Vulgar words in Calamities and Quarrels of Authors (Page 1)
This book at a glance
|
|
~ ~ ~ Sentence 21 ~ ~ ~
These two equalised bundles of hay might have held in suspense the casuistical ass of Sterne, till he had died from want of a motive to choose either.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 58 ~ ~ ~
Let it not, therefore, be conceived that I mean to degrade or vilify the literary character, when I would only separate the Author from those polluters of the press who have turned a vestal into a prostitute; a grotesque race of famished buffoons or laughing assassins; or that populace of unhappy beings, who are driven to perish in their garrets, unknown and unregarded by all, for illusions which even their calamities cannot disperse.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 424 ~ ~ ~
'Damn my master!' said Jack, ''twas but last night he was commending your books and your learning to the skies; and now he would not care if you were starving before his eyes; nay, he often makes game at your clothes, though he thinks you the greatest scholar in England.'"
~ ~ ~ Sentence 838 ~ ~ ~
[44] It will surprise when I declare that this buffoon was an indefatigable student, a proficient in all the learned languages, an elegant poet, and, withal, a wit of no inferior class.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 883 ~ ~ ~
The Arian Whiston was himself, from pure motives, suffering expulsion from Cambridge, for refusing his subscription to the Athanasian Creed; he was a pious man, and no buffoon, but a little crazed.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 920 ~ ~ ~
It happened that Henley this time was overmatched; for two Oxonians, supported by a strong party to awe his "marrow-boners," as the butchers were called, said to be in the Orator's pay, entered the list; the one to defend the _ignorance_, the other the _impudence_, of the Restorer of Eloquence himself.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 971 ~ ~ ~
--"On Wit and Imagination," abounding with excellent criticism.--"On grave conundrums and serious buffoons, in defence of burlesque discourses, from the most weighty authorities."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,640 ~ ~ ~
GABRIEL HARVEY was an author of considerable rank, but with two learned brothers, as Wood tells us, "had the ill luck to fall into the hands of that noted and restless buffoon, Tom Nash."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,650 ~ ~ ~
The buffoon, Tarleton, celebrated for his extempore humour, jested on them at the theatre;[82] Elderton, a drunken ballad-maker, "consumed his ale-crammed nose to nothing in bear-bating them with bundles of ballads.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,673 ~ ~ ~
At the moment of his birth came into the world "a calf with a double tongue, and eares longer than any ass's, with his feet turned backwards."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,697 ~ ~ ~
It was the foible of Harvey to wish to conceal the humble avocation of his father: this forms a perpetual source of the bitterness or the pleasantry of Nash, who, indeed, calls his pamphlet "a full answer to the eldest son of the halter maker," which, he says, "is death to Gabriel to remember; wherefore from time to time he doth nothing but turmoile his thoughts how to invent new pedigrees, and what great nobleman's bastard he was likely to be, not whose sonne he is reputed to be.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,749 ~ ~ ~
"[96] An Herculean feat of this "Duns furens," Nash tells us, was his setting Aristotle with his heels upwards on the school-gates at Cambridge, and putting ass's ears on his head, which Tom here records in _perpetuam rei memoriam_.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,045 ~ ~ ~
who, when his neighbour comes to see him, still sets the best rooms to view; and, if he be not a wilful ass, keeps the rubbish and lumber in some dark hole, where nobody comes but himself, to mortify at melancholy hours."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,076 ~ ~ ~
A vintner's boy, the wretch was first preferr'd To wait at Vice's gates, and pimp for bread; To hold the candle, and sometimes the door, Let in the drunkard, and let out----.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,440 ~ ~ ~
Warburton here adopted the popular notion, that the witty buffoon Aristophanes was the occasion of the death of the philosopher Socrates.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,575 ~ ~ ~
Our critic attributes these reports to "an English dunce, whose blunders and calumnies are now happily forgotten, and repeated by a French buffoon, whose morality is not commensurate with his wit."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,578 ~ ~ ~
Voltaire is "the French buffoon;" who, indeed, compares Warburton in his bishopric, to Peachum in the Beggar's Opera--who, as Keeper of Newgate, was for hanging all his old accomplices!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,452 ~ ~ ~
