Shipton, Gloucestershire. Oldham went to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, and returned home, after taking his B.A. degree, in 1674. He became usher in a school at Croydon. Verse written by him found its way to the Earls of Rochester and Dorset, and to Sir Charles Sedley, who astonished the poor usher by paying him a visit. He became tutor to two grandsons of Sir Edwards Thurland, a judge living near Reigate, and then to the son of a Sir William Hickes, near London. This occupation over, he lived among the wits in London; was remembered as the poetical usher by Sedley and Dorset; was on affectionate terms with Dryden; and found a patron in the Earl of Kingston, with whom he was domesticated, at Holme Pierrepoint, when he died of small-pox, in December, 1683, aged thirty. His chief production was the set of four "Satyrs upon the Jesuits," modelled variously on Persius, Horace, Buchanan's "Franciscan," and the speech of Sylla's ghost at the opening of Ben Jonson's "Catiline." The vigor of his wit produced a bold piece of irony in an "Ode against Virtue," and its "Counterpart," an ode in Virtue's praise, with many short satires and odes, one in high admiration of Ben Jonson, paraphrases and translations. There is a ring of friendship in the opening of Dryden's lines upon young Oldham's death before time had added the full charm of an English style to the strength of wit in his verse: "Farewell! too little and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; 32, Nahum Tate, joint author with Dryden of the Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel," was born in Dublin, in 1652, the son of Dr. Faithful Tate, and educated at Trinity College there. He came to London, published in 1677 a volume of "Poems," and between that date and 1682 had produced the tragedies of "Brutus of Alba" and "The Loyal General; Richard II.; or, the Sicilian Usurper;" an altered version of Shakespeare's "King Lear;" and an application of "Coriolanus " to court politics of the day, as "The Ingratitude of a Commonwealth; or, The Fall of Coriolanus." Tate wrote three other plays before the Revolution. It was not till 1696 that he produced, with Dr. Nicholas Brady (b. 1659, d. 1726), also an Irishman, and then chaplain to William III., a “New Version of the Psalms of David;” and in 1707 one more tragedy of his was acted, "Injured Love; or, The Cruel Husband." In 1692, Tate became poet-laureate, and remained laureate during the rest of Dryden's life, and throughout Queen Anne's reign. 33. George Stepney (b. 1663, d. 1707), wrote pleasant occasional verse. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, and owed his political employment after the Revolution to the warm friendship of a fellow-student, Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax. 34. Thomas Creech, born in 1659, near Sherborne, Dorset, studied at Wadham College, Oxford, and got a fellowship for his translation of Lucretius, published in 1682. In 1684, the year of the first volume of Miscellany Poems, Creech published a verse translation of the Odes, Satires, and Epistles of Horace, which did not sustain his credit, though he applied the satires to his own times. The end of his life was, that, in 1701, Wadham College presented him to the rectory of Welwyn, and he hanged himself in his study before going to reside there. Richard Duke, also a clergyman, was a friend of Otway's, and tutor to the Duke of Richmond. He was part author of translations of Ovid and Juvenal, and also wrote original verses. He died in 1711, as Prebendary of Gloucester. 35. Sir Samuel Garth, born of a good Yorkshire family about 1660, became M.D. of Cambridge in 1691, and Fellow of the London College of Physicians in 1693. He was a very kindly man, who throve both as wit and as physician; and he acquired fame by a mock-heroic poem, "The Dispensary," first published in 1699. The College of Physicians had, in 1687, required all its fellows and licentiates to give gratuitous advice to the poor. The high price of medicine was still an obstacle to charity; and after a long battle within the profession, the physicians raised, in 1696, a subscription among themselves for the establishment of a dispensary within the college, at which only the first cost of medicines would be charged to the poor in making up gratuitous prescriptions. The squabble raised over this scheme, chiefly between physicians and apothecaries, Garth, who was one of its promoters, celebrated in his clever mock-heroic poem. It was suggested to him, as he admitted, by Boileau's mock-heroic, "Le Lutrin," first published in 1674, which had for its theme a hot dispute between the treasurer and precentor of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris over the treasurer's wish to change the position of a pulpit. Garth, a good Whig, was knighted on the accession of George I., and was made one of the physicians in ordinary to the king. He wrote other verse, and died in 1719. 36. John Pomfret, who died in 1703, aged thirty-six, was Rector of Malden, and son of the Rector of Luton, both in Bedfordshire. His "Poems" appeared in 1699, the chief of them a smooth picture of happy life, "The Choice," first published as "by a Person of Quality.” As one part of "The Choice" was "I'd have no Wife," it was promptly replied to with "The Virtuous Wife; a Poem." William Walsh (b. 1663, d. 1708), whom Dryden, and afterwards Pope, honored as friend and critic, was the son of a gentleman of Worcestershire. He wrote verse, liked poets, was a man of fashion, and sat for his own county in several Parliaments. He published, in 1691, a prose “Dialogue concerning Women, being a Defence of the Fair Sex, addressed to Eugenia." William King (b. 1663, d. 1712) was born in London to a good estate, graduated at Oxford, became D.C.L. in 1692, and an advocate at Doctors' Commons. He acquired under William III. and Queen Anne the reputation of a witty poet, who idly wasted