heard of some licentious reveilings of these Arcadians, in receiving a man of genius from our own country, who, himself composing Taban Rime, had conceit enough to become a shepherd!* Yet let us inquire before we criti cise. Even this ridiculous society of the Arcadians became a memorable literary institution; and Tiraboschi has shown how it successfully arrested the bad taste which was then prevailing throughout Italy; recalling its muses to purer sources; while the lives of many of its shepherds have furnished an interesting volume of literary history under the title of The illustrous Arcadians.' Crescembini, and its founders, had formed the most elevated conceptions of the society at its origin; but poetical vaticinators are prophets only while we read their verses-we must not look for that dry matter of fact-the event predicted! Il vostro seme eterno Mr Mathias has recently with warmth defended the original Arcadia; and the assumed character of its members, which has been condemned as betraying their affectation, be attributes to their modesty. Before the critics of the Arcadia (the pastori, as they modestly styled themselves) with Crescembini for their conductor, and with the Adorato Albano for their patron, (Clement XI,) all that was depraved in language, and in sentiment, fled and dis. appeared.' The strange taste for giving fantastical denominations to literary institutions grew into a custom though, probably no one knew how. The founders were always persons of rank or learning, yet still accident or caprice created the mystifying title, and invented those appropriate emblems, which still added to the folly. The Arcadian society de rived its title from a spontaneous conceit. This assembly first held its meetings, on summer evenings, in a meadow on the banks of the Tiber; for the fine climate of Italy promotes such assemblies in the open air. In the recital of an eclogue, an enthusiast, amidst all he was hearing and all he was seeing, exclaimed I seem at this moment to be in the Arcadia of ancient Greece, listening to the pure and simple strains of its shepherds.' Enthusi. asm is contagious amidst susceptible Italians, and this name, by inspiration and by acclamation, was conferred on the society! Even more recently at Florence the academia called the Colombaria, or the Pigeon-house,' proves with what levity the Italians name a literary society. The founder was the Cavallero Pazzi, a gentleman, who, like Morose, abhorring noise, chose for his study a garret in his palazzo; it was, indeed, one of the old turrets which had not yet fallen in: there he fixed his library, and there he assembled the most ingenious Florentines to discuss obscure points, and to reveal their own contributions in this secret retreat of silence and philosophy. To get to this cabinet it was necessary to climb a very steep and very narrow staircase, which occasioned some facetious wit to observe, that these literati were so many pigeons who flew every evening to their dove-cot. The Cavallero Pazzi, to indulge this humour, invited them to a dinner entirely composed of their little brothers, in all the varieties of cookery; the members, after a hearty laugh, assumed the title of the Colombaria, invented a device consisting of the top of a turret, with several pigeons flying about it, bearing an epi. graph from Dante, Quanto veder si puo, by which they expressed their design not to apply themselves to any single object. Such facts sufficiently prove that some of the absurd or facetious denominations of these literary so. cieties originated in accidental circumstances, or in mere pleasantry; but this will not account for the origin of those mystifying titles we have noticed; for when grave men call themselves dolts or lunatics, unless they are really so, they must have some reason for laughing at them selves. To attempt to develop this curious but obscure singulari. ty in literary history, we must go farther back among the first beginnings of these institutions. How were they looked on by the governments in which they first appear History of the Middle Ages, ii. 584. See, also, Mr Rose's Letters from the North of Italy, vol. 1, 204. Mr Hallam has observed that such an institution as the society degli Arcadi could at no time have endured public ridicule in England for a fortnight.' ed? These academies might, perhaps, form a chapter in the history of secret societies, one not yet written, but of which many curious materials lie scattered in history. It is certain that such literary societies, in their first origins, have always excited the jealousy of governments, but more particularly in ecclesiastical Rome, and the rival principalities of Italy. If two great nations, like those of England and France, had their suspicions and fears roused by a select assembly of philosophical men, and either put them down by force, or closely watched them, this will not seem