says, "forget his appearance. It was as if some statue had He was habited in a brocaded silk morning-gown, with a full-dressed wig, stooping forward, and leaning upon what appeared to be a gold-headed cane. His complexion had the transparency of marble; and his countenance was full of expression, indicative of the setting of that intellectual sun, which at its meridian height had shone forth with no ordinary lustre. He was then, I think, in his eightieth year. His reception of me was bland and courteous; but he deemed the taking of a degree an absolutely essential preliminary measure. On asking me what was my then course of studies, and on receiving my reply, he added, 'You cannot do better.'" Upon this, the Doctor turned his back on the pleasant city of Pomona, and settled at Kensington; was ordained by the Bishop of Winchester, who we presume was more indulgent than his brother; and determined on commencing author in right earnest. This was a good resolution, but was well-nigh scared from its propriety by an accidental meeting at dinner with an Editor of one of the Reviews. As the picture of this gentleman may stand as the representative of the whole class of that grim and grisly phalanx, the Editors of Reviews and Magazines, and indeed in one case, as we can answer, for the absolute likeness of these descendants of old John Dennis, we shall give the tremendous portrait in the Author's words: "There sate a gentleman, to me wholly unknown, of a middling time of life, with a saturnine complexion, and searching look, who was placed at the right hand of the master of the feast [just the very place which the Editor whom we have seen occupies], and who dealt out his discourse with a sufficient mixture of positiveness and severity [another_palpable hit]. He had dark eyes, and yet darker whiskers; and not only was his voice loud and penetrating, but his dicta seemed to be listened to with something like reverential attention.* My neigh bour whispered in my ear that he was an Editor of one of the Reviews. This intelligence riveted me to his person, and my ear to his conversation. At that moment there seemed to be no one in the room but HE. After dinner we discoursed of the influence of Reviews. Sir,' said he, their influence is inconceivable. I am one of that corps diplomatique. I know a young man at this moment, not quite of age, who has a volume of poems in the press. I know it will be sad trash, and I am whetting my critical knife to cut it to pieces, the moment it sees daylight.' Had I been made of yielding materials, I must of necessity have fainted away; but, contrariwise, I stood to the charge, and replied, I could not comprehend how a man could be whetting his knife to cut to pieces that which he had not seen, and which, when seen, might possibly blunt the edge of his weapon.' His rejoinder struck me as terrible. Poh! young man,' said he, I see clearly you know nothing of the world. There are at this moment six unfledged authors begging and praying for a good word from me.' I was petrified, horror-struck. I said little during the rest of the evening, but stole away somewhat earlier than I am wont, and retired to my pillow, rather than to my rest, with the image of this saturnine complexioned and savage-hearted critic before me. How could he know of my having a volume of poems in the press ? Had my printer been faithless, and conveyed a copy to him surreptitiously? A greater night of torture was never experienced by any malefactor on the evening preceding his execution. With mingled feelings of surprise, anger, disdain, and contempt, I was impatient till the grey morn had lifted her pale lustre on the paler wretch. My fears as to my printer were entirely groundless: and all other fears were well nigh subdued, when my printer sagaciously remarked, that there were surely other young men with volumes of poems in the press besides myself; and that he could bring a reviewer into the field (oh potent printer!) to say clever things for me, to the full as effective as the unknown critic's cutting things." This latter part of the portrait has lost much of its resemblance in late days : seeing that authors now are bold enough to turn round and bite their best friend the Reviewer-" forcing both him and the Dolphin to swear fealty." These were dreadful notes of preparation; but, while the opposing warriors thus frowned defiance at each other, the fair cause of all the quarrel was carried off by Minerva in a mist, αὐτὰρ Αθήνη πολλὺν μερα χευε φίλα, and never seen again; in other words, the volume was still-born, and there was no need of gossips at the christening. 