been Sempronius's tools, and had been dangling | applies what Marcia says to Sempronius. But after his heels. "But now let us sum up all these absurdities together. Sempronius goes at noonday, in Juba's clothes and with Juba's guards, to Cato's palace, in order to pass for Juba, in a place where they were both so very well known; he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he threatens them : Hah! Dastards, do you tremble! Or act like men; or, by yon azure heaven "But the guards still remaining restive, Sempronius himself attacks Juba, while each of the guards is representing Mr. Spectator's sign of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Sempronius's threats. Juba kills Sempronius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries them in triumph away to Cato. Now I would fain know if any part of Mr. Bayes's tragedy is so full of absurdity as this? finding at last, with much ado, that he himself is the happy man, he quits his eavedropping, and discovers himself just time enough to prevent his being cuckolded by a dead man, of whom the moment before he had appeared so jealous; and greedily intercepts the bliss which was fondly designed for one who could not be the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how comes Juba to listen here, who had not listened before throughout the play? Or how comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who lisin so public a place as a hall? I am afraid the tens, when love and treason were so often talked Author was driven upon all these absurdities only to introduce this miserable mistake of Marof tragedy, as any thing is which is the effect or cia, which, after all, is much below the dignity result of trick. Act. Cato appears first upon the scene, sitting "But let us come to the scenery of the fifth treatise on the Immortality of the Soul; a drawn in a thoughtful posture: in his hand Plato's sword on the table by him. Now let us consider the place in which this sight is presented to us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let in this posture, in the midst of one of our halls us suppose, that any one should place himself in London; that he should appear solus in a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard such a person as this would pass, with them Lintot: I desire the reader to consider, whether who beheld him, for a great patriot, a great phisymp-son, who fancied himself all these? and whether losopher, or a general, or some whimsical per Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in. The question is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of swords in the governor's hall? Where was the governor himself? Where were his guards? Where were his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the person of a governor of a place of war; was enough to alarm the whole garrison; and yet, for almost half an hour after Sempronius was killed, we find none of those appear who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed: and the noise of swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the toms of an hysterical gentlewoman: Luc. Sure 'twas the clash of swords! my troubled heart Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows, It throbs with fear, and aches at every sound! the people, who belonged to the family, would think that such a person had a design upon their midriffs or his own? "In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid posture, in the midst of this And immediately her old whimsy returns upon large hall, to read over Plato's treatise on the her: O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake- She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats, but it must be for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well! upon this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it seems, takes him for Juba; for, says she, The face is muffled up within the garment. "Now, how a man could fight, and fall with his face muffled up in his garment, is, I think, a little hard to conceive! Besides, Juba, before he killed him, knew him to be Sempronius. It was not by his garment that he knew this; it was by his face then his face therefore was not muffled. Upon seeing this man with his muffled face, Marcia falls a-raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed defunct, begins to make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters listening, I suppose on tip-toe; for I cannot imagine how any one can enter listening in any other posture. I would fain know how it comes to pass, that during all this time he had sent nobody, no, not so much as a candle-snuffer, to take away the dead body of Sempronius. Well! but let us regard him listening. Having left his apprehension behind him, he, at first, Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that he should be angry with his son for intruding there; then, that he should leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to expire, purely to show his good-breeding, and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his bedchamber; all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible, impossible." Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it, perhaps "too much horseplay in his raillery ;" but if his jests are coarse, his arguments are strong. Yet, as we love better to be pleased than be taught, "Cato" is read and the critic is neglected. Flushed with consciousness of these detections of absurdity in the conduct, he afterwards attacked the sentiments, of Cato; but he then amused himself with petty cavils and minute objections. Of Addison's smaller poems, no particular mention is necessary; they have little that can employ or require a critic. The parallel of the princes and gods, in his verses to Kneller, is often happy, but is too well known to be quoted. His translations, so far as I have compared ADDISON. them, want the exactness of a scholar. That he understood his authors cannot be doubted; but his versions will not teach others to understand them, being too licentiously paraphrastical. They are, however, for the most part, smooth and easy; and, what is the first excellence of a translator, such as may be read with pleasure by those who do not know the originals. His poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence. He has sometimes a striking line, or a shining paragraph; but in the whole he is warm rather than fervid, and shows more dexterity than strength. He was, however, one of our earliest examples of correctness. The versification which he had learned from Dryden he