extraordinary in little despotic states. We have accounts of some philosophical associations at home, which were joined by Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Rawleigh, but which soon got the odium of atheism attached to them; and the establishment of the French academy occasioned some umbrage, for a year elapsed before the parliament of Paris would register their patent, which was at length accorded by the political Richelieu observing to the president, that he should like the members according as the members liked him.' Thus we have ascertained one principle, that governments in those times looked on a that some of them combined an ostensible with a latent new society with a political glance; nor it is improbable motive. At a There is no want of evidence to prove that the modern Romans, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, they too frequently made invidious comparisons of their were too feelingly alive to their obscure glory, and that ancient republic with the pontifical government; to revive Rome, with every thing Roman, inspired such enthusiasts as Rienzi, and charmed the visions of Petrarch. period when ancient literature, as if by a miracle, was raising itself from its grave, the learned were agitated by a correspondent energy; not only was an estate sold to purchase a manuscript, but the relic of genius was touched with a religious emotion. The classical purity of Cicero was contrasted with the barbarous idiom of the Missal; the glories of ancient Rome with the miserable subjugation of its modern pontiffs; and the metaphysical reveries of Plato, and what they termed the Enthusiasmus Alexandrinus; the dreams of the Platonists seemed to the fanciful Italians more elevated than the humble and pure ethics of the Gospels. The vain and amorous Eloisa could even censure the gross manners, as it seemed to her, of the apostles, for picking the ears of corn in their walks, and at their meals eating with unwashed hands.Touched by this mania of antiquity, the learned affected to change their vulgar christian name, by assuming the more classical ones of a Junius Brutus, a Pomponius, or a Julius; or any other rusty name unwashed by baptism. This frenzy for the ancient republic not only menaced the pontificate; but their Platonic, or their pagan ardours, seemed to be striking at the foundation of Christianity itself. Such were Marcilus Ficinus, and that learned society who assembled under the Medici. Pomponius Letus, who lived at the close of the fifteenth century, not only celebrated by an annual festival the foundation of Rome, and raised altars to Romulus, but openly expressed his contempt for the christian religion, which this visionary declared was only fit for barbarians; but this extravagance and irreligion, observes Niceron, were common with many of the learned of those times, and this very Pomponius was at length formally accused of the crime of changing the baptismal names of the young persons whom he taught, for pagan ones! This was the taste of the times,' says the author we have justquoted; but it was imagined that there was a mystery concealed in these changes of names. At this period these literary societies first appear: one at Rome had the title of Academy,' and for its chief this very Pomponius; for he is distinguished as 'Romanæs Princeps Academiæ,' by his friend Politian, in the Mis. cellanea,' of that elegant scholar. This was under the The regular meetings of pontificate of Paul the Second. the Academy' soon excited the jealousy and suspicions of Paul, and gave rise to one of the most horrid persecutions and scenes of torture, even to death, in which these academicians were involved: This closed with a decree of Paul's, that for the future no one should pronounce, either seriously or in jest, the very name of academy, under the penalty of heresy! The story is told by Platina, one of the sufferers, in his life of Paul the Second; and although this history may be said to bear the bruises of the wounded and dislocated body of the unhappy historian, the facts are unquestionable, and connected with our subject. Platina, Pomponius, and many of their friends, were suddenly dragged to prison; on the first and second day torture was applied, and many expired under the hands of their executioners. You would have imagined,' says Platina, 'that the castle of St Angelo was turned into the bull of Phalaris, so loud the hollow vault resounded with the cries of those miserable young men, who were an honour to their age for genius and learning. The torturers, not satisfied, though weary, having racked twenty men in those two days, of whom some died, at length sent for me to take my turn. The instruments of torture were ready; I was stripped, and the executioners put themselves, to their work. Vianesius sat like another Minos on a seat of tapestry work, gay as at a wedding; and while I hung on the rack in torment, he played with a jewel which Sanga had, asking him who was the mistress which had given him this love token? Turning to me, he asked why Pomponio in a letter should call me Holy Father? Did the conspirators agree to make you Pope? 