Critical and Historical Essays. Volume 2

We can afford room only for a single quotation. We give one taken at random, neither worse nor better, as far as we can perceive, than any other equal number of lines in the book. The Devil goes to the play, and moralises thereon as follows:

“Music and Pomp their mingling spirit shedAround me: beauties in their cloud-like robesShine forth,—a scenic paradise, it glaresIntoxication through the reeling senseOf flush’d enjoyment. In the motley hostThree prime gradations may be rank’d: the first,To mount upon the wings of Shakspeare’s mind,And win a flash of his Promethean thought,To smile and weep, to shudder, and achieveA round of passionate omnipotence,Attend: the second, are a sensual tribe,Convened to hear romantic harlots sing,On forms to banquet a lascivious gaze,While the bright perfidy of wanton eyesThrough brain and spirit darts delicious fireThe last, a throng most pitiful! who seem,With their corroded figures, rayless glance,And death-like struggle of decaying age,Like painted skeletons in charnel pompSet forth to satirise the human kind!How fine a prospect for demoniac view!‘Creatures whose souls outbalance worlds awake!’Methinks I hear a pitying angel cry.”

Here we conclude. If our remarks give pain to Mr. Robert Montgomery, we are sorry for it. But, at whatever cost of pain to individuals, literature must be purified from this taint. And, to show that we are not actuated by any feeling of personal enmity towards him, we hereby give notice that, as soon as any book shall, by means of puffing, reach a second edition, our intention is to do unto the writer of it as we have done unto Mr. Robert Montgomery.

INDEX AND GLOSSARY OF ALLUSIONS

ABSOLUTE, Sir Anthony, a leading character in Sheridan’s play of The Rivals

A darker and fiercer spirit, Jonathan Swift, the great Tory writer (1667-1745)

Agbarus or Abgarus, the alleged author of a spurious letter to Jesus Christ. Edessa is in Mesopotamia

Alboin, King of the Lombards, 561-573, he invaded Italy as far as the Tiber

Alcina, the personification of carnal pleasure in the Orlando Furioso

Aldus, the famous Venetian printer (1447-1515), who issued the Aldine editions of the classics and invented italic type

Alfieri, Italian dramatist, and one of the pioneers of the revolt against eighteenth-century literary and society models (1749-1803)

Algarotti, Francesco, a litterateur, friend of Voltaire. Frederic made him a count (1764)

Alnaschar, see “The History of the Barber’s Fifth Brother,” in the Arabian Nights

Alva, Duke of, the infamous governor of the Netherlands (1508-82)

Amadeus, Victor, “the faithless ruler of Savoy,” who for a bribe deserted Austria, whose troops he was commander-in chief of for France, in 1692

Arbuthnot, Dr., author of the History of John Bull, friend of Swift and Pope (1679-1735)

Arminius, a German who, as a hostage, entered the Roman army, but afterwards revolted and led his countrymen against Rome (d. 23 A.D.)

Armorica, France between the Seine and the Loire, Brittany

Artevelde, Von., Jacob v. A. and Philip, his son, led the people of Flanders in their revolt against Count Louis and his French supporters (fourteenth century)

Ascham, Roger, and Aylmer, John, tutors of Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey respectively

Athalie, Saul, Cinna, dramas by Racine Alfieri, and Corneille respectively

Atticus, Sporus, i.e. Addison and Lord John Hervey, satirized in Pope’s Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

Attila, King of the Huns, the “Scourge of God” who overran the Roman Empire but was finally beaten by the allied Goths and Romans (d. 453)

Aubrey, John, an eminent antiquary who lost a number of inherited estates by lawsuits and bad management (1624-97)

BADAJOZ and St. Sebastian, towns in Spain captured from the French during the Peninsular War

Bastiani, was at first one of the big Potsdam grenadiers; Frederic made him Abbot of Silesia

Bayes, Miss, with reference to the name used in The Rehearsal, by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, to satirize Dryden, the poet-laureate

Bayle, Pierre, author of the famous Dictionnaire Historique et Critique; professor of philosophy at Padua and at Rotterdam (1647-1706)

