once.

of reason, wit, and divine speculation at He could study abroad with less weariness by far to himself than within doors.-WARD, RICHARD, 1710, Life of Henry More, pp. 54, 85, 89, 105, 120, 145.

Dr. More, the most rational of our modern Platonists, abounds, however, with the most extravagant reveries, and was inflated with egotism and enthusiasm, as much as any of his mystic predecessors. He conceived that he communed with the Divinity itself! that he had been shot as a fiery dart into the world, and he hoped he had hit the mark. He carried his selfconceit to such extravagance, that he thought his urine smelt like violets, and his body in the spring season had a sweet odor; a perfection peculiar to himself. These visionaries indulge the most fanciful vanity.-DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1791-1824, Modern Platonism, Curiosities of Literature.

Dr. More's religion was calm and gentle. He looked out mildly upon the beautiful providence of God, and adored profoundly that wisdom which displayed itself everywhere. He lived the "divine life" with his fellow-men, laboring in their behalf with assiduous diligence, till his mortal course was ended. Few men have attained so great a degree of tranquillity as he. His faith cast out fear. His own character proved the words of the old sage; "It is the quiet and still mind that is wise and prudent."-PARKER, T., 1839, Dr. Henry More, The Christian Examiner, vol. 26, p. 15.

As the Cambridge movement reached. its highest, or at least its most elaborate, intellectual elevation in Cudworth, so it ripened into its finest personal and religious development in Henry More. Cudworth is much less interesting than his writings; More is far more interesting than any of his. He was a voluminous author. His writings fill several folio volumes; they are in verse as well as prose; they were much read and admired in their day; but they are now wellnigh forgotten. Some of them are hardly any longer readable. Yet More himself is at once the most typical and the most vital and interesting of all the Cambridge school. He is the most platonical of the Platonic sect, and at the same time the most genial, natural, and perfect man of

them all. We get nearer to him than any of them, and can read more intimately his temper, character and manners--the lofty and serene beauty of his personality

-one of the most exquisite and charming portraits which the whole history of religion and philosophy presents.-TULLOCH, JOHN, 1872, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century, vol. II, p. 303.

His portrait represents him in his later years as much such a man as we should have imagined: he wears his hair, which was light and long, over his shoulders, and a faint streak of moustache upon his upper lip; the face is grave but not displeasing; it has the broad arched forehead, strongly indented, that is characteristic of masculine intellect; very high and prominent cheekbones, big firm lips, and a massive chin; the cheek is healthy and not attenuated; the eyes clear and steady, the right eyelid being somewhat drooped, thus conveying a humorous look to the face; he wears the black gown, with girded cassock, and a great silk scarf-the amussis dignitatis-over his shoulders; the gown is tied at the neck. by strings; and the broad white bands give a precise and quiet air to the whole. -BENSON, ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER, 1896, Essays, p. 62.

GENERAL

More was an open-hearted and sincere Christian philosopher, who studied to establish men in the great principles of religion against atheism, that was then beginning to gain ground, chiefly by reason of the hypocrisy of some, and the fantastical conceits of the more sincere enthusiasts. BURNET, GILBERT, 1715-34, History of My Own Time.

One of the most remarkable in the English language, is a writer of the last age, Dr. Henry More. Though

his style be now in some measure obsolete, and his speakers be marked with the academic stiffness of those times, yet the dialogue is animated by a variety of character, and a sprightliness of conversation, beyond what are commonly met with in writings of this kind.-BLAIR, HUGH, 1783, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres, Lecture xxxvii.

As a poet he has woven together a singular texture of Gothic fancy and Greek

philosophy, and made the ChristianoPlatonic system of metaphysics a groundwork for the fables of the nursery. His versification, though he tells us that he was won to the Muses in his childhood by the melody of Spenser, is but a faint echo of the Spenserian tune. In fancy he is In fancy he is dark and lethargic. Yet his Psychozoia Yet his Psychozoia is not a common-place production: a certain solemnity and earnestness in his tone leaves an impression that he "believed the magic wonders which he sung." His poetry is not, indeed, like a beautiful landscape on which the eye can repose, but may be compared to some curious grotto, whose gloomy labyrinths we might be curious to explore for the strange and mystic associations they excite.-CAMPBELL, THOMAS, 1819, Specimens of the British Poets.