'Pomponio,' I replied, can best tell why he gave me this title, for I know not' At length,having pleased, but not satisfied himself with my tortures, he ordered me to be let down that I might undergo tortures much greater in the evening. I was carried, half dead, into my chamber; but not long after, the inquisitor having dined, and being fresh in drink, I was fetched again, and the archbishop of Spalatro was there. They inquired of my conversations with Malatesta. I said, it only concerned ancient and modern learning, the military arts, and the characters of illustrious men, the ordinary subjects of conversation. I was bitterly threatened by Vianesius, unless I confessed the truth on the following day, and was carried back to my chamber, where I was seized with such extreme pain, that I had rather have died than endured the agony of my battered and dislocated limbs. But now those who were accused of heresy were charged with plotting treason. Pomponius being examined why he changed the names of his friends, he answered boldly, that this was no concern of his judges or the pope it was perhaps out of respect for antiquity, to stimulate to a virtuous emulation. After we had now lain ten months in prison, Paul comes himself to the castle, where he charged us, among other thngs, that we had disputed concerning the immortality of the soul, and that we held the opinion of Plato; by disputing you call the being of a God in question. This, I said, might be objected to all divines and philosophers, who to make the truth appear, frequently question the existence of souls and of God, and of all separate intelligences. St Austin says, the opinion of Plato is like the faith of Christians. I followed none of the numerous heretical factions. Paul then accused us of being too great admirers of pagan antiquities; yet none were more fond of them than himself, for he collected all the statues and sarcophagi of the ancients to place in his palace, and even affected to imitate, on more than one occasion, the pomp and charm of their public ceremonies. While they were arguing, mention happened to be made of the Academy,' when the Cardinal of San Marco cried out, that we were not 'Academics,' but a scandal to the name; and Paul now declared that he would not have that term evermore mentioned under pain of heresy. He left us in a passion, and kept us two months longer in prison to complete the year, as it seems he had sworn.' Such is the interesting narrative of Platina, from which we may surely infer, that if these learned men assembled for the communication of their studies; inquiries suggested by the monuments of antiquity, the two learned languages, ancient authors, and speculative points of philosophy, these objects were associated with others, which terrified the jealousy of modern Rome. Sometime after, at Naples, appeared the two brothers, John Baptiste and John Vincent Porta, those twin spirits, the Castor and Pollux of the natural philosophy of that age, and whose scenical museum delighted and awed, by its optical illusions, its treasure of curiosities, and its na. tural magic, all learned natives and foreigners. Their name is still famous and their treatises De humana physiognomia and Magia naturalis, are still opened by the curious, who discover these children of philosophy, wandering in the arcana of nature, to them a world of perpetual beginnings! These learned brothers united with the Marquis of Manso, the friend of Tasso, in establishing an academy under the whimsical name of degli Oziosi,(the Lazy) which so ill described their intentions. This acade The infallible my did not sufficiently embrace the views of the learned brothers, and then they formed another under their own roof, which they appropriately named di Secreti; the ostensible motive was, that no one should be admitted into this interior society who had not signalized himself by some experiment or discovery. It is clear, that, whatever they intended by the project, the election of the members was to pass through the most rigid scrutiny-and what was the consequence? The court of Rome again started up with all its fears, and, secretly obtaining information of some discussions which had passed in this academy degli Secre ti, prohibited the Portas from holding such assemblies, or applying themselves to those illicit sciences, whose amusements are criminal, and turn us aside from the study of the Holy Scriptures.