English literature. If industry ever deIf industry ever deserved an acknowledgement, these two men deserved it. If they were not exactly buried in paupers' graves, they at all events spent their last days in great misery and misery in the earliest part of the last century is not conceivable to the "general reader" of to-day.-ROBERTS, WILLIAM, 1889, Two Eighteenth Century Critics, The Bookworm, vol. 2, p. 150.

GENERAL

How chang'd from him who made the boxes groan,

And shook the Stage with Thunders all his own!

Stood up to dash each vain PRETENDER'S hope,

Maul the French Tyrant, or pull down the Pope!

If there's a Briton then, true bred and born, Who holds Dragoons and wooden shoes in

scorn:

If there's a Critic of distinguished rage;
If there's a Senior, who contemns this age;
Let him to-night his just assistance lend,
And be the Critic's, Briton's, Old Man's
Friend.

-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1733, A Prologue to a Play for Mr. Dennis's Benefit.

Mr. Dennis, considered as a dramatic writer, makes not so good a figure as in his critical works; he understood the rules of writing, but it is not in the power of every one to carry their own theory into execution. There is one error which he endeavoured to reform, very material for the interest of dramatic poetry. He saw, with concern, that love had got the entire possession of the tragic stage, contrary to the authority of the ancients, and the example of Shakespear. He resolved He resolved therefore to deviate a little from the reigning practice, and not to make his heroes such whining slaves in their amours, which not only debases the majesty of tragedy, but confounds most of the principal characters, by making that passion the predominant quality in all. But he did not think it safe at once to shew his principal. characters wholly exempt from it, lest so great and sudden a transition should prove disagreeable. He rather chose to steer a middle course, and make love appear violent, but yet to be subdued by reason, and give way to the influence of some other more noble passion; as in Rinaldo, to Glory; in Iphigenia, to Friendship; and in Liberty Asserted, to the Public

Good.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. IV, p. 235.

He

The universality of applause, however it might quell the censure of common mortals, had no other effect than to harden Dennis in fixed dislike; but his dislike was not merely capricious. found and shewed many faults; he shewed them indeed with anger, but he found them indeed with acuteness, such as ought to rescue his criticism from oblivion; though, at last, it will have no other life than it derives from the work which it endeavours to oppress.- JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Addison, Lives of the Poets.

Pope and Addison had a Dennis; and Dennis, if I mistake not, held up as he had been to scorn and detestation, was a sensible fellow, and passed some censures upon both those writers that, had they been less just, would have hurt them less. -COWPER, WILLIAM, 1786, Letter to Rev. Walter Bagot, July 4.

His poetry and politics are now but little regarded; yet, from Dr. Johnson's frequent and long extracts from his critical pieces, it may be fairly presumed, that he did not think meanly of them; and such readers as will not suffer their judgment to be run away with by a regard for names, will think, that even "Cato" itself, was indebted to the enthusiasm of party at the time, for getting rid so easily of Dennis's strictures. He is, perhaps, one of those authors who have not had justice done to them. Dennis was overwhelmed in his own time, and has never been able to recover himself since. NOBLE, MARK, 1806, A Biographical History of England, vol. II, p. 257.

Dennis could not be carried beyond the cold line of a precedent, and before he ventured to be pleased, he was compelled to look into Aristotle. His learning was the bigotry of literature. It was ever Aristotle explained by Dennis. But in the explanation of the obscure text of his master, he was led into such frivolous distinctions, and tasteless propositions, that his works deserve inspection, as examples of the manner of a true mechanical critic. DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1812-13, Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism, Calamities of Authors.

His credit with the public in his day was at least as great as that of Rymer,

the formidable champion who had threatened destruction to the "Paradise Lost" in 1677.-GODWIN, WILLIAM, 1815, Lives of Edward and John Philips, ch. xi.

We must not forget, that Mr. Dennis laid claims to public esteem, not only as a critic, but as a wit, a politician, and a poet. In the first and the last of these characters, he can receive but little praise, His attempts at gaiety and humour are weighty and awkward, almost without example. His poetry can only be described by negatives; it is not inharmonious, nor irregular, nor often turgid-for the author, too nice to sink into the mean, and too timid to rise into the bombastic, dwells in elaborate "decencies for ever.

He was a true-hearted Englishman-with the legitimate prejudices of his country, warmly attached to the principles of the Revolution, detesting the French, abominating the Italian opera, and deprecating as heartily the triumph of the Pretender, as the success of a rival's tragedy. His political treatises, though not very elegantly finished, are made of sturdy and lasting materials. He appears, from some passages in his letters, to have cherished a genuine love of nature, and to have turned, with eager delight, to her deep and quiet solitudes, for refreshment from the feverish excitements, the vexatious defeats, and the barren triumphs, of his critical career.-TALFOURD, THOMAS, NOON, 1820, John Dennis's Works, Retrospective Review, vol. 1, p. 306.

