Arbuthnot's style is distinguished from that of his contemporaries, even by a greater degree of terseness and conciseness. He leaves out every superfluous word; is sparing of connecting particles, and introductory phrases; uses always the simplest forms of construction; and is more a master of the idiomatic peculiarities and internal resources of the language than almost any other writer.HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lectures on the English Poets, Lecture vi, p. 124. Dr. Arbuthnot possessed, in a high degree, that classical knowledge in which Swift and Pope were deficient. In the publication of these friends, entitled "Miscellanies," which appeared in 1727, Arbuthnot, who wrote most of the lucubrations of Martinus Scriblerus, sometimes endeavoured to ape Bentley's style; and the section called Virgilius Reformatus contains a direct burlesque of his emendatory criticism, under the garb of Scriblerus' pretended alterations of the first two books of the Eneid; the short and imperious decrees of this critical jeud'esprit being particularly designed to ridicule the Notes on Phædrus, which were lately published.-MONK, JAMES HENRY, 1830-33, The Life of Richard Bentley, vol. II, p. 373. When his feelings are not specially roused he is genial, lambent, goodhumoured; but he was capable of genuine indignation, and sometimes lays on the lash with unsparing severity. His paper on the "Altercation or Scolding of the Ancients" is in very happy humour; his "Art of Political Lying" is more sarcastic.-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1872-80, Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 405. Arbuthnot wrote little, and there is no collected edition of his works; but the little that he did write shows that if he had used his pen more freely he could have won for himself a very high position in literature.-NICOLL, HENRY J., 1882, Landmarks of English Literature, p. 184. His writings to-day have lost something of their original flavor. Only students of the time are likely to recur to them. Their politics are of an outworn fashion. The pedantry they mock at has departed. The allusions required vexatious explanation in endless footnotes. The humor is less direct and palpable than Swift's, the wit less pointed and flashing than Pope's, the sportiveness less dainty and delicate than Gay's. Yet the "History of John Bull" and the "Memoirs of Scriblerus" will long hold their place in the literature of scholars, for their pithy English, their manly sense, their grotesque drollery, their vivid imagination.-RICHARDS, C. A. L., 1892, An Eighteenth Century Character, The Dial, vol. 13, p. 99. The truth is that Arbuthnot's literary fame has suffered from causes which must sooner or later preclude any writer from permanent popularity. permanent popularity. With two exceptions, the first book of the "Memoirs of Scriblerus" and the inimitable "Epitaph on Chartres," his satires must be unintelligible to a reader not minutely versed in the politics of that time. No satire in itself so intrinsically excellent is so little capable of universal application. His wit, his humour, his sarcasm, exhausting themselves on particular persons and on particular events, now require an elaborate commentary. There is, moreover, nothing either striking or felicitous in his style. The "History of John Bull" and the "Art of Political Lying" will probably not find half a dozen readers in as many years, but we venture to think that out of these readers there will be one or two who will have no difficulty in understanding the position which Arbuthnot once held.-COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON, 1893, Jonathan Swift, p. 99. If we take the lash out of the style of Swift, we have that of John Arbuthnot, who can often hardly be distinguished from his friend and master. Without personal ambition of any kind, no vanity deterred Arbuthnot from frankly adopting, as closely as he could, the manner of the man whom he admired the most. As he was a perfectly sane and normal person, with plenty of wit and accomplishment, and without a touch of misanthropy, Arbuthnot served to popularise and to bring into general circulation the peculiar characteristics of Swift, and to reconcile him with his contemporaries. -GOSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 225. Such letters and verses as have come down to us exhibit a talent which, while it modestly blushed as dilettante, competes favourably with the brightest of his age. -SICHEL, WALTER, 1901, Bolingbroke and His Times, p. 18. Samuel Wesley 1662-1735 The father of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was the second son of John Wesley, of Whitchurch, and was born at Winterborn Whitchurch, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, in 1666. He was interested, in 1698 and 1699, in a Society for the Reformation of Manners, which resembled in many respects the societies formed by his son at Oxford, and published a letter in defense of such societies. He expressed the warmest sympathy with the efforts of John and Charles Wesley at Oxford, and wrote, in 1730, that if his son John was the