HENRY JAMES PYE.

(1790-1813.)

"The monarch, mute till then, exclaimed, What, what?
Pye come again! No more—no more of that!"

"THE VISION OF JUDGMENT."

PYE succeeded Warton as Laureate; but for that fact his name would be forgotten. He wrote several second-rate books on uninteresting topics, composed a quantity of tedious rhyme which he meant for poetry, was Member for Berks, and spoke in the House of Commons on three several occasions.

"But hold!' exclaims a friend, 'here's some neglect ;
This, that, and t'other line seem incorrect,'

What then? the selfsame blunder Pope has got,
And careless Dryden. Aye, but Pye has not.
Indeed, 'tis granted, faith! but what care I?
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye."

Byron said of him that he was eminently respectable in everything but his poetry. This, indeed, appears to have been the case, but certainly affords no reasonable explanation of his appointment to the office of Laureate.

Pye was descended from an ancient family, and one of his ancestors, Sir Robert Pye, was immortalised by Ben Jonson. He was auditor of the Exchequer in 1618, and

in that capacity should have paid Ben his salary as Laureate. This duty was very irregularly performed; and at a time when poor Jonson was more than usually pressed by his creditors, he wrote a long petition, or, as he called it,

"My woful cry

To Sir Robert Pye;

And that he will venture

To send my debenture.
Tell him his Ben

Knew the time when
He loved the Muses;
Though now he refuses
To take apprehension
Of a year's pension,
And more, is behind;
Put him in mind
Christmas is near."

The son of this Sir Robert Pye married a daughter of the patriot, Hampden, from which union was descended the subject of this notice, who was born in London, on the 10th July, 1745, and was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was made a D.C.L. in 1772.

On succeeding to his paternal estates, he found them overwhelmed with debts, which he was, however, under no legal obligation to discharge, but he honourably sold much of the property to satisfy his father's creditors, and shortly afterwards suffered a still further loss from a fire. He held a commission in the Berks Militia, and in 1784 engaged in a contested election for the representation of that county in the House of Commons.

He was made Laureate in 1790, and two years afterwards was appointed one of the police magistrates of London. He was the author of The Democrat, The

Aristocrat, The Progress of Refinement, an epic poem entitled Alfred, and some translations from Homer, Aristotle, and Pindar; but his most interesting book is doubtless the Comments the Commentators on

Shakespeare. This work is dated from Queen Square, Westminster, and is dedicated to John Penn, Esq., of Stoke Park.

In this he deals somewhat severely with the Editors of Shakespeare, more especially with Malone and Steevens. The rage for everything Shakespearean was at its height about this time, partly from Garrick's intelligent efforts to make him popular on the stage, and partly no doubt from the rapidly increasing class of readers who could obtain access to good editions of his works.

Since Nicholas Rowe had first edited Shakespeare in 1709, numerous other editions had appeared, and Pope, Dr. Johnson, Warburton, Steevens, Malone, and others had given the world the benefit of their opinions and notes on the great dramatist, whose text frequently suffered from the over zeal of the editors.

In the Westminster Magazine for October, 1773, appeared an amusing list of the Shakespeare restorers who had succeeded each other up to that period, and it gives a tolerably correct idea of the manner in which each author had dealt with the subject:

SHAKESPEARE'S BEDSIDE.

"Old Shakespeare was sick; for a doctor he sent ;
But 'twas long before any one came;

Yet at length, his assistance Nic Rowe did present:
Sure all men have heard of his name.

"As he found that the poet had tumbled the bed,
He smooth'd it as well as he could;

He gave him an anodyne, comb'd out his head,
But did his complaint little good.

Dr. Pope to incision at once did proceed,
And the bard for the simples he cut ;
For his regular practice was always to bleed,
Ere the fees in his pocket he put.

"Next Tibbald advanced, who at best was a quack,
And dealt but in old woman's stuff;

Yet he caused the physician of Twick'nham to pack,
And the patient grew cheerful enough.

"One Warburton then, though allied to the Church,
Produced his alterative stores;

But his med'cines so oft left the case in the lurch,
That Edwards kicked him out of doors.

"Next Johnson arrived to the patient's relief,
And ten years he had him in hand;
But, tired of his task, 'tis the general belief
He left him before he could stand.

"Now Steevens came loaded with black-letter books,
Of fame more desirous than pelf;

Such reading, observers might read in his looks,
As no one e'er read but himself.

"Then Warner, by Plautus and Glossary known,
And Hawkins, historian of sound;
Then Warton and Collins together came on,
For Greek and potations renown'd.

"The cooks the more numerous, the worse is the broth,
Says a proverb I well can believe;

And yet to condemn them untried I am loth,
So at present shall laugh in my sleeve."

The Shakespeare mania culminated in Ireland's impudent but clever forgeries, which deceived many learned and acute critics of the day; and when Ireland prevailed upon Sheridan to produce Vortigern at Drury Lane, in 1796, Mr. Pye wrote a prologue to the tragedy, but as it expressed a doubt about the authenticity, it was laid aside

to make place for one written by Sir James Bland Burgess. This commenced with a bold assertion that the piece about to be performed was the work of Shakespeare, and demanded the respectful attention of the audience to it on that account.

The piece utterly broke down the first night, and when the imposition was discovered, there were some bitter caricatures and satires published at Ireland's expense; one of these was a portrait of the forger, grasping a volume of Shakespeare, with a motto, taken from the Maid of the Mill:

"Such cursed assurance

Is past all endurance,"

and the following parody of Dryden's Epigram on Milton, supposed to have been written by William Mason :—

"Four forgers, born in one prolific age,
Much critical acumen did engage;

The first* was soon by Doughty Douglas scar'd,
Tho' Johnson would have screen'd him had he dar'd.
“The next† had all the cunning of a Scot

The third, invention, genius-nay, what not?
Fraud now exhausted, only could dispense

To her fourth son,§ their threefold impudence."

It is said that Ireland was so enraged at the publication of this caricature, that he broke the shop windows where it was exposed for sale.

After Vortigern and Rowena had been once played, and the audience had shown in the most unmistakable manner their disbelief in its authenticity, and contempt for its merits, Ireland yet had the audacity to urge Sheridan and Kemble to have a second performance, but

* Lauder. † Macpherson.

Chatterton.

§ Ireland.