* It seems that one of the Portas had delivered him in the style of an ancient oracle; but what was more alarming in this prophetical spirit, several of his predictions had been actually verified! court was in no want of a new school of prophecy. Baptista Porta went to Rome to justify himself, and, content to wear his head, placed his tongue in the custody of his Holiness, and no doubt preferred being a member of the Accademia degli Oziosi, to that of gli Secreti. To confirm this notion that these academies excited the jealousy of those despotic states of Italy, I find that several of them at Florence, as well as at Sienna, were considered as dangerous meetings; and in 1568, the Medici suddenly suppressed those of the Insipids,' the Shy,' the ' Disheartened,' and others, but more particularly the 'Stun ned,' gli Intronati, which excited loud laments. We have also an account of an academy which called itself the Lanternists, from the circumstance that their first meetings were held at night, the academicians not carrying torches, but only Lanterns. This academy, indeed, was at Toulouse, but evidently formed on a model of its neigbours. In fine, it cannot be denied, that these literary societies or academies were frequently objects of alarm to the lit the governments of Italy, and were often interrupted by political persecution. From all these facts I am inclined to draw an inference. It is remarkable that the first Italian Academies were only distinguished by the simple name of their founders; one was called the Academy of Pomponius Lætus, another of Panormita, &c. It was after the melancholy fate of the Roman Academy of Lætus, which could not, however, extinguish that growing desire of creating literary societies in the Italian cities, from which the members derived both honor and pleasure, that suddenly we dis cover these academies bearing the most fantastical titles. I have not found any writer who has attempted to solve this extraordinary appearance in literary history, and the difficulty seems great, because, however frivolous or fantastical the titles they assumed, their members were illustrious for rank and genius. Tiraboschi, aware of this difficulty, can only express his astonishment at the absurdity, and his vexation at the ridicule to which the Italians have been exposed by the coarse jokes of Menkenius in his Charlata naria Eruditorum. I conjecture, that the invention of these ridiculous titles, for literary societies, was an attempt to throw a sportive veil over meetings which had alarmed the papal and the other petty courts of Italy; and to quiet their fears, and turn aside their political wrath, they im plied the innocence of their pursuits by the jocularity with which the members treated themselves, and were willing that others should treat them. This otherwise inexpli cable national levity of so refined a people has not occurred in any other country, because the necessity did not exist any where but in Italy. In France, in Spain, and in England, the title of the ancient ACADEMUS was never pro faned by an adjunct which systematically degraded and ridiculed its venerable character, and its illustrious mem bers. Long after this article was finished, I had an opportunity of consulting an eminent Italian, whose name is already celebrated in our conntry, II Sigr. Ugo Foscolo; his decision ought necessarily to outweigh mine; but although it is incumbent on me to put the reader in possession of the opinion of a native of his high acquirements, it is not *Niceron, vol' xliii. Art. Porta. + See Tiraboschi, vol. vii, cap. iv. Accademie, and Quadrio's Della storia e della ragione d'ogni poesia. In the im mense receptacle of these seven quarto volumes, printed with a small type, the curious may consult the voluminous Index, Art. Accademia. as easy for me, on this obscure and curious subject, to relinquish my own conjecture. I Sigr. FoscoLo is of opinion, that the origin of the fantastical titles assumed by the Italian Academies entirely arose from a desire of getting rid of the air of pedantry, and to insinuate that their meetings and their works were to be considered merely as sportive relaxations, and an idle business. This opinion may satisfy an Italian, and this he may deem a sufficient apology for such absurdity; but when scarlet robes and cowled heads, laureated bards and Monsignores, and Cavalleros, baptize themselves in a public assembly Blockheads' or Madmen,' we ultramontanes, out of mere compliment to such great and learned men, would suppose that they had their good reasons; and that in this there must have been something more than meets the ear. After all, I would almost flatter myself that our two opinions are not so wide of each other as they at first seem to be. ON THE HERO OF HUDIBRAS; BUTLER VINDICATED.. That great Original, the author of Hudibras, has been recently censured for exposing to ridicule the Sir Samuel Luke, under whose roof he dwelt, in the grotesque character of his hero. The knowledge of the critic in our literary his. tory is not curious; he appears to have advanced no farther, than to have taken up the first opinion he found; but this served for an attempt