debased rather than refined. His rhymes are often dissonant; in his "Georgic" he admits broken lines. He uses both triplets and Alexandrines, but triplets more frequently in his translations than his other works. The mere structure of verses seems never to have enBut his lines are very gaged much of his care. smooth in "Rosamond," and too smooth in "Cato." Addison is now to be considered as a critic; a name which the present generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism is condemned as tentative or experimental, rather than scientific; and he is considered as deciding by taste* rather than by principles. whose remarks, being superficial, might be easily He descended now and then to lower disqui- Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found specimens of criticism sufficiently subtle and refined: let them peruse likewise his "Essays on Wit" and on the "Pleasures of Imagination," in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions inherent in the mind of man, with skill and elegance,* such as his contemners will not easily attain. It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of others, to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote as he would think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed: his instructions were such as the characters of his readers made proper. That general knowledge which now circulates As a describer of life and manners, he must in common talk was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, be allowed to stand perhaps the first of the first any acquaintance with books was distinguished rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to literary curiosity, by gentle and unsuspected give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes and conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the daily occurrences. He never "outsteps the mowealthy; he therefore presented knowledge in desty of nature," nor raises merriment or wonthe most alluring form, not lofty and austere, but der by the violation of truth. His figures neither accessible and familiar. When he showed them divert by distortion nor amaze by aggravation. their defects, he showed them likewise that they He copies life with so much fidelity, that he can might be easily supplied. His attempt succeed-be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions ed; inquiry was awakened, and comprehension have an air so much original, that it is difficult expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance to suppose them not merely the products of was excited; and, from this time to our own, imagination. life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged. As a teacher of wisdom he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthuhe appears neither Dryden had, not many years before, scattered siastic or superstitious; criticism over his prefaces with very little par- weakly credulous nor wantonly skeptical; his simony; but though he sometimes condescended morality is neither dangerously lax nor imprac to be somewhat familiar, his manner was in ge- ticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy and neral too scholastic for those who had yet their all the cogency of argument are employed to rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to un-recommend to the reader his real interest, the derstand their master. His observations were framed rather for those that were learning to write, than for those that read only to talk. An instructor like Addison was now wanting, Taste must decide. Warton.-C. care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth is shown sometimes as the phantom of a vision; sometimes appears half-veiled in an allegory; sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy; * Far, in Dr. Warton's opinion, beyond Dryden.-C. Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet. His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent claboration; always equable and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a grace: he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour. It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions and connexions, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical, it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted, he performed: he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic ;* he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude nor affected brevity: his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar, but not coarse, and elegant, but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison. HUGHES. JOHN HUGHES, the son of a citizen in Lon- | don, and of Anne Burgess, of an ancient family in Wiltshire, was born at Marlborough, July 29, 1677. He was educated at a private school; and though his advances in literature are, in the "Biographia," very ostentatiously displayed, the name of his master is somewhat ungratefully concealed.* At nineteen he drew the plan of a tragedy; and paraphrased, rather too profusely, the ode of Horace which begins Integer Vita. To poetry he added the science of music, in which he seems to have attained considerable skill, together with the practice of design, or rudiments of painting. His studies did not withdraw him wholly from business, nor did business hinder him from study. He had a place in the office of ordnance; and was secretary to several commissions for purchasing lands necessary to secure the royal docks at Chatham and Portsmouth; yet found time to acquaint himself with modern lan guages. In 1697, he published a poem on the "Peace of Ryswick:" and in 1699, another piece, called "The Court of Neptune," on the return of King William, which he addressed to Mr. Montague, the general patron of the followers of the Muses. The same year he produced a song on the Duke of Gloucester's birthday. He did not confine himself to poetry, but cultivated other kinds of writing with great success; and about this time showed his knowledge of human nature by an "Essay on the Pleasure of being Deceived." In 1702, he published, on the death of King William, a Pindaric ode, called "The House of Nassau ;" and wrote another paraphrase on the Otium Divos of Horace. In 1703, his Ode on Music was performed at He was educated in a dissenting academy, of which the Rev. Thomas Rowe was tutor; and was a fellow student there with Dr. Isaac Watts, Mr. Samuel Say, and other persons of eminence. In the "Hora Lyrica" of Dr. Wats, is a poem to the memory of Mr. Rowe.