Henry More, though by no means less eminent than Cudworth in his own age, ought not to be placed on the same level. More fell not only into the mystical notions of the later Platonists, but even of the Cabalistic writers. His metaphysical philosophy was borrowed in great measure from them; and though he was in correspondence with Descartes, and enchanted. with the new views that opened upon him, yet we find that he was reckoned much less of a Cartesian afterwards, and even wrote against parts of the theory. The most peculiar tenet of More was the extension of spirit: acknowledging and even striving for the soul's immateriality, he still could not conceive it to be unextended. HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iv, ch. iii, par. 14

In England it is not just to place Cudworth among the mystics: he is a Platonist of a firm and profound mind, who bends somewhat under the weight of his erudition, and with whom method is wanting; but H. More is decidedly mystic. COUSIN, M. VICTOR, 1841, Course of the History of Modern Philosophy, tr. Wight, Lecture xii.

He is less philosopher or theologian than prophet and gnostic with his mind. brimful of divine ideas, in the delighted contemplation of which he lives, and moves, and writes. All his works are inspired by a desire to make known something that he himself has felt of the Divine. The invisible or celestial, so far

from being hard for him to apprehend, is his familiar haunt. He has difficulty in letting himself down from the higher region of supernal realities to the things of earth. This celestial elevation is the

most marked feature at once of his character and his mind. It is the key to his beautiful serenity and singular spiritual complacency--a complacency never offensive, yet raising him somewhat above common sympathy. It is the source of the dreamy imaginings and vague aerial conjectures which fill his books. These may seem to us now poor and unreal, and some of them absurd, but they were to him living and substantial. Nay, they were the life and substance of all his thought. He felt himself at home moving in the heavenly places, and discoursing of things which it hath not entered into the ordinary mind to conceive or utter. He was a spiritual realist.-TULLOCH, JOHN, 1872, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century, vol. II, p. 406.

In More we get for the most part rather bad verse, and doubtfully explained philosophy. Even Coleridge, strongly as More's subject, and in part his method of treatment, appealed to him, has left some rather severe criticisms on the "Song of the Soul." It is quite true that More has, as Southey says, "lines and passages

of sublime beauty." A man of his time, actuated by its noble thought, trained as we know More to have been in the severest school of Spenser, and thus habituated to the heavenly harmonies of that perfect. poet, could hardly fail to produce such. But his muse is a chaotic not a cosmic one.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1887, History of Elizabethan Literature, p. 379.

He was a man of great and extensive learning, but in his writings are found. deep tinctures of mysticism. After finishing some of his works, which had occasioned much fatigue, he would say: "Now for three months I will not think a wise thought nor speak a wise word." He was subject to fits of ecstasy, during which he gave himself up to joy and happiness, which obtained for him the nickname of THE INTELLECTUAL EPICURE. His writings have no particular interest for the present generation, but were very popular in his day, as they established great principles of religion, and fixed

men's minds against the fantastical conceits of the time, which was fast running towards atheism.-FREY, ALBERT R., 1888, Sobriquets and Nicknames, p. 231.

He writes excellent English, easy, leisurely, scholarly, with an abundance of learning, which is yet not ponderous, and occasionally gleams of humour. He is no pedant; good racy, homespun, coarse words diversify pleasantly his philosophic terminology. Yet in the selection of his language he has the nicety of the exact refined man of letters. Pedantry, indeed would have been impossible to him, for, in spite of his airy mysticisms, he is, like Plato himself, well in touch with earth. His love of nature, of outdoor life, is intense, and colours many a passage of his prose. His chief defect as a writer is a tendency to long-windedness in his periods: none the less he rarely fails to be lucid, often succeeds in being vivid, in the expression of his thought.-CHAMBERS, E. K., 1893, English Prose, ed. Craik, vol. II, p. 554.

Like many others he began as a poet and ended as a prose writer. The mere fact of the continued reproduction, in whole or in part, of More's works is a proof that they were not neglected; and, considering how utterly the refined, dreamy, and poetical sipirt of More was out of sympathy with the practical and prosaic mind of the eighteenth century, it is wonderful that his fame should have been so great as it was during that period. John Wesley, for instance, a man of an entirely different type of mind, strongly recommended More's writings to his brother-clergy. William Law, though he called More "a Babylonish

philosopher," and is particularly severe upon the "Divine Dialogues," was deeply impressed with the piety and general interest of his character; and the edition of 1708 was issued through the exertions, and partly at the expense, of a gentleman the description of whom points very distinctly to Dr. Bray, who, except in the matters of piety and goodness, seems to have had little in common with More.OVERTON, J. H., 1894, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXXVIII, pp. 421, 423.

