Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 57

[Footnote 287: One of the most absurd reports that ever frightened private society was that which prevailed in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century. It was, that the Jesuits used a poisoned snuff which they gave to their opponents, with the fas.h.i.+onable politeness of the day in "offering a pinch;" and which for a time deterred the custom.]

[Footnote 288: It is now about thirty-seven years ago since I first published this anecdote; at the same time I received information that our female historian and dilapidator had acted in this manner more than once. At that distance of time this rumour, so notorious at the British Museum, it was impossible to authenticate. The Rev. William Graham, the surviving husband of Mrs. Macaulay, intemperately called on Dr. Morton, in a very advanced period of life, to declare that "it appeared to him that the note does not contain any evidence that the leaves were torn out by Mrs. Macaulay." It was more apparent to the unprejudiced that the doctor must have singularly lost the use of his memory, when he could not explain his own official note, which, perhaps, at the time he was compelled to insert. Dr. Morton was not unfriendly to Mrs. Macaulay's political party; he was the editor of Whitelocke's "Diary of his Emba.s.sy to the Queen of Sweden," and has, I believe, largely castrated the work.

The original lies at the British Museum.]

[Footnote 289: There was one pa.s.sage he recollected:--

Just left my bed A lifeless trunk, and scarce a dreaming head!

[Footnote 290: I have seen a transcript, by the favour of a gentleman who sent it to me, of Gray's "Directions for Heading History." It had its merit, at a time when our best histories had not been published, but it is entirely superseded by the admirable "Methode" of Lenglet du Fresnoy.]

[Footnote 291: Henry Stephen appears first to have started this subject of _parody_; his researches have been borrowed by the Abbe Sallier, to whom, in my turn, I am occasionally indebted. His little dissertation is in the French Academy's "Memoires," tome vii. 398.]

[Footnote 292: See a specimen in Aulus Gellius, where this parodist reproaches Plato for having given a high price for a book, whence he drew his n.o.ble dialogue of the Timaeus. Lib. iii. c. 17.]

[Footnote 293: See Spanheim Les Cesars de L'Empereur Julien in his "Preuves," Remarque 8. Sallier judiciously observes, "Il peut nous donner une juste idee de cette sorte d'ouvrage, mais nous ne savons pas precis.e.m.e.nt en quel tems il a ete compose;" no more truly than the Iliad itself!]

[Footnote 294: The first edition of this play is a solemn parody throughout. In the preface the author defends it from being, as "maliciously" reported, "a burlesque on the loftiest parts of Tragedy, and designed to banish what we generally call fine writing from the stage." When he afterwards quotes parallel pa.s.sages from popular plays which he has parodied, he does so saying, "whether this sameness of thought and expression which I have quoted from them proceeded from an agreement in their way of thinking, or whether they have borrowed from our author, I leave the reader to determine!"]

[Footnote 295: Les Parodies du Nouveau Theatre Italien, 4 vols. 1738.

Observations sur la Comedie et sur le Genie de Moliere, par Louis Riccoboni. Liv. iv.]

[Footnote 296: _The Tailors; a Tragedy for Warm Weather_, was originally brought out by Foote in 1767. There had been great disturbances between the master tailors and journeymen about wages at this time; and the author has amusingly worked out the disputes and their consequences in the heroic style of a blank verse tragedy.]

[Footnote 297: Beattie on Poetry and Music, p. 111.]

[Footnote 298: I have arranged many facts, connected with the present subject, in the fifth chapter of "The Literary Character," in the enlarged and fourth edition, 1828.]

[Footnote 299: A physician of eminence has told us of the melancholy termination of the life of a gentleman who in a state of mental aberration cut his throat; the loss of blood restored his mind to a healthy condition; but the wound unfortunately proved fatal.]

[Footnote 300: It would be polluting these pages with ribaldry, obscenity, and blasphemy, were I to give specimens of some hymns of the Moravians and the Methodists, and some of the still lower sects.]

[Footnote 301: There is a rare tract, ent.i.tled "Singing of Psalmes, vindicated from the charge of Novelty," in answer to Dr. Russell, Mr.

