1092 Anecdotes of Mr. Thomas Cooke, the Poet. "Indulge, my friend, thy modeft vein, While all the joys of May infpire; The Monarch of a peaceful mind; While thou art true, and Nanny kind.” The spirit of party ran high in the time of George the Firft; and, as Cooke was confidered as an excellent Greek fcholar, perhaps party first induced him to enter the lifts against Pope. However this be, in 1725 he published The Battle of the Poets, a poem in which Pope, Swift, and fome others, were treated with much freedom; and he tranflated and published the epifode of Therfites, from the fecond book of Homer's Iliad, to fhew how much Pope had mistaken the author in his tranflation of the Greek. For this attack Pope has configned Cooke In "Be thine, my ftationer! this magic gift, Cooke fhall be Prior, and Concanen Swift." And in the latter, after the mention of fome confiderable names, his friends, he fays, "From these the world fhall judge of men and books; Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Gockes." In a note to an edition I have of the Dunciad, published by Pope in 1729, he I fays: "The man here fpecified was the fon of a Maggletorian, who kept a publichoufe a Braintree, in Elex. He urit a thing called The Battle of Poets, of which Philips and Wied were the heroes, and wherein our anchor was attacked in his moral character, in relation to his Homer and Shakespear le erit, moreover, a tarce of Penelope, in the preface of which alfo he was fquinted at; and fome'malevolent things in the Brit fb, London, and Daily Journals. His chief work was a tranflation of Hehad, in which Theobald writ notes, and half-notes." In the appendix to the Dunciad of the latter editions, containing a lift of the various publications, before the Dunciad i was written, in which Pope was abuted, the following account is given of Cocke: "The Battle of Poers, an heroic poem, by Thomas Cooke; printed for J. Roberts, folio, 1725." [Dec. of Therfites in Homer, by Thomas Cooke, &c." After the publication of the Dunciad: "Mif's Weekly Journal, June 8, 1728, A long letter. figned W. A. writ by fome or other of the club of Theobald, Dennis, Moore, Concanen, Cocke, who for fome time held weekly meetings for thefe kind of performances." It is of little importance whether Cooke's father was an inn-keeper or alehoufe-keeper at Braintree; but the propriety of Pope's introducing the religious opinions of the father, with the manifeft view of reflecting on the fon, will not be admitted by all Pope's admirers; many of whom, I am perfuaded, agree with your correfpondent, Mr. Wefon, in thinking he purfued fome of his poetical opponents with a malignant afperity, unbecoming himself as a man, and unwarranted by any provocation they gave him. He feems himself afhamed of having reficted on Cooke's birth and family, by omitting, in fubfequent editions of his works, the former part of his original note to the Duntied, and all that relates to the farce of Penelope. He alfo has dropped the word " writ," as applied to • fome malevolent things in the Britif, London, and Daily Journals," and the word "published" is ufed inftead thereof, with this addition, that he, meaning Cooke, "wrote letters at the fame time to Mr. Pope, proefling his innocence. His chief werk was a tranflation of Hepod, to which Theobald wrote notes, and half notes, which he carefully owned." Such as knew Cooke, and his bold and dating temper, will not fufpect him of having written letters (to Pofe), prorefting his innocence," if he really had been the author of the malevolent things in fuch Journals. He might, perhaps, having difavowed to Pope any intention of "quinting at him in bis Preface to Penelope" (which I have never feen), or of writing reflexions to his difadvantage in the Journals mentioned, which might have been under the direction of others; but I cannot believe he was mean enough to tell a lie on the occafion; and I am warranted in this opinion, not only from my perfonal knowledge of the man, but from his having published The Battle of the Poets, originally, with his name to it, and having alfo fet his name to the tranflation of the episode of Therptes from Homer, which he never would have done if he had not been regardles of Pope's enmity. In the note abovementioned Pote fhews much malevolence respecting The otald: he fays, he wrote " notes and half notes, WHICH HE CAREFULLY OWNED." Whoever looks into Cooke's tranflation of Hefiod into English verfe from the Greek, published in 1728, in two vo lumes, quarto, will fee a Pofticript, to which he fets his name, as follows: "Such remarks as I have received from my friends I have diffinguifhed from my own, in juice to thofe by whom I have been obliged, left, by a general acknowledgement