WILLIAM GIFFORD

WILLIAM GIFFORD, the son of a plumber and | farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one;

glazier, who dissipated his property by intemperance and extravagance, was born at Ashburton, in Devonshire, in April, 1755. He lost his father when only twelve years of age, and in about a year afterward his mother died, leaving himself and an infant brother, " without a relation or friend in the world." The latter was sent to the workhouse, and the subject of our memoir was received into the house of his godfather, who put him to school for about three months, but at the end of that period took him home, with the view of employing him as a ploughboy. Being unfitted, however, for this occupation, by an injury on his breast, he was sent to sea in a coasting vessel, in which he remained for nearly a year. "It will be easily conceived," he says in his autobiography, "that my life was a life of hardship. I was not only a ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,' but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot; yet, if I was restless and discontented, I can safely say it was not so much on account of this, as of my being precluded from all possibility of reading; as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing, during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description, except the Coasting Pilot."

pen, ink, and paper, therefore, (in despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford,) were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was, indeed, a resource; but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in ap plying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent."

Under the same unfavourable circumstances, he composed and recited to his associates small pieces of poetry, and, being at last invited to repeat them to other circles, little collections were made for him, which, he says, sometimes produced him “as much as sixpence in an evening." The sums which he thus obtained, me devoted to the purchase of pens, paper, &c.; Dooks of geometry, and of the higher branches of algebra; but his master, finding that he had, in some of the verses before mentioned, satirized both himself and his customers, seized upon his books and papers, and prohibited him from again repeating a line of his com positions. At length, in the sixth year of his ap prenticeship, his lamentable doggerel, as he terms it, having reached the ears of Mr. Cookesley, a surgeon, that gentleman set on foot “a subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in writing and English grammar."

He was at length recalled by his godfather, and again put to school, where he made such rapid progress, that in a few months he was qualified to assist his master in any extraordinary emergency; and, although only in his fifteenth year, began to He now quitted shoemaking, and entered the think of turning instructer himself. His plans school of the Rev. Thomas Smerdon; and in two were, however, treated with contempt by his years and two months from what he calls the day guardian, who apprenticed him to a shoemaker, at of his emancipation, he had made such progress, Ashburton, to whom our author went "in sullen- that his master declared him to be fit for the uniness and in silence," and with a perfect hatred of versity. He was accordingly sent by Mr. Cookeshis new occupation. His favourite pursuit at this ley to Oxford, where he obtained, by the exertions time was arithmetic, and the manner in which he of the same gentleman, the office of Bible reader continued to extend his knowledge of that science at Exeter College, of which he was entered a is thus related by himself: "I possessed," he ob-member. Here he pursued his studies with unreserves," but one book in the world; it was a trea-mitting diligence, and had already commenced his tise on algebra, given to me by a young woman, poetical translation of the Satires of Juvenal, when who had found it in a lodging-house. I considered the death of Mr. Cookesley interrupted the progress it as a treasure, but it was a treasure locked up; of the work. A fortunate accident procured him for it supposed the reader to be well acquainted a new patron in Earl Grosvenor, in whose family with simple equations, and I knew nothing of the he for some time resided, and afterward accommatter. My master's son had purchased Fenning's panied to the continent his son, Lord Belgrave. Introduction: this was precisely what I wanted; On his return to England, he settled in London, but he carefully concealed it from me, and I was and, devoting himself to literary pursuits, publishindebted to chance alone for stumbling on his ed, in 1791, and 1794, successively, his poetical hiding-place. I sat up for the greatest part of satires, the Baviad, and the Mæviad; the one several nights successively; and, before he sus-containing an attack on the drama, and the other pected his treatise was discovered, had completely an invective against the favourite poets of the day mastered it. could now enter upon my own: and that carried me pretty far into the science. This was not done without difficulty. I had not a

In 1800, he published his Epistle to Peter Pindar, in which he charged the satirist with blasphemy: and Wolcot accused him of obscenity This led to 162

Juvenal entire, except in his grossness, and to make him speak as he would have spoken among us. In this e has so far failed, that whilst he omits to

an assault, and Wolcot would have inflicted severe chastisement on Gifford, but for the interference of a powerful Frenchman, who happened to be present, and who turned Wolcot out of the reading-furnish the glowing imagery, luxuriant diction, and room, where the scene occurred, into the street, throwing his wig and cane after him. In 1802, appeared his long-promised version of Juvenal, which was attacked by the Critical Review, in an erudite but somewhat personal article, that called forth a reply from our author, entitled, Examination of the Strictures of the Critical Review upon Juvenal.

