in style and conception was the most ingenious and masterly work that ever that arduous topic has produced. In general, to do him justice, he wrote English prose with purity, with ease, and with spirit; in verse, he was occasionally a little quaint, laboured, and inflated; but I never discerned any such vice in his prose. "When I came from College to the Inns of Court, besides the opportunity of seeing him often at Mr. Dyson's house, and with my uncle Dr. Hardinge, I was often his dinner-guest, and generally with him alone. In addition to all his powers, arising from his genius and his eloquence, I had the enjoyment of his portfolio, enriched by capital prints from the most eminent Painters of Italy and Holland, which he illustrated with admirable taste. "He had in general society a pomp and stiffness of manner, not of expression, in which last he was no less chaste than flowing and correct. But the misfortune of this manner was in some degree connected with his figure and appearance. He looked as if he never could be undressed; and the hitch in his gait, whatever gave rise to it (a subject of obloquy too despicable to be answered, and which I am sorry that you have transcribed), compared with a solemn cast in his features, was, at the best, of a kind that was not companionable, and rather kept strangers at a distance from him. Though his features were good, manly, and expressive, a pale complexion of rather a sickly hue, and the laboured primness of a powdered wig in stiff curl, made his appearance altogether unpromising, if not grotesque. But, where he was intimate, was admired, and was pleased with his party, he conversed most eloquently and gracefully. He had the misfortune, however, to have little or no taste for humour; and he took a jest very ill. Except in his political morality, which I could not admire, Dr. Akenside was a man of perfect honour, friendly, and liberal. His religious opinions were, I believe, a little whimsical and peculiar; but in general he kept them very much to himself. He and Mr. Dyson had both originally been Dissenters. He was írritable; had little restraint upon his temper among strangers; and was either peevish, or too oracular and sententious. He wanted gaiety of heart in society, and had no wit in his Muse or in his eloquence. I don't believe he had much depth of medical science, or much acuteness of medical sagacity; he certainly had no business or fame in that line. His great powers, besides the talent of poetry, were those of eloquent reasoning, historical knowledge, and philosophical taste, enlivened by the happiest and most brilliant allusions. He had an astonishing memory, and a most luminous application of it. I recollect that he read gratis all the modern books of any character, and that he had the right conferred upon him of opening the leaves. His comments were cherished; and if the book struck him with a powerful impression, I believe it was generally given to him by the Bookseller. "He lived incomparably well; and as I knew of no other source to his income but his constant Friend Mr. Dyson's munificence to him, I rejoiced in it, for the honour of them both. I never saw any thing like their friendship and their union of sentiments; yet nothing was more dissimilar than were the two men. Mr. Dysou was quite a man of business, of order, and figures-of parlia mentary forms and of political argument. His character (bating an amiable partiality in the Eulogist) is well drawn by Mr. Hatsell*. He had neither fancy nor eloquence; and though he had strong prejudices, he veiled them in obliging manners. "The misfortune of their politics (and I was the victim of it in some degree) was, that, upon the accession of this Reign, they entirely and radically changed them; for they became bigoted adherents to Lord Bute and the Tories, having at every earlier period been, as it were, the High Priests of the opposite creed. Mr. Dyson was preferred, and was ultimately pensioned. His friend, whom he always bore in mind, was made Physician to the Queen-Ex illo fluere-from that period both of them were converts, and zealots of course for the New Religion. My uncle Dr. Hardinge, whose wit and penetrating judgment had no delicacy in their blow, often told them both when they were young men (and with an oath which I must not repeat) that, like a couple of ideots, they did not leave themselves a loop-hole-they could not sidle away into the opposite creed.' "As my opinions were naturally upon the same line of politics which Lord Camden uniformly adopted and pursued, I offended my admired friend the Poet by too open a disclosure of my political faith, insignificant, qualified, and perfectly unassuming, as it was. It made a coolness between us- but I believe that his original friendship to me was never essentially impaired. 