Footnote lxxv:

'Write but recite not, e'en Apollo's song
Mouthed in a mortal ear would seem too long,
Long as the last year of a lingering lease,
When Revel pauses until Rents increase'.
['MS. M. erased'.]]

[Footnote lxxvi:

'To finish all'.

['MS. L'. ('b').]

'That Bard the mask will fit'.

['MS. L'. ('b').]]

[Footnote lxxvii:

'Revenge defeats its object in the dark
And pistols (courage bullies!) miss their mark.'
['MS. L. (a).']

And pistols (courage duellists!) miss their mark.

['MS. L. (b)'.]]

[Footnote lxxviii:

'Though much displeased.'

['MS. L. (a and b)'.]]

[Footnote lxxix:

'The scrutiny.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote lxxx:

'Oh ye aspiring youths whom fate or choice.'

['MS. L. (a)'.]]

[Footnote lxxxi:

'All are not Erskines who adorn the bar.'

['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote lxxxii:

'With very middling verses to offend
The Devil and Jeffrey grant but to a friend.'
['MS. L. (a).']

'Though what "Gods, men, and columns" interdict,
The Devil and Jeffrey [A] pardon—in a Pict.'
['MS. M.']]

[Sub-Footnote A: "The Devil and Jeffrey are here placed antithetically to gods and men, such being their usual position, and their due one—according to the facetious saying, 'If God won't take you, the Devil must;' and I am sure no one durst object to his taking the poetry, which, rejected by Horace, is accepted by Jeffrey. That these gentlemen are in some cases kinder,—the one to countrymen, and the other from his odd propensity to prefer evil to good,—than the 'gods, men, and columns' of Horace, may be seen by a reference to the review of Campbell's 'Gertrude of Wyoming'; and in No. 31 of the 'Edinburgh Review' (given to me the other day by the captain of an English frigate off Salamis), there is a similar concession to the mediocrity of Jamie Graham's 'British Georgics'. It is fortunate for Campbell, that his fame neither depends on his last poem, nor the puff of the 'Edinburgh Review'. The catalogues of our English are also less fastidious than the pillars of the Roman librarians. A word more with the author of 'Gertrude of Wyoming'. At the end of a poem, and even of a couplet, we have generally 'that unmeaning thing we call a thought;' so Mr. Campbell concludes with a thought in such a manner as to fulfil the whole of Pope's prescription, and be as 'unmeaning' as the best of his brethren:—

'Because I may not 'stain' with grief
The death-song of an Indian chief.'
"When I was in the fifth form, I carried to my master the translation of a chorus in Prometheus, wherein was a pestilent expression about 'staining a voice,' which met with no quarter. Little did I think that Mr. Campbell would have adopted my fifth form 'sublime'—at least in so conspicuous a situation. 'Sorrow' has been 'dry' (in proverbs), and 'wet' (in sonnets), this many a day; and now it ''stains',' and stains a sound, of all feasible things! To be sure, death-songs might have been stained with that same grief to very good purpose, if Outalissi had clapped down his stanzas on wholesome paper for the 'Edinburgh Evening Post', or any other given hyperborean gazette; or if the said Outalissi had been troubled with the slightest second sight of his own notes embodied on the last proof of an overcharged quarto; but as he is supposed to have been an improvisatore on this occasion, and probably to the last tune he ever chanted in this world, it would have done him no discredit to have made his exit with a mouthful of common sense. Talking of ''staining'' (as Caleb Quotem says) 'puts me in mind' of a certain couplet, which Mr. Campbell will find in a writer for whom he, and his school, have no small contempt:—

'E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art—the art to 'blot'!'"
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote lxxxiii:

'And mustard rarely pleases in a pie.'

['MS. L. '(a).]]

[Footnote lxxxiv:

'At the Sessions'.

['MS. L.' (b), 'in pencil'.] ]

[Footnote lxxxv: Lines 647-650—

Whose character contains no glaring fault…
Shall I, I say.
[MS. L. (a).]]