high abilities and good aids to ad 66 vancement in the world. In 1699 he published a Journey to London," as a jest upon Dr. Martin Lister's "Journey to Paris." In 1700 he satirized Sir Hans Sloane, then President of the Royal Society, in two dialogues called "The Transactioner." At the end of William's reign, Dr. King obtained good appointments in Ireland. Thomas Brown, a witty and coarse writer of trifles, whose name afterwards as Tom Brown became very familiar in society, began his career towards the close of Charles II.'s reign. He was born in 1663, the son of a farmer, at Shiffnal, Shropshire; became a clever but discreditable student of Christchurch, Oxford; acquired skill in French, Italian, and Spanish, as well as in Latin and Greek; was obliged by his irregularities to leave the university, and was schoolmaster for a time at Kingston-on-Thames. Then he came to London, lazy, low-minded, dissolute, and clever, to live as he could by his wit. He wrote satires, two plays, dialogues, essays, declamations, letters from the dead to the living, translations, etc. He died in 1704. George Granville (b. 1667, d. 1735), second son of Bernard Granville, and nephew to the first Earl of Bath, went early to Cambridge, wrote verse as an undergraduate, was at the Revolution a young man of twenty-one, loyal to the cause of King James. Under William III. he lived in retirement and wrote plays: "The She-Gallants;" a revision of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," as "The Jew of Venice," with Shylock turned into a comic character; and "Heroic Love," a tragedy upon Agamemnon and Chryseis." George Granville was made Lord Lansdowne, Baron Bideford, in 1711, when the Tories came into power. 66 CHAPTER IX. SECOND HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: SCHOLARS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND MEN OF SCIENCE. 1. Thomas Hobbes. -2. James Harrington.-3. Eager Spirit of Inquiry.-4. Group of Men of Science. - 5. Robert Boyle.-6. Robert Hooke.-7. John Ray. -8. Thomas Sprat.-9. Thomas Sydenham.-10. Sir Thomas Browne.-11. Elias Ashmole.-12. Sir Kenelm Digby.-13. Sir Isaac Newton.-14. Writers on Political Science; Thomas Mun; Sir Josiah Child; Sir William Petty.-15. Algernon Sidney.-16. Izaak Walton.-17. Ralph Cudworth.-18. John Locke. 1. THERE was one man whose life ended in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century, but began in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, and who was himself a representative of the three classes of writers embraced in the title of this chapter. We refer to Thomas Hobbes, who was born in April, 1588, son of a clergyman, at Malmesbury, in Wiltshire. As a schoolboy at Malmesbury he translated the "Medea" of Euripides from Greek into Latin verse. In 1603 he was entered to Magdalene Hall, Oxford; and in 1608 became tutor to William, Lord Cavendish, son of Lord Hardwicke, soon afterwards created Earl of Devonshire. In 1610, Hobbes travelled with his pupil in France and Italy. When he came home, Bacon, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and Ben Jonson, were among his friends. In 1626 his patron died, and in 1628 the son whose tutor he had been died also. In that year Hobbes published his first work, a "Translation of Thucydides," made for the purpose of showing the evils of popular government. Ben Jonson helped in the revision of it. Hobbes next went to France as tutor to the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, but was called back by the Countess Dowager of Devonshire to take charge of the young earl, then thirteen years old. In 1634 he went with his pupil to France and Italy, returned to England In in 1637, and still lived at Chatsworth with the family he had now served for about thirty years. In 1636 he honored Derbyshire by publishing a Latin poem on the wonders of the Peak, "De Mirabilibus Pecci." In 1641 Hobbes withdrew to Paris, and in 1642 published in Latin the first work setting forth his philosophy of society. It treated of the citizen-"Elementa Philosophica de Cive." Hobbes upheld absolute monarchy as the true form of government, basing his argument upon the principle that the state of nature is a state of war. In 1647 Hobbes became mathematical tutor to Charles, Prince of Wales. In 1650, he published a treatise on "Human Nature; or, the Fundamental Elements of Policy;" and another, "De Corpore Politico; or, the Elements of Law, Moral and Politic." the following year, 1651, appeared his "Leviathan; or, the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil." This book he caused to be written on vellum for presentation to Prince Charles; but the divines were in arms against Hobbes for opinions which they considered hostile to religion. Upholder as he was of the supremacy of kings, Charles naturally avoided him. No man can hurt religion by being as true as it is in his power to be; and that Hobbes was. Our judgment of a man ought never to depend upon whether or not we agree with him in opinion. Hobbes was an independent thinker, and retained his independence when he might have lapsed into the mere hanger-on of a noble house, or, by dwelling only on some part of his opinion, have looked for profit as a flatterer of royalty. At Chatsworth he gave his morning to exercise and paying respects to the family and its visitors; at noon he went to his study, ate his dinner alone without ceremony, shut himself in with ten or twelve pipes of tobacco, and gave his mind free play. Hobbes's "Leviathan," "occasioned," he says, "by the disorders of the present time," is in four parts: 1, Of Man; 2, Of Commonwealth; 3, Of a Christian Commonwealth; 4, Of the Kingdom of Darkness. Whatever can be compounded of parts Hobbes called a body; man, imitating nature, or the art by which God governs the world, creates "that great Leviathan called the Commonwealth or State, . . . which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended." In this |