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either Smith or Ducket was guilty of wilful and malicious falsehood.

This controversy brought into view those parts of Smith's life which, with more honour to his name, might have been concealed.

Of Smith I can yet say a little more. He was a man of such estimation among his companions, that the casual censures or praises which he dropped in conversation were considered, like those of Scaliger, as worthy of preservation.

He had great readiness and exactness of criticism, and by a cursory glance over a new composition would exactly tell all its faults and beauties.

He was remarkable for the power of reading with great rapidity, and of retaining with great fidelity what he so easily collected.

He therefore always knew what the present question required; and, when his friends expressed their wonder at his acquisitions, made in a state of apparent negligence and drunkenness, he never discovered his hours of reading or method of study, but involved himself in affected silence, and fed his own vanity with their admiration.

One practice he had, which was easily observed: if any thought or image was presented to his mind, that he could use or improve, he did not suffer it to be lost, but, amidst the jollity of a tavern, or in the warmth of conversation, very diligently committed it to paper.

Thus it was that he had gathered two quires of hints for his new tragedy; of which Rowe, when they were put into his hands, could make, as he says, very little use, but which the collector considered as a valuable stock of materials.

When he came to London, his way of life connected him with the licentious and dissolute; and he affected the airs and gaiety of a man of pleasure; but his dress was always deficient; scholastic cloudiness still hung about him; and his merriment was sure to produce the scorn of his companions.

With all his carelessness, and all his vices, he was one of the murmurers at Fortune; and wondered why he was suffered to

1668-1710.

be

GILBERT WALMSLEY.

57

poor, when Addison was caressed and preferred: nor would a very little have contented him; for he estimated his wants at six hundred pounds a year.

In his course of reading, it was particular that he had diligently perused, and accurately remembered, the old romances of knight-errantry.

He had a high opinion of his own merit, and was something contemptuous in his treatment of those whom he considered as not qualified to oppose or contradict him. He had many frailties; yet it cannot but be supposed that he had great merit, who could obtain to the same play a prologue from Addison, and an epilogue from Prior; and who could have at once the patronage of Halifax and the praise of Oldisworth.

For the power of communicating these minute memorials, I am indebted to my conversation with Gilbert Walmsley, late Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield, who was acquainted both with Smith and Ducket; and declared that, if the tale concerning Clarendon were forged, he should suspect Ducket of the falsehood; "for Rag was a man of great veracity."

Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice.

He was of an advanced age, and I was only yet a boy; yet he never received my notions with contempt. He was a Whig, with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him, and he endured me.

He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from its vices or its follies, but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind; his belief of revelation was unshaken; his learning preserved his principles; he grew first regular, and then pious.

His studies had been so various, that I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great; and what he did not immediately know he could at least

tell where to find. Such was his amplitude of learning, and such his copiousness of communication, that it may be doubted whether a day now passes in which I have not some advantage from his friendship.

At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful and instructive hours, with companions such as are not often found; with one who has lengthened, and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James, whose skill in physic will be long remembered; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend: but what are the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.21

21 Walmsley died in 1771, James in 1776, and Garrick in 1779, in which year Johnson wrote this Life of Smith.

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I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in his 'Lives of the Poets.' You say, sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations." Johnson: "I could not have said more or less. It is the truth; eclipsed, not extinguished; and his death did eclipse; it was like a storm." Boswell: "But why nations? Did his gaiety extend further than his own nation?" Johnson : Why, sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said, if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have gaiety-which they have not. You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful." Beauclerk: "But he is a very unnatural Scotchman." I, however, continued to think the compliment to Garrick hyperbolically untrue. His acting had ceased some time before his death; at any rate, he had acted in Ireland but a short time, at an early period of his life, and never in Scotland. I objected, also, to what appears an anticlimax of praise, when contrasted with the preceding panegyric—“and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure!" "Is not harmless pleasure very tame?" Johnson: "Nay, sir, harmless pleasure is the highest praise. Pleasure is a word of dubious import; pleasure is in general dangerous, and pernicious to virtue; to be able therefore to furnish pleasure that is harmless, pleasure pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess." This was, perhaps, as ingenious a defence as could be made; still, however, I was not satisfied.-BOSWELL by Croker, p. 629.

Of David Garrick, thus accidentally brought before me, I have something to tell that is new. His early life was wild, and his father in his will (which I have seen) makes his wife his executrix, and leaves liberal legacies to all his children-David excepted. The only mention of the actor whose death was to eclipse the gaiety of nations and impoverish the public stock of harmless pleasure is as follows:-"Item, to my son David one shilling." Captain Garrick, the father, was, when he made his will, 1st January, 1736-7, in London. He died three months afterwards. The future actor was then in his twenty-first year.

1668-1710.

ANALYSIS OF POCOCKIUS.

59

In the library at Oxford is the following ludicrous Analysis of Pocockius :

EX AUTOGRAPHO.

[Sent by the Author to Mr. Urry.]

Opusculum hoc, Halberdarie amplissime, in lucem proferre hactenus distuli, judicii tui acumen subveritus magis quam bipennis. Tandem aliquando Oden hanc ad te mitto sublimem, teneram, flebilem, suavem, qualem demum divinus (si Musis vacaret) scripsissit Gastrellus: adco scilicet sublimem ut inter legendum dormire, adeo flebilem ut ridere velis. Cujus elegantiam ut melius inspicias, versuum ordinem et materiam breviter referam. Imus versus de duobus præliis decantatis. 2dus et 3" de Lotharingio, cuniculis subterraneis, saxis, ponto, hostibus, et Asia. 4ths et 5 de catenis, subdibus, uncis, draconibus, tigribus et crocodilis. 6, 7, 8, 913, de Gomorrha, de Babylone, Babele, et quodum domi suæ peregrino. 10", aliquid de quodam Pocockio. 11"", 12", de Syriâ, Solymâ. 13, 14", de Hoseâ, et quercu, et de juvene quodam valde sene. 15", 16", de Etna, et quomodo Etnâ Pocockio fit valde similis. 17", 18", de tubâ, astro, umbrâ, flammis, rotis, Pocockio non neglecto. Cætera de Christianis, Ottomanis, Babyloniis, Arabibus, et gravissimâ agrorum melancholiâ; de Cæsare Flacco, Nestore, et miserando juvenis cujusdam florentissimi fato, anno ætatis suæ centesimo præmaturè abrepto. Que omnia cum accuratè expenderis, necesse est ut oden hanc meam admirandâ planè varietati constare fatearis. Subito ad Batavos proficiscor, lauro ab illis donandus. Prius vero Pembrochienses voco ad certamen Poeticum. Vale.

22

Illustrissima tua deosculor crura,

* Pro Flacco, animo paulo attentiore, scripsissem Marone.

E. SMITH.23

23 In 1751 appeared in 4to., from the shop of F. Newbery, Thales, a Monody, sacred to the memory of Dr. Pococke. In imitation of Spenser. From an authentic Manuscript of Mr. Edmund Smith, formerly of Christ Church, Oxon.' In the advertisement prefixed, the editor states that he "has several other very valuable pieces of Mr. Smith in his possession, which he intends shortly to communicate to the public." There is something of Smith's train of thinking in the poem: it is in the Spenserian stanza.

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