--H. Stationers' Hall; and he wrote afterwards six cantatas, which were set to music by the greatest master of that time, and seemed intended to oppose or exclude the Italian opera, an exotic and irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed. His reputation was now so far advanced, that the public began to pay reverence to his name; and he was solicited to prefix a preface to the translation of Boccalini, a writer whose satirical vein cost him his life in Italy, and who never, I believe, found many readers in this country, even though introduced by such powerful recommendation. He translated Fontenelle's "Dialogues of the Dead ;" and his version was perhaps read at that time, but is now neglected; for by a book not necessary, and owing its reputation wholly to its turn of diction, little notice can be gained but from those who can enjoy the graces of the original. To the "Dialogues of Fontenelle he added two composed by himself; and, though not only an honest but a pious man, dedicated his work to the Earl of Wharton. He judged skilfully enough of his own interest; for Whar ton, when he went lord-lieutenant to Ireland, offered to take Hughes with him and establish him: but Hughes, having hopes, or promises, from another man in power, of some provision more suitable to his inclination, declined Wharton's offer, and obtained nothing from the other. He translated the "Miser" of Moliere, which he never offered to the stage; and occasionally amused himself with making versions of favourite scenes in other plays. Being now received as a wit among the wits, he paid his contributions to literary undertak ings, and assisted both the "Tatler," "Spectator," and "Guardian." In 1712, he translated Vertot's "History of the Revolution of Portugal," produced an "Ode to the Creator of the World, from the Fragments of Orpheus," and brought upon the stage an opera called 'Calypso and Telemachus," intended to show mat the English language might be very happily adapted to music. This was impudently opposed by those who were employed in the Italian opera; and, what cannot be told without indignation, the intruders had such interest with the Duke of Shrewsbury, then lord-chamberlain, who had married an Italian, as to obtain an obstruction of the profits, though not an inhibition of the performance. There was at this time a project formed by Tonson for a translation of the "Pharsalia " by several hands and Hughes Englished the tenth book. But this design, as must often happen when the concurrence of many is necessary, fell to the ground: and the whole work was afterwards performed by Rowe. His acquaintance with the great writers of his time appears to have been very general; but of his intimacy with Addison there is a remarkable proof. It is told, on good authority, that "Cato" was finished and played by his persuasion. It had long wanted the last Act, which he was desired by Addison to supply. If the request was sincere, it proceeded from an opinion, whatever it was, that did not last long; for when Hughes came in a week to show him his first attempt, he found half an act written by Addison himself. on the stage, and of which it is unnecessary to add a private voice to such continuance of approbation, is not acted or printed according to the author's original draught or his settled intention. He had made Phocyas apostatize from his religion; after which the abhorrence of Eudocia would have been reasonable, his misery would have been just, and the horrors of his repentance exemplary. The players, however, required that the guilt of Phocyas should ter minate in desertion to the enemy; and Hughes, unwilling that his relations should lose the benefit of his work, complied with the alteration. He was now weak with a lingering consumption, and not able to attend the rehearsal, yet was so vigorous in his faculties that only ten days before his death he wrote the dedication to his patron, Lord Cowper. On February 17, 1719-20, the play was represented, and the author died. He lived to hear that it was well received; but paid no regard to the intelligence, being then wholly employed in the meditations of a departing Christian. A man of his character was undoubtedly regretted; and Steele devoted an essay, in the paper called "The Theatre," to the memory of his virtues. His life is written in the "Biographia" with some degree of favourable partiality; and an account of him is prefixed to his works by his relation the late Mr. Duncombe, a man whose blameless elegance deserv The character of his genius I shall transcribe from the correspondence of Swift and Pope. He afterwards published the works of Spenser, with his life, a glossary, and a Discourse on Allegorical Poetry; a work for which he was well qualified as a judge of the beauties of writ-ed the same respect. ing, but perhaps wanted an antiquary's knowledge of the obsolete words. He did not much revive the curiosity of the public; for near thirty years elapsed before his edition was reprinted. The same year produced his "Apollo and Daphne," of which the success was very earnestly promoted by Steele, who, when the rage of party did not misguide him, seems to have been a man of boundless benevolence. Hughes had hitherto suffered the mortifications of a narrow fortune; but in 1717 the LordChancellor Cowper set him at ease, by making him secretary to the commissions of the peace; in which he afterwards, by a particular request, desired his successor Lord Parker to continue him. He had now affluence; but such is human life, that he had it when his declining health could neither allow him long possession nor quick enjoyment. His last work was his tragedy, "The Siege of Damascus," after which a Siege became a popular title. This play, which still continues "A month ago," says Swift, "were sent me over, by a friend of mine, the works of John Hughes, Esquire. They are in prose and verse. I never heard of the man in my life, yet I find your name as a subscriber. He is too grave a poet for me; and I think among the mediocrists in prose as well as verse." To this Pope returns: "To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes: what he wanted in genius, he made up as an honest man; but he was of the class you think him."* In Spence's Collection, Pope is made to speak of him with still less respect, as having no claim to poetical reputation but from his tragedy. *This, Dr. Warton asserts, is very unjust censure: and, in a note in his late edition of Pope's Works, asks Damascus was one of the mediocribus? Swift and if the Author of such a tragedy as The Siege of Pope seem not to recollect the value and rank of an author who could write such a tragedy."