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poet." And now Mr. Tovey,
has given us a new biography of him and
a new edition of his works, making, if I
am not mistaken, the thirty-second memoir
of him and the twenty-first edition of his
works which have appeared since the
beginning of the century: this is pretty
well for a forgotten poet !-COLLINS,
JOHN CHURTON, 1897, A Literary Mare's-
Nest, The Saturday Review, vol. 84,
p. 117.

As late as 1855 Robert Bell remarked that Thomson's popularity seemed ever on the increase. The date may be taken to mark the turning point in his fame, for since about 1850 he has been unmistakably eclipsed on his own ground, in the favour of the class to whom he was dear, by Tennyson, while in Scotland the commemorative rites which were zealously performed in his honour at Ednam and Edinburgh between 1790 and 1820 (when an obelisk, in the erection of which Scott took a leading part, was erected at the poet's native place) have been supplanted by the cult of Burns. . . . In the possession of the true poetic temperament, he has been surpassed not even by Tennyson.-SECCOMBE, THOMAS, 1898, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LVI, p. 252.

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When he came to England he found but little entertainment in the landscapes around London, and longed for "the living stream, the airy mountain, and the hanging rock." He portrays with evident

delight the changeful aspect of his native watercourses in the various seasons of the year. He knew well the "deep morass" and "shaking wilderness," where many of them "rise high among the hills," and whence they assume their "mossytinctured" hue. He traces them as they "roll o'er their rocky channel" until they at last lose themselves in "the ample river" Tweed. He describes them as they appear at sheep-washing time, and dwells on their delights for boys as bathingplaces. But it is their wilder moods that dwell most vividly in his memory, when From the hills

O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,

A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once. It is worthy of remark, however, that even though nature is his theme, the poet writes rather as an interested spectator than as an earnest votary. He reveals no passion for the landscapes he depicts. He never appears as if himself a portion of the scene, alive with sympathy in all the varying moods of nature. His verse has no flashes of inspiration, such as contact with storm and spate drew from Burns. It was already however, a great achievement that Thomson broke through the conventionalities of the time, and led his countrymen once more to the green fields, the moors, and the woodlands.GEIKIE, SIR ARCHIBALD, 1898, Types of Scenery and their Influence on Literature, p. 21.

Ambrose Philips

16752-1749.

To

1696; Fellow of St.

Visits to Continent,

Born, in Shropshire [?], 1675 [?]. Early education at Shrewsbury School. St. John's College, Cambridge, as Sizar, 15 June 1693; B. A., John's College, 28 March, 1699 to 24 March 1708; M. A., 1700. 1703 and 1710. J. P. for Westminster, 1714. Commissioner for Lottery, 1717. Founded and edited "The Freethinker," 1718-19. To Ireland, as Sec. to Bishop of Armagh, 1724. M. P. for Co. Armagh in Irish Parliament, 1725. Sec. to Lord Chancellor, Dec. 1726. Judge of Prerogative Court, Aug. 1733. Returned to London, 1748. Died there, 18 June 1749. Works: "The Life of John Williams," 1700; "Pastorals" (from Tonson's "Miscellany"), 1710; "The Distrest Mother," 1712; "An Epistle to Charles, Lord Halifax," 1714; "Epistle to the Hon. James Craggs, 1717; "Papers from 'The Freethinker'" (3 vols.), 1718-19; "The Briton," 1722; "Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester," 1723; "A Collection of Old Ballads," 1723; "An Ode on the Death of William, Earl Cowper," 1728; "The Tea-Pot" [1725?]; "To the Hon. Miss Carteret," 1725; "To Lord Carteret," 1726; "Codrus," 1728; "Pastorals, Epistles, Odes, etc.," 1748. He translated: "The Odes of Sappho," 1713; P. de La Croix's "Persian Tales," 1709.-SHARP, R. FARQUHARSON, 1897, A Dictionary of English Authors, p. 226.

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PERSONAL

I have had a letter from Mr. Philips, the pastoral poet, to get him a certain employment from lord-treasurer. I have now had almost all the whig-poets my solicitors; and I have been useful to Congreve, Steele, and Harrison; but I will do nothing for Philips; I find he is more a puppy than ever; so don't solicit for him.SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1711, Journal to Stella, June 30.

When simple Macer, now of high renown, First fought a poet's fortune in the town: 'Twas all th' ambition his high soul could feel,

To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.

Some ends of verse his betters might afford, And give the harmless fellow a good word. -POPE, ALEXANDER, 1727, Macer: A Character.