to blacken the moral character of Butler! Having lived,' says our critic, in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's Captains, at the very time he planned the Hudibras, of which he was pleased to make his kind and hospitable Patron the Hero. We defy the history of Whiggism to match this anecdote,'*-as if it could not be matched! Whigs and Tories are as like as two eggs when they are wits and satirists; their friends too often become their first victims! If Sir Samuel resembled that renowned personification, the ridicule was legitimate and unavoidable when the poet had espoused his cause, and espoused it too from the purest motive-a detestation of political and fanatical hypocrisy. Comic satirists, whatever they may allege to the contrary, will always draw largely and most truly from their own circle. After all, it does not appear that Sir Samuel sat for Sir Hudibras; although from the hiatus still in the poem, at the end of Part I, Canto I, his name would accommodate both the metre and the rhyme! But who, said Warburton, ever compared a person to himself! Butler might aim a sly stroke at Sir Samuel by hinting to him how well he resembled Hudibras, but with a remarkable forbearance he has left posterity to settle the affair, which is certainly not worth their while. But Warburton tells, that a friend of Butler's had declared the person was a Devonshire man; one Sir Henry Rosewell, of Ford Abbey, in that county. There is a curious life of our learned wit, in the great General Dictionary; the writer, probably Dr Birch, made the most authentic researches, from the contemporaries of Butler, or their descendants; and from Charles Longueville, the son of Butler's great friend, he obtained much of the little we possess. The writer of this life believes that Sir Samuel was the hero of Butler,and rests his evidence on the hiatus we have noticed; but with the candour which becomes the literary historian, he has added the following marginal note: Whilst this sheet was at press, I was assured by Mr Longueville, that Sir Samuel Luke is not the person ridiculed under the name of Hudibras.' It would be curious, after all, should the prototype of Hudibras turn out to be one of the heroes of the Rolliad; a circumstance, which, had it been known to the copartnership of that comic epic, would have furnished a fine episode and a memorable hero to their line of descent. When Butler wrote his Hudibras, one Coll. Rolle, a Devonshire man, lodged with him, and was exactly like his description of the Knight; whence it is highly probable, that it was this gentleman, and not Sir Samuel Luke whose person he had in his eye. The reason that he gave for calling his poem Hudibras was, because the name of the old tutelar saint of Devonshire was Hugh de Bras.' I find this in the Grub street Journal, January, 1731, a periodical paper conducted by two eminent literary physicians, under the appropriate names of Bavius and Mavins, and which for some time enlivened the towns with • Edinburgh Review, No. 67-159, on Jacobite Relics. Bavius and Mavius were Dr Martyn, the well-known au 'Sir Knight abandon dwelling, And out he rode a Colonelling! This origin of the name is more appropriate to the character of the work than deriving it from the Sir Hudibras of Spenser, with whom there exists no similitude. It is as honourable as it is extraordinary, that such was the celebrity of Hudibras, that the workman's name was often confounded with the work itself; the poet was once better known under the name of Hudibras than of Butler. Old Southern calls him: Hudibras Butler;' and if any one would read the most copious life we have of this great poet in the great General Dictionary, he must look for a name he is not accustomed to find among English authors -that of Hudibras! One fact is remarkable; that, like Cervantes, and unlike Rabelais and Sterne, Butler, in his great work, has not sent down to posterity a single passage of indecent ribaldry, though it was written amidst a court which would have got such by heart, and in an age in which such trash was certain of popularity. We know little more of Butler than we do- of Shakspeare and of Spenser! Longueville, the devoted friend of our poet, has unfortunately left no reminiscences of the departed genius whom he so intimately knew, and who bequeathed to Longueville the only legacy a neglected poet could leave-all his manuscripts; and to his care, though not to his spirit, we are indebted for Butler's Remains." His friend attempted to bury him with the public honours he deserved, among the tombs of his brother bards in Westminster Abbey; but he was compelled to consign the bard to an obscure burial place in Paul's, Covent-Garden. Many years after, when Alderman Barber raised an inscription to the memory of Butler in Westminster Abbey, others were desirous of placing one over the poet's humble gravestone. This probably excited