_Frankly_ observes, on Cibber's declaration that he is not uneasy at Pope's satire, that "no blockhead is so dull as not to be sore when he is called so; and (you'll excuse me) if that were to be your own case, why should we believe you would not be as uneasy at it as another blockhead?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,454 ~ ~ ~
For as it is not at all inconceivable, that a blockhead of my size may have a particular knack of doing some useful thing that might puzzle a wiser man to be master of, will not that blockhead still have something in him to be conceited of?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,455 ~ ~ ~
If so, allow me but the vanity of supposing I may have had some such possible knack, and you will not wonder (though in many other points I may still be a blockhead) that I may, notwithstanding, be contented with my condition.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,493 ~ ~ ~
They never suspected that "a blockhead of his size could do what wiser men could not," and, as a fine comic genius, command a whole province in human nature.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,606 ~ ~ ~
And now that he had discovered that he could touch the nerves of Pope, he throws out one of the most ludicrous analogies to the figure of our bard:--"When crawling in thy dangerous deed of darkness, I gently, with a finger and a thumb, picked off thy small round body by thy long legs, like a spider making love in a cobweb."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,666 ~ ~ ~
These are alluded to when the satirist sings-- Damn with faint praise; assent with civil leer; And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike; Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike, &c. Accusations crowded faster than the pen could write them down.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,997 ~ ~ ~
In our country, the University of Cambridge was divided by a party who called themselves _Trojans_, from their antipathy to the _Greeks_, or the Aristotelians; and once the learned Richard Harvey, the brother of Gabriel, the friend of Spenser, stung to madness by the predominant powers, to their utter dismay set up their idol on the school-gates, with his heels upwards, and ass's ears on his head.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,184 ~ ~ ~
[256] Evelyn, whose elegant mind, one would have imagined, had been little susceptible of such vehement anger, in the preface to his "Sylva," scolds at no common rate: "Well-meaning people are led away by the noise of a few ignorant and comical buffoons, who, with an insolence suitable to their understanding, are still crying out, _What have the Society done?_" He attributes all the opposition and ridicule the Society encountered to a personage not usual to be introduced into a philosophical controversy--"The Enemy of Mankind."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,454 ~ ~ ~
Hill ventured to notice this attack on his "blockhead;" and, as was usual with him, had some secret history to season his defence with.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,785 ~ ~ ~
Correcting the faults of the version, he says, "The first epistle cost me four pages in scouring;" and, "by the help of a Greek proverb, he calls me downright ass."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,786 ~ ~ ~
But while Boyle complains of these sprinklings of ink, he himself contributes to Bentley's "Collection of Asinine Proverbs," and "throws him in one out of Aristophanes," of "an ass carrying mysteries:" "a proverb," says Erasmus, (as 'the Bees' construe him.)
~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,907 ~ ~ ~
Men of genius are more subject to "unnatural civil war" than even the blockheads whom Pope sarcastically reproaches with it.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,979 ~ ~ ~
The satirist describes Parker's arrogance for those whom Parker calls the vulgar, and whom he defies as "a rout of wolves and tigers, apes and buffoons;" yet his personal fears are oddly contrasted with his self-importance: "If he chance but to sneeze, he prays that the _foundations of the earth_ be not shaken.--Ever since he crept up to be but the _weathercock of a steeple_, he trembles and cracks at every puff of wind that blows about him, as if the _Church of England_ were falling."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,014 ~ ~ ~
Parker meeting Marvell in the streets, the bully attempted to shove him from the wall: but, even there, Marvell's agility contrived to lay him sprawling in the kennel; and looking on him pleasantly, told him to "lie there for a son of a whore!"
~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,015 ~ ~ ~
Parker complained to the Bishop of Rochester, who immediately sent for Marvell, to reprimand him; but he maintained that the doctor had so called himself, in one of his recent publications; and pointing to the preface, where Parker declares "he is 'a true son of his mother, the Church of England:' and if you read further on, my lord, you find he says: 'The Church of England has spawned two bastards, the Presbyterians and the Congregationists;' ergo, my lord, he expressly declares that he is the _son of a whore_!"
