432 NATIONAL TASTE FOR MUSIC GONE OUT. [1709-1742. of what a man in humble life could do for the revival of that love of good music which had been sleeping for a century. Over his coal-shed in Clerkenwell, Thomas Britton, who literally carried a sack, assembled the best amateurs and professional musicians; and to his concert-loft, ascended by ladder-stairs from the exterior, came the high-born to listen, while the honest man exulted to have Handel sitting at the harpsichord, whilst he himself touched the viol-de-gamba. The humble tradesman was also a collector of rare books, and was as well known to Hearne, the antiquary, as to Pepusch, the doctor of music. Hughes, a poet, justly placed by Swift "among the Mediocribus, in prose as well as verse," has eight lines, " Under the Print of Tom Britton, the Musical Small-Coal Man," which thus conclude: "Let useless pomp behold, and blush to find Thomas Britton. Intellectual activity in every department of knowledge-A Reading Public-Poetical translations of classical authors-Pope's Homer-The popular element shown in the attacks of the wits upon some pursuits of learning-Battle of the Books-Pope's ridicule of DennisMartinus Scriblerus-Small Poets-The Dunciad-Commentators-Public Schools-Universities Travelling-Entomologists and Florists-The abuses of knowledge only deserving the poet's ridicule-The popular element in the mental philosophy of the age-LockeCharacter of Swift's genius-Tale of a Tub-Gulliver's Travels-Robinson Crusoe -Defoe. HOWEVER low, by comparison with modern times, might be the state of popular enlightenment in the reign of Anne, and in the reigns of the two first sovereigns of the House of Brunswick, the amount of intellectual activity in every department of knowledge was very remarkable. In literature there was evidently forming what Coleridge laughs at-"a Reading Public." He has well described the process of the change from books for the few to books for the many: "In times of old, books were as religious oracles; as literature advanced, they next became venerable preceptors; they then descended to the rank of instructive friends; and, as their number increased, they sank still lower to that of entertaining companions." They were approching this latter state in the early part of the eighteenth century. Again, Coleridge says: "Poets and philosophers, rendered diffident by their very number, addressed themselves to learned readers;' then aimed to conciliate the graces of 'the candid reader;' till, the critic still rising as the author sank, the amateurs of literature were erected into a municipality of Judges, and addressed as 'the Town.'"+ Yet, whatever evils might result, "Biographia Literaria," vol. i. p. 58. VOL. V. + Ibid, p. 60. FY 434 TRANSLATIONS OF CLASSICAL AUTHORS. [1709-1742. or be supposed to result, in the comparative discouragement of the higher branches of learning by this enlargement of the circle of knowledge, the immediate consequence was to produce a very marked adaptation of the quality of literature to the wants of the purchasers in an extended market. We doubt very much if the quality were lowered, except in the opinion of some who thought that the "Pierian spring" was not to be tasted except by those who drank deep. One of the most signal proofs of the extension of reading is furnished by the number of poetical translations of classical authors. Dryden had translated Juvenal and Virgil, just before the end of the seventeenth century. Creech had published his translation of Lucretius in the same period, and had obtained the praise of Dryden. In 1715, Pope issued his first volume of Homer's Iliad. It was then that Addison, in the true spirit of a scholar who desired no exclusive possession of the riches of knowledge, thus wrote:"When I consider myself as a British Freeholder, I am in a particular manner pleased with the labours of those who have improved our language with the translation of old Latin and Greek authors, and by that means let us into the knowledge of what passed in the famous governments of Greece and Rome. We have already most of their historians in our own tongue and what is still more for the honour of our language, it has been taught to express with elegance the greatest of their poets in each nation. The illiterate among our countrymen may learn to judge from Dryden's Virgil of the most perfect epic performance: and those parts of Homer which have already been published by Mr. Pope give us reason to think that the Iliad will appear in English with as little disadvantage to that immortal poem." This generous praise was bestowed after there had been a difference between Pope and Addison as to Tickell's rival attempt at a version of Homer. In the same paper of the "Freeholder," it was stated that the translation of Lucan's Rowe. Pharsalia "is now in the hands of Mr. Rowe, who has already given the world some admirable specimens of it." Between 1715 and 1725, Pope completed the Iliad and the Odyssey. Never was literary labour in those times more abundantly recompensed. Pope received nearly nine thousand pounds. from his subscribers and from his publisher, as his clear gain from these undertakings. The subscribers to his guinea volumes in quarto were the great and the wealthy. It was no humiliation to the poet to have much larger sums sent him than the price of his books, by the court and by some of his noble friends. But the bookseller would not have furnished all the subscription copies at his own expense, besides paying a large sum for the copyright, had there not been " a reading public." Homer was printed in duodecimo; and Bernard Lintot, we may "Freeholder," No. 40. 1709-1742.] THE POPULAR ELEMENT IN CONTROVERSY. 