SUPPLEMENT

ΤΟ

MARTIN MAR-PRELATE.

As a literary curiosity, I shall preserve a very | sification is impressive, and the satire equally rare poetical tract, which describes with consi- dignified and keen. derable force the Revolutionists of the reign of Elizabeth. They are indeed those of wild democracy and the subject of this satire will, I fear, be never out of time. It is an admirable political satire against a mob-government. our poetical history, this specimen too is curious, for it will show that the stanza in alternate rhymes, usually denominated Elegiac, is adapted to very opposite themes. The solemnity of the ver

RYTHMES

AGAINST MARTIN MARRE-PRELATE *.

Ordo Sacerdotum fatuo turbatur ab omni,
Labitur et passim Religionis honos.

The taste of the mere modern reader had been more gratified by omitting some unequal passages; but, after deliberation, I found that so short a composition would be injured by dismembering In extracts. I have distinguished by italics the lines to which I desire the reader's attention, and have added a few notes to clear up some passages which might appear obscure.

SINCE Reason, Martin, cannot stay thy pen,
We 'il see what rime will do; have at thee then!

A Dizard late skipt out upon our stage,

But in a sacke, that no man might him see;
And though we know not yet the paltrie page,
Himselfe hath Martin made his name to bee.
A proper name, and for his feates most fit;
The only thing wherein he hath shew'd wit.
Who knoweth not, that Apes, men Martins call,†
Which beast, this baggage seemes as 't were
himselfe :

So as both nature, nurture, name, and all,
Of that's expressed in this apish elfe.
Which Ile make good to Martin Marre-als face,
In three plaine poynts, and will not bate an ace.

In Herbert's Typog. Antiq. p. 1689, this tract is intituled, "A Whip for an Ape, or Martin displaied." I have also seen the poem with this title. Readers were then often invited to an old book by a change of title: in some cases I think the same work has been published with several titles.

† Martin was a name for a bird, and a cant term for an Ass; and, as it appears here, an Ape.

For, first, the Ape delights with moppes and mowes,
And mocketh Prince and Peasants all alike;
This jesting Jacke, that no good manners knowes,
With his Asse-heeles presumes all states to strike.
Whose scoffes so stinking in each nose doth smell,
As all mouthes saie of Dolts he beares the bell.

Sometimes his chappes do walke in poynts too
high,

Wherein the Ape himself a Woodcock tries.
Sometimes with floutes he drawes his mouth awrie,

And sweares by his ten bones, and falselie lies.
Wherefore be what he will I do not passe ;
He is the paltriest Ape that euer was.

Such fleering, leering, jeering fooles hopeepe,

Such hahas! teehees! weehees! wild colts play; Such Sohoes! whoopes and hallowes; hold and keepe;

Such rangings, ragings, reuelings, roysters ray; With so foule mouth, and knaue at euery catch, 'Tis some knaue's nest did surely Martin hatch.

66

Our Martins, considered as birds, were often
reminded that their proper food was "hempen
seed," which at length choked them. That it
meant an Ass, appears from
Pappe with a
Hatchet." "Be thou Martin the bird or Martin
the beast, a bird with the longest bill, or a beast
with the longest ears, there's a net spread for your
neck." Sign. B. 5. There is an old French pro-
verb, quoted by Cotgrave, voce Martin: "Plus
d'un ASNE à la foire, a nom Martin."

*Martin was a protégé of this Dame Lawson. There appear to have been few political conspiracies without a woman, whenever religion forms a part. This dame is thus noticed in the mock Epitaphs on Martin's funeral:

"Away with silk, for I will mourn in sacke;
Martin is dead, our new sect goes to wrack.
Come, gossips mine, put finger in the eie,
He made us laugh, but now must make us crie."
DAME LAWSON.

"Sir Jeffrie's ale-tub" alludes to two knights, who were ruinously fined, and hardly escaped with life, for their patronage of Martin.