~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,026 ~ ~ ~
And elsewhere he calls him "a drunken buffoon," and asserts that "he made his conscience more cheap than he had formerly made his reputation;" but the familiar anecdote of Marvell's political honesty, when, wanting a dinner, he declined the gold sent to him by the king, sufficiently replies to the calumniator.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,046 ~ ~ ~
[310] The severity of his satire on Charles's court may be well understood by the following lines:-- "A colony of French possess the court, Pimps, priests, buffoons, in privy-chamber sport; Such slimy monsters ne'er approached a throne Since Pharaoh's days, nor so defil'd a crown; In sacred ear tyrannick arts they croak, Pervert his mind, and good intentions choak."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,182 ~ ~ ~
But since that planet governs still, That rules thy tedious fustain quill 'Gainst nature and the Muses' will; When, by thy friends' advice and care, 'Twas hoped, in time, thou wouldst despair To give ten pounds to write it fair; Lest thou to all the world would show it, We thought it fit to let thee know it: Thou art a damn'd insipid poet!
~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,561 ~ ~ ~
Poor Steele, we are told, was "arrested for the maintenance of his bastards, and afterwards printed a _proposal_ that the public should take care of them;" got into the House "not to be arrested;"--"his _set_ speeches there, which he designs to get _extempore_ to speak in the House."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,211 ~ ~ ~
Now you can, upon all occasion, or without occasion, give the titles of _fool_, _beast_, _ass_, _dog_, &c., which I take to be but barking; and they are no better than a man might have at Billingsgate for a box o' the ear.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,285 ~ ~ ~
That he condescended to bring obscure individuals on the stage, appears by his character of _Carlo Buffoon_, in _Every Man out of his Humour_.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,287 ~ ~ ~
The Aubrey Papers, recently published have given us the character of this _Carlo Buffoon_, "one Charles Chester, a bold impertinent fellow; and they could never be at quiet for him; a perpetual talker, and made a noise like a drum in a room.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,294 ~ ~ ~
Where personal?--Except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, buffoon, creatures (for their insolencies) worthy to be taxed."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,300 ~ ~ ~
[393] Decker alludes here to the bastard of Burgundy, who considered himself unmatchable, till he was overthrown in Smithfield by Woodville, Earl Rivers.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,470 ~ ~ ~
He is angry that their ------------Base and beggarly conceits Should carry it, by the multitude of voices, Against the most abstracted work, opposed To the stufft nostrils of the drunken rout.-- And then exclaims with admirable enthusiasm-- O this would make a learn'd and liberal soul To rive his stained quill up to the back, And damn his long-watch'd labours to the fire; Things, that were born, when none but the still night, And the dumb candle, saw his pinching throes.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,475 ~ ~ ~
There's something come into my thought That must and shall be sung, high and aloof, Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,578 ~ ~ ~
But see your cunning; you can, with the blur of your pen, dipped in copperas and gall, make me learned and unlearned; nay, you can almost change my sex, and make me a whore, like Leontion; and, taking your silver pen again, make yourself the divine Theophrastus."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,765 ~ ~ ~
Who would curry an ass with an ivory comb?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 8,162 ~ ~ ~
[425] _Martin_ was a name for a _bird_, and a cant term for an _Ass_; and, as it appears here, an _Ape_.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 8,164 ~ ~ ~
That it meant an _Ass_, appears from "Pappe with a Hatchet."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 8,337 ~ ~ ~
satirised by Marvell, 393 its characteristics, 414 COWEL incurs by his curious work "The Interpreter" the censure of the King and the Commons on opposite principles, 193 COWLEY, original letter from, _n._ 36 his essays form a part of his confessions, 37 describes his feelings at court, _ib._ his melancholy attributed to his "Ode to Brutus," by which he incurred the disgrace of the court, 40 his remarkable lamentation for having written poetry, 41 his Epitaph composed by himself, 42 CRITIC, poetical, without any taste, how he contrived to criticise poems, 143 CRITICISMS, illiberal, some of its consequences stated, 140 CROSS attacks the Royal Society, 344-346 CROUSAZ dissects Pope's "Essay on Man", 256 CURLL, and his publication of Pope's letters, 292 D'AVENANT, his poem of "Gondibert", 404 history of its composition, _n._ 404 its merits and defects, 405-408 a club of wits satirize it, 409 and its author, 412 and occasion it to be left unfinished, 413 DAVIES, Myles, a mendicant author, his life, 30 DECKER quarrels with Ben Jonson for his arrogance, 475-487 ridicules him in his "Satiromastix", 482-487 DEDICATION, composed by a patron to himself, _n._ 30 DEDICATIONS, used in an extraordinary way, _n._ 30 DE LOLME'S work on the Constitution could find no patronage, and the author's bitter complaints, 200 relieved by the Literary Fund, _n._ 201 DENHAM falsely satirized, _n._ 429 DENNIS, John, distinguished as "The Critic", 52 his "Original Letters" and "Remarks on Prince Arthur," his best productions, 52 anecdotes of his brutal vehemence, 53 curious caricature of his personal manners, 54 a specimen of his anti-poetical notions, _n._ 55 his frenzy on the Italian Opera, 57 acknowledges that he is considered as ill-natured, and complains of public neglect, _ib._ more the victim of his criticisms than the genius he insulted, 58 his insatiable vengeance toward Pope, 286 his attack on Addison's "Cato", 315 his account with the bookseller Lintot, 331 DRAKE, Dr. John, a political writer, his miserable life, 11 DRAYTON'S national work, "The Polyolbion," ill received, and the author greatly dejected, 210 angry preface addressed "To any that will read it", 211 DRUMMOND of Hawthornden, his love of poetry, 213 conversation with Jonson, 475 DRYDEN, in his old age, complains of dying of over-study, 204 his dramatic life a series of vexations, 205 regrets he was born among Englishmen, 206 remarkable confession of the poet, _ib._ vilified by party spirit, 427 compares his quarrel with Settle to that of Jonson with Decker, _n._ 477 DUNCIAD, Pope's collections for, 278 early editions of, _n._ 283 rage of persons satirized in, _n._ 284 satire on naturalists in, 342 DUNTON the bookseller satirized by Swift, 430 DYSON defends Akenside, 265 EACHARD'S satire on Hobbes and his sect, _n._ 439 EDWARDS, Thomas, author of "Canons of Criticism", 261 biographical notice, _n._ 532 anecdotes of his critical sagacity, _n._ 262-263 origin of his "Canons of Criticism", 532 EVANS, Arise, a fanatical Welsh prophet, patronised by Warburton, _n._ 240 EVELYN defends the Royal Society, 340 EXERCISE, to be substituted for medicine by literary men, and which is the best, _n._ 68 FALSE rumours in the great Civil War, 421 FARNEWORTH'S Translation of Machiavel, 84 FELL, Dr., an opponent of the Royal Society, 350 ungenerous to Hobbes, 450 rhymes descriptive of his unpopularity, 451 FIELDING attacks Sir John Hill, 368-369 FILMER, Sir R., writes to establish despotism, _n._ 449 FOLKES, Martin, President of the Royal Society, _n._ 364 attacked by Sir John Hill, _n._ 366 FULLER'S "Medicina Gymnastica," _n._ 71 GARTH, Dr., and his Dispensary, 429 GAY acts as mediator with Pope and Addison, 320 his account with Lintot the bookseller, 330 GIBBON, Ed., price of his copyright, 87 GILDON supposed by Pope to have been employed by Addison to write against him, 316 GLANVILL a defender of the Royal Society, 244 GLOVER, Leonidas, declines