Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend;
To me, thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend!
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart;
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.
That awful form, which, so the heavens decree,
Must still be loved and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,

Or, roused by fancy, meets my waking eyes.
If business calls, or crowded courts invite,

Th' unblemish'd statesman seems to strike my sight;

If in the stage I seek to sooth my care,

I meet his soul which breathes in Cato' there;

If pensive to the rural shades I rove,

His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of just and good he reason'd strong,

Clear'd some great truth, or raised some serious song
There patient show'd us the wise course to steer,

A candid censor, and a friend severe;

There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge,) taught us how to die.

RICHARD BENTLEY. 1662-1742

RICHARD BENTLEY, one of the most learned men, and perhaps me greatest classical scholar England has produced, was the son of a farmer near Wakefield, in Yorkshire, and was born in 1662. He was educated at Cambridge, and became chaplain to Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester. In 1692 he was appointed to the lectureship instituted by Boyle, for the defence of the Christian religion, and he delivered a series of very able discourses against atheism, which were highly popular. His next public appearance was in the famous controversy with the Hon. Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, relative to the genuineness of the Greek Epistles of Phalarus. Most of the wits and scholars of that period joined with Boyle against Bentley; but he triumphantly established the position that the epistles are spurious. Though professedly a controversial work, it embodies a mass of accurate information relative to historical facts, antiquities, chronology, and philology, such as, we may safely say, has rarely, if ever, been collected in the same space; and shows how thoroughly digested and familiar was the vast stock of reading which Bent, ley possessed. At the end of the "Dissertation on Phalarus," Bentley denies the genuineness of the "Fables" which bear sop's name.

It would be impossible, in this mere sketch of his life,3 to enumerate all his subsequent works. They were mostly of a classical character, and from the great learning and research which they displayed, established his reputation, not in England only, but on the continent, as the first scholar of his age. In

1 Addison's tragedy of "Cato."

2 See this controversy spoken of on page 342.

3 Read-Dr. Monk's Life of Bentley, a most interesting as well as learned piece of biography: also a life by Hartley Coleridge, in his "Lives of Distinguished Northerns.

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]

one labor, however, he signally failed: it was in his edition of the "Paradise Lost." Assuming that, from the blindness of Milton, and, consequently, from the necessity of his dictating his thoughts to others, many verbal errors must have been made in transcribing, he undertook to make " emendations" without number, in that immortal work. It proved a most signal failure, and showed that, however learned he was in classic lore, he was destitute of true poetic taste and feeling, and could not enter into the lofty conceptions and sublime flights of the great English bard. One of his "emendations" will suffice here. The sublime line,

Bentley renders,

"No light, but rather darkness visible,"

"No light, but rather a transpicuous gloom;"

thus verifying his favorite maxim, that no man was ever written out of his reputation except by himself.

After a life of great literary labor, and enjoying some of the highest honors in the church, this distinguished scholar died on the 14th of July, 1742.

AUTHORITY OF REASON IN RELIGION.

We profess ourselves as much concerned, and as truly as [the deists] themselves are, for the use and authority of reason in con troversies of faith. We look upon right reason as the native lamp of the soul, placed and kindled there by our Creator, to conduct us in the whole course of our judgments and actions. True reason, like its divine Author, never is itself deceived, nor ever deceives any man. Even revelation itself is not shy nor unwilling to ascribe its own first credit and fundamental authority to the test and testimony of reason. Sound reason is the touchstone to distinguish that pure and genuine gold from baser metals; revelation truly divine, from imposture and enthusiasm: so that the Christian religion is so far from declining or fearing the strictest trials of reason, that it everywhere appeals to it; is defended and sup ported by it; and, indeed, cannot continue, in the apostle's description, "pure and undefiled" without it. It is the benefit of reason alone, under the Providence and Spirit of God, that we ourselves are at this day a reformed orthodox church: that we departed from the errors of popery, and that we knew, too, where to stop; neither running into the extravagances of fanaticism, nor sliding into the indifferency of libertinism. Whatsoever, therefore, is inconsistent with natural reason, can never be justly imposed as an article of faith. That the same body is in many places at once; that plain bread is not bread; such things, though they be said with never so much pomp and claim to infallibility, we have still greater authority to reject them, as being contrary to common sense and our natural faculties; as subverting the foundations of all faith, even the grounds of their own credit, and all the principles of civil life.

So far are we from contending with our adversaries about the dignity and authority of reason; but then we differ with them

about the exercise of it, and the extent of its province. For the deists there stop, and set bounds to their faith, where reason, their only guide, does not lead the way further, and walk along before them. We, on the contrary, as Moses was shown by divine power a true sight of the promised land, though himself could not pass over to it, so we think reason may receive from revelation some further discoveries and new prospects of things, and be fully convinced of the reality of them; though itself cannot pass on, nor travel those regions; cannot penetrate the fund of those truths, nor advance to the utmost bounds of them. For there is certainly a wide difference between what is contrary to reason, and what is superior to it and out of its reach.

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE. 1692-1742.

Tuis ardent lover and eulogist of field-sports was born in 1692, and was educated at Oxford. After leaving the university, he settled upon his patrimonial estate in Warwickshire, and occupied his time partly with the duties of a justice of the peace, partly with the active pleasures of the sportsman, and partly with the cultivation of his poetical talents. Hospitable, convivial, and careless of economy, he became involved in debt, and in the latter part of his life, according to the account of his friend Shenstone, the poet, "drank himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind." Thus, most lamentably, was his misery completed, and his end accelerated; and he died in 1742, in the fiftieth year of his age.

