given to sundry fugitive verses, which he contributed to the miscellanies of the day, confirmed his alienation; while the freedom of his principles procured him the intimate friendship of Wilkes, in whose affairs he seems to have taken a zealous interest. Churchill, Lloyd, and Whitbread, the elder Colman, the good-natured Mr. Cambridge, and, doubtless, many other wits and poetasters of Dodsley's set, were amongst his associates and acquaintances; and although he never obtained much distinction as a writer, his claims to admission into the literary circles were cheerfully conceded on all hands.* The first publication by which he attracted notice, was an ardent defence of civil and religious liberty, in a poem, entitled "An Epistle from William Lord Russell to William Lord Cavendish," supposed to have been written by the former on the night before his execution.† This piece was published in 1763, and met with such success as to reach a second edition in a few months. Its reception must be attributed solely to the boldness of its political doctrines, for its literary claims are very slender. But the author makes some compensation for the feeble monotony of his lines, by his vigorous horror of priestly intolerance and kingly tyranny. He was fortunate also in appearing at a moment when such sentiments were certain to cover a multitude of worse sins than indifferent verse. The "North Briton" had only recently opened its * It is not improbable that Mr. Canning may have contributed to the latter part of the collection of poems made by Dodsley, who published nearly all his works; but, after a diligent inquiry on the subject, I cannot trace any evidence of the fact. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine" (Vol. xcvii) says that the Epistle from Lord William Russell to Lord Cavendish is preserved in Dodsley's collection. This is a mistake. No such poem is to be found in the six volumes. Perhaps the writer was led into this error by discovering that Dodsley was the publisher of the epistle. † Noticed, with high commendation, in the "Monthly Review" for 1763. fire upon Lord Bute and the "Auditor," and in the state of And stop the source whence all his power he draws? * * In luxury's lap lie screen'd from cares and pains, The voice which gave, and can resume his crown?” It would be scarcely just to say that this is a fair sample of the poem. There are better lines in itand worse. But Mr. Canning evidently laid more stress on his political opinions than on the vehicle through which they were conveyed. Verse was the fashion of the day, and with enough of taste and education to make, a correct use of so nice an instrument, he selected it as the most popular medium for the expression of popular opinions. The success of the attempt was probably as great as he anticipated. Some passages were praised for their tenderness and pathos: such as the parting address to Lady Rachel Russel, beginning— "Oh! my loved Rachel! all-accomplished fair, Source of my joy, and soother of my care! Whose heavenly virtues and unfading charms Have blessed, through happy years, my peaceful arms!”* But notwithstanding occasional touches of this sort of * It has been supposed, that in this passage Mr. Canning gave vent to his own conjugal feelings; but, unfortunately for this ingenious conjecture, he was not married until five years after the publication of the poem. conventional refinement, the main purpose and surviving interest of the piece must be finally traced to its open and manly advocacy of opinions, which could not at that time be avowed, without a certain risk of odium and persecution. Perhaps to that very circumstance may be attributed a fierce attack, which appeared in the "Critical Review” on his next work-"A Translation of Anti-Lucretius: by George Canning, of the Middle Temple;" published by Dodsley, in 1766. This volume contained an English version of the first three books of Cardinal Polignac's wellknown poem, in which the doctrines of various schools of philosophers, but especially that of Lucretius, were dissected with masterly power, and in a style at once compact and graceful.* Upon the whole, the translation was diffuse, and occasionally careless and inelegant; but the writer in the Review exceeded all reasonable bounds of animadversion, and ran into such outrageous abuse of the book, as to draw an indignant rejoinder from Mr. Canning. The "Critical Review" was notorious for the scurrilous malignity of its articles, which frequently descended to the lowest personalities; and Smollet, who appears to have done his best, or his worst, to deserve the distinction, generally got credit for all papers of an offensive character which appeared in its pages. On this occasion, Mr. Canning attacked him unsparingly with his own weapons, and got the best of the argument, as well * A translation of the first book had been previously made (1757) by Mr. Dobson (the translator into Latin of the " Paradise Lost") and reviewed by Oliver Goldsmith in the "Monthly Review," Vol. xvii., p. 44. See "Prior's Life of Goldsmith," passim. "An Appeal to the Public from the malicious Representations, impudent Falsifications, and unjust Decisions of the anonymous Fabricators of the Critical Review.' By George Canning, of the Middle Temple. Provoco ad populum. Dodsley. 