(and the Italian tradition says it was as loud as thunder.) They put up the stairs in that, but would not attempt any more of them.-R. Mareschal Turenne was not only one of the greatest generals, but one of the best-natured men too, that ever was in the world.—Among several other little domestic examples he gave the following. The general used to have a new pair of stockings every week; his gentleman, whose fee the old ones were, had taken them away in the evening, and had forgot to put any new ones in their place. The next morning the Marshal was to ride out to reconnoitre the enemy, and rose earlier than usual. The servant whose business it was to dress him, was in a great deal of confusion at not finding any stockings. "It's very odd," says the Marshal," that I should be allowed no stockings; but 'tis very lucky that I am obliged to ride out! Here, give me my boots, they'll do as well, nobody will see whether I "_R. have any on or not.' [There is scarce a genteel family at Avignon but has the pictures of Petrarch and Laura in their houses. A lady of that country, who piques herself much on being descended from Laura, took it very ill of Mr. R. that he should say, "Petrarch's love for Laura was only Platonic." Ramsay was obliged to recant the heresy; and write a fable against Platonic Love.-R. The (outward) Rabbi Mr. R. met with in Italy.—What do you think of Moses?—He was a great juggler.—What of Mahomet? Un scelerato.-What of Spinosa? Un scele * There was originally a well for a staircase, and Bernini only put up the stairs in it.—Mr. L. from one of the workmen at St. Peter's in 1751. ratissimo.-What of Jesus? Un grande philosopho.— (Jews in Italy not punished for speaking against Jesus, but punishable for speaking against Moses.)—R. Father Kircher's dissertation on one of the Egyptian obelisks, though there is scarce anything certain in it, is one of the greatest efforts of human imagination.*-R.] "Sacrez-vous vos Rois ?"-" Si nous les sacrons, Monsieur! parbleu, nous les massacrons"—was the answer of Lord Peterborough to the Prince of Celamar.-R. Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia took exceedingly at first, as an occasional play: it discovered the cant terms that were before not generally known, except to the cheats themselves; and was a good deal instrumental in causing that nest of villains to be regulated by public authority. The story it was built on was a true fact.- -Mr. Dennis the Critic. Otway had an intimate friend (one Blackstone), who was shot; the murderer fled toward Dover; and Otway pursued him. In his return, he drank water when violently heated, and so got a fever, which was the death of him.-Dennis. Wycherley was in a bookseller's shop at Bath, or Tunbridge, when Lady Drogheda came in and happened to inquire for the Plain Dealer. A friend of Wycherley's, who stood by him, pushed him toward her, and said, " There's the Plain Dealer, Madam, if you want him?" Wycherley made his excuses; and Lady Drogheda said, " that she loved plain-dealing best." He afterwards visited that lady, and in some time after married her. This proved a great blow to his fortunes; just before the time of his courtship, he was designed for governor to the late Duke of Richmond; and was to have been allowed fifteen hundred pounds a year * The three preceding articles are from MS. B. D from the government. His absence from court in the progress of this amour, and his being yet more absent after his marriage, (for Lady Drogheda was very jealous of him,) disgusted his friends there so much, that he lost all his interest with them. His lady died; he got but little by her and his misfortunes were such, that he was thrown into the Fleet, and lay there seven years. It was then that Colonel Brett got his Plain Dealer to be acted; and contrived to get the king (James the Second) to be there. The colonel attended him thither. The king was mightily pleased with the play, asked who was the author of it; and upon hearing it was one of Wycherley's, complained that he had not seen him for so many years; and inquired what was become of him. The colonel improved this opportunity so well, that the king gave orders his debts should be discharged out of the privy purse. Wycherley was so weak as to give an account only of five hundred pounds: and so was confined almost half a year; till his father was at last prevailed on to pay the rest, between two and three hundred pounds more.-D. [Dryden was generally an extreme sober man. For the last ten years of his life he was much acquainted with Addison, and drank with him more than he ever used to do; probably so far as to hasten his end.—D.*] Even Dryden was very suspicious of Rivals. He would compliment Crown, when a play of his failed, but was cold to him if he met with success. He used sometimes to own that Crown had some genius; but then added, " that his father and Crown's mother were very well acquainted."Old Jacob Tonson. None of our writers have a freer easier way for comedy * Addition from MS. B. than Etherege and Vanbrugh." Now we have named all the best of them,” (after mentioning those two, Wycherley, Congreve, Fletcher, Jonson, and Shakespeare.)-Mr. Pope. 66 Ay, Mr. Tonson, he was ultimus Romanorum ;" (with a sigh.) Speaking of poor Mr. Congreve, who died a year or two before.-P. Garth, Vanbrugh, and Congreve, were the three most honest hearted, real good men, of the poetical members of the kit-cat club.-Pope and Tonson. Addison wrote the four first acts of his Cato abroad ;* at least, they were written, when I met him, accidentally on his return, at Rotterdam.-Tonson. The love-part (in Cato) was flung in after, to comply with the popular taste; and the last act was not written till six or seven years after, when he came home.-Pope. An audience was laid for the Distressed Mother; and when they found it would do, it was practised again, yet more successfully for Cato.-Lord Bolingbroke's carrying his friends to the house, and presenting Booth with a purse of guineas, for so well representing the character of a person "who rather chose to die than see a general for life;" was an accidental piece of good luck, and what carried the success of the play much beyond what they ever expected.-P. Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy afterwards.-P. [Addition from MS. B.] He translated the first book of the Iliad that appeared as Tickel's; and Steele has blurted it out in his angry preface against Tickel.†—P. *Note by Mr. Spence.-He wrote them all five at Oxford, and sent them from thence to Dryden: to my knowledge.-Dr. Young. † It was in a dedication to Congreve, prefixed to an edition of Addison was so eager to be the first name, that he and his friend Sir Richard Steele used to run down even Dryden's character as far as they could. Pope and Congreve used to support it.-Tonson. The worst step Addison ever took, was his accepting the secretary's place. He did it to oblige the Countess of Warwick, and to qualify himself to be owned for her husband.-P. He had thoughts of getting that lady from his first being recommended into the family.-Tonson. Mr. Pope's poem grows on his hands. The first four or five epistles will be on the general principles, or of "The Nature of Man;" and the rest will be on moderation, or “The Use of Things." In the latter part each class may take up three epistles: one, for instance, against Avarice; another against Prodigality; and the third, on the moderate use of Riches; and so of the rest. These two lines contain the main design that runs through the whole: "Laugh where we must; be candid where we can; وو -POPE. Pryor kept everything by him, even to all his school exercises. There is a manuscript collection of this kind in his servant Drift's hands, which contains at least half as much as all his published works. And there are nine or ten copies of verses among them, which I thought much better than several things he himself published. In particular, I remember there was a dialogue of about two hun"The Drummer, or Haunted House;" but I have been unable to procure it.-Mr. Nichols, in a note to his Collection of Poems, vol. iv. says, that Mr. Watts, the printer, told a friend of his, "that the Translation of the First Book of the Iliad was in Tickel's hand writing, but much corrected and interlined by Addison."-Editor. |