Alluding to the title of one of their most virulent libels against Bishop Cooper. "More work for a Cooper." Cooper, in his admonition to the

Through Martin's makebates marring, to thy people of England, had justly observed, that this

LITERARY QUARRELS

FROM

PERSONAL MOTIVES.

Anecdote of a BISHOP and a DOCTOR-Dr. MIDDLETON and Dr. BENTLEY-WARBURTON and Dr. TAYLOR-WARBURTON and EDWARDS-SWIFT and DRYDEN-POPE and BENTLEY-why fiction is necessary for satire, according to Lord ROCHESTER'S confession-RowE and ADDISON-POPE and ATTERBURY-Sir JOHN HAWKINS and GEORGE STEEVENS— a fierce controversial author a dangerous neighbour-a ludicrous instance of a literary quarrel from personal motives between BоHUN and the WYKEHAMISTS.

LITERARY QUARRELS have abundantly sprung | owe the origin of a very remarkable volume. from mere personal motives; and controversies purely literary, sometimes of magnitude, have broken out, and been voluminously carried on, till the public are themselves involved in the contest, while the true origin lies concealed in some sudden squabble; some neglect of petty civility; some unlucky epithet; or some casual observation dropped without much consideration, which mortified or enraged the author. How greatly has passion prevailed in literary history! How often the most glorious pages in the chronicles of literature are tainted with the secret history which must be placed by their side, so that the origin of many considerable works, which do so much honour to the heads of their authors, sadly accuse their hearts. But the heaven of Virgil was disturbed with quarrels

"Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ ?"

Eneid.

"Can heavenly minds such high resentment show?" Dryden.

When Dr. Parr delivered his memorable sermon, which, besides the " sesquipedalia verba," was perhaps the longest that ever was heard-if not listened to, Bishop Hurd, who had always played the part of one of the most wary of politicians in private life, and who had occasion once adroitly to explain the French word Retenue, which no man better understood, in a singularly unguarded moment, sarcastically observed that he did not like "the doctor's long vernacular sermon." The happy epithet was soon conveyed to the classical ear of the modern Grecian: it was a wasp in it! The bishop had, in the days of literary adventure, published some pieces of irony, which were thought more creditable to his wit than his feelings-and his great patron, Warburton, certain juvenile prose and verse-all which they had rejected from their works. But this it is to be an author!- his errors remain when he has outlived and corrected them. The mighty and vindictive Grecian in rage collected them all; exhausted his own genius in perpetuating follies; completed the works of the two bishops in utter spite; and in "Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian," has furnished posterity with a specimen of the force of his own

And has not a profound observer of human affairs declared, Ex privatis odiis respublica crescit 2 individual hatreds aggrandize the republic. This" vernacular" style, giving a lesson to the wary miserable philosophy will satisfy those who are content, from private vices, to derive public benefits. One wishes for a purer morality, and a more noble inspiration.

bishop, who had scarcely ever wanted one all his life of the dangers of an unlucky epithet!

Dr. Conyers Middleton, the author of the life of Cicero, seldom wrote but out of pique; and he

To a literary quarrel from personal motives, we probably owed his origin as an author to a circum

fact recorded of him by Bishop Newton. He had applied to Sir Robert Walpole for the mastership of the Charter-house, who honestly informed him that Bishop Sherlock with the other Bishops were against his being chosen. Middleton attributed the origin of this opposition to Bishop Sherlock, and wreaked his vengeance by publishing his "Animadversions upon Sherlock's Discourses on Prophecy." The book had been long published, and had passed through successive editions; but Middleton pretended he had never seen them before, and from this time Lambeth-house was a strong provocative for his vindictive temper.