Beauclerk, Topham, Johnson’s friend, “the chivalrous T. B., with his sharp wit and gallant, courtly ways” (Carlyle), (1739-80)

Beaumarchais, see Carlyle’s French Revolution. As a comic dramatist he ranks second only to Moliere. He supported the Revolution with his money and his versatile powers of speech and writing. He edited an edition de luxe of Voltaire’s works (1732-99)

Behn, Afra, the licentious novelist and mistress of Charles II. (1640-89), who, as a spy in Holland, discovered the Dutch plans for burning the Thames shipping

Belle-Isle, French marshal; fought in the Austrian campaign of 1740 and repelled the Austrian invasion of 1744 (d. 1761)

Beloe William, a miscellaneous writer, whose version of Herodotus, so far from being flat, is, while “infinitely below the modern standard in point of accuracy, much above modern performance in point of readableness” (Dr. Garnett), (1756-1817)

Bender, 80 miles N.W. from Odessa, in S. Russia

Bentley, Richard, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and an eminent philologist (1662-1742)

Bettesworth, an Irishman, lampooned in Swift’s Miscellanies

Betty Careless, one of Macaulay’s inventions which sufficiently explains itself

Betty, Master, a boy-actor, known as the Infant Roscius. Having acquired a fortune he lived in retirement (1791-1874)

Black Frank, Johnson’s negro servant, Frank Barber

Blackmore, Sir Richard, a wordy poetaster (d. 1729), who was the butt of all contemporary wits

Blair, Dr. Hugh, Scotch divine an critic, encouraged Macpherson to publish the Ossian poetry (1718-1800)

Blatant cast, the, does not really die. See the end of Faery Queen vi.

Bobadil and Beseus, Pistol and Parolles, braggart characters in Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour, Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and no King, Shakespeare’s Henry V., and All’s Well that Ends Well, respectively

Boileau, Nicholas, the great French critic, whose Art of Poetry long constituted the canons of French and English literary art (1636-1711)

Bolt Court, on the N. side of Fleet Street. Johnson lived at No. 8 from 1777 till his death in 1784

Borodino, 70 miles west from Moscow, where the Russians made a stand against Napoleon, 1812

Boscan, a Spanish imitator of Petrarch Alva’s tutor; served in Italy (1485-1533)

Bourne, Vincent, an usher at Westminster School, mentioned early in the “Essay on Warren Hastings,”

Boyle, Hon. Charles, edited the Letters of Phalaris which gave rise to the famous controversy with Bentley, for which, see the essay on Sir William Temple (vol. iii. of this edition)

Bradamante, in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, a Christian lady who loves the Saracen knight, Ruggiero

Brothers, Richard, a fanatic who held that the English were the lost ten tribes of Israel (1757-1824)

Brownrigg, Mrs., executed at Tyburn (1767) for abusing and murdering her apprentices

Bruhl, Count, the favourite of Augustus III. of Saxony who enriched himself at the risk of ruining his master and his country.

Bucer, Martin, a German reformer who mediated between Luther and Zwingli, and became Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1491-1551)

Buchanan, George, Scottish scholar and humanist; tutor to Mary Queen of Scots and James VI. (1506-82)

Burn, Richard, an English vicar compiled several law digests among them the Justice of the Peace, (1709-85)

Burnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury, supported the claims of William of Orange to the English throne, and wrote the History of my Own Times (1643-1715)

Button’s, on the south side of Russell Street, Covert Garden succeeded Will’s as the wits’ resort

Butts, Dr. physician-in-ordinary to Henry VIII. (d. 1545) and one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.