only, fuch errors as I may have poffibly committed fhould, by the wrong guefs of fome, be unjustly imputed to them." From hence it appears, that the application of Theobald's name, as well as Lord Pembroke's, to fome of the notes, was an act altogether of Cooke's. Allow me, Mr. Uzban, to remark, now I am on the fubject of Pope's conduct, that he, like fome other of his poetical opponents, began life with an independent, though fmall fortune; but, whilst some of fuch opponents in the literary world were plunged in all the diffipation and vices of a town life, his good fenfe and prudence, aided, no doubt. by a crazy and feeble conflitution, corfined -him generally at fome diftance from the metropolis, and enabled him to "maintain a poet's dignity and cafe," without wafting his patrimonial inheritance. It was owing to that circumftance, and the general regulation of his life and manners, that he never was under the neceffity of printing till frequent revifion had rendered his works correct and perfect. The great celebrity he acquired by the publication of his first pices obtained fubfcriptions for his tranfition of Hamer, which added greatly to las fortune, and no one knew better than himfelt bow to make the most of his fubfequent works. Lord Chesterfield, who had a perfect knowledge of him, fays, in Characters published after that noble Lord's death, he was the moft irritable of the genus irritabile vatum, offended with trifles, and never forgeting or forgiving them." But i muf be contailed he had alfo fome amic qualities. If we lament that a mind to maprodent, ani to free tron 20diation, as has fetas to have bola, some, whhout fuficiest provosacon, Lave defended to the mean and le jad Gay of enset an TEV LEG mired "as long as letters and taste shall remain in this country." I am not fufficiently acquainted with the Greek language to know whether Cooke's tranflation of Hefiod be a corre& one; but I am perfuaded Pope himself thought it a work of merit, when he fays, notwithstanding his diflike of him, "his chief work was a tranflation of Hehod." without giving any character of the work itself. Many have thought it placed Cooke high in the ranks of learn ing and genius; fure I am there is much pleafing versification in it. I have never feen The Battle of the Poets in its original drefs, as published in 1725. The author, in a new edition (altered and enlarged), which was printed in 1729, fays, the title "is all the refemblance each has to the other, excepting fome lines the fame in both, all which are not eighty." In his Preface he appears much hurt by Pope's attack of him in the Dunciad, and fays, in his poem he has confined himself entirely to the writings of men, without idly reflecting on their perfons, or dishonourably on their circumftances and morals; all which the author of the Dunciad is impertinently guilty of. If I have ac cufed any of immoralitys, they are fuch as appear in their writings; and what I have fayed in the character of the Spy, in the fecond Cano, is no more than is juftifyable in The Battle of the Poets, fince ail that is fayed, to my knowledge, is, fuitable to the perfon." The Spy alluded to in the Preface, and exprefsly named in the poem itself, was Savage, who, it feems, lived in convivial familiarity with many of Pope's literary enemies, and, at the fame time, courted Pope with much fervility. He is faid to have furnished Pope with most of the private anecdotes of the authors mentioned in the Dunciad. Cooke, in a note to his poem fays, "M Pore feems to have had the fame perfon in his eye, where, fpeaking of himf It, he favs, "Nor like a puppy daggled thro' the town, To fetch and carry fin. long up and down.” Epift to Dr. Arbuthnot. In The Battle of the Putts the combatants ar mares! oa either fide; the pittet, at coadj Nor to Pope is Swift, who is thus dolor. 1094 Anecdotes of Mr. Thomas Cooke, the Poet. Worth in all shapes he views with envious eyes, A Vanbrugh witty, and Godolphin wife : "Tickell, blefs'd bard, by Addifon approv❜d, Of Dennis, he says, "Dennis, whofe veins with youthful vigour Firm as an oak beneath the weight of fnow, I have given thefe extracts, Mr. Urban, not as thinking them the best in the poem, but that your readers may judge of Cooke's genius and verfification, whofe works are but little known. The fimile in the second verfe of the defcription of old Dennis, the critick, is as truly poetical as any I have met with in any author; and there are, in many parts of the poem, verfes which would not difcredit the works of more popular poets. In a note to this poem, as printed in his Poems in 1742, Cooke fays, "the reader must obferve, that the author of this poem alludes to none of Mr. Pope's writings fince the first publication