Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/613

 10 s. XIL DEC. 25, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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afterwards known as Brandenburgh House (Faulkner's 'Hammersmith/ 278-82). One night, after contemplating a storm of wind and rain from the garden, Dodington, on their return to the drawing-room, remarked that it was a dreadful night. " No, sir,' 1 said the poet, " it is a fine night ; the Lord is abroad."

Bubb Dodington was not himself con- spicuous in the poetical world, but he dabbled in verse all his life long. He was the first of the nine " celebrated " poets at Oxford, as they are called in the satirical distich concocted about 1713. His anonym- ous ' Epistle to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole. 1 whom he then followed in politics, was produced in 1726. It refers to that statesman's " strength of genius by experience taught/ 2 but urges him to listen to his " unexperienc'd Friend," For friendship sometimes want of parts supplies, The Heart may furnish what the Head denies.

He confesses that

'Tis easier far to give than to oblige, but exhorts Walpole to adopt the highest motives, and concludes with

You act from Nature, what I teach from Art. It was reprinted in Young's works, ed. 1854, vol. ii. 75-9, where it was followed (pp. 79- 81) by " The Old Man's Relapse, Verses occasioned by the foregoing Epistle." It is contained in Dodsley's collection, vi. 129-35, the last line being weakened into

That acts from Nature, what I teach from Art ; and in(John)BelFs ' Fugitive Poetry, 'i. 133-9. The lines in Dodsley, iv. 227-8, ' On Sir Robert Walpole' s Birthday, August the 26th, 2 are also by Dodington. A second anonymous ' Epistle to the Right Honour- able Robert Walpole, Esq., 2 upon his Majesty's arrival from foreign lands, is attributed in the Catalogue of the British Museum Library to Dodington, but I know not the authority for such statement.

The ' Epistle from John More, Apothecary of Abchurch Lane, to L*** c******* [Lord Carteret] upon his Treatise of Worms [the Treaty of Worms between the King, the Queen of Hungary, and King of Sardinia], 2 n.d. (1743), is said by Horace Walpole on the title-page of the copy now in the British Museum Library to be by Dodington. The latter's eulogistic elegy on the death of Queen Caroline is in Coxe's life of Sir Robert Walpole, i. 554-5. The last line is

Who built her empire on a people's love. ' A Poetical Epistle from the late Lord Melcombe to the Earl of Bute, with Cor-

rections by the author of the " Night Thoughts/ 2 ' was published in 1776, though dated 26 Oct., 1761. The prcemium of five pages is in praise of Bute's " godlike uncle " John, Duke of Argyll. The poem dwells on the difference between Wisdom and Cunning. Wisdom is of course Bute, who gave Dodington his peerage.

Not long before his death Lord Melcombe, as he now was, sent a poem of seven stanzas to Young (Young's Works, ed. 1854, ii. 82-3 ; Spence's 'Anecdotes,' ed. Singer, 1820, pp. 456-8) :

Love thy country, wish it well Not with too intense a care ;

'Tis enough than when it fell Thou its ruin didst not share,

was the duty imposed upon him in its first stanza. The poem was prefaced by 18 lines composed in a tone of great friendship, beginning

Kind companion of my youth, and Young was besought to

Take the'Muse's latest spark

Ere we drop into the dark.

The second eclogue on ' Hope 2 in Lyttel- ton's l Progress of Love 2 is dedicated to Dodington, and a note to the opening lines says that he " had written some very pretty love-verses which have never been pub- lished. ?2 The first piece in Henry Fielding's ' Miscellanies,' 1743, a poem with the title ' Of True Greatness,' is an epistle to Doding- ton, and he is lauded as a " Maecenas you in no Augustan age. 22 Dodington has been called the last Maecenas in this age of patrons. The ' Survey of Dorsetshire,' 1732, by the Rev. John Coker, and the ' Piscatory Eclogue, 2 1729, of the Rev. Moses Browne, are dedicated to him. Richard Bentley, the son of the great Doctor, inscribed an epistle to him, which may be read in John Bell's 'Fugitive Poetry, 2 iii. 68-77, and in similar collections. Bubb Dodington was so much impressed with The Rambler that he sent a letter through the publisher to the unknown author, asking for his acquaint- ance ; but Johnson declined the overtures.

A very severe estimate of Bubb Doding- ton' s character is in the ' Detached Thoughts'- of Lord Chesterfield (Works, ed. Lord Mahon, v. 385) : " His parts are superior to almost anybody's, 22 but his 7 ' coxcombry and his vanity were beyond belief. The story of his manoeuvres and intrigues as set out in his diary has caused his name to be regarded as the embodiment of political corruption. These blemishes are described in Robert Browning's * Parleyings with Certain People