some competition; and the following fine one, attributed to Dennis, has perhaps never been published. If it be Dennis's, it must have been composed at one of his most lucid mo ments. Near this place lies interred He was a whole species of Poets in one! In which no one else has been tolerable; To this too brief article I add a proof that that fanati. cism, which is branded by our immortal Butler, can survive the castigation. Folly is sometimes immortal, as nonsense is irrefutable. Ancient follies revive, and men keeps up the plague in Turkey by lying hid in some ob repeat the same unintelligible jargon; just as contagion scure corner, till it breaks out afresh. Recently we have seen a notable instance where one of the school to which we are alluding, declares of Shakspeare, that it would have been happy if he had never been born, for that thousands will look back with incessant anguish on the guilty thor of the Dissertation on the Eneid of Virgil, and Dr Russel, another learned physician, as his publications attest. It does great credit to their taste, that they were the hebdomadal defenders of Pope from the attacks of the heroes of the Dunciad. *There is a great reason to doubt the authenticity of this information concerning a Devonshire tutelar saint. Mr Charles Butler has kindly communicated the researches of a catholic Clergyman, residing at Exeter, who having examined the voluminous registers of the See of Exeter, and numerous MSS and records, of the Diocese, cannot trace that any such saint was particularly honoured in the county. It is lamentable that ingenious writers should invent fictions, for authorities; but with the hope that the present authors have not done this, I have preserved this apocryphal tradition. delight which the plays of Shakspeare ministered to them.'* Such is the anathema of Shakspeare! We have another of Butler, in An historic defence of experimental religion; in which the author contends, that the best men have experienced the agency of the Holy Spirit in an immediate illumination from heaven. He furnishes his historic proofs by a list from Abel to Lady Huntingdon! The author of Hudibras is denounced, One Samuel Butler, a celebrated buffoon in the abandoned reign of Charles the Second, wrote a mock heroic poem, in which he undertook to burlesque the pious puritan. He ridicules all the gracious promises by comparing the divine illumination to an ignis fatuus, and dark lantern of the spirit.' Such are the writers whose ascetic spirit is still descending among us from the monkery of the deserts, adding poignancy to the very ridicule they would annihilate. The satire which we deemed obsolete, we find still applicable to contemporaries! The FIRST part of Hudibras is the most perfect; that was the rich fruit of matured meditation, of wit, of learning, and of leisure. A mind of the most original powers had been perpetually acted on by some of the most extraordinary events and persons of political and religious his tory. Butler had lived amidst scenes which might have excited indignation and grief; but his strong contempt of the actors could only supply ludicrous images and caustic raillery. Yet once, when villany was at its zenith, his solemn tones were raised to reach it.‡ The second part was precipitated in the following year. An interval of fourteen years was allowed to elapse before the third and last part was given to the world; but then every thing had changed! the poet, the subject, and the patron! the old theme of the sectarists had lost its freshness, and the cavaliers, with their royal libertine, had become as obnoxious to public decency as the Tartuffes. Butler appears to have turned aside, and to have given an adverse direction to his satirical arrows. The slavery and dotage of Hudibras to the widow revealed the voluptuous epicurean, who slept on his throne, dissolved in the arms of his mistress. The enchanted bower,' and the amorous suit,' of Hudibras reflected the new manners of this wretched court; and that Butler had become the satirist of the party whose cause he had formerly so honestly espoused, is confirmed by his Remains,' where among other nervous satires, is one, On the licentious age of Charles the Second, contrasted with the puritanical one that preceded it.' This then is the greater glory of Butler, that his high and indignant spirit equally satirized the hypocrites of Cromwell, and the libertines of Charles. SHENSTONE'S SCHOOL-MISTRESS. The inimitable School-Mistress' of SHENSTONE is one of the felicities of genius; but the purpose of this poem has been entirely misconceived. Johnson, acknowledging this charming effusion to be the most pleasing of Shenstone's productions,' observes, I know not what claim it has to stand among the moral works.' The truth is, that it was intended for quite a different class by the author, and Dodsley, the editor of his works, must have strangely blundered