66 My uncle Dr. Hardinge was a comic tyrant over all his friends. I shall never be able to forget an evening of Civil War, and another of Peace, between these two Physicians. Dr. Akenside was the guest; and at supper, by a whimsical accident, they fell into a dispute upon the subject of a bilious colic. They were both of them absurdly eager. Dr. Hardinge had a contempt for every Physician but himself; and he held the Poet very cheap in that line. He laughed at him, and said the rudest things to him. The other, who never took a jest in good part, fiamed into invective; and Mrs. Hardinge, as clever in a different way as either of them, could with difficulty keep the peace between them. Dr. Akenside ordered his chariot, and swore that he would never come into the house again. The other, who was the kindest-hearted of men, feeling that he had goaded his friend, called upon him the. next morning, and, in a manner quite his own, made a perfect reconcilement, which terminated in a pacific supper the following night, when, by a powerful stroke of humour, the Host convulsed the sides of his Guest with laughter, and they were in delightful unison together the whole evening. • Do you kn-kn-know, Doctor,' said he (for he stammered), that I b-bought a curious pamphlet this m--morning upon a st―stall, and I'll give you the t-title of it; An Acc-count of a curious dispute between D-Dr. Y. and D-Dr. Z, concerning a b―b-i * This character will be given in a subsequent page. J. N. lious c-colic, which terminated in a d—duel between the two Ph-Physicians, which t-terminated in the d—death of both.' "Before I bid farewell to Dr. Akenside, I must leave the dilemma to all Dr. Johnson's admirers (of whom you, Sir, I believe are one)—Are his opinions of Dr. Akenside ingenuous, or simulated? If the former, what shall be said for his taste, when he denies to this great Poet credit for genius of any kind in his great and famous work, except for the rhythm of his verse; but in the Ode (or Lyric in general) gives him credit for nothing, and represents him as insufferably dull? Against this ipse dixit I set up not the opinion of the world, though it has its weight; but the intrinsic evidence of the Odes to the Bishop of Winchester, to the Earl of Huntingdon, to Mr. Hall, to Dr. Hardinge, and the celebrated Charles Townshend. It appears to me that no Lyrics are superior to these in their style (which is various too). The Ode to the Country Gentlemen is unequal; but has noble and glorious passages in it. Mr. Elliott, father of Lord Minto, made an admirable Speech in support of the Scotch Militia, which I had the good fortune to hear, when I was a boy; and it was reported, that, when commended as he was on every side for that performance, If I was above myself,' he answered, I can account for it; for I had been animated by the sublime Ode of Dr. Akenside.' "In a dignified cast of beautiful simplicity, what can be named superior to the following Inscription for a Column at Runnymede? "Thou, who the verdant plain dost traverse here, To pay it, by transmitting down entire Those sacred rights to which themselves were born." "I adopt the opinion of Dr. Johnson, that he murdered Curio by putting him in Lyrics; and I wish to see the original Curio republished. It was an admirable satire. In the Ode to Dr. Hardinge we find he was no Courtier then. In some of the others to which I allude, his principles are elevated into the heroism of public virtue and spirit-they unite eloquence and poetical effect. As far as I can recollect, his friends, besides Mr. Dyson, were chiefly Dr. Heberden, Dr. Hardinge, Mr. Cracherode, Mr. Thomas Townshend, the first Lord Sydney's father, Mr. Mr. Tyrwhitt, the Archbishop of York, and Mr. Wray. He was a most unprejudiced and candid estimator of contemporary Poets, for which I admired him the more on account of its amiable singularity. "But I must not forget here to mention perhaps the most curious feature of his life. It is in the partial but very awkward change which his new Politics at Court made in those of the Poet. You will find a memorable proof to this point. In the first edition of the work these lines appear: "Wilt thou, kind Harmony, descend, And join the festive train; for with thee comes Majestic TRUTH; and where TRUTH deigns to come, "And in the Second Edition: for with thee comes WISE ORDER; and where ORDER deigns to come, "DEAR SIR, Milbourne-House, June 22. "I was intimate with HORACE WALPOLE for several years. When I became familiar with his effeminacy of manners, it was lost in his wit, ingenuity, and whimsical but