Somerville is best known by his poem, entitled the "Chase," which still has considerable popularity. It is written in blank verse, tolerably harmonious, and his descriptions, always accurate, from his own practical knowledge of his subject, are frequently vivid and beautiful. He has also written another rural poem, called "Field-Sports," which describes the amusement of hawking; Hobbinol, or Rural Games," a mock heroic; and many pieces of a miscellaneous character. Of the latter, the lines to Addison show much good feeling, and just appreciation of the character of that great and good man

BEGINNING OF A FOX-HUNT.

Ere yet the morning peep,

Or stars retire from the first blush of day,
With thy far-echoing voice alarm thy pack,
And rouse thy bold compeers. Then to the copse
Thick with entangling grass, or prickly furze,
With silence lead thy many-color'd hounds,

In all their beauty's pride. See! how they range
Dispersed, how busily this way, and that,
They cross, examining with curious nose
Each likely haunt. Hark! on the drag I hear
Their doubtful notes, preluding to a cry
More nobly full, and swell'd with every mouth.
As straggling armies, at the trumpet's voice,

Press to their standard, hither all repair,

And hurry through the woods; with hasty step
Rustling, and full of hope; now driven on heaps
They push, they strive; while from his kennel sneaks
The conscious villain. See! he skulks along,
Sleek at the shepherd's cost, and plump with meals
Purloin'd. So thrive the wicked here below.
Though high his brush he bear, though tipt with white
It gayly shine; yet ere the sun declined
Recall the shades of night, the pamper'd rogue
Shall rue his fate reversed; and at his heels
Behold the just avenger, swift to seize

His forfeit head, and thirsting for his blood.

And now

In vain each earth he tries, the doors are barr'd
Impregnable, nor is the covert safe;

He pants for purer air. Hark! what loud shouts
Re-echo through the groves! he breaks away.
Shrill horns proclaim his flight. Each straggling hound
Strains o'er the lawn to reach the distant pack.
'Tis triumph all and joy. Now, my brave youths,
Now give a loose to the clean generons steed;
Flourish the whip, nor spare the galling spur;
But in the madness of delight, forget

Your fears. Far o'er the rocky hills we range,
And dangerous our course: but in the brave
True courage never fails. In vain the stream
In foaming eddies whirls; in vain the ditch
Wide-gaping threatens death. The craggy steep,
Where the poor dizzy shepherd crawls with care,
And clings to every twig, gives us no pain:
But down we sweep, as stoops the falcon bold
To pounce his prey. Then up the opponent hill,
By the swift motion slung, we mount aloft:
So ships in winter-seas now sliding sink
Adown the steepy wave, then toss'd on high
Ride on the billows, and defy the storm.

LINES ADDRESSED TO ADDISON.

Great bard! how shall my worthless Muse aspire
To reach your praise, without your sacred fire?
When panting virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio' to the virgin's aid;
Presumptuous Folly blush'd, and Vice withdrew
To vengeance yielding her abandon'd crew.
'Tis true, confederate wits their forces join;
Parnassus labors in the work divine:
Yet these we read with too impatient eyes,
And hunt for you through every dark disguise;
In vain your modesty that name conceals,
Which every thought, which every word, reveals;
With like success bright Beauty's Goddess tries
To veil inmortal charms from mortal eyes;

1 Alluding to the initials, c L 1 o, with which Addison signed all his papers in the Spectator.

Her graceful port, and her celestial mien,
To her brave son betray the Cyprian queen;
Odors divine perfume her rosy breast,

She glides along the plain in majesty confess'd.
Hard was the task, and worthy your great mind,
To please at once, and to reform mankind:

Yet, when you write, Truth charms with such address,
Pleads Virtue's cause with such becoming grace,

His own fond heart the guilty wretch betrays,
He yields delighted, and convinced obeys:
You touch our follies with so nice a skill,
Nature and habit prompt in vain to ill.
Nor can it lessen the Spectator's praise,
That from your friendly hand he wears the bays;
His great design all ages shall commend,
But more his happy choice in such a friend.
So the fair queen of night the world relieves,
Nor at the sun's superior honor grieves,
Proud to reflect the glories she receives.
Contending nations ancient Homer claim,
And Mantua glories in her Maro's name;
Our happier soil the prize shall yield to none,
Ardenna's groves shall boast an Addison,
Ye sylvan powers, and all ye rural gods,

That guard these peaceful shades and blest abodes,
For your new guest your choicest gifts prepare,
Exceed his wishes, and prevent his prayer;
Grant him, propitious, freedom, health, and peace,
And as his virtues, let his stores increase.

His lavish hand no deity shall mourn,
The pious bard shall make a just return;
In lasting verse eternal altars raise,

And over-pay your bounty with his praise.

[blocks in formation]

Or the varied life of this eccentric divine, so numerous and able have been the details, that had we room to enter into the consideration of it at length, it would be quite an unnecessary work. We will therefore give but a mere sketch of it, referring the reader for more full biographies to the works mentioned below.1

He was born in Dublin, in 1667, and was educated at Dublin University. At the age of twenty-one he obtained the patronage of Sir William Temple, under whose roof, at Moor Park; in Surrey, he resided as an amanuensis and a companion until the death of his patron in 1698. Here he wrote his celebrated treatise, entitled "The Battle of the Books," against Bentley; and while here he took orders in the church." Upon the death of Temple, he was in

1 Hawkesworth, Sheridan, and Nichols have all prefixed a life of Swift to their edition of bis works. But the best edition is that of Sir Walter Scott, with life, 19 vols. 8vo, of which a second edition has been published. Read also, a life of the same, in the 3d vol. of "Drake's Essays:;" another in "Johnson's Lives," and a very able article in the 27th vol. of the Edinburgh Review.

« ElőzőTovább »