—C. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. JOHN SHEFFIELD, descended from a long se- | that he got rid of him in a short time, and at an ries of illustrious ancestors, was born in 1649, the son of Edmund, earl of Mulgrave, who died in 1658. The young lord was put into the hands of a tutor, with whom he was so little satisfied, age not exceeding twelve years resolved to educate himself. Such a purpose, formed at such an age, and successfully prosecuted, delights, as it is strange, and instructs, as it is real. His literary acquisitions are more wonderful, | he was yet not twenty years old, his recommenas those years in which they are commonly made dation advanced Dryden to the laurel. were spent by him in the tumult of a military life, or the gayety of a court. When war was declared against the Dutch, he went, at seventeen, on board the ship in which Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle sailed, with the command of the fleet: but by contrariety of winds they were restrained from action. His zeal for the King's service was recompensed by the command of one of the independent troops of horse, then raised to protect the coast. Next year he received a summons to parliament, which, as he was then but eighteen years old, the Earl of Northumberland censured as at least indecent, and his objection was allowed. He had a quarrel with the Earl of Rochester, which he has perhaps too ostentatiously related, as Rochester's surviving sister, the Lady Sandwich, is said to have told him with very sharp reproaches. When another Dutch war (1672) broke out, he went again a volunteer in the ship which the celebrated Lord Ossory commanded; and there made, as he relates, two curious remarks: "I have observed two things which I dare affirm, though not generally believed. One was, that the wind of a cannon bullet, though flying never so near, is incapable of doing the least harm; and indeed, were it otherwise, no man above deck would escape. The other was, that a great shot may be sometimes avoided, even as it flies, by changing one's ground a little; for, when the wind sometimes blew away the smoke, it was so clear a sunshiny day, that we could easily perceive the bullets (that were half spent) fall into the water, and from thence bound up again among us, which gives sufficient time for making a step or two on any side; though in so swift a motion, it is hard to judge well in what line the bullet comes, which, if mistaken, may by removing cost a man his life, instead of saving it." His behaviour was so favourably represented by Lord Ossory, that he was advanced to the command of the Catherine, the best second-rate ship in the navy. He afterwards raised a regiment of foot, and commanded it as colonel. The land-forces were sent ashore by Prince Rupert; and he lived in the camp very familiarly with Schomberg. He was then appointed colonel of the old Holland regiment, together with his own, and had the promise of a garter, which he obtained in his twenty-fifth year. He was likewise made gentleman of the bedchamber. He afterwards went into the French service to learn the art of war under Turenne, but stayed only a short time. Being by the Duke of Monmouth opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of horseguards, he, in return, made Monmouth suspected by the Duke of York. He was not long after, when the unlucky Monmouth fell into disgrace, recompensed with the lieutenancy of Yorkshire and the government of Hull. Thus rapidly did he make his way both to military and civil honours and employments; yet, busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, but at least cultivated poetry; in which he must have been early considered as uncommonly skilful, if it be true, which is reported, that when The Moors having besieged Tangier, he was sent (1680) with two thousand men to its relief A strange story is told of the danger to which he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship, to gratify some resentful jealousy of the King, whose health he therefore would never permit at his table till he saw himself in a safer place. His voyage was prosperously performed in three weeks; and the Moors without a contest retired before him. In this voyage he composed "The Vision," a licentious poem; such as was fashionable in those times, with little power of invention or propriety of sentiment. At his return he found the king kind, who perhaps had never been angry; and he continued a wit and a courtier as before. At the succession of King James, to whom he was intimately known, and by whom he thought himself beloved, he naturally expected still brighter sunshine; but all know how soon that reign began to gather clouds. His expectations were not disappointed; he was immediately admitted into the privy-council, and made lordchamberlain. He accepted a place in the high commission, without knowledge, as he declared after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the King to mass, and kneeled with the rest, but had no disposition to receive the Romish faith, or to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God who had made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily persuaded that man was quits, and made God again. A pointed sentence is bestowed by successive transmission to the last whom it will fit: this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the protestant religion, who, in the time of Henry VIII. was tortured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the historian of the Reformation. In the Revolution he acquiesced, though he did not promote it. There was once a design of associating him in the invitation of the Prince of Orange; but the Earl of Shrewsbury discouraged the attempt, by declaring that Mulgrave would never concur. This King William afterwards told him; and asked him what he would have done if the proposal had been made: "Sir," said he, "I would have discovered it to the King whom I then served." To which King William replied, "I cannot blame you." Finding King James irremediably excluded, he voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, upon this principle, that he thought the title of the Prince and his Consort equal, and it would please the prince, their protector, to have a share in the sovereignty. This vote gratified King William; yet, either by the king's distrust, or his own discontent, he lived some years without employment. He looked on the king with malevolence, and, if his verses or his prose may be credited, with contempt. He was, notwith |