entertaining fund of knowledge. "Though he was elegant and polished, he was not, I think, well-bred, in the best view of that phrase. He demanded a full stretch of admiring homage to his bons-mots, and rather lectured in a series of prose epigrams, than conversed playfully and so as to put the hearer quite at his ease. "In the course of his kind predilection for me, a peculiar incident occurred, which I shall never forget. He had invited me to his Elysium (of its kind) Strawberry Hill. On my arrival, I found a note. He was gone to Houghton upon a sudden call; but insisted that I should pass the day and sleep under his roof, and with keys of all his treasures. I did not, and I could not, go to bed for many hours after midnight. : "Dr. Akenside had no wit.-Horace Walpole had infinitely too much his prose epigrams were unremitted, and left the hearer no resting-place. He talked as he wrote; and one left him, at least I did, fatigued, though charmed with his enlivening sallies. They were a demand upon the animal spirits, which almost invaded the liberty of the subject, the liberty of being dull, or of lying fallow. When definitions are made even by such a man as Mr. Locke of the boundaries which divide Wit from Humour, he puzzles common readers, and perhaps in part himself. But living instances are the best of all definitions. Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Walpole had unexampled powers in wit-of humour they had no conception. Fielding and Addison were pre-eminent examples and models of humour, though in different branches of it. The mock heroic irony of Addison was a more elevated cast of the power than Fielding possessed, who was only at home in the Farce of Nature. Mr. Walpole has often told me that he himself had no enjoyment enjoyment of Tom Jones. It might be nature,' he said, it might be humour; but it was of a kind that could not interest him.' I pitied him, as I should pity a man who had not all his five senses. There was a degree of quaintness in Mr. Walpole's wit; but it was not unbecoming in him, for it seemed a part of his nature. Some of his friends were as effeminate in appearance and in manner as himself, and were as witty. Of these I remember two, Mr. Chute and Mr. George Montagu. But others had effeminacy alone to recommend them. "In his taste for architecture and vertû there was both whim and foppery, but still with fancy and with genius. "His little jeux d'esprits in prose (for he terribly failed in verse) are jewels, and perhaps above them all his papers in The World. When I say that he failed in verse, I must except that striking Play, The Mysterious Mother, which, in a very original vein, is full of dramatic genius and of picturesque effect. The Castle of Otranto is a model of its kind; and there is a wonderful grace in the language, which is neither too familiar nor too elevated. It seems inseparable from the characters, the scenery, and the incidents. The Historic Doubts are very entertaining and well-reasoned. His manner of relating a fact, or of describing a character, was quite his own. I never saw it equalled. "His politics were as illegible, if I may use that phrase, as those of Dr. Akenside. His partiality for his father was amiable, but in the outrage of it absurd. He was for a time a zealot in the cause of Liberty. But in the course of time that spirit cooled, and at last it flamed in the fury of his aversion, just in its principle, to all the sanguinary horrors in France, and their champions here. "His passion for Mad.Deffand was the most wonderful incident of his life; congenial talents and mutual vanity attached and connected them; but she was too young for him, though superannuated in years, and by others at least more admired than beloved. I lament, for his honour, that such a correspondence has been published. "We are told, in your entertaining " Anecdotes," that Warburton was the best Letter-writer of the age. In my judgment Horace Walpole was infinitely superior to him and all his contemporaries in that pleasing but equivocal talent. I had many of his Letters for several years; and have retained some of them, which are delightfully entertaining and clever. Letters, however, especially if written by men of the world, supply no test of the writer's genuine sentiments. "I have great pleasure in sending you a copy of a Letter from him, which I think beautiful, in his best manner. The Letter also which accompanies it in my packet is not inferior to it; and you are welcome to both of them. "Upon the subject of Grignan I will indulge a little egotism; it is the food of age, as music is that of love. Mr. Walpole and I agreed in our passion for Madame Sévigné; and when I made a little |
