toral muse is transmitted by lawful inheritance from Theocritus to Virgil, from Virgil to Spenser, and from Spenser to Philips. With this inauguration of Philips, his rival, Pope was not much delighted; he therefore drew a comparison of Philips's performance with his own, in which, with an unexampled and unequalled artifice of irony, though he has himself always the advantage, he gives the preference to Philips. The design of aggrandizing himself he disguised with such dexterity, that, though Addison discovered it, Steele was deceived, and was afraid of displeasing Pope by publishing his paper." Published, however, it was ('Guard. 40') and from that time Pope and Philips lived in a perpetual reciprocation of malevolence.20 In poetical powers, of either praise or satire, there was no proportion between the combatants; but Philips, though he could not prevail by wit, hoped to hurt Pope with another weapon and charged him, as Pope thought," with Addison's approbation, as disaffected to the Government, Even with this he was not satisfied; for, indeed, there is no appearance that any regard was paid to his clamours. He proceeded to grosser insults, and hung up a rod at Button's," with which he threatened to chastise Pope, who appears to have been extremely exasperated; for in the first edition of his Letters he calls Philips "rascal," " and in the last still charges him with detaining in his hands the subscriptions for Homer delivered to him by the Hanover Club." 24 19 of 27th April, 1718. 20 His [Pope's] malignity to Philips, whom he had first made ridiculous, and then hated for being angry, continued too long.-JOHNSON: Life of Pope. The secret grounds of Philips's malignity to Pope are said to be the ridicule and laughter be met with from all the Hanover Club, of which he was secretary, for mistaking the incomparable ironical paper in 'The Guardian' for a serious criticism on pastoral poetry. The learned Heyne also mistook this irony.-WARTON: Essay on Pope, ii. 284. 21 His constant cry was, that Mr. P. was an enemy to the Government; and in particular he was the avowed author of a report very industriously spread, that he had a hand in a party paper called the Examiner: a falsehood well known to those yet living, who had the direction and publication of it.-Note to Dunciad, 8vo., 1729, p. 167. The note was afterwards omitted. 22 Cibber's Letter to Pope,' 8vo., 1742, p. 65. The same story is told in 'Pope Alexander's Supremacy and Infallibility examined,' 1728, and is confirmed by an unpublished letter, în Mr. Croker's hands, from Broome to Fenton, of 3rd May, 1729. 95 No; "scoundrel."—Letters, 12mo., 1785, p. 161. In his own quarto ed., p. 121, be omits the sentence in which the word appears. 24 Pope's Letters,' 4to., 1787, p. 121. I suppose it was never suspected that he meant to appropriate the money; he only delayed, and with sufficient meanness, the gratifieation of him by whose prosperity he was pained. Men sometimes suffer by injudicious kindness: Philips became ridiculous, without his own fault, by the absurd admiration of his friends, who decorated him with honorary garlands, which the first breath of contradiction blasted. When upon the succession of the House of Hanover [1st. Aug. 1714] every Whig expected to be happy, Philips seems to have obtained too little notice: he caught few drops of the golden shower, though he did not omit what flattery could perform. He was only made a Commissioner of the Lottery (1717), and, what did not much elevate his character, a Justice of the Peace." The success of his first play must naturally dispose him to turn his hopes towards the stage; he did not, however, soon commit himself to the mercy of an audience, but contented himself with the fame already acquired, till after nine years he produced" (1722) 'The Briton,' a tragedy which, whatever was its reception, is now neglected; though one of the scenes, between Vanoc the British Prince and Valens the Roman General, is confessed to be written with great dramatic skill, animated by spirit truly poetical. He had not been idle, though he had been silent for he exhibited another tragedy the same year," on the story of 'Humphry Duke of Gloucester.' This tragedy is only remembered by its title. His happiest undertaking was [1711] of a paper called "The Freethinker,' in conjunction with associates, of whom one was Dr. Boulter, who, then only minister of a parish in Southwark, was of so much consequence to the Government that he was made first Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards Primate of Ireland, where his piety and charity will be long honoured." 25 He was made Paymaster of the Lottery in the place of John Morley, Esq., by Treasury Warrant of 25th January, 1715, with a yearly fee or salary of 5002, for the service of himself, clerks, and others. 26 At Drury Lane, 19th Feb, 1721-2. 'The Briton' ran eight nights. 27 At Drury Lane, and acted, for the first time, 15th Feb., 1722-8. 'Humphry Duke of Gloucester' ran nine nights. 