Marlow, &c., 1698. It furnishes numerous authorities to show that it was practised by the primitive Christians on almost every occasion. I shall directly quote a remarkable pa.s.sage.]

[Footnote 302: In the curious tract already referred to, the following quotation is remarkable; the scene the fancy of MAROT pictured to him, had _anciently occurred_. St. Jerome, in his seventeenth Epistle to Marcellus, thus describes it: "In Christian villages little else is to be heard but Psalms; for which way soever you turn yourself, either you have the ploughman at his plough singing _Hallelujahs_, the weary brewer refres.h.i.+ng himself with a _psalm_, or the vine-dresser chanting forth somewhat of _David's_."]

[Footnote 303: Mr. Douce imagined that this alludes to a common practice at that time among the Puritans of _burlesquing the plain chant_ of the Papists, by adapting vulgar and ludicrous music to psalms and pious compositions.--_Ill.u.s.t. of Shakspeare_, i. 355. Mr. Douce does not recollect his authority. My idea differs. May we not conjecture that the intention was the same which induced Sternhold to versify the Psalms, to be sung instead of lascivious ballads; and the most popular tunes came afterwards to be adopted, that the singer might practise his favourite one, as we find it occurred in France?]

[Footnote 304: Ed. Philips in his "Satyr against Hypocrites," 1689, alludes to this custom of the pious citizens--

---- Singing with woful noise, Like a cracked saint's bell jarring in the steeple, Tom Sternhold's wretched p.r.i.c.k-song to the people.

Now they're at home and have their suppers eat, When "Thomas," cryes the master, "come, repeat."

And if the windows gaze upon the street, To sing a Psalm they hold it very meet.

[Footnote 305: Crescembini, at the close of "La bellezza della Volgar Poesia." Roma, 1700.]

[Footnote 306: History of the Middle Ages, ii. 584. See also Mr. Rose's Letters from the North of Italy, vol. i. 204. Mr. Hallam has observed, that "such an inst.i.tution as the society _degli Arcadi_ could at no time have endured public ridicule in England for a fortnight."]

[Footnote 307: Niceron, vol. xliii., Art. Porta.]

[Footnote 308: See Tiraboschi, vol. vii. cap. 4, _Accademie_, and Quadrio's _Della Storia e della Ragione d'ogni Poesia._ In the immense receptacle of these seven quarto volumes, printed with a small type, the curious may consult the voluminous Index, art. _Accademia_.]

[Footnote 309: Ugo Foscolo was born in Padua, where he achieved an early success as an author. He entered the Italian army in 1805, but soon quitted it, and became Professor of Literature in the university of Pavia; but his lectures alarmed Napoleon by their boldness of speech, and he suppressed the professors.h.i.+p. He came to England in 1815, and was exceedingly well received; he wrote much in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, besides publis.h.i.+ng several books. He died in 1827, and is buried at Chiswick.]

[Footnote 310: Edinburgh Review, No. 67-159, on Jacobite Relics.]

[Footnote 311: In a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Mercurius Menippeus; the Loyal Satyrist, or Hudibras in Prose," published in 1682, and said to be "written by an unknown hand in the time of the late Rebellion, but never till now published," is the following curious notice of Sir Samuel, which certainly seems to point him out as the prototype of Hudibras;

Whose back, or rather burthen, show'd As if it stoop'd with its own load.

The author is speaking of Cromwell, and says, "I wonder how _Sir Samuel Luke_ and he should clash, for they are both cubs of the same ugly litter. This Urchin is as ill carved as that Goblin painted. The grandam bear sure had blistered her tongue, and so left him unlicked. He looks like a snail with his house upon his back, or the Spirit of the Militia with a natural snapsack, and may serve both for tinker and budget too.

Nature intended him to play at bowls, and therefore clapt a bias upon him. One would think a mole had crept into his carca.s.s before 'tis laid in the churchyard, and rooted in it. He looks like the visible tie of aeneas bolstering up his father, or some beggarwoman endorsed with her whole litter, and with a child behind."]