CACUS, the mythological giant who stole the oxen of Hercules

Camaldoli, Order of, founded by St. Romauld, a Benedictine (eleventh century) in the Vale of Camaldoli among the Tuscan Apennines

Cambray, Confederates of, the pope, the emperor. France and Spain who by the League of Cambray combined to attack Venice

Campbell, Dr. John, a miscellaneous political and historical writer (1708~75)

Capreae, or Capri, a small island nineteen miles south from Naples, the favourite residence of Augustus and Tiberius, and the scene of the latter’s licentious orgies

Capuchins, a branch of the monastic order of the Franciscans

Carlile, Richard, a disciple of Tom Paine’s who was repeatedly imprisoned for his radicalism. He worked especially for the freedom of the Press (1790-1843)

Carter, Mrs., a distinguished linguist and translator of Epictetus

Casaubon, Isaac, Professor of Greek at Geneva Curator of the Royal Library at Paris, Prebendary of Canterbury: a famous sixteenth-century scholar (1559-1614),

Catinat, French marshal in charge of the 1701 Italian campaign against Marlborough’s ally, Prince Eugene of Savoy

Cave, Edward, printer, editor, publisher, and proprietor of the Gentleman’s Magazine (1691-1754)

Chatelet, Madame du, Voltaire’s mistress, c 1733-47 (d. 1749)

Chaulieu, Guillaume, a witty but negligent poetaster (1639-1720)

Chaumette, Pierre, a violent extremist in the French Revolution who provoked even Robespierre’s disgust; guillotined, 1794

Childs, the clergy coffee-house in St. Paul’s. St. James’s (ib.) in the street of that name, was the resort of beaux and statesmen and a notorious gambling house

Chillingworth, William, an able English controversial divine; suffered at the hands of the Puritans as an adherent of Charles I. (1602-43)

Churchill, Charles, a clergyman and satirical Poet who attacked Johnson in The Ghost (1731-64)

Clootz, a French Revolutionary and one of the founders of the “Worship of Reason:” guillotined 1794

Colburn, (Zerah), b. at Vermont, U.S.A., in 1804, and noted in youth for his extraordinary powers of calculation (d. 1840)

Coligni, Gaspard de, French admiral and leader of the Huguenots; massacred on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, 1572

Colle, Charles, dramatist and song-writer (d. 1777); young Crebillon (d. 1777) wrote fiction

Condorcet, a French Marquis (1743-94) of moderate Revolutionary tendencies, who fell a victim to the Extremists He wrote extensively and clearly, but without genius

Constituent Assembly, the National Assembly of France from 1789 to 1792

Corderius, a famous sixteenth-century teacher—Calvin was a pupil of his—in France and Switzerland (d. 1564) who published several school-books

Cortes, conqueror of Mexico (1485-1547); the Spanish Parliament

Cotta, Caius, a famous Roman orator, partly contemporary with Cicero, who mentions him with honour

Courland, a province on the Baltic once belonging to Poland since 1795 to Russia

Coventry, Solicitor-General of England in 1616, Attorney-General in 1620 and Lord Keeper in 1625

Cradock, Joseph, a versatile writer and actor whose rambling Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs contain several anecdotes of Johnson and his circle (1742-1826)

Curll and Osborne, two notorious booksellers who owe their immortality to Pope’s Dunciad

Curtius, the noble Roman youth who leaped into the chasm in the Forum and so closed it by the sacrifice of Rome’s most precious possession—a good citizen

DACIER, Andrew, a French scholar who edited the “Delphin” edition of the classics for the Dauphin, and translated many of them (1651-1722)

Dangerfield, Thomas, Popish plot discoverer and false witness (1650?-1685)

Davies, Tom, the actor-bookseller who wrote the Memoirs of David Garrick, and was one of Johnson’s circle (1712-85). “The famous dogma of the old physiologists” is “corruptio unius generatio est alterius” (Notes and Queries, Ser. 8, vol. ix., p. 56)

Davila, a famous French soldier and historian who served under Henry of Navarre; wrote the famous History of the Civil War in France (1576-1631)

Della Crusca, the signature of Robert Merry (1755-98), the leader of a mutual-admiration band of poetasters, who had their head-quarters at Florence, and hence called themselves the Della Cruscans. Gifford (q.v.) pulverised them in his Baviad and Merviad

Dentatus, the old-type Roman who, after many victories and taking immense booty, retired to a small farm which he himself tilled

Desfontaines, a Jesuit who put out a pirated edition of Voltaire’s La Ligue

Dessaix, a distinguished, upright, and chivalrous French general under Napoleon, who fell at Marengo (1800)

Diafoirus, the name of two pedantic characters in Moliere’s Malade Imaginaire

Diatessaron, a harmony of the gospels, the earliest example being that compiled by Tatian c.170 A.D.