in designating it a moral poem.' It may be classed with a species of poetry till recently, rare in our language, and which we sometimes find among the Italians, in their rime piacevoli, or poesie burlesche, which do not always consist of low humor in a facetious style with jingling rhymes, to which form we attach our idea of a bur. lesque poem. There is a refined species of ludicrous poetry, which is comic yet tender, lusory yet elegant, and with such a blending of the serious and the facetious, that the result of such a poem may often, among its other plea. sures, produce a sort of ambiguity; so that we do not always know whether the writer is laughing at his subject, or whether he is to be laughed at. Our admirable Whistlecraft met this fate! The School-Mistress' of SHENSTONE has been admired for its simplicity and tenderness, not for its exquisitely ludicrous turn! This discovery I owe to the good fortune of possessing the original edition of The School-Mistress,' which the author printed under his own directions, and to his own fancy. To this piece of LUDICROUS POETRY, as he calls See Quarterly Review, vol. viii, p. 111, where I found this quotation justly reprobated. This work, published in 1795, is curious for the materials the writer's reading has collected. The case of King Charles the First truly stated against John Cook, master of Gray's Inu, in Butler's Remains,' it, lest it should be mistaken,' he added a LUDICROUS INDEX, purely to show fools that I am in jest.' But the fool, his subsequent editor, who, I regret to say, was Robert Dodsley, thought proper to suppress this amusing Judicrous index,' and the consequence is, as the poet foresaw, that his aim has been mistaken." The whole history of this poem, and this edition, may be traced in the printed correspondence of SHENSTONE, Our poet had pleased himself by ornamenting A sixpenny pamphlet' with certain seemly' designs of his', and for which he came to town to direct the engraver; he appears also to have intended accompanying it with The deformed portrait of my old school dame, Sarah Lioyd.' The frontispiece to this first edition represents the Thatched house' of his old school-mistress, and before it is the 'birch tree' with the sun setting and gilding the scene," He writes on this, I have the first sheet to correct upon the table. I have laid aside the thoughts of fame a good deal in this unpromising scheme; and fix them upon the landskip which is engraving, the red letter which I propose, and the fruit piece which you see, being the most seemly ornaments of the first sixpenny pamplet that was ever so highly honoured. I shall incur the same reflection with Ogilby, of having nothing good but my decorations, I expect that in your neighbourhood and in Warwicksture there should be twenty of my poems sold. I print it my self. I am pleased with Mynde's engravings,' On the publication Shenstone has opened his idea on its poetical characteristic. I dare say it must be very incorrect; for I have added eight or ten stanzas wuhin this fortnight. But inaccuracy is more excusable in ludicrous poetry than in any other. If it strikes any it must be merely people of taste; for people of wit without taste, which comprehends the larger part of the critical tribe, will unavoidably despise it. I have been at some pains to recover myself from A Philips' misfortune of mere childishness, "Little charm of placid mien," &c. I have added a ludicrous index purely to show (fools) that I am in jest; and my motto, "O, qua sol habitabiles illustrat oras, manma principum is calculated for the same purpose. cannot conceive how large the number is of those that mis take burlesque for the very foolishness it exposes; which observation I made once at the Rehearsal, at Tom Thumb, at Chrononhotonthologos, all which are pieces of elegant humour. I have some mind to pursue this caution fur ther, and advertise it "The School-Mistress," &c, a very childish performance every body knows (novorum more.) But if a person seriously calls this, or rather burlesque, a childish or low species of poetry, he says wrong. For the most regular and formal poetry may be called trifling, folly, and weakness, in comparison of what is written with a more manly spirit in ridicule of it. You The first edition is now lying before me, with its splendid red-letter,' its seemly designs,' and, what is more precious, its Index.' Shenstone, who had greatly pleas ed himself with his graphical inventions, at length found that his engraver, Mynde had sadly bungled with the poet's ideal. Vexed and disappointed, he writes, I have been plagued to death about the ill execution of my designs. Nothing is certain in London but expense, which I can li bear. The truth is, that what is placed in the landskip over the thatched-house and the birch-tree, is like a failing monster rather than a setting sun; but the fruit-piece at the end, the grapes, the plums, the melon, and the Catharine pears, Mr Mynde has made sufficiently tempting. This edition contains only twenty-eight stanzas, which were afterwards enlarged to thirty-five. Several stanzas have been omitted, and they have also passed through many corrections, and some improvements, which show that Shenstone had more judgment and felicity in severe cof rection, than perhaps is suspected. Some of these I will point out.