The fiercest oppugner of puns in ancient or modern times.-LAMB, CHARLES, 1826, Popular Fallacies.

He carried heavier metal than Gildon; but he nevertheless belonged to the cuckoo school of "rules of art."-KNIGHT, CHARLES, 1849, Studies of Shakspere.

Steele one time gave the title of hangman of the gospel to a furious preacher. He might have called John Dennis the hangman of literature. Indeed he was worse than the hangman, who merely executes a painful but necessary duty. Dennis, on the contrary, indulged in wanton cruelty, and if he had been the functionary referred to, would have treated his victim to a preliminary rehearsal of his office before executing it. MONTGOMERY, HENRY R., 1862, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir Richard Steele, vol. II, p. 47.

One of Pope's typical dunces, a dull man outside of his own sphere, as men are apt to be, but who had some sound notions as a critic, and thus became the object of Pope's fear and therefore of his resentment.-LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 1868-90, Dryden, Prose Works, Riverside ed., vol. III, p. 190.

As

John Dennis was one of those old campaigners who can boast more scars than laurels; but with whom a long experience in the wars goes to supply the want of regular training or native capacity. an original author, he occupied a place among the rank and file of his contemporaries. He wrote or altered nine dramatic pieces, among which two comedies are said by an indefatigable and conscientious searcher of such wares to display considerable merit. As a critic, he undoubtedly possessed certain characteristics which would have ensured him the prominence he coveted even in our own times. He was free from that sentiment which with the generality of critics so fatally interferes with a due exercise of the judicial faculty-a respect for success. Indeed he avowed it as his guiding principle in the choice of his victims, to select leading instances of unmerited popularity. -WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1869, ed. Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Introductory Memoir, p. xxiv.

A writer of turgid plays, and of ferocious but not always wholly unjust critiques.-WILLIAMS, HOWARD, 1886, English Letters and Letter-Writers of the Eighteenth Century, p. 282.

In the literary matters he was a born dissenter. He belonged by nature to the opposition, and the cardinal principle upon which he acted was to find fault with any view that had met with general approval. He could not fail to be at times, right.-LOUNSBURY, THOMAS R., 1891, Studies in Chaucer, vol. III, p. 141.

Dennis has been resolutely misjudged, in consequence of his foolish attitude towards his younger contemporaries in old age, but in his prime he was a writer of excellent judgment. He was the first English critic to do unstinted justice to Milton and to Molière, and he was a powerful factor in preparing public opinion for the literary verdicts of Addison.GoSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 200.

PERSONAL

Roger North was in no respect a famous

man.

His estimate of himself, that he was "a plant of a slow growth, and when mature but slight wood and of a flashy growth," is perhaps over-modest, and yet it is evidently not far from the mark. During his early manhood he was, so to speak, in tutelage to his brothers: to John, the future master of Trinity, while at Cambridge; to Francis, the lord chief justice and lord keeper, while at the bar. He never occupied any prominent position, and his fairly successful professional career was the result not so much of his own merit as of his position as "favourite" to the great and successful lawyer, the "bond of the faggot." His mind, though active and from boyhood ingenious, was not very powerful; and though his senses were unsealed and his judgment clear, and though he participated fully in the general zeal for culture which marked the period, his professional duties left him little time to become more than an interested and interesting student of music, mathematics, morals, politics, and a score of other subjects.-AIRY, OSMUND, 1888, The English Historical Review, vol. 3, p. 174.

Roger North was held in great and increasing respect by his neighbours as an authority on questions of law, and was frequently consulted by the magnates of the county, and sometimes chosen to arbitrate when disputes arose. On one occasion he was called in to settle some difference between Sir Robert Walpole and his mother. The country people called him "Solomon," as in his early days the pamphleteers had styled him "Roger the Fiddler." He retained his vigour and brightness of intellect to the last, and one of his latest letters was written when he was nearly eighty years old, in answer to some one who had applied to him for advice as to

the best course of reading for the bar.JESSOPP, AUGUSTUS, 1895, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XLI, p. 178.

He liked painting and yachting as well as the toughest quillets of the old law, and was altogether a character.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1898, A Short History of English Literature, p. 522.