father of a Holy Club, he must be the grandfather of it, and that he would rather any of his sons had such distinction than to be himself styled his Holiness. He was a prolific writer, having relied upon his pen as a source of income from the time he entered college. His first volume of poems, a volume of trifles and conceits, called "Maggots," was published when he was nineteen years of age. Among his other principal works, besides the "Life of Christ," already mentioned, were "Dissertations on the Book of Job," in Latin, "The History of the Old and New Testament," in verse, with illustrations, "Eupolis' Hymn to the Creator," and the poem of "Marlborough, or the Fate of Europe. He was intimately connected with the Athenian Gazette, published by John Dunton, and was its principal contributor. His best known hymns are "Behold the Saviour of Mankind" and "O, Thou who when I did Complain." He died at Epworth, April 22, 1735.-SIMPSON, MATTHEW, ed., 1876, Cyclopædia of Methodism, pp. 916, 917. PERSONAL No man was ever more suitably mated than the elder Wesley. The wife whom he chose was, like himself, the child of a man eminent among the Non-conformists, and, like himself, in early youth she had chosen her own path: she had examined the controversy between the Dissenters and the Church of England with conscientious diligence, and satisfied herself that the schismatics were in the wrong. The dispute, it must be remembered, related wholly to discipline; but her inquiries had not stopt there, and she had reasoned herself into Socinianism, from which she was reclaimed by her husband. She was an admirable woman, of highly-improved mind, and of a strong and masculine understanding, an obedient wife, an exemplary mother, a fervent Christian. The marriage was blest in all its circumstances: it was contracted in the prime of their youth: it was fruitful; and death did not divide them till they were both full of days. They had no less than nineteen children; but only three sons and three daughters seem to have grown up; and it is probably to the loss of the others that the father refers in one of his letters, where he says, that he had suffered things more grievous than death. -SOUTHEY, ROBERT, 1820, The Life of Wesley, and the Rise and Progress of Metholism, p. 8. Wesley's verse will not lift him high among poets (he was pilloried in the first edition of the "Dunciad," 1728, i. 115), nor has his "Job" given him his expected rank among scholars. He was an able, busy, and honest man, with much impulsive energy, easily misconstrued; his fame is that of being the father of John and Charles Wesley.-GORDON, ALEXANDER, 1899, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LX, p. 317. GENERAL The author possessed considerable learning, and some poetical talent; but neither his conjectures ["Dissertations on Job'] nor his illustrations throw much light on this ancient poem.—ORME, WILLIAM, 1824, Bibliotheca Biblica. He held the living of Epworth upwards of forty years, and was distinguished for the zeal and fidelity with which he discharged his parish duties. Of his talents and learning, his remaining works afford honourable evidence.-WATSON, RICHARD, 1831, Life of the Rev. John Wesley, p. 2. He was a writer of no inconsiderable merit, though he has not won a place among the immortals, and perhaps did not deserve to do so. There is a sort of perverted ingenuity about most of his literary work. What, for example, could be expected from poems published under the unpromising, not to say repulsive, title of "Maggots," his first juvenile, work? Who could answer satisfactorily such profound questions as "What became of the Ark after the Flood?" "How high was Babel's Tower?" "What language was spoken by Balaam's ass?" "Did Peter and Paul use notes when they preached?" which are really not abnormal specimens of the sort of questions which were asked, and laboriously answered, by Mr. Wesley in the Athenian Gazette, a kind of seventeenthcentury Notes and Queries. His poem on Blenheim suggests invidious comparisons with Addison's "Campaign;" and though few will now endorse the estimate which contemporaries formed of the "Campaign," fewer will deny that Addison had a far more elegant and delicate touch than Wesley. His poem on "The Life of Christ" and his "History of the New Testament in Verse" are wonderful tours de force; but it required a Milton to do justice to such lofty themes, and Mr. Wesley was no Milton. The extravagant laudations with which the first of these poems was greeted naturally provoked a reaction. The author was put on a pedestal from which a fall was inevitable. His poetry, instead of being admired, began to be laughed at. And yet it was certainly not without merit. His translation of the Great Hallel proved that at any rate one thing the great Laureate Nahum Tate said of him was true; it is far superior to the version Nahum himself has given us; and his last work, the "Dissertations on the Book of Job," shows that the writer, if not a poet, was at any rate a learned divine and an excellent Latin scholar.OVERTON, JOHN HENRY, 1885, The Wesley's at Epworth, Longman's Magazine, vol. 7, p. 49. That this speech ["Sacheverell's"] was the composition of the Rector of Epworth seems to have been universally recognised in Lincolnshire, and, in after years, John Wesley declared positively that his father was its author. Probably he was paid, in some shape or form, for preparing it, although, perhaps, like an old war horse, he scented the battle from afar and did his share of the fighting gratuitously.