[Footnote 312: Bavius and Maevius were Dr. Martyn, the well-known author of tha dissertation on the aeneid 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.]

[Footnote 313: There is great reason to doubt the authenticity of this information concerning a Devons.h.i.+re 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.]

[Footnote 314: He was buried outside the church in the angle at the north-west corner, where the wall originally stood which bounded the churchyard.]

[Footnote 315: A monument was put up in the church in 1786 by a subscription among the paris.h.i.+oners. It exhibits a bust of Butler and a rhyming inscription in very bad taste.]

[Footnote 316: See Quarterly Review, vol. viii. p. 111, where I found this quotation justly reprobated.]

[Footnote 317: This work, published in 1795, is curious for the materials the writer's reading has collected.]

[Footnote 318: The case of King Charles the First truly stated against John Cook, Master of Gray's Inn, in Butler's "Remains."]

[Footnote 319: "Prospectus and specimen of an intended national work by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk; harness and collar makers; intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table." The real author of Mr.

Whistlecraft's specimen was the Right Hon. J. Hookham Frere, who has the merit of having first introduced the Italian burlesque style into our literature. Lord Byron composed his "Beppo" confessedly after this example. "It is," he writes, "a humorous poem; in, and after, the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft;" who published this "specimen"

only, which was little read.]

[Footnote 320: The original edition was printed in 1757 without engravings. They occur only in that which is described in our text.]

[Footnote 321: I have usually found the School-Mistress printed without numbering the stanzas; to enter into the present view it will be necessary for the reader to do this himself with a pencil-mark.]

[Footnote 322: 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.]

[Footnote 323: Morant in the "Biographia Britannica." This gross blunder has been detected by Mr. Lodge. The other I submit to the reader's judgment. A contemporary letter-writer, alluding to the flight of Arabella and Seymour, which alarmed the Scottish so much more than the English party, tells us, among other reasons of the little danger of the political influence of the parties themselves over the people, that not only their pretensions were far removed, but he adds, "They were UNGRACEFUL both in their _persons_ and their _houses_." Morant takes the term UNGRACEFUL in its modern acceptation; but in the style of that day, I think UNGRACEFUL is opposed to GRACIOUS in the eyes of the people, meaning that their _persons_ and their _houses_ were not considerable to the mult.i.tude. Would it not be absurd to apply _ungraceful_ in its modern sense to a _family_ or _house_? And had any political danger been expected, a.s.suredly it would not have been diminished by the want of _personal grace_ in these lovers. I do not recollect any authority for the sense of _ungraceful_ in opposition to _gracious_, but a critical and literary antiquary has sanctioned my opinion.]

[Footnote 324: "She was the only child of Charles Stuart, fifth earl of Lennox, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Cavendish of Hardwick, in Derbys.h.i.+re, and is supposed to have been born in 1577. Her father, unhappily for her, was of the royal blood both of England and Scotland; for he was a younger brother of King Henry, father of James the Sixth, and great-grandson through his mother, who was daughter of Margaret, Queen of Scots, to our Henry the Seventh." Such is Lodge's account of "this ill.u.s.trious misfortune," which made the life of a worthy lady wretched.]

[Footnote 325: A circ.u.mstance which we discover by a Spanish memorial, when our James the First was negotiating with the cabinet of Madrid. He complains of Elizabeth's treatment of him; that the queen refused to give him his father's estate in England, nor would deliver up his uncle's daughter, Arabella, to be married to the Duke of Lennox, at which time the queen _uso palabras muy asperas y de mucho disprechia contra el dicho Rey de ascocia;_ she used harsh words, expressing much contempt of the king. Winwood's Mem. i. 4.]

[Footnote 326: See a very curious letter, the CCXCIX. of Cardinal d'Ossat, vol. v. The catholic interest expected to facilitate the conquest of England by joining their armies with those of "Arbelle;" and the commentator writes that this English lady had a party, consisting of all those English who had been the judges or the avowed enemies of Mary of Scotland, the mother of James the First.]