In 1805, and 1816, he published, successively, his editions of Massinger, and Ben Jonson; and in 1821, appeared his translation of Persius. He next edited the works of Ford, in two volumes; and he had proceeded with five volumes of those of Shirley, when his labours were terminated by his death. He died at Pimlico, on the 31st of December, 1826, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. Being a single man, he died in opulent circumstances; having enjoyed, for some years, an annuity from Lord Grosvenor, besides holding the office of pay. master of the band of gentleman pensioners, with a salary of 3002. a year; and, for a time, that of comptroller of the lottery, with a salary of 600l. a year.

The fame of Gifford rests principally upon his Juvenal, which occupied the greater part of his life, and was sent into the world with every advantage that could be derived from the most careful attention on the part of the author, and the correction of his most able friends. It still falls short, however, of Mr. Gifford's attempt to give

impetuous fluency of the Roman satirist, he has retained many of his worst and most objectionable passages. It has been well observed, by a writer in the New Monthly Magazine, that his translation presents us rather with the flail of an infatuated rustic, than with the exterminating falchion of Juvenal. His Baviad and Mæviad evince first-rate satirical powers; but in these, as in most of his writings, a degree of coarse virulence displays itself, which shows that literary associations had not refined his mind.

These satires would not have found a place in this collection, but for their intimate connexion with English literary history, and the influence they undoubtedly exerted in reforming public taste, and preparing the way for that galaxy of illustrious poets who succeeded him. Of late years Gifford was principally known as the editor of the Quarterly Review, a work established by himself in 1809, and of which he continued to be the conductor till 1824. He also for some time edited the Anti-jacobin newspaper, in which he displayed his usual acuteness, asperity, and subservience to the party by which he thrived; his politics being invariably those of his interest.

Gifford is chiefly known in America by his base and venomous attacks upon us in the Quarterly Review. These, however, were probably necessary in order for him to retain the direction of that periodical. He slandered for his bread.

THE BAVIAD.

INTRODUCTION.

Tota cohors tamen est inimica, omnesque manipli
Consensu magno officiunt:-dignum erit ergo
Declamatoris Mutinensis corde Vagelli,
Cum duo crura habeas, offendere tot caligatos!

IN 1785, a few English of both sexes,* whom ince had jumbled together at Florence, took a fcy to while away their time in scribbling highfl vn panegyrics on themselves, and complimentary "canzonettas" on two or three Italians,† who under

Among whom I find the names of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Greathead, Mr. Merry, Mr. Parsons, &c.

+ Mrs. Piozzi has since published a work on what she is pleased to call British Synonymes: the better, I suppose, to enable these foreign gentlemen to comprehend her multifarious erudition.

stood too little of the language in which they were written to be disgusted with them. In this there was not much harm; nor, indeed, much good: but, as folly is progressive, they soon wrought themselves into an opinion that the fine things were really deserved, which they mutually said and sung of each other.

Thus persuaded, they were unwilling that their inimitable productions should be confined to the little circle which produced them; they therefore transmitted them hither; and, as their friends were strictly enjoined not to show them, they were first handed about the town with great assiduity, and then sent to the press.

A short time before the period of which we speak, a knot of fantastic coxcombs, headed by one Este,

as much Latin from a child's Syntax, as sufficed to expose the ignorance which she so anxiously labours to conceal. "If such a one be fit to write on Synonymes, speak." Pignotti himself laughs in his sleeve; and his countrymen, long since undeceived, prize the lady's talents at their true worth,

Et centum Tales curto centusse licentur.a

Though no one better knows his own house" than 1 the vanity of this woman, yet the idea of her undertaking such a work had never entered my head; and I was thunderstruck when I first saw it announced. To execute it with any tolerable degree of success, required a rare combination of talents, among the least of which may be numbered, neatness of style, acuteness of percep tion, and a more than common accuracy of discrimination; and Mrs. Piozzi brought to the task a jargon long nished the conjectural emendation above, which is highly spoken of by the

since become proverbial for its vulgarity, an utter incasability of defining a single term in the language,and just

1 Quere Thrales!-Printer's Devil.

2 Thus translated by Mr. Bulmer's devil, (the young gentleman who fur

German critics :)

It

had set up a daily paper called the World.
was perfectly unintelligible, and therefore much
read; it was equally lavish of praise an abuse,
(praise of what appeared in its own columns, and
abuse of every thing that appeared elsewhere ;) |
and as its conductors were at once ignorant and
conceited, they took upon themselves to direct the
taste of the town, by prefixing a short panegyric to
every trifle which came before them.

:

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Yendas, and Laura Marias, and Tony Pasquins, have long claimed a prescriptive right to infest our periodical publications but as the editors of them never pretended to criticise their harmless productions, they were merely perused, laughed at, and forgotten. A paper, therefore, which introduced their trash with hyperbolical encomiums, and called upon the town to admire it, was an acquisition of the utmost importance to these poor people, and naturally became the grand depository of their lucubrations.

not a day passed without an amatory epistle fraught with thunder and lightning, et quicquid habent telorum armamentaria cœli.—The fever turned to a frenzy; Laura Maria, Carlos, Orlando, Adelaide, and a thousand nameless names caught the infection: and from one end of the kingdom* to the other, all was nonsense and Della Crusca.