435 hope, was paid in more substantial coin than Pope's gratitude for his liberality. The controversial and sarcastic spirit in which Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and some lesser humorists and wits, dealt with matters of literature and learning, of art and science, displays the popular element that had become a characteristic of authorship. Until the subjects upon which ridicule is exercised come to be somewhat known and talked about, the ridicule is pointless. But a very superficial acquaintance with the higher objects of knowledge and taste would enable the reader of the "Battle of the Books," of the "Memoirs of Scriblerus," of the "Dunciad," of Gulliver in Laputa, to laugh at the whole tribe of grammarians, virtuosi, critics, projectors. Pope told Spence that "the design of the Memoirs of Scriblerus was to have ridiculed all the false tastes in learning, under the character of a man of capacity enough, that had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously in each. It was begun by a club of the greatest wits of the age"* This sort of ridicule went on for forty years, till "the greatest wits of the age were all silenced by the greater antic," who might say, "where be your gibes now?" But the gibes are still read, whilst the matters which gave birth to the gibes are well nigh forgotten. Few care for the controversy between Bentley and Boyle, about the comparative merits of the ancients and moderns, and the authenticity of the "Epistles of Phalaris." The critical student may have read with wonder the "Dissertation" in which Bentley demolished his antagonists with unbounded learning and irresistible logic. The popular reader cares nothing for the quarrel, except to laugh over the comic satire of Swift in the "Battle of the Books." The ancient and the modern volumes have been fighting in St. James's Library, when "the day being far spent, and the numerous forces of the moderns halfinclining to a retreat, there issued forth from a squadron of their heavy-armed foot a captain whose name was Bentley, the most deformed of all the moderns." Scaliger encounters Bentley, and thus assails him: "The malignity of thy temper perverteth nature; thy learning makes thee more barbarous; thy study of humanity more inhuman; thy converse among poets more grovelling, miry and dull." This is sheer abuse; and if all were such, no one would now turn to the "Battle of the Books." But there are passages of exquisite force and humour, such as the dialogue between the spider and the bee; and of inimitable burlesque, such as the mortal fight in which Boyle slays Bentley and his ally Wotton : "So Wotton fled, so Boyle pursued. But Wotton, heavy-armed and slow of foot, began to slack his course, when his lover Bentley appeared, returning laden with the spoils of the two sleepy ancients. Boyle observed him well, and, soon discovering the helmet and shield of Phalaris his friend, both which he had lately with his own hands new polished and gilt, rage sparkled in his eyes, and, leaving the pursuit after Wotton, he furiously rushed on against this new approacher. Fain would he be revenged on both; but both now fled different ways; and, as a woman in a little house that gets a painful livelihood by spinning, if chance her geese be scattered o'er the common, she courses round the plain from side to side, compelling here and there the stragglers to the flock; they cackle # 66 Anecdotes," p. 8. 436 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS-POPE'S ATTACK ON DENNIS. [1709-1742. loud, and flutter o'er the champaign; so Boyle pursued, so fled this pair of friends : finding at length their flight was vain, they bravely joined, and drew themselves in phalanx First Bentley threw a spear with all his force, hoping to pierce the enemy's breast; but Pallas came unseen, and in the air took off the point and clapped on one of lead, which, after a dead bang against the enemy's shield, fell blunted to the ground. Then Boyle, observing well his time, took up a lance of wondrous length and sharpness; and, as this pair of friends, compacted, stood close side to side, he wheeled him to the right, and, with unusual force, darted the weapon. Bentley saw his fate approach, and, flanking down his arms close to his sides, hoping to save his body, in went the point, passing through arm and side, nor stopped or spent its force till it had also pierced the valiant Wotton, who, going to sustain his dying friend, shared his fate. As when a skilful cook has trussed a brace of woodcocks, he with iron skewers pierces the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to the ribs; so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell, joined in their lives, joined in their deaths: so closely joined that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare. Farewell, beloved, loving pair; few equals have you left behind; and happy and immortal shall you be, if all my wit and eloquence can make you." "The Battle of the Books " was published in 1704. There was a much younger genius at that time writing Pastorals, who listened to the noise of the fray, and perhaps panted for his own day of strife and victory. In 1711 Pope published his "Essay on Criticism." Calm, sensible, modest, as became an author of twenty-two, the poet went out of his way to attack the jealous and suspicious old John Dennis, who laid down laws to the company at Button's, amongst which he had sate in his more prosperous days as the intimate of Dryden and Congreve. Dennis was furious at his portrait "Appius reddens at each word you speak, And stares tremendous, with a threatening eye, Addison, who had not yet come under the lash of the "fierce tyrant," gently rebuked the controversial spirit which Pope first displayed in this poem. In the "Spectator," the "Art of Criticism" is generously praised; but Addison, having said "in our own country a man seldom sets up for a poet without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art," adds, "I am sorry to find that an author, who is very justly esteemed amongst the best judges, has admitted some strokes of this nature into a very fine poem,-I mean the Art of Criticism, which was published some months since, and is a master-piece in its kind."* The systematic depreciation, not only of the reputation of "brothers in the art," but of the studies and pursuits in which they took no especial interest themselves, forms a large portion of the writings of Pope and Swift. Gay and Arbuthnot joined heartily in the fun. The wit and the invective, however amusing and occasionally just, present too often only the ridiculous characteristics of useful and honourable labours, and the one-sided view of men not wholly deserving of contempt. Pope, in his talk with Spence upon the "Memoirs of Scriblerus," says, "the adventure of the shield was designed against Dr. Woodward and the |