66 As we advance in the account of Dr. Dibdin's literary efforts, we find a series of Tales, written as a remission from severe studies. One of these was "La Belle Marianne," which was privately printed, and the only copy brought to the hammer produced the sum of 27. 16s. in russia binding. Sir John Falkland" was another; and then "Two Pilgrims in Grey;" but "Guiscardo, the Pirate," was the most elaborate; it is still in MS. and the Doctor has favoured us with part of the narrative, which we commend to the attention of all gentlemen and scholars, especially that part which mentions the "nine virgins with necklaces of coral, and stomachers of wrought gold, with five females waiting on each virgin, who moved in the train of Donna Ximena, the bride, and the mother of Count Siffredi." The Doctor, after reposing awhile from these labours, then revised and enlarged a History of Cheltenham, for which he received 307. of Mr. Ruff, the bookseller, and a large-paper copy of which is now in the library of Althorp. Thus, he says, he fairly commenced author, both by trade and good will. But for the rest of the acts of Dr. Dibdin, and how he became acquainted with Dr. Gosset, and how he dedicated his Introduction to the Classics to Lord Spencer; and how his printer was Mr. Gosnell, of Little Queen-street, Holborn; and how he found Mr. Moss poaching upon his manor; and how he furnished him with fresh powder and shot, out of his own bag; and how he translated Fenelon on the Education of Daughters for the Duchess of Bedford; and how he preached at Brompton for 301. a year; and read Casaubon's Epistles upon Camden Hill; and how he delivered Lectures on Poetry at the Royal Institution; * and how he published a work called "The Director;" and edited Ames's Typographical Antiquities; and read his Bibliomania † in MS. to Atticus, at his suburban residence at Elliot's Brewery ; and how he made a sad mistake between Mr. Hugh Farmer, who wrote on Miracles, and Dr. Richard Farmer, who wrote on Mysteries; and how, on publishing the Bibliomania, "he felt the earth firm and solid beneath his feet, and the circumambient air clear and buoyant ;"-all these matters, with others of larger import, are they not written in the Author's Reminiscences? and should they not be read by every one who is unwilling év àpalía καὶ ἀμουσία καταβιῶναι? And so we return the Doctor many thanks for the entertainment his volume has afforded us; assuring him that we hope What does Dr. Dibdin allude to, when, speaking of the London Institution, he says, "Will Mr. Thomson, one of the present librarians, ever give us an account of the depredations and peculations of that Library? Such a furtive history would not only be amusing, but might operate beneficially by way of warning to others who possess the organ of furtivity." We give the key to the ciphers in this book: Leontes, Mr. Bindley; Prospero, Mr. Douce: Archimedes, Mr. Rennie; Hortensius, Sir William Bolland; Aurelius, Mr. G. Chalmers; Lepidus, Dr. Gosset; Bernardo, Mr. Haslewood; Marcellus, Mr. Malone; Orlando, Mr. Wodhull; Sir Tristrem, Sir W. Scott; Menalcus, Rev. II. Drury; Ulpian, Mr. Utterson; Quisquilius, Mr. G. Baker; Mustapha, Mr. Gardiner the bookseller; the Author himself, ROSICRUCIUS! GENT. MAG. VOL. V. C next month to meet him again; * and now for the present, in the words of his friend Wyllym Caxton, bidding him farewell: "Wyth these, here Gutenberg and Fust unite In thankes ryghte herty unto the oure frende, DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE. 1810. Dec. 23. Stewart in his Essays divides the circumstances which please in objects of Taste, into those which do so-1st, from the organical adaptation of the human frame to the external universe-2ndly, from associations formed gradually by experience and the latter into such as please -1. From associations common to the whole human race; 2. Such as are peculiar to particular times and places. The first member of the latter division he classes with the former, as universal beauties: the second member he regards as arbitrary beauties, and divides them according to the extent of their influence into classical associations, the most generally influential; national or local associations, the next in operative force; personal associations, the narrowest of any; and observes that there are corresponding modifications of taste, denominating that a philosophical taste, by way of eminence, which is founded on the study of universal beauty. The two