Nor was the other great adversary of Middleton, he who so long affected to be the lord paramount, the Suzerain in the feudal empire, rather than the republic of letters-Warburton himself, less easily led on to these murderous acts of personal rancour. A pamphlet of the day has preserved an anecdote of this kind. Dr. Taylor, the Chancellor of Lincoln, once threw out in company an opinion derogatory to the scholarship of Warburton, who seems to have had always some choice spirits of his legion as spies in the camp of an enemy, and who sought their tyrant's grace by their violation of the social compact. The tyrant himself had an openness, quite in contrast with the dark underworks of his satellites. He boldly interrogated our critic, and Taylor replied, undauntedly and more poignantly than Warburton might have suspected, that "he did not recollect ever saying that Dr. Warburton was no scholar, but that indeed he had always thought so." To this intrepid spirit the world owes one of the remarkable prefaces to the Divine Legation-in which the Chancellor of Lincoln, intrepid as he was, stands like a man of straw, to be buffeted and tossed about with all those arts of distortion which the wit and virulence of Warburton almost every day was practising at his "established places of execution," as his prefaces and notes have been wittily termed.

stance of this nature. Middleton when young was a Dilettante in music; and Dr. Bentley in contempt applied the epithet "fiddling Conyers." Had the irascible Middleton broken his violin about the head of the learned Grecian, and thus terminated the quarrel, the epithet had then cost Bentley's honour much less than it afterwards did. It seems to have excited Middleton to deeper studies, which the great Bentley not long after felt, when he published proposals for an edition of the New Testament in Greek. Middleton published his "Remarks, paragraph by paragraph, upon the proposals," to show that Bentley had neither talents nor materials proper for the work. This opened a great paper-war, and again our rabid wolf fastened on the majestic lion, " paragraph by paragraph." And though the lion did affect to bear in contempt the fangs of his little active enemy, the flesh was torn. "The proposals" sunk before "the paragraph by paragraph," and no edition of the Greek Testament by Bentley ever appeared. Bentley's proposals at first had met with the greatest success; the subscriptionmoney amounted to two thousand pounds, and it was known that his nephew had been employed by him to travel abroad to collect these MSS. He declared he would make use of no MS. that was not a thousand years old, or above, of which sort he had collected twenty, so that they made up a total of twenty thousand years. He was four years studying them before he issued his proposals. The Doctor rested most on eight Greek MSS., the most recent of which was one thousand years old. All this wore a very imposing appearance. At a touch the whole magnificent edifice fell to pieces! Middleton says, "His twenty old MSS. shrink at once to eight, and he is forced again to own that even of these eight there are only four which had not been used by Dr. Mill;" and these, Middleton, by his sarcastic reasoning, at last reduces to "some pieces only of the New Testament in MS." So that twenty MSS. and their twenty thousand years, were battered by the " 'fiddling Conyers" into a solitary fragment of little value! Bentley returned the subscription-money, and would not publish; the work still lies in its prepared state, and some good judges of its value have expressed a hope to see it yet published. But Bentley himself was not untainted in this dishonourable quarrel: he well knew that Middleton was the author of this severe attack; but to show his contempt of the real author, conversations which usually occupied their evenand desirous, in his turn, of venting his disappoint-ings, Warburton affected to show his superiority ment on a Dr. Colbatch, he chose to attribute it to him, and fell on Colbatch with a virulence that made the reply perfectly libellous, if it was Bentley's, as was believed.

The irascibility of Middleton, disguising itself in a literary form, was still more manifested by a

Even Warburton himself, who committed so many personal injuries, has, in his turn, most eminently suffered from the same motive. The personal animosity of a most ingenious man was the real cause of the utter destruction of Warburton's critical reputation. Edwards, the author of the "Canons of Criticism," when young and in the army, was a visitor at Allen's of Prior-Park, the patron of Warburton; and in those literary

in his acquaintance with the Greek writers, never suspecting that a red coat covered more Greek than his own-which happened unluckily to be the case. Once, Edwards in the library, taking down a Greek author, explained a passage in a manner which did not suit probably with some new theory