1727.] HURD'S FLATTERY. 25 that in the Dedication, on the characters of the three great Romans [Cæsar, Cato, and Cicero], which you have since adopted on the notes on Pope, is admirable. In running it over this last time, I find I have stolen a hint from you which I was not aware of. It is what I say of the "Apes" of Plato and Aristotle, in page 79 of the Commentary on the Epistle to Augustus, taken from what you say in page 9 on that subject. I should not have said so much on this matter (for I am as much above the thought of flattering you as you are above the want of it), but that I think this shyness in acknowledging this little prolusion of your genius gives a handle to your low malignant cavillers, which you need not have afforded them. I must further request it of you, as a favour, that, if Knapton has not destroyed the copies, you would oblige me with half a dozen or so, which you may trust me to dispose of in a proper manner. I ask it the rather because I could never get one into my own possession. I have tried several times, and now very lately this winter, out of Baker's sale; but it was bought up before I could order it. Such a curiosity have both your friends and enemies to treasure up this proscribed volume.' To the same purpose Hurd expresses himself in his 'Discourse on Poetical Imitation.' * The remark about the three great Romans, to which Hurd alludes, is, that the Roman that had called Catiline's factious popularity public spirit, or Antony's beastly luxury munificence, had sinned against his country's virtues, while the candid and humane Atticus had been excused, [if,] when speaking of Cæsar, who had ambition without pride or vanity; of Cato, who had pride without vanity or ambition; of Cicero, who had vanity without ambition or pride; he had called the first's ambition the love of glory, because joined with clemency; the second's * Comm. on Ep. ad Pis., &c., vol. iii. p. 107. pride an honest scorn, because arising from the enmity of vice; and the third's vanity a conscious merit, because never sparing in another's praise.' But in these observations on these eminent personages there is, in reality, very little deserving of commendation. When such numerous elements enter into the composition of human characters, how can any single term serve to designate that of any particular individual? How can it be said that in the character of Cæsar there was nothing but ambition, without any mixture of pride or vanity? or in that of Cato nothing but pride, without any portion of vanity or ambition? or in that of Cicero nothing but vanity, without either ambition or pride? What injustice would it be to Cicero to call him merely vain? or to Cato, to pronounce him remarkable for nothing but pride? or to Cæsar, to say that every other feeling in him was nullified by ambition? The observation about the Apes,' from which Hurd took his hint, is, that of the later Sophists who affected to be thought followers of Plato and Aristotle, some could arrive at no higher a conformity than the imitation of the stammering of the one, and the round shoulders of the other.' HIS PRAISE OF POPE WARBURTON, AND RECONCILIATION APOLOGY FOR SIR ROBERT SUTTON HIS LETTER TO POPE ON SIR ROBERT'S CHARACTER-POPE ERASES SIR ROBERT'S NAME FROM HIS SATIRES. ATTHEW CONCANEN, to whom Warburton says MATE he gave money for dinners, and the manuscript of his Enquiry into Prodigies,' seems to have been a man of more literary ability, and of better moral character, than Warburton and Pope would lead us to believe. He was an Irish barrister, but, having deserted the law for a time, he brought on the stage at Dublin, in 1721, when he was only twenty years old, a comedy called 'Wexford Wells;' and dedicated, in the same year, to Swift's 'Lawyer Bettesworth,' a poem entitled 'A Match at Football, in three Cantos.' In the following year he inscribed a volume of Poems on Several Occasions' to the Duchess of Grafton, and came over to London to seek his fortune, where, in 1724, he published Miscellaneous Poems,' and became connected with The London Journal,' in which he prefaced some criticisms of Theobald on Shakspeare with a very judicious introduction. He insists, in that article, on the duty of a nation to preserve the works of its authors in good condition, and to render them, by the aid of comments, intelligible to posterity. Every writer,' he observes, is obliged to make himself understood of the age in which he lives; but, as he cannot answer for the changes of manners and language which may happen after his death, those who receive pleasure and instruction from him are obliged, as well in gratitude to him as in duty to posterity, to endeavour to perpetuate his memory by preserving his meaning. Much pains,' he adds, have been taken to preserve to us the picture of Chaucer, while nobody has thought proper to render that better picture of him, his writings, intelligible to future ages. Butler has had a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey: how much more emphatically might it be said to be erected to his memory if it were a comment upon his excellent "Hudibras," which, for want of such illustration, grows every day less pleasing to his readers, who lose half his wit and pleasantry, while they are ignorant of the facts he alludes to! I own it grows daily more difficult to perform this duty to old authors; and, therefore, the Italians say that a comment ought to be made when the work does not need it, for that it will be impossible to make one when it does.' Such suggestions regarding Chaucer and Hudibras were extremely pertinent at the time that they were made. After some commendation of Theobald, he observes that such a critic might bring the name of commentator into the repute which it has lost by the dull and useless pedantry of some pretenders to it.' In 1728, he wrote the preface to the Collection of all the Verses, Essays, Letters, and Advertisements occasioned by Mr. Pope and Swift's Miscellanies,' and in the same year a pamphlet, 1727.] POPE AND CONCANEN. 29 entitled A Supplement to the Profund,' in which, says Dr. Warton, there are more shrewd remarks, and more pertinent examples, than might be expected from such a writer, and enough to make us think he had some more able assistant. Concanen was at that time an intimate friend of Warburton, and, it has been suggested, was assisted by him in writing these remarks; but of this there is no positive proof.' Concanen was well able to produce it without any aid from Warburton. In this tract on the Profund,' which is a satire on Pope, he is accused by Warburton of having dealt unfairly by Pope, in not only frequently imputing to him Broome's verses (for which he might seem in some degree accountable, having corrected what that gentleman did), but those of the Duke of Buckingham and others.' Pope took his revenge in the well-known lines, True to the bottom see Concanen creep, No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make; Th' unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake. This satire was the more malignant, as Concanen, in his 'Miscellanies,' had, in some very fair couplets, praised Pope : With pleasing notes the woods and valleys ring, In 1732 he had so recommended himself, by his literary abilities, to the Duke of Newcastle, that he was appointed to the Attorney-Generalship of the island of Jamaica, a post which he filled with the utmost integrity and honour, |