XVIII. TURE. CHAP. predecessors, and resolutely shut the door of patronage in the face of genius. The twenty years of his adLITERA ministration were to them a bleak and barren winter. Looking as he did solely to the House of Commons and to the Court, and measuring the value of every thing by Parliamentary votes or Royal smiles, he despised a literature which the King despised, and which had no influence upon the Legislature. Books, he seems to have thought, were fit only for idle and useless men. The writers of books, therefore, he left to dig, to beg, or to starve. It is truly painful to read of the wretched privations, and still more wretched shifts, to which men of such abilities as Savage were exposed. Their books, their linen, were most frequently in pawn. To obtain a good meal was a rare and difficult achievement. They were sometimes reduced, for want of house-room, to wander all night about the streets. They had to sleep on a bulk in summer, and in winter amidst the ashes of a glass-house. "In this manner," says Johnson, "were passed "those days and those nights which nature had "enabled them to have employed in elevated "speculations, useful studies, or pleasing convers❝ation. On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass"house, among thieves and beggars, was to be "found the author of The Wanderer;' the man "of exalted sentiments, extensive views, and cu"rious observations; the man whose remarks on "life might have assisted the statesman, and whose "ideas of virtue might have enlightened the "moralist." Johnson, who has commemorated CHA P. these calamities, himself for many years LITERA had shared XVIII. them. With Savage he had rambled houseless in the streets, with Savage he had struggled against TURE. the pangs of cold and hunger. Nor was this suffering all. Whenever it was relieved by a sudden supply of money, there commonly ensued a scene of the wildest riot and profusion. There was a constant alternation between beggary and extravagance. The half-starved poet rushed with his only guinea to the tavern, to enjoy one night of splendid luxury, while his shirt was still in pawn, and his cravat of paper; thus the subsistence for a thrifty week was lavished at a single revel; and as poverty had first produced dissipation, so did dissipation prolong and perpetuate poverty. Such, according to the testimony even of their friends, was the life of Savage and of Boyse. It may easily be supposed that the Minister who dried up the stream of patronage would be no favourite with its former objects. Almost every writer of any name, either from principle or resentment, joined the ranks of Opposition, and were marshalled to the onset by the superior genius of Bolingbroke and Pulteney. The motives and measures of Sir Robert were attacked without moderation, and misrepresented without shame; and, in estimating the character of that Minister, we should, therefore, never fail to allow largely for * Johnson's Life of Savage. See also Chalmers' Life of Boyse. TURE. CHAP. calumnious falsehoods. Nay more, it is remarkable,' XVIII. and highly to the honour of Walpole, that those LITERA- véry measures against which the loudest clamours were raised, and which were selected by his adversaries as the special ground of their invective—such as Wood's Halfpence in Ireland, the Malt Tax in Scotland, and the Excise Bill in England,-when rightly and calmly examined, appear not only free from blame, but worthy of praise. But, even in making such great deductions from the exaggerations of a party press, we must condemn Walpole for neglecting and slighting its power. He did not see the danger in time, nor provide his remedy with skill. "No man," says a contemporary, ever "set the press to work with so little judgment as "he did. He looked upon writing to be a mecha“nical kind of business; and he took up with the "first pen that he could find in public offices, or "whom he could oblige by private liberality." He hired his authors as he would his ditchers, holding no personal communication with them, but placing them, in general, under the guidance of Paxton, solicitor to the Treasury, or of other Ministerial subalterns; persons who in general may be observed to have more ignorance of and contempt for literature, than any other class of gentlemen. How could Walpole have expected much popular effect from such mercenary drudges as his party writers? Were these the men to stem the eloquence * Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 15. XVIII. of Bolingbroke, or retort the irony of Swift? Some CHA P. pamphlets of considerable power were, indeed, contributed in defence of the administration by Lord LITERAHervey and Sir William Yonge; but, with a few TURE.. exceptions, it may be said that all the talent and ingenuity were with the Opposition writers, and that the public mind was gradually and imperceptibly won over to their sentiments. The change was slow, but complete and universal; and thus Sir Robert Walpole's neglect of the public press may be classed amongst the foremost causes of his unpopularity and fall. Queen Caroline, on the contrary, often wished to befriend learned and literary men; but, being thwarted in that respect both by the King and by the Minister, her wishes were seldom effectual, except in cases of church patronage. However, as her natural sweetness of temper made her unwilling to send any one discontented from her presence, she appears sometimes to have given promises, or at least raised expectations, that were not afterwards fulfilled. Swift, especially, conceived that he had the strongest reason to complain of her and Lady Suffolk; but his accusations are, as usual, clouded with spleen and satire. He was pining in his Irish Deanery, to which neither the dignity of his station, nor the flattery of his dependants, could ever reconcile him. Every letter from his friends in England recalled a brighter scene, and kindled his dormant regret. "After all," he writes to Gay, "this hum-drum way of life might be passable CHAP. LITERA- enough, if you would let me alone. I shall not "be able to relish my wine, my parsons, my horses, "nor my gardens for three months, until the spirit you have raised shall be dispossessed." In 1726, he, for the first time since the death of Queen Anne, made a visit to England, apparently not unwilling to tender or accept overtures of reconciliation with the Court. He found Pope and Gay intimate with Lady Suffolk; he speedily became the friend of their friend; and this was a channel of communication with her mistress, then Princess of Wales. Yet Swift declares that, when the Princess wished to see him, she sent "at least nine "times" before he would obey her summons. When at length he did come, she received him very graciously. He began the conversation by telling her, that he was informed Her Royal Highness loved to see odd persons; and that, having sent for a wild boy from Germany, she had a curiosity to see a wild Dean from Ireland.t His powers of wit fully atoned for his want of courtly manners; and, during the few months of his stay, he became no unfrequent visitor at Leicester House. With Walpole also, the Dean, by means of Lord Peterborough, obtained an interview, on the plea of laying before him the real state of Ireland. The Letter of January 8. 1723. The "wild + Swift to Lady E. Germaine, January 8. 1733. "boy from Germany " was found in the woods of Hanover, in 1725, and considered a great phenomenon. See a note to Swift's Works, vol. xiii. p. 197. Swift to Lord Peterborough, April 28. 1726. |