Page images
PDF
EPUB

-

tinctions, he wrote:- 'Saint père, vous envoyez des manchettes à celui qui n'a point de chemise.' Goldsmith borrowed this when, on being appointed by the King Professor of Ancient History in the Royal Academy, he wrote:-'Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt.' Boswell's Johnson, ii. 67 n.

Sprat was helped in his work by Evelyn. Evelyn's Diary, iii. 144. Addison, in The Freeholder, No. 30, describes his Observations as 'a book full of just satire and ingenuity.'

Wren was Sir Christopher Wren.

The book deserves a reprint.

THE

HALIFAX'

HE life of the Earl of Halifax was properly that of an 1 artful and active statesman, employed in balancing parties, contriving expedients, and combating opposition, and exposed to the vicissitudes of advancement and degradation: but in this collection poetical merit is the claim to attention; and the account which is here to be expected may properly be proportioned not to his influence in the state, but to his rank among the writers of verse.

4

Charles Montague was born April 16, 1661, at Horton in 2 Northamptonshire 2, the son of Mr. George Montague, a younger son of the earl of Manchester 3. He was educated first in the country, and then removed to Westminster; where in 1677 he was chosen a king's scholar, and recommended himself to Busby * by his felicity in extemporary epigrams 5. He contracted a very intimate friendship with Mr. Stepney; and in 1682, when Stepney was elected to Cambridge, the election of Montague being not to proceed till the year following, he was afraid lest by being placed at Oxford he might be separated from his companion, and therefore solicited to be removed to Cambridge, without waiting for the advantages of another year.

It seems indeed time to wish for a removal; for he was already 3 a school-boy of one and twenty.

His relation Dr. Montague was then master of the college' 4

'Halifax is not included in Campbell's British Poets.

His Works and Life in one volume 8vo were published in 1715. As Curl was the publisher little confidence can be placed in the Life.

2 He was baptized at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on May 12, 1661. Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 81. 3 The first Earl, father of the second Earl the parliamentary general.

4 Ante, DRYDEN, 4.

5 He was always applauded for his extempore epigrams, made upon

theses appointed for the King's Scholars at the time of election.' Life of Halifax, p. 4.

To-morrow I go to the election at Westminster School, where lads are chosen for the university; they say 'tis a sight, and a great trial of wits.' SWIFT, Works, ii. 243. See ante, SMITH, 4.

6

Stepney entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1682. Ante, STEPNEY, I. Montagu, who was two years older, had entered in 1679. Dict. Nat. Biog

? In The Life of Halifax, p. 5,

in which he was placed a fellow commoner', and took him under his particular care. Here he commenced an acquaintance with the great Newton, which continued through his life, and was at last attested by a legacy2.

4

5 In 1685 his verses On the death of king Charles3 made such impression on the earl of Dorset, that he was invited to town, and introduced by that universal patron to the other wits. In 1687 he joined with Prior in The City Mouse and Country Mouse, a burlesque of Dryden's Hind and Panther 5. He signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, and sat in the convention". He about the same time married the countess dowager of Manchester, and intended to have taken orders; but afterwards altering his purpose, he purchased for 1,500l. the place of one of the clerks of the council 7.

6

After he had written his epistle on the victory of the Boyne3,

Montagu is described as 'a very polite Tutor (now Dean of Durham).' He became Master of Trinity College about April 1683.

66

'So called from having the privilege of dining at the Fellows' table, being thus commoners with the Fellows." At Oxford the existence of a higher grade of undergraduates (in some colleges called "fellowcommoners," in the majority" Gentlemen-commoners") is still recognized by the University Statutes, but the only house that has fellow-commoners on its books is Worcester College. At Cambridge there were formerly fellow-commoners at most colleges, but the status is now nearly obsolete.' New Eng. Dict. See ante, MILTON, 7 n.; WALSH, I.

A legacy of £100, 'as a mark of the great honour and esteem I have for so great a man.' Biog. Brit. p. 3157. For an examination of the connexion between Halifax and Newton's niece, Catherine Barton, see N. &Q. 2 S. ii. 161, 265, 390; iii. 41, 250.

3 He composed this poem for 'a book of condolence and congratulation to be presented to King James II by the University.' It contains such fulsome lines as the following:

'In Charles, so good a man and King, we see

A double Image of the Deity.

Oh! had he more resembled it!
Oh! why

Was He not still more like, and
could not die?'

Works, p. 8; Life, p. 6; Eng. Poets, xxvi. 283.

4

Ante, DORSET, 13. Johnson also calls the Earl's son, the Duke of Dorset, 'the universal patron.' Post, A. PHILIPS, 3.

5 The Hind and the Panther Transvers'd to the Story of the CountryMouse and the City-Mouse, Halifax's Works, 1715, p. 31. Ante, DRYDEN, 127, 288; post, PRIOR, 5. ""Did not Lord Halifax write The Country Mouse with Mr. Prior?" "Yes, just as if I was in a chaise with Mr. Cheselden here, drawn by his fine horse, and should say:-' 'Lord, how finely we draw this chaise! LORD PETERBOROUGH, Spence's Anec. p. 136. William Cheselden was an eminent surgeon.

6

Life, p. 16. He sat for Malden. Parl. Hist. v. 29. The member for Durham in James II's parliament was Charles Montagu. Ib. iv. 1345. 1 Life, p. 65; post, WEST, 4.

An Epistle to Charles Earl of Dorset occasioned by His Majesty's Victory in Ireland, Eng. Poets, xxvi. 297. It appeared anonymously in 1690.