* In the second stanza, the first edition has, In every mart that stands on Britain's isle, There dwells in lowly shed and mean attire, The eighth stanza, in the first edition, runs, The gown, which o'er her shoulders thrown she had, Ne did she e'er complain, ne deem it rough, &c. More elegantly descriptive is the dress as now delineated: A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown, The additions made to the first edition consists of the 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15th stanzas, in which are so beautifully introduced the herbs and garden stores, and the psalmody of the school mustress; the 29th and 30th stanzas were also subsequent insertions. But those lines which give so original a view of genius in its infancy, A little bench of heedless bishops here, were printed in 1742; and I cannot but think that the farfamed stanzas in Gray's Elegy, where he discovers men of genius in peasants, as Shenstone has in children, was suggested by this original conception : Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, is to me a congenial thought, with an echoed turn of expression of the lines from the School Mistress. I shall now restore the ludicrous INDEX, and adapt it to the stanzas of the later edition. Stanza 1 Introduction, tuation of the MAN. CIPLINE, discovering Some peculiarities indi. cative of a COUNTRY SCHOOL, with a short sketch of the SOVEREIGN presiding over it, Some account of her NIGHT-CAP, APRON, and a tremendous de. scription of her BIRCHEN SCEPTRE, A parallel instance of the advantages of LEGAL 3 5 6 GOVERNMENT with regard to children and the wind, 7 Her gown, 8 Her TITLES, and puncti. lious nicety in the ce. remonious assertion of them, A digression concerning her HEN's presumptu. ous behaviour, with a circumstance tending to give the cautious reader a more accu. rate idea of the officious diligence and e conomy of an old woman, A view of this RURAL POTENTATE AS seat. ed in her chair of state, conferring HONOURS, 9 10 Her POLICIES, The ACTION of the commences with a ge neral summons, fol lows a particular description of the artful structure, decora. tion, and fortifications of an HORN-BIBLE, 18 A surprising picture of sisterly affection by way of episode, 20, 21 A short list of the me thods now in use to The force of example, thor an opportunity of BEN JONSON ON TRANSLATION. I have discovered a poem by this great poet, which has even escaped the researches of his last unrivalled editor, Mr. Gifford. Prefixed to a translation, translation is the theme; with us an unvalued art, because our translators have usually been the jobbers of booksellers; but no inglorious one among our French and Italian rivals. In this if the reader's ear be guided by the compressed sense of the massive lines, he may feel a rhythm which, should they be read like our modern metre, he will find wanting; here the fulness of the thoughts form their own cadences. The mind is musical as well as the ear. verse running into another, and the sense often closing in the middle of a line, is the Club of Hercules; Dryden sometimes succeeded in it, Churchill abused it, and Cowper attempted to revive it. Great force of thought only can wield this verse. One On the AUTHOR, WORKE, and TRANSLATOR, prefired desert who have done it, friend! And this Faire æmulation, and no envy is; When you behold me wish my selfe, the man The translator of Guzman, was James Mabbe, which he disguised under the Spanish pseudonym of Diego Puede-ser; Diego for James, and Puede-ser for Mabbe or May-be! He translated with the same spirit as his Guzman, Celestina, or the Spanish bawd; a version still more remarkable. He had resided a considerable time in Spain, and was a perfect master of both languages; a rare talent in a translator; and the consequence is, that he is a translator of Genius. THE LOVES OF 'THE LADY ARABELLA,” So stately by the Thames's side, Faire Arabella, child of woe! For many a day had sat and sighed. And as shee heard the waves arise, And as shee heard the bleake windes roare, Arabella Stuart, in Evans's Old Ballads, The name of Arabella Stuart, Mr Lodge observes, scarcely mentioned in history.' The whole life of this *Long after this article was composed, Miss Aikin published her Court of James the First.' That agreeable writer has written her popular volumes, without wasting the bloom of life in the dust of libraries, and our female historian has not occasioned me to alter a single sentence in these researches. |