— CLARKE, ELIZA, 1886, Susanna Wesley, p.90. George Granville Lord Lansdowne George Granville, Greenville, or Grenville, Viscount Lansdowne, 1667-1735, a son of Bernard Granville, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he displayed such extraordinary merit that he was created M. A. at the age of thirteen. He subsequently wrote a number of poems, dramatic pieces, some essays, and minor historical treatises. 1. "The Gallants," C., 1696, 4to. 2. 2. "Heroic Love," T., 1698, 4to. 3. "The Jew of Venice," C., 1701, 4to. 4. "Peleus and Thetis," M., 1701, 4to. 5. "The British Enchantress," D. P., 1706, 4to. 6. "Once a Lover and Always a Lover," C., 1736, 12mo. 7. "Poems on Several Occasions," 1712, 8vo. 8. "A Letter from a Nobleman abroad to his Friends in England," 1722. In Lord Somers's collection. 9. "Genuine Works, in verse and prose," 1732, 2 vols. 4to. 10. "Letter to the Author of Reflections Historical and Political, occasioned by a Treatise in vindication of General Monk and Sir Richard Greenville," 1732, 4to.—ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1854-58, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. I, p. 721. PERSONAL Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend, With less regret those laurels I resign, The lustre of his station no doubt procured him more incense, than the force of his genius would otherwise have attracted; but he appears not to have been destitute of fine parts, which were however rather elegantly polished, than great in themselves. themselves. CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. IV, p. 249. A poet and patron of poets, modest on the heads of his own performances, eager for the success of those of others.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1869, ed., Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Introductory Memoir, p. xxi. GENERAL 'Tis yours, my Lord, to bless our soft retreats, And call the Muses to their ancient seats; The "She Gallants," a comedy wrote by Mr. Granville when he was very young; extraordinary witty and well acted; but offending the ears of some ladies who set up for chastity, it made its exit.DOWNES, JOHN, 1708, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 45. Waller in Granville lives; when Mira sings With Waller's hand he strikes the sounding strings; With sprightly turns his noble genius shines, And manly sense adorns his easie lines. -GAY, JOHN, 1714, To Barnard Lintot, Poems. Imitated Waller; but as that poet has been much excelled since, a faint copy of a faint master must strike still less. -WALPOLE, HORACE, 1758, A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland and Ireland., vol. IV, p. 169. Granville could not admire without bigotry; he copied the wrong as well as the right from his masters. His little pieces are seldom either sprightly or elegant, either keen or weighty. They are trifles written by idleness, and published by vanity. But his Prologues and Epilogues have a just claim to praise.JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Granville, Lives of the English Poets. Notwithstanding the many praises lavished on this celebrated nobleman as a poet, by Dryden, by Addison, by Bolingbroke, by our Author, and others, yet candid criticism must oblige us to confess that he was but a feeble imitator of the feeblest parts of Waller.-WARTON, JOSEPH, 1797, ed. Pope's Works. His predominant characteristics were amiability and vanity. His love of distinction incited him to become a dramatist, poet, and politician. He had aspirations without ability, and in none of these capacities did he exhibit any vigour of mind. His plays reflect the worst qualities of the era of Charles II. In tragedy he thought that to be dull and stately was to be classical; in comedy that affected briskness of dialogue was liveliness, and indecent double meanings wit. He made no figure in politics, and owed his post in the Harley administration to his wealth, family, and electioneering influence. His literature, aided by his hereditary advantages, sufficed to procure him a factitious fame while he lived, but his reputation was at an end the moment his works lost the lustre they derived from his social position.-ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1871, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, vol. 1, p. 325. Though this tragedy ["Heroic Love"] is not altogether without merit-for the passion of Chryseis is touching, even though the craft used by Ulysses in arousing her jealousy cannot be described as profound-the love-sick King Agamemnon sinks into something very like a parody of passion, and is in no sense what he calls "a gainer" by having exchanged his Homeric for a "heroic" personality. -WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 424. Thomas Hearne 1678-1735 An eminent English antiquary, was born in 1678 in the parish of White Waltham, Berkshire, and had his education at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he graduated B. A. in 1699. Two years later he was appointed to a post in the Bodleian Library of which in 1712 he became second keeper. This office he was obliged to resign in 1716 from his inability to take the oaths to the government, but he continued to live at Oxford occupied entirely with his studies. He died 10th June 1735. Hearne compiled and edited no less than forty-one works, all stamped by painful and laborious learnings, although poor in style and somewhat rambling in method. They are usually marred by the intrusion of irrelevant matter-even his Jacobitism crept into his prefaces; yet they remain solid contributions to bibliography, and their author deserved better than to be gibbeted in the Dunciad as a dull and dusty pedant. His most important books were Reliquiæ Bodleianæ (1703), Leland's Itinerary (9 vols. 171012), Leland's Collectanea (6 vols. 1715), A Collection of Curious Discourses upon English Antiquities (1720); and the editions of Camden's Annals (3 vols. 1717), Alured of Beverley (1716), William of Newburgh (1719), Fordun's Scotichronicon (1722), Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (1724), and that of Peter Langtoft (1725). The Bibliotheca Hearniana was published in 1848; Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, by Philip Bliss, in 1857. The third volume of Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne appeared in 1889, edited by C. E. Doble for the Oxford Historical Society. See Impartial Memorials of his life by several hands (1736), and the Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood (Oxford, 1772).-PATRICK, DAVID, 1897, ed. Chambers's Encyclopædia, vol. v, p. 604. PERSONAL (?) But who is he, in closet close y pent, Of sober face, with learned dust besprent? Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight, On parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight. To future ages may thy dulness last, As thou preserv'st the dulness of the past! -POPE, ALEXANDER, 1728, The Dunciad, pt. iii, v. 185-190. The son of a parish clerk in Berkshire, he was taken while a boy into the service of Mr. Cherry, and employed to clean knives, and help in the kitchen. He neglected his menial duties for books, which brought him into discredit with his fellow-servants, and got him the favour of his master, who sent him to school and college. He was singularly uncouth in his person and manners, his countenance was dull, and he was not a man of powerful intellect. But his industry was unbounded, his passion for poring over classical and mediæval manuscripts intense, and he rendered considerable service to literature by printing the text of many valuable works. Having become Roman catholic and non-juror through independent inquiry, he sacrificed his pecuniary interests to his principles, and had a claim to respect for his integrity even more than for his learning.-ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1872, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, vol. VIII, p. 269, note. Prejudiced up to the eyes as this bookworm of bookworms is, even the least of the sympathisers with his ecclesiastical or political opinions cannot refrain from admiring the disinterestedness of his labours. His whole thoughts were centered in the success of his principles, or in the advancement of learning; and he pursued his course with unflagging spirit, although his means at home were but scant and his enemies at the university took advantage of his sympathies with the vanquished cause to hinder his advancement. -COURTNEY, W. P., 1887, The Academy, vol. 31, p. 4. Hearne again! May not one wonder what there is in this Hearne that volume after volume of choosings from his handwritten books of jottings is given to the world, in good paper and print? Indeed, the great number of American reader-folk need not take any shame to themselves if . . . they cannot recall the man to mind. We may say that we should like an etching of this steadfast, trusty, possibly a little crabbed, "Jacobite" and (half)? "non-juror." There are many chances to one that he was not handsome, or "distinguished"-looking, or well-dressed; he may have been ungainly, even rawboned and coarse-skinned; but, being a shrewd man, with eyes quick to watch those about him, and the comers and goers, in times when it was "touch-and-go" with any man of any account, we should like a glimpse of him, caught in a twinkling. His wig might be a little awry; a grim smile might float about his tightened lips as he wrote, glibly, how "that old smoothbooted, self-interested, ambitious, paultry Lancaster" (the Vice-Chancellor of the University and a Whig, of course) had met a rebuff, or mortification; or his brows might have been knitted, and his teeth set, while he put down, in black and white, what "that sneaking, snivelling" wretch, and his likes, were plotting. -LOWELL, R. T. S., 1890, The Nation, vol. 50, pp. 247, 248. |