But More cannot be said to have been a Christian in the sense that Thomas-àKempis or Francis of Assisi were Christians; he did not hunger for the personal relation with Christ which is so profoundly essential to the true conception of the Christian ideal. He was a devout, a passionate Deist; he realised the indwelling of God's spirit in the heart, and the divine excellence of the Son of Man. But it was as a pattern, and not as a friend, that he gazed upon Him; the light that he followed was the uncovenanted radiance. For it is necessary to bear in mind that More and the Cambridge Platonists taught that the Jewish knowledge of the mysteries of God had passed through some undiscovered channel into the hands of Pythagoras and Plato; and that the divinity of their teaching was directly traceable to their connection with Revelation. They looked upon Plato and Pythagoras as predestined vehicles of God's spirit, appointed to prepare the heathen world for the reception of the true mysteries, though not admitted themselves to full participation in the same.-BENSON, ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER, 1896, Essays, p. 56.

PERSONAL

He was extremely handsome, and still thought himself much more so than he really was: although he had a great deal of discernment, yet his vanity made him

mistake some civilities as intended for his person, which were only bestowed on his wit and drollery.-GRAMMONT, COUNT, 1663?-1713, Memoirs, by Anthony Hamil

ton.

A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome.
Stiff in Opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving Moon
Was Chymist, Fiddler, Statesman, and Buf-
foon.
-DRYDEN,
Achitophel, First pt.

JOHN, 1681, Absalom and

Of

For his person, he was the glory of the age and any court wherever he came. a most graceful and charming mien and behaviour; a strong, tall and active body, all of which gave a lustre to the ornaments of his mind; of an admirable wit and excellent judgment; and had all other qualities of a gentleman. He was courteous and affable to all; of a compassionate nature; ready to forgive and forget injuries. What was said of a great man in the court of queen Elizabeth, that he used to vent his discontents at court by writing from company, and writing sonnetts, may be said of him; but when he was provoked by the malice of some and ingratitude of others, he might shew that a good natured man might have an ill natured muse. His amours were too notorious to be concealed, and too scandalous to be justified, by saying he was bred in the latitude, of foreign climates, and now lived in a vicious age and court; where his accusers of this crime were as guilty as himself. He lay under so ill a name for this, that whenever he was shut up in his chamber, as he loved to be, nescio quid, or in his laboratory, meditans purgarum, over the fumes of charcoal, it was said to be with women. When a dirty chymist, a foxhunter, a pretender to poetry or politicks, a rehearsal should entertain him, when a messenger to summon him to council could not be admitted. . . We are now come to the last scene of the tragi-comedy of his life. At the death of king Charles he went into the country to his own manor of Helmesly, the seat of the earls of Rutland in Yorkshire. King Charles was his best friend, he loved him and excused his faults. He was not so well assured of his successor. In the country he passed his time in hunting, and entertaining his friends; which he did a fortnight before his death as pleasantly and hospitably as ever he did in his life. He took cold one day after fox-hunting, by sitting on the cold ground, which cast him into an ague

and fever, of which he died, after three days sickness, at a tenant's house, Kirby more side, a lordship of his own, near Helmesly, Ap. 16, 1688; ætat. 60.FAIRFAX, BRIAN, 1690? Memoirs of the Life of George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham.

The man was of no religion, but notoriously and professedly lustful, and yet of greater wit and parts, and sounder principles as to the interest of humanity and the common good than most lords in the court. Wherefore he countenanced fanatics and sectaries, among others, without any great suspicion, because he was known to be so far from them himself.-BAXTER, RICHARD, 1691-96, Reliquiæ Baxterianæ,

vol. III.

He

He had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning all things into ridicule with bold figures and natural descriptions. He had no sort of literature: only he was drawn into chymistry: and for some years he thought he was very near the finding the philosopher's stone; which had the effect that attends on all such men as he was, when they are drawn in, to lay out for it. He had no principles of religion, virtue, or friendship. Pleasure, frolick, or extravagant diversion was all that he laid to heart. was true to nothing, for he was not true to himself. He had no steadiness nor conduct. He could keep no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it. He could never fix his thoughts, nor govern his estate, tho' then the greatest in England. He was bred about the King: and for many years he had a great ascendent over him: but he spake of him to all persons with that contempt, that at last he drew a lasting disgrace upon himself. And he at length ruined both body and mind, fortune and reputation equally. The madness of vice appeared in his person in very eminent instances; since at last he became contemptible and poor, sickly, and sunk in his parts, as well as in all other respects, so that his conversation was as much avoided as ever it had been courted.—BURNET, GILBERT, 171534, History of My Own Time.