Digby, Lord, one of the Royalist leaders and a typical Cavalier

Diodorus author of a universal history of which fifteen books still remain (50 B.C.-13 A.D.)

Distressed Mother, by Ambrose Phillipps, modelled on Racine’s Andromaque

Domdaniel, a hall under the roots of the ocean, where gnomes magicians, and evil spirits hold council (see Southey’s Thalaba)

Domenichino, a celebrated Italian painter of sacred subjects; persecuted and possibly poisoned by his rivals (1581-1641)

Douw, Gerard, distinguished Dutch painter, one of Rembrandt’s pupils; his works are famed for their perfect finish and delicacy (1613-75)

Dubois, Guillaume, cardinal and prime minister of France, noted for his ability and his debauchery (1656-1723)

D’Urfey, Tom, a facetious comedian and song-writer, favoured by Charles II. Known for his collection of sonnets, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1628-1703)

ECLIPSE, a famous chestnut race-horse who between 3rd May, 1769 and 4th October, 1770, had a most successful record

Encyclopaedia, the famous work which, edited by D’Alembert and Diderot, and contributed to by the most eminent savants of France, was issued 1751-77, and contributed not a little to fan the flame of Revolution. The Philosophical Dictionary was a similar production

Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite courtier who took Cadiz in 1596

Euphelia and Rhodoclea…Comelia…Tranquilla, signatures to letters in the Rambler (Nos. 42, 46; 62; 51; 10,119)

Exons, i. e. “Exempts of the Guards,” “officers who commanded when the lieutenant or ensign was absent, and who had charge of the night watch,”

Eylau, 20 miles south from Konigsberg victory of Napoleon, 1807

FAIRFAX, Edward, one of the “improvers” of English versification. Translated Tasso in the same stanzas as the original, and wrote on Demonology (d. c. 1632)

Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands under Philip II. and the first commander of his age

Faunus, grandson of Saturn and god of fields and shepherds, later identified with the Greek Pan

Faustina, Empress, (i) wife of Antoninus Pius; (ii) daughter of (i) and wife of Marcus Aurelius. Both were equally licentious

Favorinus, a rhetorician and sophist, who flourished in Gaul, c. 125 A.D.

Felton, John, who assassinated the Duke of Buckingham in 1628

Ferguson, Sir Adam, M.P. for Ayrshire, 1774-80

Filmer, Sir Robert, advocated the doctrine of absolute regal power in his Patriarcha, 1680,

Flecknoe and Settle, synonyms for vileness in poetry (cp. Moevius and Bairus among the Romans). Flecknoe was an Irish priest who printed a host of worthless matter. Settle was a playwright, who degenerated into a “city-poet and a puppet-show” keeper; both were satirized by Dryden

Fleury, French cardinal and statesman, tutor and adviser of Louis XV. (1653-1743)

Florimel. (see Spenser’s Faery Queen, books iii. and iv.)

Fox, George, and Naylor, James, contemporaries of Bunyan, and early leaders of the Society of Friends or “Quakers,”

Fracastorius, Italian philosopher, mathematician, and poet ranked by Scaliger as next to Virgil

Fraguier, Pere, an eminent man of letters, sometime a Jesuit. An elegant Latin versifier, especially on philosophical themes (1666-1728)

Franc de Pompignan, Advocate-General of France, an Academician and an opponent of Encyclopaedists, in consequence of which Voltaire lampooned him (1709-84)

Franche Comte, that part of France which lies south of Lorraine and west of Switzerland

Freron, took sides with the Church against the attacks of Voltaire; had some reputation as a critic (d. 1776)

GALLIENUS and Honorius, late Roman emperors who suffered from barbaric invasions

Galt, John Scotch custom-house officer and novelist, wrote The Ayrshire Legatees, The Provost, Sir Andrew Wylie, etc.