Ambrose Philips was a neat dresser, and very vain. In a conversation between him, Congreve, Swift, and others, the discourse ran a good while on Julius Cæsar. After many things had been said to the purpose, Ambrose asked what sort of a person they supposed Julius Cæsar was? He was answered, that from medals, &c., it appeared that he was a small man, and thin-faced."Now, for my part," said Ambrose, "I should take him to have been of a lean make, pale complexion, extremely neat in his dress; and five feet seven inches high:" an exact description of Philips himself. Swift, who understood good breeding perfectly well, and would not interrupt anybody while speak ing, let him go on, and when he had quite done, said; "And I, Mr. Philips, should take him to have been a plump man, just five feet five inches high; not very neatly dressed, in a black gown with pudding sleeves."-YOUNG, EDWARD, 1757, Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 286.

In 1729 he published by subscription, his poems much enlarged, with the addition of one entitled "Namby Pamby;" the occasion of it was as follows: Ambrose Phillips being in Ireland at the time when lord Carteret was lord lieutenant of Ireland, wrote a poem on his daughter, lady Georgina, now the dowager lady Cowper, then in the cradle; in such a kind of measure, and with such infantine sentiments, as were a fair subject for ridicule: Carey laid hold of this, and wrote a poem, in which all the songs of children

at play are wittily introduced, and called it by a name by which children might be supposed to call the author, whose name was Ambrose, Namby Pamby.-HAWKINS, SIR JOHN 1776, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, vol. II, p. 828.

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.JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, A. Philips, Lives of the English Poets.

Ambrose Phillips was a stately gentleman who had passed the best portion of his life in lisping dull songs about Chloris and Damon, Strephon and Delia, weakminded shepherds and bread-and-butter shepherdesses, who made it their silly business to play dismal tunes on oaten reeds to listening flocks of sheep which they called their "fleecy care.' To see such a man made a fool of must delight every one. Pope made a fool of him by sending a paper to the "Guardian" brimful of good irony, in which while he appeared to praise Phillips as a superior poet to Pope, he left Pope so much the first that Phillips was literally nowhere. The artless and literally Irishman, Steele, was duped by the excellent irony; the astute Addison saw the joke. Phillips was Addison's friend; Addison indeed professed quite an affection for Phillips. He had praised his Pastorals; he had praised his Tragedies. With great demureness, pretending not to see Pope's irony, he had it printed. The ridicule of his friends. greatly exasperated Phillips, who hung up

a rod at Button's, with which he threatto the coffee-house. Pope, who was no ened to beat Pope when he should come coward, laughed contemptuously at Phillips' menaces, called him a rascal, and charged him with robbing the Hanover Club. This double consequence the discomfiture of Phillips and the quarrel of Pope-was much enjoyed by the virtuous Mr. Addison.-RUSSELL, WILLIAM CLARK, 1871, ed. The Book of Authors, p. 155, note.

PASTORALS

1710

As to Mr. Phillips's Pastorals, I take the first to be infinitely the best, and the second the worst; and the third is for the greatest part a translation from Virgil's

Daphnis, and I think a good one. In the whole I agree with the "Tatler,' that we have no better eclogues in our language. This gentleman, if I am not much mistaken in his talent, is capable of writing very nobly, as I guess by a small copy of his, published in the "Tatler," on the Danish Winter. It is a very lively piece of poetical painting, and I recommend it particularly to your perusal.-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1710, Letter to Cromwell, Oct. 28, Pope's Works, ed. Elwin, vol. VI, p. 106.

In mock heroic poems the use of the heathen mythology is not only excusabie, but graceful, because it is the design of such compositions to divert, by adapting the fabulous machines of the ancients to

low subjects, and at the same time by ridiculing such kinds of machinery in modern writers. If any are of opinion that there is a necessity of admitting these. classical legends into our serious compositions, in order to give them a more poetical

turn, I would recommend to their consideration the pastorals of Mr. Philips. One would have thought it impossible for this kind of poetry to have subsisted without fawns and satyrs, wood-nymphs, and water-nymphs, with all the tribe of rural deities. But we see he has given a new life and a more natural beauty to this way of writing, by substituting in the place of these antiquated fables the superstitious mythology which prevails among the shepherds of our own country.-ADDISON, JOSEPH, 1712, The Spectator, Oct, 30, No.

523.

Theocritus, who left his dominions to Virgil; Virgil, left his to his son Spenser ; and Spenser, was succeeded by his eldestborn Philips.-TICKELL, THOMAS, ? 1713, Guardian No. 32.

