I need not tell you how much a man of his turn entertained me; but I must acquaint you there is a vivacity and gaiety of disposition, almost peculiar to him, which make it impossible to part from him without that uneasiness which generally succeeds all our pleasure.' Pope has left behind him another mention of his companion, 28 less advantageous, which is thus reported by Dr. Warburton 2: Rowe, in Mr. Pope's opinion, maintained a decent character, but had no heart. Mr. Addison was justly offended with some behaviour which arose from that want, and estranged himself from him; which Rowe felt very severely. Mr. Pope, their common friend, knowing this, took an opportunity, at some juncture of Mr. Addison's advancement, to tell him how poor Rowe was grieved at his displeasure, and what satisfaction he expressed at Mr. Addison's good fortune; which he expressed so naturally, that he (Mr. Pope) could not but think him sincere. Mr. Addison replied, "I do not suspect that he feigned; but the levity of his heart is such, that he is struck with any new adventure; and it would affect him just in the same manner if he heard I was going to be hanged."-Mr. Pope said he could not deny but Mr. Addison understood Rowe well.' This censure time has not left us the power of confirming 29 or refuting; but observation daily shews that much stress is not to be laid on hyperbolical accusations and pointed sentences, which even he that utters them desires to be applauded rather than credited. Addison can hardly be supposed to have meant all that he said. Few characters can bear the microscopick scrutiny of wit quickened by anger; and perhaps the best advice to authors would be that they should keep out of the way of one another. Rowe is chiefly to be considered as a tragick writer and a 30 translator. In his attempt at comedy he failed so ignominiously that his Biter3 is not inserted in his works; and his occasional poems and short compositions are rarely worthy of either praise or censure, for they seem the casual sports of a mind seeking rather to amuse its leisure than to exercise its powers. In the construction of his dramas there is not much art; he is 31 1 Pope, in A Farewell to London, 1.9 (Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 482), says:— 'To drink and droll be Rowe allowed, Till the third watchman's toll.' Pope told Spence that 'Rowe would laugh all day long; he would do * In Ruffhead's Pope, p. 493. 32 33 He extends time and varies not a nice observer of the Unities'. place as his convenience requires. in my opinion, any violation of Nature, if the change be made between the acts, for it is no less easy for the spectator to suppose himself at Athens in the second act, than at Thebes in the first 2; but to change the scene, as is done by Rowe in the middle of an act, is to add more acts to the play, since an act is so much of the business as is transacted without interruption 3. Rowe, by this license, easily extricates himself from difficulties; as in Jane Grey, when we have been terrified with all the dreadful pomp of publick execution, and are wondering how the heroine or the poet will proceed, no sooner has Jane pronounced some prophetick rhymes, than-pass and be gone-the scene closes, and Pembroke and Gardiner are turned out upon the stage *. I know not that there can be found in his plays any deep search into nature, any accurate discriminations of kindred qualities, or nice display of passion in its progress; all is general and undefined. Nor does he much interest or affect the auditor, except in Jane Shore, who is always seen and heard with pity 5. Alicia is a character of empty noise, with no resemblance to real sorrow or to natural madness. Whence, then, has Rowe his reputation? From the reasonableness and propriety of some of his scenes, from the elegance of his diction, and the suavity of his verse'. He seldom moves either pity or terror, but he often elevates the sentiments; he seldom pierces the breast, but he always delights the ear, and often improves the understanding8. ' For Johnson's defence of Shakespeare for disregarding the unities see Johnson's Works, v. 118. 2He that can take the stage at one time for the palace of the Ptolemies may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium.' Ib. p. 120. 3Whenever the scene is shifted the act ceases.' The Rambler, No. 156. 'The scene draws and discovers a scaffold hung with black, executioner and guards.' After the 'prophetick rhymes' come to an end, 'Lady Jane goes up to the scaffold; the scene closes. Enter Pembroke.' He curses Gardiner's 'fatal arts.' Gardiner replies, Pembroke rejoins, and then 'Exeunt omnes.' His translations of the Golden Verses and of the first book of 34 2 Quillet's Poem have nothing in them remarkable. Verses are tedious. The Golden The version of Lucan is one of the greatest productions of 35 English poetry3; for there is perhaps none that so completely exhibits the genius and spirit of the original. Lucan is distinguished by a kind of dictatorial or philosophic dignity, rather, as Quintilian observes, declamatory than poetical'; full of ambitious morality and pointed sentences, comprised in vigorous and animated lines. This character Rowe has very diligently and successfully preserved. His versification, which is such as his contemporaries practised without any attempt at innovation or improvement, seldom wants either melody or force. His author's sense is sometimes a little diluted by additional infusions, and sometimes weakened by too much expansion. But such faults are to be expected in all translations, from the constraint of measures and dissimilitude of languages. The Pharsalia of Rowe deserves more notice than it obtains, and as it is more read will be more esteemed. 5 'Do you remember "Approchez-vous, Néron"? Who would not rather have thought of that half line than all Mr. Rowe's flowers of eloquence?' (The line is the first in Racine's Britannicus, iv. 2.) Gray's Letters, i. 154. Dr. Warton quotes a passage from Walpole's Preface to The Mysterious Mother, where, describing the progress of 'theatric genius,' he says that 'it maintained a placid pleasing kind of dignity in Rowe, and even shone in his Jane Shore! Warton, Pope's Works, iv. 198. Mrs. Oldfield [the actress] used to say the best school she had ever known was only hearing Rowe read her part in his tragedies.' Spence's Anec. p. 380. 'Rowe was only outdone by Shakespeare and Otway as a tragic writer; he has fewer absurdities than either, and is perhaps as pathetic as they; but his flights are not so bold, nor his characters so strongly marked.' GOLDSMITH, Works, iii. 432. 26 Eng. Poets, xxviii. 165. Callipaedia.... By the Abbot Quillet, &c. Now done into English verse. 1710.' It is not included in Eng. Poets, perhaps owing to its licentiousness. 3 It is,' writes Dr. Warton, 'one of the few translations that is better than its original. I venture to say the same of three more translations, namely of Hampton's Polybius [ante, MILTON, 10], of Pitt's Vida [post, PITT, 5], and of Melmoth's Pliny [Boswell's Johnson, iii. 422].' Pope's Works, 1822, vii. 139. 4 'Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus, sed, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus.' Inst. x. I. 90. See ante, MILTON, 225. 5 In Gent. Mag. 1781, p. 358, is mentioned 'Bentley's harsh animadversion on Rowe's Lucan in Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, part iii.' APPENDIX H (PAGE 67) In Horace Walpole's Epilogue to Tamerlane on the Suppression of the Rebellion, spoken by Mrs. Pritchard on Nov. 4, 1746, are the following lines: 'Ev'n Tamerlane, whose sainted name appears Oft as these festal rites attend the morn Of liberty restor'd and William born,' &c. In a note it is stated:-' Tamerlane is always acted on the 4th and 5th of November, the anniversaries of King William's birth and landing.' Walpole's Works, i. 26. See also his Letters, ii. 67. In Dublin 'Nov. 4 was made a Government Night, when the Lord Lieutenant rendered the boxes free to such ladies as chose to come.' Biog. Dram. iii. 318. Macready, in 1819, acted in the play at Covent Garden, brought out for one night early in November (no doubt the anniversary). It is,' he writes, 'a heavy declamatory production of the cast-iron school.' He adds that Mrs. Siddons once, acting the heroine at Drury Lane, 'gave such terrible reality to the few convulsive words she tried to utter, as she sank a lifeless heap, that the audience insisted on the manager's appearance to be assured that she was alive. They would not suffer the performance to be resumed.' Macready's Reminiscences, i. 202. Rowe, in the Dedication, speaks of Tamerlane's 'piety, moderation, fatherly love of his people, and hate of tyranny and oppression.' Dr. Welwood describes his noble ardour to break the chains of enslaved nations.' Rowe's Lucan, Preface, p. 40. 'Except in Rowe's play on the fifth of November I did not expect to hear of Timour's amiable moderation.' GIBBON, Decline and Fall, vii. 70 n. J ADDISON' OSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May, 1672 2, 1 at Milston, of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector, near Ambrosbury in Wiltshire3, and appearing weak and unlikely to live he was christened the same day. After the usual domestick education, which from the character of his father may be reasonably supposed to have given him strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrosbury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury. Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for 2 literature, is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished 5: I would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father, being made dean of Lichfield, naturally is a chain of farm-houses and little churches all the way up it.' Rural Rides, 1893, i. 153. Sydney Smith's first curacy (1794) was at Nether Avon, three miles from Amesbury. S. J. Reid's Sydney Smith, 1884, p. 30. On April 11, 1780, Johnson wrote of the Lives:- Mr. Nichols holds that Addison is the most taking of all that I have done.' John. Letters, ii. 138. Macaulay, wishing to review Aikin's Life of Addison, wrote to the Editor of The Edinburgh Review: 'I look on that subject as peculiarly my own, for I know him almost by heart.' As Dante says:'Vagliami il lungo studio e il grande amore Che m' han fatto cercar lo tuo vo lume.' Inferno, i. 83. ['May the long zeal avail me, and the great love, that made me search thy volume.' Carlyle's Dante's Inferno, p. 8.] M. Napier Corres. p. 426. He dates his poem To Mr. Dryden, Mag. Coll. Oxon. June 2, 1693. The Author's Age, 22.' Works, i. 2. According to this he was born in 1671. [But May 1, 1672, is the date of his birth in the Amesbury parish register, 'not the year before as Anthony Wood and others after him relate." Gen. Dict. Hist. and Crit. i. 262.] 3 Now Amesbury. Cobbett in 1822 described 'the valley that brings down a little river from Amesbury. It is a very beautiful valley. There Wood describes Lancelot Addison's zeal for the Protestant religion when he was chaplain at Tangier, and his studious life at Milston. He gives a list of the books he wrote there. Ath. Oxon. iv. 518. He is probably described in The Tatler, No. 235, as the only man the writer had known who 'lived with his children with equanimity and a good grace.' Nichols thinks this paper is by Addison. The Tatler, 1789, iv. 230. For Steele's account of 'the singular perfections' of his four children see Addison's Works, v. 151. Addison's sister,' wrote Swift (Works, ii. 57), ‘ is a sort of wit, very like him. I am not fond of her.' An inscription in Lichfield Cathedral (given in Biog. Brit. p. 30) shows that he married twice, but that his six children, two of whom died young, were by his first wife. [See also N. & Q. 5 S. vi. 350.] 5 Post, HUGHES, 1. 'Ne nunc quidem post tot saecula sileantur, fraudenturve laude sua.' Livy, xxvii. 10. |