distinguishing characteristics of a good taste, he considers as being correctness and delicacy; and though he admits it as a self-evident truth, that without sensibility there can be no taste, yet contends that extreme sensibility is unfavourable to both these characteristics of a good one, overpowering, instead of gently stimulating, those habits of observation, comparison, and intellectual experiment, of which the power of taste is the gradual and slow result. Dec 24. Looked over Churchill's Rosciad, Apology, and Nightverses strong in sense, but coarse and rough in texture. In the Rosciad is this distich Call'd into being scenes unknown before, And passing Nature's bounds, was something more, applied to Shakspeare. Was this before or after Johnson's celebrated Prologue?-before, they might be thought fine; after, they must be deemed wretched. Dec. 29. Called and sat with Dr. Pearson. Had a letter from his sister in the morning, in which she mentioned that Sheridan had lately said in conversation, that he detested Pope as a poet, that Homer ought to have been hung, that Virgil was delightful, and that he adored Dryden. He must surely have been drunk! Pope and Virgil, Homer and Dryden, must, one would think, have been linked together; nor can I rationally account for so preposterous a preference. There are some woful misprints in the Doctor's book, which we should not have expected from such a quarter. As, p. 262, Dr. Legden, for Dr. Leyden; p. 271, R. Helsor, for R. Heber, cum multis aliis. But what are we to think of "Calamo currentissimo!" Dec. 31. Pursued D'Alembert's Preface to the Encyclopædia. proceeds in deducing a sort of a natural history of the sciences and arts, in the order in which they would succeed each other in the progress of human knowledge :-logic, grammar, eloquence, history, chronology, geography, civil polity; but the filiation he adopts, I think, is rather specious than satisfactory. Ushered in the new year with certain gloomy presentiments. 1811. Jan. 1. Began Crabbe's Borough.* The dedication and preface do not form very promising prestiges. They exhibit a coarseness and negligence of manner of a very peculiar character. The poem is better adapted to exhibition in parts, than for continued perusal. It evinces great, but I think ill-directed and ill-regulated powers. Jan. 8. Found, on my return from skaiting, a reproachful letter from Rogers for publishing the article Sept. 17, 1796, in my Diary. He is highly scandalized and indignant at my treatment of the Unitarians, or self-denominated Rational Christians, as exhibiting a striking example of the triumph of inclination over the judgment. This sect is just as bigoted and intolerant as Catholics, or Calvinists, though with far fewer motives, one would think, as having much less to contend for; but then they are fretted and galled with the difficulties of deducing their doctrines from the Scriptures on one hand, and inflated with arrogance at their superior pretensions to rationality, when deduced, on the other. Jan. 9. Read my friend Dr. Pearson's Essay on the Pre-existence of Christ, in his Hulsian Defence for 1810. The question, he remarks, in opposition to the Unitarians, is not what is agreable to reason, but what is agreeable to Scripture; and trying them by this test, I certainly do think the doctrines of the Unitarians evince most strikingly the triumph of the inclination over the judgment, in torturing the authority of Scripture to the conclusions of reason. Jan. 14. Finished Crabbe's Borough. His pictures are admirably and inimitably drawn, and coloured true to nature and life; but his poem leaves on the whole an impression of wretchedness on the mind from the cast of characters and subjects represented. The shade with him seems not employed to give relief to the lights, but the lights thrown in to deepen the shade. All that is gay aud tender (witness the Convict's Dream), only aggravates what is harsh and what is sad. Jan. 18. Began Bentley's Remarks on Collins's Discourse on Freethinking. He displays much vigour of argumentation, and force of humour but both rather coarsely strong; and he aims rather to crush his adversary, than his arguments. In the 14th he unsheaths the dagger of persecution, and his assertion in the next, that none but the wicked reject religion, and they on account of its terrors, I am satisfied is false. Jan. 19. Mr. Capel Lofft called and sate an hour with me; said that the two circumstances which in his mind redounded most to the King's credit, during his reign, were his partiality to Handel's music, and his steady patronage of the Lancasterian Institution. Agreed with me that Handel might be regarded as the Milton of Music, and thought Haydn might be considered as the Shakspeare. Milton's flight, I remarked, was on the whole more loftily sustained than Shakspeare's; but Shakspeare from his depths occasionally towered higher. This Lofft could hardly * Mr. Green subsequently did full justice to Mr. Crabbe's vigorous and powerful genius. The present entry is preserved as showing his first impressions.