The finest gentleman, both for person and wit, I think I ever saw. -RERESBY, SIR JOHN, 1734, Memoirs.

He lived an unprincipled statesman, a fickle projector, a wavering friend, a

steady enemy; and died a bankrupt, an outcast, and a proverb.-SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1805, The Life of John Dryden.

As a statesman Buckingham's only claim to respect is his consistent advocacy of religious toleration, a cause that lost more than it gained by his support. Vanity, and a restless desire for power, which he was incapable of using when obtained, were the governing motives of his political career. His servant, Brian Fairfax, who complains that the world, severe in censuring his foibles, forgot to notice his good qualities, praises his charity, courtesy, good nature, and willingness to forgive injuries. If he was extravagant, he was not covetous. While his amours were too notorious to be concealed and too scandalous to be justified," much was imputed to him of which he was guiltless. -FIRTH, C. H., 1899, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LVIII, p. 344.

THE REHEARSAL

1671

The REHEARSAL, | As it was Acted at the THEATRE-ROYAL. LONDON, Printed for Thomas Dring, at the White-Lyon,

next Chancery-lane end in Fleet-street. 1672.-TITLE PAGE OF FIRST EDITION. Went to see the Duke of Buckingham's ridiculous farce and rhapsody, called "The Recital," buffooning all plays, yet prophane enough. EVELYN, JOHN, 1671, Diary, Dec. 14.

The "Rehearsal" (one of the best pieces of criticism that ever was) and Butler's inimitable poem of Hudibras, must be quite lost to the readers in a century more, if not soon well comented. Tonson has a good key to the former, but refuses to print it, because he had been so much obliged to Dryden.-LOCKIER, DEAN, 1730-32, Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 48

His poems, which indeed are not very numerous, are capital in their kind; but what will immortalize his memory while our language shall be understood, or true wit relished, is his celebrated play of "The Rehearsal;" a comedy which is so perfect a master-piece in its way, and so truly an original, that notwithstanding its prodigious success, even the task of imitation, which most kinds of excellence have excited inferior geniuses to undertake, has appeared as too arduous to be

attempted with regard to this, which through a century and half still stands alone, notwithstanding that the very plays it was written expressly to ridicule are forgotten, and the taste it was meant to expose totally exploded.-REED, ISAAC, 1782, Biographia Dramatica, vol. I, pt. ii, p. 730.

Five editions of "The Rehearsal" appeared in the Author's life time. Of the second and third I cannot learn even the dates. There is a copy of the fourth, 1683, in the Bodleian. An examination of the fifth, 1687, would seem to show a general permanence of the text, but that, probably in each edition, there were here and there additions and alterations en bloc, instigated by the appearance of fresh heroic plays: some of these additions increase, with the multiplying corruption of the times, in personality and moral offensiveness. For our literary history, the first edition is sufficient.-ARBER, EDWARD, 1869, ed., The Rehearsal, Introduction.

In describing George Villiers, second. Duke of Buckingham, as one standing apart, we refer to the character of his Solitary work, and not to his share in it; for, though passing solely under his name, there can be little doubt that it was the production of a junto of wits, of whom he was not the wittiest. Butler, Sprat, and Martin Clifford are named as his coadjutors. Buckingham, who must be credited with a keen sense of the ridiculous, had already resolved to satirize rhyming heroic plays in the person of Sir Robert Howard, when the latter's retirement diverted the blow to Dryden, whom Butler, as we shall see, did not greatly relish, and against whose device of rhyme, Sprat, as we have seen, had committed himself by anticipation. The play chiefly selected for parody is "The Conquest of Granada," which certainly invited it. Dryden appears as Bayes, in allusion to his laureateship; and, although his perpetual use of "egad" seems derived from the usage by one of his dramatis personae rather than his own, we cannot doubt that his peculiarities of speech and gesture were mostly copied to the life. Within a week the town were unanimously laughing at what they had been unanimously applauding; and, scurrilous and ill-bred as the mockery of "The Rehearsal" was, it must be