When I remarked it as a principal fault, to introduce fruits and flowers of a foreign growth, the descriptions with the scene lies in our country, I did not design that observation should extend also to animals, or the sensitive life; for Mr. Philips hath with great judgment described wolves in England, in his first Pastoral. Nor would I have a poet slavishly confine himself (as Mr. Pope hath done), to one particular season of the year, one certain time of the day, and one unbroken scene in each eclogue. 'Tis plain, Spenser neglected this pedantry, who, in his pastoral of

November, mentions the mournful song of the nightingale.

Sad Philemel her song in tears doth steep. And Mr. Philips, by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer beds of flowers than the most industrious gardener; his roses, endives, lilies, kingcups, and daffodils, blow all in the same season.— POPE, ALEXANDER, 1713, The Guardian, No. 40, p. 264.

Notwithstanding the ridicule which Mr. Philips has drawn upon himself, by his opposition to Pope, and the disadvantageous light his Pastorals appear in, when compared with his; yet, there is good reason to believe, that Mr. Philips was no mean Arcadian: By endeavouring to imitate too servilely the manners and sentiments of vulgar rustics, he has sometimes raised a laugh against him; yet there are in some of his Pastorals a natural simplicity, a true Doric dialect, and very graphical descriptions.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 133.

Philips attempted to be more simple and natural than Pope; but he wanted genius to support his attempt, or to write agree

ably. He, too, runs on the common and beaten topics; and endeavouring to be simple, he becomes flat and insipid.BLAIR, HUGH, 1783, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Letters, ed. Mills, Lecture xxxix.

It is not uninstructive to see how tolerable Ambrose is, so long as he sticks manfully to what he really saw. The moment he undertakes to improve on Nature he sinks into the mere court poet, and we surrender him to the jealousy of Pope without a sigh. LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 1871, A Good Word for Winter, My Study Windows, p. 45.

GENERAL

With Philips shall the peaceful valleys ring,
And Britain hear a second Spenser sing.
-TICKELL, THOMAS, 1713, On the Pros-
pect of Peace.

All ye poets of the age!
All ye witlings of the stage,
Learn your jingles to reform,
Crop your numbers and conform:
Let your little verses flow
Gently, sweetly, row by row.
Let the verse the subject fit,
Little subject, little wit,
Namby-Pamby is your guide
Albion's joy, Hibernia's pride.
CAREY, HENRY, 1729, Namby-Pamby.

The bard who pilfer'd Pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a Crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight
lines a year.

-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1735, Epistle to Dr.
Arbuthnot, v. 179-182.

The opening of this poem ["An Epistle to the Earl of Dorset'], is incomparably fine. The latter part is tedious and trifling. -GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, 1767, The Beauties of English Poetry.

Of his literary merit nothing great can be said. As a poet he seldom deviates from the path of mediocrity; and, unfortunately for his poetical fame, his quarrel with Pope exposed him to a depreciation in that department beyond what justice would require.-DRAKE, NATHAN, 1804, Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator and Guardian, vol. III, p. 269.

A serious and dreary idyllic cockney. THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE, 1853, The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century.

Although he published three tragedies, is as a dramatist remembered by one of

these only, or rather perhaps on account. of the celebrity acquired by the "Epilogue" bestowed upon it by the masterspirit of the little literary senate in which Philips had enrolled himself. The characteristically sentimental title of "The Distrest Mother" (acted in 1711) was not intended to conceal the fact that this aque" of Racine; but the efforts of Steele tragedy was a version of the "Andromand Addison to buoy up its theatrical success have succeeded in securing to it a place among the remembered productions. of our dramatic literature.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p.425.

The "Pastorals" of Philips are certainly poor productions; but he was an elegant opening of his "Epistle to the Earl of versifier, and Goldsmith has eulogised the Dorset" as "incomparably fine." A fragment of Sappho, translated by Philips, is a poetical gem so brilliant, that it is thought Addison must have assisted in its composition. CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.

Catherine Cockburn

1679-1749.

Mrs. Catherine Cockburn, 1679-1749, was a native of London, a daughter of Captain David Trotter, R. N. In her 17th year her tragedy of "Agnes de Castro" was produced with great success at the Theatre Royal. In 1698 she gave to the world the "Tragedy of Fatal Friendship," and in 1701, "The Unhappy Penitent." In the same year she contributed, with several other ladies, to the Nine Muses; a tribute to the memory of John Dryden. In 1706 her tragedy entitled "The Revolution of Sweden" was acted at the Queen's Theatre. In 1708 she was married to the Rev. Mr. Cockburn, who was subsequently presented to the living of Long-Horsley, Northumberland. the previous year she returned to the communion of the Church of England, which she had when quite young forsaken for the Church of Rome. In 1726 she pub. a letter to Dr. Holdsworth in vindication of Mr. Locke's Essay respecting the resurrection of the body. In 1747 appeared her "Remarks upon the Principles and Reasonings of Dr. Rutherforth's Essay on the Nature and Obligations of Virtue." In 1751 Dr. Birch pub. an edition of Mrs. Cockburn's Works in 2 vols. 8vo. This collection, however, contains none of her dramatic pieces excepting "The Fatal Friendship."-ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1854-58, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. I, p. 400.