of the Dunciad, either in commendation or cenfure: but he is very fenfible that Mr. Pope has fince published what are objects of both in a high degree." And in a Poftfcript he fays, "a poem, under the title of The Battle of the Poets, was writ and published by me in the very early part of my youth, which was re-printed in Dublin the fame year in which it was published in London: this was before the publication of the Dunciad." And farther on he favs, “I cannot conceive very highly of Mr. Pope's philofophy or dig nity of mind, if he could be provoked by what a boy writ concerning his tranflation of Homer, and in verles which gave no promife of long duration." He takes notice, in the faid Peftfcript, of what Pepe has faid, that Philips and -Welfied are the heroes of The Battle of C [Dec. the Poets; and he fays, "whatever idea he would have annexed to that reflexion, I ftill entertain the fame opinion of the writings of thefe two gentlemen that I did then. Mr. Welfled has not writ much, and what he has published is but little known yet in moft that we have of his, I fpeak of his poetical pieces, there is that delicacy, that language which is peculiar to the province of poetry, which will always give pleasure to thofe who read and taste. Mr. Ambrofe Philips has already acquired a fame which he owes to fuperior merit only, in which falle taste and cabal have had no share; and all the blafts of envy, malice, and of ignorance, prevail no more against him than a fquall of wind against a foreft-oak: the reputation of his writings will increase with time." Pope calls The Battle of the Poets, contemptuously, a thing. The next edition, published fome years afterwards, which retained only about eighty lines of the original poem, feems to justify his opinion of it. In looking back over this letter, I am perfuaded, Mr. Urban, it will take up as much room in your Magazine as I have a right to expect; I fhall, therefore, poftpone my further account of Cooke and his writings to fome future opportu. nity. JOSEPH MAWBEY. REMARKS ON ENGLISH BARDS. R (Continued from p. 982.) ICHARD LOVELACE, a truly elegant poet of the last century, who is lefs remembered, deferves a better fate. Kent, has the honour of his birth and refidence; his family were eminent there; but the accounts of it given by Hafted, in his Hittory, are fo broken, fcattered, and inaccurate, that it requires fome time to understand them. Ithall endeavour, therefore, to give a more fuccinct and clear flatement of it. John Lovelace poffeffed a manor in Betheriden, Kent, which took his own name, in the time of Edward III. (Haft. II. 239). From him defcended a race illuftrious for their military talents. In the time of Henry VI. a younger branch of this houfe, Richard Lovelace, of Queenhithe, London, bought and settled at the manor of Bayford, in Sittingb urne (Haft. 11. 612). His fon Lancelot had three fons '; the third was ancestor of the Lords Lovelace (whofe progenitor built the nine old houfe, out of the ruins of a convent, at Hurley, in Berks, with Spanish money gained in an expedition with Sir Francis Drake, temp. Eliz. (See Gougli's Cam den) 1791.] Anecdotes and Remarks on English Poets. den). William, fecond fon, and at * The White Friars (which by a late trial 1095 Prison make," &c. (Wood's Ath. II. 227). When Love with unconfined wings To whifper at my grates; And fetter'd with her eye, Know no fuch liberty. When flowing cups run swiftly round Know no fuch liberty. When (like confined linnets) I And glories of my King; He is, how great should be, Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; After three or four months imprison40,000l. not to ftir out of the lines of ment, he had his liberty upon bail of communication without a pafs from the Speaker. But during this confinement he lived beyond the income of his estate, to keep up the credit and reputation of the King's caufe, by furnishing men ingenious men in want, whether fchowith horfes and arms, and by relieving lars, muficians, or foldiers. He furnished alfo his two brothers, Col. Francis Love. lace and Capt. William Lovelace (afterwards flain at Carmarthen), with money for the King's caufe; and his other bre ther, Dudley Pofthumus Lovelace, he fupported in Holland to study tactics and fortification in that fchool of war. CLIFFORDIENSIS. (To be continued.) AVERAGE d. s. d. 1095 AVERAGE PRICES, OF CORN, [Dec. By the Standard Winchester Bushel of Eight Gallons, and of Oatmeal per Boll of 145lbs. Avoirdupois, from the Returns received in the Week ended the 19th of November. Wheat. Rye. Barley. Oats. Oatmeal. Bigg. Peafe. Beans. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. 51 3 41 3 61 2 41 5 35 3 225 3 4 50 3 7 rft Effex, 5 2 3 93 4 2 41 10 3 83 |