1767.” as of the abuse. But Smollet had no character to lose, and suffered such things with the impunity which attaches to people who cannot be much further damaged by exposure. He belonged to the class of literary undertakers, a numerous body at that time, who were ready to grub at any sort of work for hire, and who were trying new speculations every day, at the manifest cost of decent reputation, in the desperate struggle to keep soul and body together. Smollet-various and shuffling, the harlequin of book-makers-trafficked in this description of ware, as publicly as sordid, cheese-paring Griffiths and his wife, who boarded and lodged their ill-paid critics, by way of starving them both ways into their drudgery.* They all belonged to the same herd; but Mr. Canning, with keen and discriminating scent, singled out the basest of them all-the man who, with some real right to take rank as a genius, or something very near it, degraded himself into a mercenary jobber, who put Garrick into history to propitiate his influence in the greenroom, and stuck the royal arms on the front of his book, to lure high patronage, just as pastrycooks hang out the regal sign over their shop-doors.† Mr. Canning knew how to deal with such shabby venality as it deserved, and not merely scourged it, but treated it with loathing and contumely. 66 * Griffiths boarded Goldsmith in part payment of his articles in the Monthly Review," and Mrs. Griffiths cut and scored them to measure. But this worthy couple, although they seem to have carried the system to perfection, had not the honour of originating it. The booksellers' hack existed in all his nakedness as far back as the Augustan age of Curll, so admirably satirised by Swift. Davenant boarded his women-actresses in Lincoln's-inn Fields; but they were better off than the authors, for he fed them exquisitely, and honoured their caprices with rosa-solis and usquebagh. †The dedication, addressed to Smollet himself, will show the spirit in which this uncompromising brochure is written. "To Tobias Smollett, M. D. Uniformly tenacious of the principles he was nursed in-famous The "Appeal" was followed, in 1767, by a collected edition of his poems, including, amongst other additions, the fourth and fifth books of the "Anti-Lucretius." The introductory address to his early friend and preceptor, Shem Thomson, D.D., opens with a confession of the straits to which he had become reduced by his imprudence, and a resolution to forsake his unprofitable dalliance with the muses, and devote himself to the law; a resolution, unfortunately, which was taken too late. He was at this period only thirty-one years of age. for his stories, histories, and his continual continuations of complete histories, as the single personage with whom the unnamed putters-together of the 'Critical Review' utterly disclaim all manner of connexion (graceless rogues to disown their father)-the ensuing Tractate is, with singular propriety, inscribed by its author." And, as a specimen of the crushing contempt with which the writer treated his hireling critics, the following passage is strikingly characteristic: "I would conclude with a piece of friendly and Christian admonition to these public plunderers, who have too long subsisted by literary rapine upon the spoils of many reputations. It is briefly this, to go back to the place from whence they came, and there to follow the lawful occupations for which they were instituted by art or designed by nature. Their offence, in my opinion, comes within the express letter of the statute of 9th Geo., cap. 22, being 'An Act for the more effectually punishing wicked and evil-disposed persons going armed in disguise, and doing injury and violence to the persons and properties of his Majesty's subjects,' vulgarly called the Black Act. Away then, ye Banditti, while your necks are yet unbroken; but be cautious wherever ye shall handle the honest implements of industry, lest your employer should discover the vile practices ye have been guilty of; for he who knows you would not trust one of you with the cobbling of a shoe, lest he should be pricked by a hobnail, left wilfully sticking up on the inside of the heel-piece." That the writers in the "Critical Review" deserved all this abuse, seems to have been acknowledged by every body. The fugitive publications of the day teem with allusions to their scurrility and injustice, and Churchill charges them with forging deliberate falsehoods: "To Hamilton's the ready lies repair Ne'er was lye made which was not welcome there." The worst of it was, that the innocent were hunted down on bare suspicion, as well as the guilty; and poor Murphy, who never wrote a line in the obnoxious periodical in his life, was gibbeted by Churchill, under the belief that he was one of the gang. |