LIVES

Francis, Lord Keeper Guilford, was younger son of the lord North before mentioned. Burnet and Kennet have given no very favourable character of the keeper: his relation, Roger North, has defended him in a very bulky work; which, however, does not contribute much to raise our ideas either of the writer or his subject. If that performance and its companion, the Examen, had nothing else ridiculous in them, it would be sufficient to blast their reputation, that they aim at decrying that excellent magistrate, the lord chief justice Hale; and that Charles the second, and that wretch the duke of Lauderdale, the king's taking money from France, and the seizure of the charter of London, are some of the men, and some of the measures, the author defends! It is very remarkable that two peers of this race have suffered by apologies written for them by two of their own relations; but with this difference naturally attending the performances of a sensible man and a weak one: Dudley, lord North, has shown himself an artful and elegant historian; Roger North, a miserable biographer.-WALPOLE, HORACE, 1758-1806, A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland and Ireland, ed. Parke, vol. II, p. 295, and note.

Roger North's life of his brother, the lord Keeper, is the most valuable specimen of this class of our literature; it is delightful, and much beyond any other of

the writings of his contemporaries.COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1818, Style, Miscellanies Esthetic and Literary, ed. Ashe, p. 180.

This old piece of legal biography, which has been lately republished, is one of the most delightful books in the world. Its charm does not consist in any marvellous incidents of Lord Guilford's life, or any peculiar interest attaching to his character, but in the unequalled naïveté of the writer in the singular felicity with which he has thrown himself into his subject and in his vivid delineations of all the great lawyers of his time. He was a younger brother of the Lord Keeper, to whose affection he was largely indebted, and from whom he appears to have been scarcely ever divided. His work, in nice minuteness of detail, and living picture of motive, almost equals the auto-biographies of Benvenuto Cellini, Rousseau, and Cibber. He seems to be almost as intensely conscious of all his brother's actions, and the movements of his mind, as they were of their own. All his ideas of human greatness and excellence appear taken from the man whom he celebrates. There never was a more liberal or gentle penetration of the spirit. He was evidently the most human, the most kindly, and the most single-hearted, of flatterers. There is a beauty in his very cringing, beyond the independence of many. It is the most gentleman-like submission, the most graceful resignation of self, of which we have ever read.-TALFOURD, THOMAS NOON, 1820, North's Life of Lord Guilford, Retrospective Review, vol. 2, p. 238.

In compiling these affectionate memorials of his brothers, the writer appears to have been chiefly actuated by his regard and veneration for their memory. Having survived them all, he was distressed to find the names of those whom he had so loved and honoured, passing rapidly into oblivion. During their lives, his happiest moments were spent in their society; and after their death, he found his greatest consolation in recording their history. This he has done with a minuteness of detail, which to himself appeared to require an apology, but which, in fact, is one of the most attractive qualities of his style. His writings have the effect of introducing the reader, as it were, into

the presence of the party, so lively and natural are the touches of his pen.-RosCOE, H., 1826, ed., Lives of the Rt. Hon. Francis North, the Rt. Hon. Dudley North and Dr. John North, Preface, p. ix.

Roger North's "Life of the LordKeeper," which, like Boswell's "Life of Johnson, Johnson," interests us highly, without giving us a very exalted notion of the author. Notwithstanding its extravagant praise of the hero of the tale, its inaccuracies, and its want of method, it is a most valuable piece of biography, and, with Roger's lives of his brothers, "Dudley and John," and his "Examen," ought to be studied by every one who wishes to understand the history and the manners of the reign of Charles II.-CAMPBELL, JOHN LORD, 1845-56, Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England, vol. III, Life of Lord-Keeper Guilford.

One of the most entertaining books ["Life of Lord Keeper Guilford"] in our language.-KNIGHT, language.-KNIGHT, CHARLES, 1847-8, Half-Hours with the Best Authors.

The labour that North bestowed upon the lives of his brothers was extraordinary. The life of the lord keeper was written and rewritten again and again. Defaced though the style is by the use of some unusual words, there is a certain charm about it which few readers can resist, and the "Lives of the Norths" must always remain an English classic and a prime authority for the period with which it deals. JESSOPP, AUGUSTUS, 1895, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XLI, p. 178.

The biographies and autobiography are very good literature, though Dr. Jessopp is hardly warranted in styling them English classics. They are neither planned with classic symmetry nor executed with classic elegance, but are charming from their artless loquacity and the atmosphere of fraternal affection in which they are steeped, as well as most entertaining from their wealth of anecdote and their portraits, partial, but not intentionally unfair, of remarkable men. Two elements in these books are sharply contrasted, the political and the anecdotic. The former affords a melancholy but useful representation of the factious unreason of political parties in that age, especially Roger's, and of the prejudices which kept