At this auspicious period the first cargo of poetry arrived from Florence, and was given to the public through the medium of this favoured paper. There was a specious brilliancy in these exotics which dazzled the native grubs who had never ventured beyond a sheep, and a crook, and a rose tree grove, with an ostentatious display of "blue hills," and 'crashing torrents," and "petrifying suns!" From I admiration to imitation is but a step. Honest Yenda tried his hand at a descriptive ode, and succeeded beyond his hopes; Anna Matilda followed; in a word,

Contagio labem

Hanc dedit in plures, sicut grex totus in agris
Unius scabie cadit, et porrigine porci.

While the epidemic malady was raging from fool to fool, Della Crusca came over, and immediately announced himself by a sonnet to Love. Anna Matilda wrote an incomparable piece of nonsense in praise of it: and the two "great luminaries of the age," as Mr. Bell properly calls them, fell desperately in love with each other. From that period,

Even THEN, I waited, with a patience which I can better account for than excuse, for some one (abler than myself) to step forth to correct the growing depravity of the public taste, and check the inundation of absurdity now bursting upon us from a thousand springs. As no one appeared, and as the evil grew every day more alarming, (for bedridden old women, and girls at their samplers began to rave,) I determined, without much confidence of success, to try what could be effected by my feeble powers; and accordingly wrote the following poem.

1800.

Whoever has read the first editions of the BAVIAD

must have perceived, that its satire was directed against the wretched taste of the followers of the Cruscan school, without the slightest reference to their other qualities, moral or political.

In this I should have persevered to the end, had not been provoked to transgress the bounds prescribed to myself, by the diabolical conduct of one of my heroes, the notorious Anthony Pasquin

This man, who earned a miserable subsistence by working on the fear or vanity of artists, actors, &c., hardened by impunity, flew at length at higher

some time, Della Crusca became impatient for a sight
of his beloved, and Anna, in evil hour, consented to be
come visible. What was the consequence ?

Tacta places, audita places, si non videare
Tota places, neutro si videare places.

Accord

Mr. Bell, however, tells the story another way. ing to him, "Chance alone procured the interview." Whatever procured it, all the lovers of "true poetry," with Mrs. Piozzi at their head, expected wonders from it. The flame that burned with such ardour while the lady was yet unseen, they hoped would blaze with unex ampled brightness at the sight of the bewitching object. Such were their hopes. But what, as Dr. Johnson

In this paper were given the earliest specimens of those unqualified and audacious attacks on all private character; which the town first smiled at for their quaintness, then tolerated for their absurdity, and now-gravely asks, are the hopes of man! or indeed of woman i that other papers, equally wicked, and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it,-will have to lament to the last hour of British liberty.

for this fatal meeting put an end to the whole. With the exception of a marvellous dithyrambic, which Della Crusca wrote while the impression was yet warm upon him, and which consequently gave a most accurate account of it, nothing has since appeared to the honour of Anna Matilda: and the "tenth muse," the "angel," the "goddess," has sunk into an old woman; with the comforting reflection of having mumbled love to an ungrate ft. swain.

-Non hic est sermo pudicus

In vetula, quoties lascivum intervenit illud
Ζωη και ψυχη.

+ Here Mr. Parsons is pleased to advance his farthing
rushlight. "Crashing torrents and petrifying suns are
extremely ridiculous,"-habes confitentem! "but they are
not to be found in the Florence Miscellany." Who said
they were? But apropos of the Florence Miscellany. Mr.
Parsons says that I obtained a copy of it by a breach of con-
fidence; and seems to fancy, "good easy man!" that I de-
Tived some prodigious advantage from it: yet I had written
both the poems, and all the notes save one, before I knew
that there was such a treasure in existence. He might
have seen, if passion had not rendered him as blind as
a mill horse, that I constantly allude to poems published
separately in the periodical sheets of the day, and after-
ward collected with great parade by Bell and others. I
never looked into the Florence Miscellany but once;
and the only use then made of it was to extract a sound-
ing passage from the odes of that deep-mouthed Theban, I almost shudder while I quote: but so it ever is,
Bertie Greathead, Esq.

The termination of this "everlasting" attachment was curious. When the genuine enthusiasm of the correspondence (Preface to the Alburn) had continued for

Kingdom. This is a trifle. Heaven itself, if we may be lieve Mrs. Robinson, took part in the general infatuation: "When midst ethereal fire

Thou strikest thy DELLA CRUSCAN lyre,
Round to catch the heavenly song,
Myriads of wondering seraphs throng!"

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

And Merry had given an example of impious temerity which this wretched woman was but too eager to imitate