28 Johnson was fond of repeating, in his "best manner," the following lines from a poem entitled 'Boulter's Monument, written by Dr. Madden, and corrected by himself:' It may easily be imagined that what was printed under the direc tion of Boulter would have nothing in it indecent or licentious; its title is to be understood as implying only freedom from unreasonable prejudice. It has been reprinted in volumes, but is little read; nor can impartial criticism recommend it as worthy of revival. Boulter was not well qualified to write diurnal essays; but he knew how to practise the liberality of greatness, and the fidelity of friendship. When he was advanced to the height of ecclesiastical dignity, he did not forget the companion of his labours. Knowing' Philips to be slenderly supported, he took him to Ireland, as partaker of his fortune; and, making him his secretary, added such preferments as enabled him to represent the county of Armagh in the Irish Parliament." In December, 1726, he was made Secretary to the Lord Chancellor; and in August, 1733, became Judge of the Prerogative Court." After the death of his patron he continued some years in Ireland; but at last longing, as it seems, for his native country, he returned (1748) to London, having doubtless survived most of his friends and enemies, and among them his dreaded antagonist Pope. Some write their wrongs in marble: he, more just, Swept from the earth, and blotted from his mind. There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie, And griev'd they could not 'scape the Almighty's eye. He also introduced them into the last edition of his 'Dictionary,' under the word “SFORT." -Boswell by Croker, ed. 1847, p. 830. * B[enson] sole judge of architecture sit, The Dunciad, Book III. 1729. On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ: The Dunciad, Book III. Whom have I hurt? has poet yet or peer Does not one table Bavius still admit? POPE, in 1784: Epistle to Arbuthnol * He was Registrar, and not Judge, and obtained his appointment in September, 1734. • Boulter died 28th September, 1749. He found, however, the Duke of Newcastle still living, and to him he dedicated his poems collected into a volume. Having purchased an annuity of four hundred pounds, he now certainly hoped to pass some years of life in plenty and tranquillity; but his hope deceived him: he was struck with a palsy, and died June 18, 1749, in his seventy-eighth year." Of his personal character all that I have heard is, that he was eminent for bravery and skill in the sword, and that in conversation he was solemn and pompous." He had great sensibility of censure, if judgment may be made by a single story which I heard long ago from Mr. Ing, a gentleman of great eminence in Staffordshire. "Philips," said he, "was once at a table, when I asked him, How came thy king of Epirus to drive oxen, and to say, 'I'm goaded on by love? After which question he never spoke again." Of The Distressed Mother' not much is pretended to be his own, and therefore it is no subject of criticism: his other two tragedies, I believe, are not below mediocrity, nor above it. Among the Poems comprised in the late Collection," the Letter from Copenhagen'" may be justly praised; the Pastorals, which by the writer of 'The Guardian' were ranked as one of the four genuine productions of the rustic Muse, cannot surely be despicable. That they exhibit a mode of life which did not exist, nor ever existed, is not to be objected the supposition of such a state is allowed to Pastoral. In his other poems he cannot be denied the praise of lines sometimes elegant; but he has seldom much force, or much comprehension. The pieces that please best are those which, from Pope and Pope's adherents, procured him the name of Namby Pamby, the poems of short lines, by which he paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole the "steerer of the realm" to Miss Pulteney in the nursery." The numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the diction " He died at his lodgings near Vauxhall " (Cibber's Lives, v. 142), or, as I have seen elsewhere stated, in Hanover-square, and was buried in the chapel in South Audley-street. "We gather from Spence (ed. Singer, p. 375) that Ambrose Philips was a neat dresser, very vain, of lean make, and about five feet seven inches high. 34 The collection for which these 'Lives' were written. 16 The opening of this poem is incomparably fine. The latter part is tedious and trifling.— GOLDSMITH: Beauties of English Poesy. 36 The name of 'Namby Pamby' occurs in 'The Dunciad' of 1729, with this note: "an author whose eminence in the infantile style obtained him this name." The name was given, is seldom faulty. They are not loaded with much thought, yet, if they had been written by Addison, they would have had admirers: little things are not valued but when they are done by those who cannot do greater. In his translations from Pindar he found the art of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his sublimity; he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have more smoke. He has added nothing to English poetry, yet at least half his book deserves to be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part which the critic would reject." 39 if we may trust Cibber's 'Lives' (v. 189), by Harry Carey. One of the earliest of these attacks occurs in the Gentleman's Magazine' for October, 1788: "To an Infant expiring the second day of its birth. Written by its mother in imitation of Namby Pamby The excellent imitation in the 'Pipe of Tobacco' of the infantine style of Philips was not written by Hawkins Browne, "but sent to him by an ingenious friend." (Browne's 'Poems,' 1768: To the Reader.) 37 To Pope's character of 'Macer,' first printed in the volume of Miscellanies' (1728, 8vo.), containing the celebrated Preface signed by Swift, and the still more celebrated Art of Sinking in Poetry, there is this note: "He requested, by publick advertisements, the aid of the Ingenious to make up a Miscellany in 1718" (p. 134). That Macer' was meant for Philips, I can now additionally prove by the following 'Advertisement:' 66 'There is now preparing for the Press, a Collection of Original Poems and Translations by the most Eminent hands, to be published by Mr. Philips. Such gentlemen, therefore, who are willing to appear in this Miscellany, are desired to communicate the same, directed to Jacob Tonson, Bookseller, in the Strand.”—The London Gazette, 4–8 January, 1714-15. The Miscellany never appeared. MACER. "When simple Macer, now of high Renown, And gave the harmless Fellow a good Word. 38 At a Blacksmith's shop in the Friars, a Pindarie writer in red stockings.-PoPE: "An Account of the Condition of E. Curll," |