PERSONAL

Mrs. Cockburn was no less celebrated for her beauty, in her younger days, than for her genius and accomplishments. She was indeed small of stature, but had a remarkable liveliness in her eye, and delicacy of complexion, which continued to her death. Her private character rendered her extremely amiable to those who intimately knew her. Her conversation

was always innocent, useful and agreeable, without the least affectation of being thought a wit, and attended with a remarkable modesty and diffidence of herself, and a constant endeavour to adapt her discourse to her company. She was happy in an uncommon evenness and cheerfulness of temper. Her disposition was generous and benevolent; and ready upon all occasions to forgive injuries, and

bear them, as well as misfortunes, without interrupting her own ease, or that of others, with complaints or reproaches. The pressures of very contracted fortune were supported by her with calmness and in silence, nor did she ever attempt to improve it among those great personages to whom she was known, by importunities; to which the best minds are most averse, and which her approved merit and established reputation should have rendered unnecessary.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. V, p. 118.

GENERAL

Posterity, at least, will be so solicitous to know, to whom they will owe the most demonstrative and perspicuous reasonings, upon subjects of eternal importance; and her own sex is entitled to the fullest information about one, who has done such honour to them, and raised our ideas of their intellectual powers, by an example of the greatest extent of understanding and correctness of judgment, united to all the vivacity of imagination. Antiquity, indeed, boasted of its Female Philosophers, whose merits have been drawn forth in an elaborate treatise of Menage.-BIRCH, THOMAS, 1751, ed. Mrs. Catherine Cockburn's Collected Works.

But say what matron now walks musing forth

From the bleak mountains of her native north?

While round her brows two sisters of the Nine

Poetic wreaths with philosophic twine! Hail, Cockburn, hail! even now from reason's bowers

Thy Locke delighted culls the choicest flowers

To deck his great, successful champion's head,

And Clarke expects thee in the laurel shade. Though long to dark oblivious wants a prey,

Thy aged worth passed unperceived away, Yet Scotland now shall ever boast thy fame, While England mourns thy undistinguished

name,

And views with wonder, in a female mind, Philosopher, divine, and poet joined. -DUNCOMBE, JOHN, 1754, The Feminead.

Her poetry has a compression of thought and an ease of style which greatly distinguished it from the verse of most female writers in her time.—ROWTON, FREDERIC, 1848, The Female Poets of Great Britain, p. 113.

What

Although much has been said and written about Locke by the ablest metaphysicians of his age, and of each succeeding generation, it may be questioned whether his own words has ever been more truly construed than by Mrs. Cockburn. she wrote concerning his opinions during his life was approved by Locke himself; what she wrote of them after his decease was acknowledged to be correct by his most intimate associates, to whom he had frequently and familiarly expounded them. WILLIAMS, JANE, 1861, The Literary Women of England, p. 184.

Mrs. Cockburn was a clever woman, and kept no dull household, though she there wrote a defence of Locke, while her reverend husband was perusing an account of the Mosaic deluge. As a metaphysical and controversial writer, she gathered laurels and abuse in her day, for the latter of which she found compensation in the friendship and admiration of Warburton. She was a valiant woman, too; one, whom asthma and the ills of life could not deter from labor. But death relieved her from all these, in 1749; and she is remembered in the history of literature as a good and well-accomplished woman; the very opposite of Mrs. Behn and all her heroines. DORAN, JOHN, 1863, Annals of the English Stage, vol. 1, p. 166.

Aaron Hill
1685-1750.

Aaron Hill, 1685-1750, an English poet, dramatist, and miscellaneous writer, a native of London, is better known to the present age from his quarrels with Pope than by his literary compositions. Among other works, he pub.-1. "A History of the Ottoman Empire," 1709. 2. "Elfrid;" a Tragedy, 1709. 3. "Camillus;" a Poem, 1709. 4, 5. "Essays on Beech Oil," 1714-15. 6. "Essays on Coals and GrapeWines," 1718. 7. "King Henry the Fifth;" a Tragedy, 1723. 8. "The Northern Star;" a Poem, 1725. 9. "Advice to the Poets," 1731. 10. "The Impartial;" a poem. 11. "The Progress of Wit; a Caveat for the use of an Eminent Writer," (a satire upon Pope, who had introduced Hill, rather in a complimentary manner, in

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