Voltaire's objection to that fine episode was, that death and sin were non-existents.-Spence. Ambrose Philips was a neat dresser, and very vain.In a conversation between him, Congreve, Swift, and others, the discourse ran a good while on Julius Cæsar. After many things had been said to the purpose, Ambrose asked what sort of a person they supposed Julius Cæsar was? He was answered, that from medals, &c., it appeared that he was a small man, and thin-faced.—" Now, for my part," said Ambrose," I should take him to have been of a lean make, pale complexion, extremely neat in his dress; and five feet seven inches high:" an exact description of Philips himself. Swift, who understood good breeding perfectly well, and would not interrupt anybody while speaking, let him go on, and when he had quite done, said; “And I, Mr. Philips, should take him to have been a plump man, just five feet five inches high; not very neatly dressed, in a black gown with pudding-sleeves."-Dr. Young. Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers; until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The duchess showed me a diamond necklace (which Lady Di. used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle.-Dr. Young. Lord Granville had long wanted to pass an evening with Mr. Pope when he at last did so, Mr. P. said that the two hours were wholly taken up by his lordship, in debating and settling, how the first verse in the Æneid was to be pronounced and whether we should say Cicero or Kikero! This is what is meant in the two lines inserted in the Dunciad, on those learned topics.-Dr. Warburton. FOURTH MEMORANDUM BOOK, 1758. OLD Cibber's brother, at Winchester College, in Doctor Young's time, was reckoned ingenious as well as loose, his conduct was so immoral that even Colley used to reprove him. His varying at school, Quam pulchrum est digito monstrari, et dicier hic est ; He was a vile rake afterwards, and in the greatest distress; Colley used to reprove him for it. He told Dr. Sim. Burton, on a visit, "that he did not know any sin he had not been guilty of but one, which was avarice; and if the doctor would give him a guinea, he would do his utmost to be guilty of that too.”—Dr. Young. As to please in the world, people don't mind what is right, but what is in fashion; so in Gardening, to please in laying out a friend's grounds, one must not mind what the place requires, so much as how to adapt the parts, as well as one can, to what he wants.-Spence. There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall, that arrogantly called itself" The World." Lord Stanhope, then (now Lord Chesterfield) Lord Herbert, &c. &c. were members. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the glasses, by each member after dinner; once when Dr. Young was invited thither, the doctor would have declined writing, because he had no diamond: Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately "Accept a miracle, instead of wit; See two dull lines, with Stanhope's pencil writ." Dr. Young. The title of my poem (Night Thoughts) not affected; for I never compose but at night, except sometimes when I am on horseback.-Dr. Young. 66 Quid dices de me quando reverteris in patriam tuam ?” said Dr. King to a Swede who had resided in Oxford some time for his studies (with an air of anxious and proud expectation)" Dicam, Insignissime Vir,-te esse magnum Grammaticum," said the Swede. The doctor turned away quite mortified and chop-fallen.-Mr. H(ooke,) Jun. END OF SUPPLEMENTAL ANECDOTES. TH ADDITIONAL NOTES. P. 7, Southcote. HIS anecdote is related in different terms in Ruffhead's life of Pope, p. 509. P. 18, Wycherley, &c.-In a letter to Mr. Blount, dated 21 January, 1718, Pope hints at this anecdote, and makes the following addition: "The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to his bed-side, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request, the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her:- My dear, it is only this, that you will never marry an old man again:' I cannot help remarking, that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour. Mr. Wycherley showed his, even in this last compliment, though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms." P. 34, Dr. Clarke.-In a letter of Ramsay's to the younger Racine, is the following very curious passage, which has been already pointed out by Dr. Joseph Warton, Essay on Pope, vol. ii. p. 180. "M. Le Chevalier Newton, grand géométre et nullement métaphysicien, étoit persuadé de la vérité de la religion: mais il voulut raffiner sur d'anciennes erreurs Orientales, et renouvella l'Arianisme par l'organe de son fameux disciple et interprête, M. Clarke; qui m'avoua quelque tems avant que de mourir, après plusieurs conférences que j'avois eues avec lui, combien il se repentoient d'avoir fait imprimer son ouvrage. Je fus témoin, il y a douze ans, à Londres, des derniers sentimens de ce modeste et vertueux Docteur."— Euvres de L. Racine. tom. i. p. 233. U P. 114-15, Garth, &c.—Of Garth, Pope says in his letters: "The best natured of men, Sir Samuel Garth, has left me in the truest concern for his loss. His death was very heroical, and yet unaffected enough to have made a saint or philosopher famous. But ill tongues, and worse hearts, have branded his last moments, as wrongfully as they did his life with irreligion. You must have heard many tales upon this subject: but if ever there was a good Christian, without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth."-It was finely said of Garth, that no physician knew his art more, nor his trade less. P. 139, Parnell, &c.-Ruffhead, on the authority of Warburton, has given a different account of the cause which led to Parnell's intemperance: "When Parnell had been introduced by Swift to Lord Treasurer Oxford, and had been established in his favour by the assistance of Pope, he soon began to entertain ambitious views. The walk he chose to shine in was popular preaching: he had talents for it, and began to be distinguished in the mob places of Southwark and London, when the queen's sudden death destroyed all his prospects, and at a juncture when famed preaching was the readiest road to preferment. This fatal stroke broke his spirits; he took to drinking, became a sot, and soon finished his course." P. 258, Rowe.-Mrs. Oldfield used to say: "The best school she had ever known, was only hearing Rowe read her part in his tragedies." |