-EDIT. admit. Shakspeare's excellencies he thought were thrown into higher relief by his defects, than in Milton. Considered the original conclusion in Lear, as incomparably superior in effect to Garrick's alteration; nor did he regard it as too heart-rending, the mind being prepared for such a termination. C. L. spoke in the highest terms of praise of the Edinburgh Review, whose original asperity was softened, while its vigour was increased. Particularly commended the article on the Catholic Question in last number. Considered that neither the Edinburgh Review nor D. Stewart (with whose Essays he was delighted) had done justice to Burke's Sublime and Beautiful. Adverting to the time when that disquisition first appeared, -before the subject, in this country at least, had undergone any strict and regular investigation-thought Burke right in deducing our first ideas of Beauty from the female form. Spoke in the highest and most glowing terms of Warburton, and said, that his irresistible powers had lately made him a convert to his doctrine respecting the 6th book of the Æneid, and adduced a passage which had escaped Warburton in favour of that explanation. Burke's doctrines on the Sublime and Beautiful he thought obscurely shadowed forth in Dionysius Halicarnassus: but not taken from thence. He strongly expressed his acquiescence and satisfaction in Price's happy separation of the Picturesque, as an intermediate quality between the Beautiful and the Sublime, which he would very reluctantly abandon. Feb. 7. Looked over some old letters to my father in the evening; I see that in 1757, he is charged 87. for half a hogshead of port wine. Feb. 12. Read Goldsmith's Traveller, and Deserted Village. I see no resemblance between him and Crabbe, but in the minute faithfulness and accuracy of occasional descriptions. The general current of Goldsmith's muse is tenderness and sweetness, while that of Crabbe's is austerity. The philosophy of the Deserted Village is fundamentally erroneous;* but he contrives to deduce from it a strain of delightful imagery and touching sentiment, which one grieves should not adorn a better cause. Read his Good-natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer. The extravagance of the plot, and the breadth of the humour in both, are rather becoming farce than comedy. The same jests of pipes and tobacco for the angel,' and the lamb is outrageous, are repeated in both pieces. Honywood seems something like a prototype of Charles Surface. Feb. 16. Looked over some of Farquhar's Plays-The Constant Couple, The Trip to the Jubilee, The Beaux-Stratagem, and The Recruiting Officer. The general arrangement and particular conduct of the plots are very wretched; but the line of characters, and the admirable ease and sprightliness of the dialogue, which is really dramatic, redeems fully the defect. The gross licentiousness of manners exhibited in whatever respects the intercourse of the sexes, is a very striking feature in * Perhaps the expression in the text should be modified; while some of Goldsmith's reasonings are incorrect, and his views superficial, especially as regards the minute subdivision of property in land, "When every rood of ground maintained its man," --those relating to a comparison between agricultural and commercial prosperity, seem to be correct; though the mere outlines alone of his argument could be traced in his Poem "Ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri." That country is most likely to be prosperous, where there is a due proportion between its agricultural and manufacturing population. At present, in England the balance is too much inclining to the latter. Agriculture is permanent; manufactures and commerce fluctuating. Agriculture without manufactures would never produce great wealth; but a solely manufacturing population would be subject to dreadful vicissitudes, and might be exposed, without domestic agriculture, to great privations, not to speak of the hazard of internal turbulence and commotion.-EDIT. |