Galway, Lord (Macaulay is not quite so severe on him in his History of England)

Ganganelli, who as Clement XIV. held the papacy, 1769-74, and suppressed the Jesuits

George of Trebizond, a celebrated humanist (1396-1486), professor of Greek at Venice in 1428 and papal secretary at Rome, C. 1450

Gibby, Sir, Sir Gilbert Heathcote

Gifford, editor of the Anti-Jacobin and afterwards of the Quarterly Review, in which he attacked Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats. His satires, the Baviad and the Maviad, had some reputation in their day (1757-1826)

Gilpin, Rev. Joshua G., rector of Wrockwardine, whose new and corrected edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress appeared in 1811

Godfrey of Bouillon, a leader of the First Crusade; he took Jerusalem in 1099

Goldoni, “the founder of Italian Comedy” (1707-93), whose pieces supplanted the older Italian farces and burlesques

Gondomar, Count of, the Spanish ambassador at the court of James I. who ruined Raleigh, and negotiated the proposed marriage of Charles I. with the Infanta

Gonsalvo de Cordova, the great captain who took Granada from the Moors, Zante from the Turks, and Naples from the French (1443-1515)

Grecian, the, the resort of the learned in Devereux Street Strand

Grotius, a celebrated Dutch scholar, equally famed for his knowledge of theology, history, and law (d. 1645)

Gwynn, Nell, an orange girl who became mistress of Charles II. and the ancestress of the Dukes of St. Albans

HAILES, Lord, David Dalrymple, author of the Annals of Scotland (1726-92)

Hale, Sir Matthew, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench under Charles II, and author of several religious and moral works

Halford, Sir Henry, one of the leading physicians in Macaulay’s day (1766-1844)

Hamilton, Gerard, M.P. for Petersfield, and of a somewhat despicable character. The nickname was “Single-speech Hamilton,”

Harpagon, the miser in Moliere’s L’Avare

Hawkins, Sir John. a club companion of Johnson’s (d. 1780), whose Life and Works of Johnson (II vols., 1787-89) was a careless piece of work, soon superseded by Boswell’s

Hayley, William, Cowper’s friend and biographer (1745-1820). Byron ridiculed his Triumphs of Temper and Triumphs of Music, and Southey said everything was good about him except his poetry

Henriade, Voltaire’s La Ligue, ou Henri le Grand

Hierocles, a neo-Platonic philosopher (c. 450 A.D.), who after long labour collected a book of twenty-eight jests, a translation of which (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1741) has been attributed to Johnson

Hill, Aaron, playwright, stage-manager, and projector of bubble schemes (1685-1750). See Pope’s Dunciad, ii. 295 ff.

Hippocrene, “the fountain of the Muses, formed by the hoof of Pegasus”

Holbach, Baron, a French “philosophe” who entertained at his hospitable board in Paris all the Encyclopaedia (q.v.) writers; a materialist, but a philanthropist (1723-89)

Holofernes, the pedantic school-master in Love’s Labour ‘s Last

Home, John, a minister of the Scottish Church (1724-1808), whose tragedy of Douglas was produced in Edinburgh in 1756

Hoole, John, a clerk in the India House, who worked at translations, e.g. of Tasso and Ariosto, and original literature in his spare hours

Hotel of Rambouillet, the intellectual salon which centred round the Italian Marquise de R.(1588-1665), and degenerated into the pedantry which Moliere satirized in Les Preceiuses Ridicules

Hughes, John, a poet and essayist, who contributed frequently to the Tatler, and Guardian (1677-1720)

Hume, Mr. Joseph, English politician, reformer, and philanthropist (1777-1855)

Hurd, Richard, Bishop in succession of Lichfield, Coventry, and Worcester; edited in 1798 with fulsome praise the works of his fellow bishop Warburton of Gloucester

Hutchinson, Mrs., wife of Colonel Hutchinson, the governor of Nottingham Castle in the Civil War, whose Memoirs (published 1806) she wrote

Hutten, Ulrich von, German humanist and reformer (1488-1523)

IMLAC (see Johnson’s Rasselas, Ch. viii xii.)