Addison praises 'an excellent stroke' in this poem, 'where Mr.

his patron Dorset introduced him to king William with this expression: 'Sir, I have brought a Mouse to wait on your Majesty.' To which the king is said to have replied, 'You do well to put me in the way of making a Man of him "'; and ordered him a pension of five hundred pounds. This story, however current, seems to have been made after the event. The king's answer implies a greater acquaintance with our proverbial and familiar diction than king William could possibly have attained.

In 1691, being member in the house of commons, he argued 7 warmly in favour of a law to grant the assistance of counsel in trials for high treason; and in the midst of his speech, falling into some confusion, was for a while silent; but, recovering himself, observed, 'how reasonable it was to allow counsel to men called as criminals before a court of justice, when it appeared how much the presence of that assembly could disconcert one of their own body?'

Montagu tells us how the King of France would have been celebrated by his subjects, if he had ever gained such an honourable wound as King William's at the fight of the Boyne :"His bleeding arm had furnished all their rooms,

And run for ever purple in the looms." Addison's Works, i. 148. Montagu wrote:

'The wounded arm would furnish all their rooms,

And bleed for ever scarlet in the looms.' Eng. Poets, xxvi. 303. Pope parodied the Epistle in The Dunciad, ii. 155-6, and in a note gives Addison's version.

''He introduced him to the King with, "May it please your Majesty, I have brought a Mouse to have the honour of kissing your hand"; at which the King replied with an air of gaiety, "You will do well to put me in a way of making a Man of him.' Life, p. 17.

'The first thing he was cried up for was something from whence he was called Mouse Montagu.' DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, Corres. 1838, ii. 144.

2 If Johnson quotes the Life, p. 30, he paraphrases the report of Montagu's speech. It ends :-' since he, who was one of their own members,

was so dashed when he was to speak before that wise and illustrious assembly.'

[It is to the third Earl of Shaftesbury (author of the Characteristics) that this incident should be ascribed. The scene was the House of Commons; the date November, 1695. Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley) had that May in his twenty-fifth year been returned to Parliament for the borough of Poole. A bill for regulating Trials in cases of High Treason was before the House. Gen. Dict. Hist. and Crit. ix. 179. The bill passed the Commons on Dec. 18, 1695. The life of Shaftesbury in the Gen. Dict. was not only extracted from a MS. life, written by the fourth Earl, now among the Shaftesbury Papers in the Record Office, but was also revised by him. Fowler's Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, p. 1. He adds:'If we may judge from internal evidence the story is far more appropriate to Ashley, a retiring man new to Parliament, than to a practised speaker and debater like Montagu who had sat in the House of Commons from the Convention of 1688-9 onwards' (ib. p. 9). Horace Walpole tells the story of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Works, i. 429; as does Mac

8

9

After this he rose fast into honours and employments, being made one of the commissioners of the treasury', and called to the privy council. In 1694 he became chancellor of the Exchequer2; and the next year engaged in the great attempt of the recoinage 3, which was in two years happily compleated. In 1696 he projected 'the general fund +,' and raised the credit of the Exchequer; and, after enquiry concerning a grant of Irish crown-lands, it was determined by a vote of the commons, that Charles Montague, esquire, 'had deserved his Majesty's favour. In 1698, being advanced to the first commission of the treasury, he was appointed one of the regency in the king's absence': the next year he was made auditor of the Exchequer, and the year after created baron Halifax. He was however impeached by the commons; but the articles were dismissed by the lords 10.

At the accession of queen Anne he was dismissed from the council"; and in the first parliament of her reign was again

aulay, Hist. of Eng. vii. 274. See also Parl. Hist. v. 966, which gives Gen. Dict. Hist. and Crit. as the authority. The fact that Curll is the publisher of the Life of Halifax (1715) wherein the statement occurs, which is Johnson's authority for ascribing the incident to him, is of itself sufficient to discredit it.]

In 1714, in the proceedings against Steele, Lord Finch, rising to defend him in the House of Commons, at once 'sat down in visible confusion, saying, "It is strange I can't speak for this man though I could readily fight for him." A sudden burst from all parts of the House, "Hear him! hear him!" brought him again on his legs,' and he spoke well. The Monitor, No. 2, April 24, 1774, quoted in Parl. Hist. vi. 1272.

In March 1691-2. Macaulay's Hist. vi. 191. Lady M. W. Montagu wrote in 1714:-'No modest man ever did, or ever will, make his fortune. Your friend, Lord Halifax, R. Walpole, and all other remarkable instances of quick advancement, have been remarkably impudent.' Letters, i. 218.

2

Macaulay's Hist. vii. 129.

3 Ib. vii. 249-74.

4 For the 'general fund' or 'general

[blocks in formation]

8 This office, which was held for life, and was worth at the lowest £4,000 a year, he sought as 'a harbour from the storms which seemed to be gathering.' Ib. viii. 157, 237. For the storm which it brought on him see ib. p. 159.

9 On Dec. 4, 1700. Collins's Peerage, iii. 456; Life, p. 61.

on

10 The resolution for his impeachment was carried on April 14, 1701. 'The articles were dismissed' June 24. Parl. Hist. v. 1246, 1321. The impeachment was supported by Prior. Post, PRIOR, 16.

"On April 21, 1702, the Queen caused the names of several persons firmly attached to the Revolution principles (particularly the Lords Somers and Halifax) to be left out of the list of her Privy Council.' Boyer's Reign of Queen Anne, 1735, p. 14. According to the Life, p. 75, she was 'over-persuaded' to dismiss Halifax.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »