University of Virginia Library

From the Monthly Magazine, and British Register: Notes on Milton, Pope, Boyce, Johnson, Sterne, Hawkesworth, and Prior
by
Arthur Sherbo

The Monthly Magazine, and British Register (hereafter MM) began publication in February 1796. Richard Phillips, later to be knighted, was the publisher and a contributor on political issues; the editor for the first ten years was the literary Jack-of-all-trades, Dr. John Aikin. Charles Lamb and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge contributed poems to the periodical, and their friend George Dyer was a regular contributor, his major effort being a series of miscellaneous prose pieces he titled Cantabrigiana. My purpose is to call attention to pieces either forgotten or totally ignored for the period 1796, when the MM began, through 1805, when the last of Dyer's series appeared, my original interest in the MM centering upon him. I proceed seriatim.

Volume 4 (October), 245-247, and (November 1797), 418-420, and Volume 5 (February 1798), 84-85.[1] Gilbert Wakefield writes from Hackney: "I propose to send you such imitations or resemblances, of the ancients in Paradise Lost, as have escaped the notice of Milton's editors; persuaded, that whatever relates to so great a poem, and so illustrious a man, cannot be wholly uninteresting to our readers." Having but little Latin and no Greek, I can only refer others to these notes. I am able to add, however, on the authority of Professor Alastair Fowler, that they are of no little interest. He writes, privately: "Some have been taken up by editors, or perhaps independently discovered; many have not. The new parallels or echoes are in some cases valuable. Eg. at Monthly Mag. iv, 420, Wakefield compares PL vii. 581 'powdered with stars' with Drummond's Tears. The parallel usually cited, in Sylvester, is adequate enough, and in any case 'powdered' was a common enough word. Nevertheless, the Drummond possibility is interesting in view of Neville Davies' demonstration that at one time Milton borrowed fairly heavily from Drummond (early, in Nativity Ode). This was unknown until quite recently." I trust other Miltonians will also find these notes worthy of examination.

Volume 6 (August 1798), 88. The contributor, Rheno, of Edinburgh, takes issue with Joseph Warton's statement in his edition of Pope's poems, only recently published, that Pope's Poemata Italorum differs from the "original edition of this selection only by possessing the addition of the poem of 'Aonius Palearius de Immortalitate Animae.'"[2] Warton had written that Pope added

"a very indifferent Poem of Aonius Palearius, De Immortalitate Animi, in Three Books; when he might have enriched his Collection by many more Pieces of Vida, Ant. Flaminius, Cotta, Sannazarius, Politianus, Molza, and the Strozzi, and a number of more exquisite morsels than those which he has inserted, if he had consulted the ten volumes of the Carmina Illustrium Poetarum, printed at Florence 1720, and Carmina Quinque Poetarum, Flor., 1720." The original edition from which, according to Warton, Pope "borrowed his collection" and of which he "took no notice" was published in London in 1684 under the title Anthologia. Evidently very little attention has been paid to the history of Pope's Selecta Poemata Italorum Qui Latine Scripserunt, for Maynard Mack contents himself with noting that Pope's "enthusiasm for the minor Italians who wrote in Latin was so durable as to cause him to collect and publish an anthology of their work towards the end of his life."[3] Indeed, G. B. Hill, editor of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, even gets the title of Pope's edition wrong, substituting Carmina for Poemata (III. 183n). All this despite R. H. Griffith's statement that the work "is the most interesting thing put forward this year [1740], but it has been little studied."[4] Griffith simply notes that "Pope has rearranged the poems, with additions and omissions. His two volumes contain 119 pieces, Atterbury's one volume 81 pieces. One of Pope's additions is Vida's three books 'Poeticorum'; see, further, the article on Christopher Pitt in D.N.B." (p. 414). Pitt translated Vida's Poeticorum into English. Warton printed a letter from Pope to Pitt, dated July 23, 1726, in which Pope wrote of the pleasure afforded him by the translation of Vida, adding "I am pleased to have been (as you tell me) the occasion of your undertaking that work."[5] Joseph Spence records Pope's admiration of Vida, Fracastorius, Sannazzarius, Flaminio, and the three Amalthei, especially Jerome. Pope said that "Politian is one of the first-rate modern Latin poets. Molza, very good: [Mantuan, not pure Latin.] Bembo and Sadolet write pure Latin, but very stiff and unpoetical."[6]

Anthologia seu Selecta Quaedam Poemata Italorum qui Latine scripserunt, 1684 was edited by Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. It is a duodecimo with 216 pages of the actual anthology and seven pages of a prefatory address to his "Benevoli Lectori," the elegant Latin of which was omitted in Pope's edition. That edition, published in 1740, omits the Quaedam in the title of the 1684 edition but adds on the title-page, "Curâ cujusdam Anonymi Anno 1684 congesta, iterum in lucem data, unà cum aliorum Italorum operibus, Accurante A. Pope." Warton said that Pope "took no notice" of Atterbury's Anthologia from which he "borrowed his collection," and this is passing strange, as Pope and Atterbury were close friends. Yet there is no mention of the Anthologia in their correspondence, nor, indeed, anywhere in Pope's letters. Nor did the two mention any of the poets in the Anthologia in their correspondence. Pope's edition is in two octavo volumes with a total of 522 pages; hence the additions are considerable. The number of pieces from the 1684 edition not included are relatively few. First then, the additions in volume I as they appear there: Joh. Bapt. Amalthei, Corydon, Sarnus, Silis; M. Hieronymi Vidae, Corydon; Hieronymi Fracastorii, Alcon,

sive de Cura Canum Venaticorum; M. Hieronymi Vidae, Poeticorum; Aonii Palaerii, De Animorum Immortalitate. The additions to volume II, again in order of appearance: Actii Synceri Sannazarii, Ad Lucium Crassum, Ad Joannen Pardum Hispanum, Ad Divum Jacobum Picenum, De Studiis suis, Ec. Libris Joviani Pontani, Ad Ruinas Cumarum urbis vetustissimae, Quod Pueritiam egerit in Picentinis, Ad Villam Mergillinam; F. Marii Molsae, Ad Henricum Britanniae Regem uxoris repudiatae nomine, Ad Sodalem in morbo mortifero, Ad Venerem; Andreae Naugerii, De Cupidine &c. Hyella, Ad Noctem, Ad Gelliam rusticantem; Angeli Politani, De Ovidii Exilio &c. Morte; Ludovici Ariosti, De diversis Amoribus, Ad Petrum Bembum; Andrea Naugerii; In Vancium Vicum Patavinum amoenissimum; Angeli Politiani, Nutricia, Manto, Ambra; Petri Bembi, Benacus; Hieronymi Fracastorii, Ad Danielem Rhainerium, Ad Joan. Matth. Gibertum, Ad Margaritam Valesiam Navarrae Reginam, Ad M. Ant. Flaminium &c. Galeatium Florimontium, Ad Franciscum Turrianum Veronensem, In mortem Aliprandi Madrutti, Ad Alexandrum Farnesium Cardinalem, Ad Eundem, Ad Julium III. Pont. Max., Incidens, Incidens, ad Jo. Bapt. Turrianum, Hyems, ad Eundem, Incidens, ad Eundem, Aliud, Aliud; Balthasaris Castillioni, Alcon, Prosopopoeia Lud. Pici Mirandulani, De Elisabella Gonzaga canente, Hippolyte Balthasari Castilioni conjugi, De Paulo canente; Hier. Amalthei, Ad Hyellam, De Horologio pulvureo.

The following are in the 1684 edition, but not in Pope: Danielis Heinsii, Thyrsis. Ecloga VIII; Hugonis Grotii, Myrtilus, sive Idyllium Nauticum, Ad Dan. Heinsium. Ecloga IX; Georgii Buchanani, Desiderium Ptolemaei Tastaei. Ecloga X, Desiderium Lutetiae. Ecloga XI (for which Pope substitutes Buchanan's In Neaeram and Calendae Maiae); Angeli Politiani, De Alcone &c. Serpente; Hieronymi Amalthei, De Leonilla, &c. Lydia; Annibalis Cruceii, de Ersilia; Petri Bembi, Amores ad Melinum, Ad Lygdamum. Pope has no poems by Daniel Heinsius and Hugo Grotius; the 1684 edition has no poems by Francesco Maria Molsa and Aonio Paleario (i.e. Antonio dalla Paglia). It would be foolish to try to ascertain what Rheno of Edinburgh thought were the "one or two pieces which have a tendency to excite immoral sentiments in the mind" which Pope "virtuously rejected." And Rheno was mistaken when he stated that "All the elegies of Sannazarius . . . are among the additions of Pope"; the 1684 edition includes five of Sannazarius's elegies.

There are twenty-six different poets in Pope's edition; only seven of these (Ariosto, Buchanan, Castiglione, Fracastori, Politan, Sannazarius, and Vida) are mentioned, cited, quoted, or translated in the Twickenham Pope or in Pope's correspondence.[7] Daniel Heinsius and Hugo Grotius, both in the 1684 edition but not in Pope's edition, were known to him. He mentions Heinsius (Twickenham, I. 25) and he knew Grotius's Annotata in Vetus Testamentum (Twickenham IX. 183 and X. 86). He praised a beautiful episode in Politan's Ambra, one of the poems in his edition (Twickenham VII. 31), and knew Politan's Praefatio in Homerum (Twickenham VII. 43, 78, 136). Parallels to Buchanan's poetry are suggested (Twickenham III. i. l. 11n. and l. 96n.). Fracastori is merely mentioned in the Advertisement to the

Dunciad (Twickenham V. 9); Pope quotes one line from Sannazarius's Epigrammata (Twickenham VIII. 353); and Castiglione's Cleopatra, one of the poems in Pope's edition, is translated by Pope under the title On the Statue of Cleopatra, made into a Fountain by Leo the Tenth. Translated from the Latin of Count Castiglione (Twickenham VI. 66-68).

Dr. Johnson wrote that "Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally neglected."[8] The Reverend W. Parr Greswell, who quoted the above sentence by Johnson, continued by suggesting that perhaps Pope "had an eye to this passage [lines 15 following of In Leonem X. Pont. Max.] of Sannazarius, when he composed these lines of his epitaph on Gay—'Not that here thy bust / Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust, / But that the virtuous,' &c."[9] Greswell also pointed out that Johnson, in his life of Pope, deplored Pope's borrowing from Ariosto in his [Pope's] epitaph upon himself [Lives, III. 272]. Pope made use of, for lack of a better term, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso more than once in his poetry. This is also true of Vida's Ars Poetica, especially in the Essay on Criticism, lines 705-706 of which read, "Immortal Vida! on whose honour'd Brow / The Poet's Bays and Critick's Ivy Grow."[10]

Volume 7 (February 1799), 103. "Y," writing from Leicester, attributes the music for "An Ode to Charity" to Dr. William Boyce, who composed it "at the request of Mr. Joseph Cradock, of Gumley, in Leicestershire, who wrote the elegant poem for the annual performance in support of the Leicester infirmary." The music is not listed in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Cradock, in his Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs (1826), states that "An ODE was written for the occasion, which was set to music by Dr. Boyce, and ably conducted by his friend Dr. Howard" (I. 123). According to "Y," Boyce was paid £300 and did not himself keep a copy of the music.

Volume 13 (May 1802), 347-349. A letter by O. G. Gilchrist offering some glosses on Henry John Todd's edition of Milton's Comus. Octavius Graham Gilchrist is described as an "antiquary" in the Dictionary of National Biography. He was also a well-known book-collector. He edited the poems of Richard Corbet, among other works, and contributed to the works of other scholars. I quote only those suggestions I find convincing, omitting only two.

It will be observed that line or "verse" numbers 213, 420, 749, and 829 are 214, 419-423, 751, and 840 in modern editions. The editors of the Longman's Milton (1968) offer no parallels on these lines, with the exception of repeating Horace's infames scopulos for the "Infamous hills" of line 423. What is more, A. S. P. Woodhouse and Douglas Bush, editors of Comus in the Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, volume two, part three (1972), cite Newton and Todd for Horace's infames scopulos for line 423 and are silent on the other lines quoted by Gilchrist. Todd had added Gilchrist's parallel from Phineas Fletcher in later editions, of which I have seen the fifth (1850). Gilchrist had suggested Hebrews I.3, "the express image of his person," for Milton's "The express resemblance of the gods" (l. 69); the editors of the Variorum Commentary give Verity credit for the parallel or source (p. 867). They have no notes on lines 179 and 751, and only a textual note on line 840. They note the original reading, "unspotted" for "unblemish'd," but offer nothing else for line 214. For the "double night" of line 334 they quote "Ovid, M. ll. 550," i.e. duplicataque noctis imago est, with a cross-reference to Paradise Regained I. 500. Walter Mackellar, editor of the Variorum Commentary on that poem, writes, "The present line ["Night with her sullen wing to double-shade"] and Comus 334, 'In double night of darkness and of shades', may be echoes of Ovid, M. ll. 550: 'The image of night is doubled'," quoting Ovid's line. Gilchrist's quotation of tenebrae conduplicantur from Pacuvius[11] has also gone ignored, along with the lines from Drayton and Cartwright.

Volume 15 (April 1803), 248, in the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. The assertion is made, which I have not elsewhere encountered, that Dr. Johnson was helped in his Dictionary by Lord Chesterfield, David Garrick, the younger William Melmoth, Edward Moore, Richard Owen Cambridge, Soame Jenyns, Horace Walpole and others. Also that Dr. Thomas Campbell had refused Dodsley's offer that he compile the dictionary. This almost surely belongs in the Johnson Apocrypha.

Volume 15 (July 1803), 514-515. The writer suggests that Sterne plagiarized from The life of a Satirical Puppy called Nim 1657, no author given. It is attributed to Thomas May. The work, if Sterne used it or not, is not mentioned in Gardner D. Stout, Jr.'s edition of A Sentimental Journey or in the index volume to the Florida Tristram Shandy.

Volume 16 (January 1804), 550-551, in the Port-folio. The printing of six letters by William Congreve is not noticed in John C. Hodges's bibliography of Congreve's letters on page ix of his William Congreve Documents & Letters (1964). Their appearance in the MM considerably antedates the 1840 date listed in Hodges and necessitates revision in the history of their printing. 1840 is the date of Leigh Hunt's edition of the plays of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar in which the six letters were printed. Hunt wrote, "We are not aware that these letters have ever been published" (p. xxxvi, 1851 ed.).

Volume 18 (October 1804), 233, in the Port-folio. The following letter

from Dr. John Hawkesworth to an unnamed correspondent, almost surely Lord Sandwich, was unknown to me and to John Abbott, the author of the definitive study of Hawkesworth.[12] The date of the letter is incorrect, as the events it mentions occurred more than two years earlier. If it is genuine, as indeed it appears to be, it should be dated around June 1773. Richard Berenger was first Equerry to George III.

DR. HAWKESWORTH,
Respecting his Dedication of Cook's Voyages to the King.

MY LORD,

I had some days ago, the favour of a letter from Mr. Berenger, that has laid me under obligations to your Lordship, which I feel too strongly not to wish at least to acknowledge as I ought. My knowledge of your Lordship, though at a very remote distance, makes me feel less solicitude about the manner which I may happen to do what my heart tells me ought to be done; if, therefore, I am now intruding improperly upon your Lordship, I flatter myself that my intention will atone for my fault.

I think myself happy to be permitted to put my manuscript into your Lordship's hands, because, though it increases my anxiety and my fears, yet it will at least secure me from what I should think a far greater misfortune than any other that can attend my performance, the danger of addressing to the King any sentiment, allusion, or opinion, that would make such an address improper. As I had no copy fair enough for your Lordship's perusal, some delay was unavoidable; I have now the honour to submit the work to your Lordship, with the Dedication, from which the duty that I owe to his Majesty, and, if I may be permitted to add any thing to that, the duty I owe to myself, have concurred to exclude the servile, extravagant, and indiscriminate adulation, which has so often disgraced alike those by whom it has been given and received. I have the honour to be, with the utmost regard and esteem, My Lord,

Your Lordship's most
obliged Servant
London,
JNO. HAWKESWORTH." March 2, 1761

Volume 18 (November 1804) 323-324, in the Port-folio. "Prior's Chloe [sic] has been usually supposed an imaginary person; but the late Sir William Musgrave wrote the following memorandum in a copy of the Poems. 'Prior's Chloe went to live at Welford, near Nottingham, where she married a journeyman shoe-maker, a stranger, and died at Welford in a house of Mrs. Bates, of whom she rented it. She just lived to see her fortune spent so near as not quite to want: many curiosities were sold after her death; of which what she died worth chiefly consisted. She had something sprightly even when near dying.'" Charles K. Eves believes that Chloe was probably "the Jane Ansley to whom Prior left a bequest of a year's wages, mourning and fifty pounds. That she was a widow and a cook-maid seems certain."[13] The Chloe of three of Prior's poems was Anne Durham. She was succeeded as Prior's mistress by Elizabeth Cox who said that "Flanders Jane was his Chloe."[14] Sir William Musgrave's memorandum would seem too circumstantial to be suspect.

Notes