Ireland’s Vortigern, a play represented by W. H. Ireland as Shakespeare’s autograph; failed when Sheridan produced it in 1796, and afterwards admitted a forgery

Ivimey, Mr., Baptist divine and historian of the early nineteenth century, who compiled a life of Bunyan

JANSENIAN CONTROVERSY, arose early in the seventeenth century over the Augustinian principle of the sovereign and the irresistible nature of divine grace, denied by the Jesuits. In connection with this controversy Pascal wrote his Provincial Letters

Jeanie Deans (see Scott’s The Heart Of Midlothian)

Jedwood justice; the little town of Jedburgh was prominent in border-warfare, and its justice was proverbially summary, the execution of the accused usually preceding his trial

Jonathan’s and Garraway’s, Coffee-houses in Cornhill and Exchange Alley respectively, specially resorted to by brokers and merchants

Jortin, John, an eminent and scholarly divine, who wrote on the Truth, Christian Religion and on History (1698-1770)

Julius, the second pope (1502-13) of that name, whose military zeal outran his priestly inclination. He fought against the Venetians, and the French

Justiza, M Mayor, “a magistrate appointed by King and the Cortes who acted as mediator between the King and the people.” Philip II. abolished the office)

KENRICK, William, a hack writer, who in the Monthly Review in 1765, attacked Johnson’s Shakespeare with “a certain coarse smartness” (1725?-79)

Kitcat Club, founded c. 1700 by thirty-nine Hanoverian statesmen and authors on the basis of an earlier society (see Spectator No. 9)

LA BRUYERE, John de, tutor to the Duke of Burgundy and a member of the Academy; author of Characters after the manner of Theophrastus (1644~96)

La Clos, author of Liaisons Dangereuses, a masterpiece of immorality (1741-1803)

Lambert, Daniel, weighed 739 lbs., and measured 3 yds. 4 ins. round the waist (1770-1809)

Langton, Bennet, a classical scholar and contributor to The Idler. Entered Johnson’s circle in 1752 (1737-1801)

League of Cambray, the union in 1508 of Austria, France, Spain and the Papacy against Venice

League of Pilnitz, between Austria, Prussia, and others (1791) for the restoration of Louis XVI.

Lee, Nathaniel, a play-writer who helped Dryden in his Duke of Guise (1655-92)

Leman Lake, Lake of Geneva

Lope de Vega, Spain’s greatest, and the world’s most prolific dramatist. Secretary to the Inquisition (1562-1635)

Lunsford, a notorious bully and profligate; a specimen of the worst type of the royalist captains

MACLEOD, Colonel (see Tour to the Hebrides, Sept. 23)

Mainwaring, Arthur, editor of the Medley, and Whig pamphleteer (1668-1712)

Malbranche, Nicholas, tried to adopt and explain the philosophy of Descartes in the interests of theology (d. 1715)

Mallet, David, a literary adventurer who collaborated with Thomson in writing the masque Alfred in which the song “Rule Britannia” was produced (1703-65)

Malone, Edmund, an eminent Shakesperian scholar, who also wrote a Life of Reynolds and a Life of Dryden (1741-1812)

Manfred, King of the Two Sicilies who struggled for his birthright against three popes, who excommunicated him and gave his kingdom to Charles of Anjou, fighting against whom he fell in 1266

Manichees, the sect founded by Mani (who declared himself to be the Paraclete) which held a blend of Magian, Buddhist, and Christian principles

Manlius, the Roman hero who in B.C. 390 saved Rome from the Gauls, and who was later put to death on a charge of treason

Marat, Jean Paul, a fanatical democrat whose one fixed idea was wholesale slaughter of the aristocracy; assassinated by Charlotte Corday (1743-93)