to write a Life of Marlborough, _n._ 325 GOLDSMITH'S remonstrance on illiberal criticism, from which the law gives no protection, 142 GRANGER'S complaint of not receiving half the pay of a scavenger, 85 GREENE, Robert, a town-wit, his poverty and death, 23 awful satirical address to, _n._ 119 GREY, Dr. Zachary, the father of our commentators, ridiculed and abused, 104 the probable origin of his new mode of illustrating Hudibras, _ib._ Warburton's double-dealing with him, _n._ 259 GUTHRIE offers his services as a hackney-writer to a minister, 8 HACKETT executed for attacks on the church, _n._ 518 HANMER, Sir T., his edition of Shakespeare, _n._ 242, _n._ 258 HARDOUIN supposes the classics composed by monks in the Middle Ages, 249-252 HARRINGTON and his "Oceana", 449 HARVEY, Dr., and his discovery of the circulation of the blood, 335 HARVEY, Gabriel, his character, 117 his device against his antagonist, _n._ 119 his portrait, 121 severely satirised by Nash for his prolix periods, 122 cannot be endured to be considered as the son of a rope-maker, 123 his pretended sordid manners, 124 his affectation of Italian fashions, _ib._ his friends ridiculed, 125 his pedantic taste for hexameter verses, &c., 127 his curious remonstrance with Nash, 126 his lamentation on invectives, 129 his books, and Nash's, suppressed by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury for their mutual virulence, 120 HAWKESWORTH, Dr., letter on presenting his MS. of Cook's Voyages for examination, the publication of which overwhelmed his fortitude and intellect, 199 HENLEY, Orator, this buffoon an indefatigable student, an elegant poet, and wit, 59 his poem of "Esther, Queen of Persia", 60 sudden change in his character, 62 seems to have attempted to pull down the Church and the University, 63 some idea of his lectures, _n._ 64 his projects to supply a Universal School, _ib._ specimens of his buffoonery on solemn occasions, 66 his "Defence of the Oratory," _n._ _ib._ once found his match in two disputants, 67 specimen of the diary of his "Oratory Transactions", _ib._ close of his career, _n._ 68 his character, 69 parallel between him and Sir John Hill, 363 HENRY, Dr., the Historian, the sale of his work, on which he had expended most of his fortune and his life, stopped, and himself ridiculed, by a conspiracy raised against him, 136 HENRY, Dr., caustic review of his history, _n._ _ib._ HERON, Robert, draws up the distresses of a man of letters living by literary industry, in the confinement of a sponging-house, from his original letter, 81 HERRICK, Robert, petulant invective against Devonshire, 215 HILL, Aaron, and his quarrel with Pope, 290 HILL, Sir John, 362-396 parallel between him and Orator Henley, 383 his great work on Botany, _n._ _ib._ his personalities, 364 attacks the Royal Society, 365 his _Inspector_, 367 war of wit with Fielding, 368 and Smart, 370-372 attacks Woodward, who replies with some ridiculous anecdotes, _n._ 372 proposes himself as keeper of the Sloane collection, 374 manufactures _Travels_, _n._ 374 his death, 375 HOBBES contemns the Royal Society, 342 praises D'Avenant's poem of "Gondibert", 408-412 his quarrels, 436 peculiarities of his character, 437 his sect, 438 his real opinions, 439 his "Leviathan", 440-448 feared and suspected by both parties, _n._ 442 no atheist, _n._ 445 his continual disputations, 448-450 his terror of death, 451 the real solution of his fears, 452 his disciples in literature, _n._ 455 his pride, 456 his mode of composition, _n._ 459 his contented poverty, and consistent conduct, _ib._ characteristics of his writings, 461 his passion for mathematics, 464 leads to a quarrel with Dr. Wallis, 465-473 HOME and his tragedy of "Douglas", 79 HOWEL, nearly lost his life by excessive study, 74 HUME, his literary life mortified with disappointments, 202 wished to change his name and his country, 204 his letter to Des Maiseaux requesting his opinion of his philosophy, 202 HURD, Bishop, biographical note on, 253 imitates Warburton's style, _n._ 269 _Icon Libellorum._ See _Athenæ Britannicæ_.