[Footnote lxxxvi: After 660—

'But why this hint-what author e'er could stop
His poems' progress in a Grocers shop.'
['MS. L. (a).'] ]

[Footnote lxxxvii:

'As lame as I am, but a better bard.'

['MS. M.']]

[Footnote lxxxviii:

'Apollo's song the fate of men foretold.'

['MS. L. (a).']]

[Footnote lxxxix:

'Have studied with a Master day and night'.

['MS. L. (a, b).']]

[Footnote xc:

'They storm Bolt Court, they publish one and all'.—

['MS. M. erased.']]

[Footnote xci:

'Rogers played this prank'.

['MS. M.']]

[Footnote xcii:

'There see their sonnets first—but Spring—hot prest
Beholds a Quarto—Tarts must tell the Rest.'
['MS. M. erased.']]

[Footnote xciii:

'To fuddled Esquires or to flippant Lords.'

['MS. M.']]

[Footnote xciv:

'Till lo! that modern Midas of the swains—
Feels his ears lengthen—with the lengthening strains'.—
['MS. M. erased'.]]

[Footnote xcv:

'Adds a week's growth to his enormous ears'.

['MS. M. erased.']]

[Footnote xcvi:

'But what are these? Benefits might bind
Some decent ties about a manly mind'.
['MS. M.']]

[Footnote xcvii:

'Our modern sceptics can no more allow.'

['MS. L. (a).']]

[Footnote xcviii:

'Some rhyming peer—Carlisle or Carysfort.'[A]

['MS. M.']]

[Sub-Footnote A: [To variant ii. (p. 444) (this footnote) is subjoined this note:

"Of 'John Joshua, Earl of Carysfort,' I know nothing at present, but from an advertisement in an old newspaper of certain Poems and Tragedies by his Lordship, which I saw by accident in the Morea. Being a rhymer himself, he will forgive the liberty I take with his name, seeing, as he must, how very commodious it is at the close of that couplet; and as for what follows and goes before, let him place it to the account of the other Thane; since I cannot, under these circumstances, augur pro or con the contents of his 'foolscap crown octavos.'"

[John Joshua Proby, first Earl of Carysfort, was joint postmaster-general in 1805, envoy to Berlin in 1806, and ambassador to Petersburgh in 1807. Besides his poems ('Dramatic and Miscellaneous Works', 1810), he published two pamphlets (1780,1783), to show the necessity of universal suffrage and short parliaments. He died in 1828.]]

[Footnote xcix:

'Hoarse with bepraising, and half choaked with lies,
Sweat on his brow and tear drops in his eyes.'
['MS. L. (a).']]

[Footnote c:

'Then sits again, then shakes his piteous head
As if the Vicar were already dead.'
['MS. L. (a).']]

[Footnote ci:

'But if you're too conceited to amend.'

['MS. L. (a).]']

[Footnote cii:

'On pain of suffering from their pen or tongues.'

['MS. M. erased.']

'—fly Fitzgerald's lungs.'

['MS. M.']]

[Footnote ciii:

'Ah when Bards mouth! how sympathetic Time
Stagnates, and Hours stand still to hear their rhyme.'
['MS. M. erased'.]]

[Footnote civ:

'Besides how know ye? that he did not fling
Himself there—for the humour of the thing.'
['MS. M'.]]

[Footnote cv:

'Small thanks, unwelcome life he quickly leaves;
And raving poets—really should not lose.'
['MS. M'.]

[Footnote cvi:

'Nor is it clearly understood that verse
Has not been given the poet for a curse;
Perhaps he sent the parson's pig to pound,
Or got a child on consecrated ground;
But, be this as it may, his rhyming rage
Exceeds a Bear who strives to break his cage.
If free, all fly his versifying fit;
The young, the old, the simpleton and wit.'
['MS. L. (a)'.]]