Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 103.djvu/37

Rh is to be found in Ben Jonson's and Philip's 'Theatrum Poetarum;' taxes Warburton with making an arrangement of Pope's Epistles, which Pope himself had made; informs us in the 'Life of Pope' that the Pastorals of Philips and Pope appeared for the first time in the same Miscellany, but forgets his information when he comes to the life of Philips. While he is wrong in the years of birth of Savage, Somervile, Yalden, and Collins, he is equally incorrect respecting the dates of death of Dryden, Garth, Parnell, and Collins." Where Johnson has made the greatest preparations, there Mr. Cunningham convicts him of the more inaccuracies,—as in the memoir of Dryden, where what is said of the "King Arthur" ought to be applied to another work; where the biographer "mistakes the origin of 'Mac Flecknoe,' and the date of its appearance; informs his readers that King James and not King Charles made Dryden historiographer; assigns Dryden's translation of Maimbourg to a period subsequent to has conversion, when it was well known that it appeared while Charles II. was yet alive; states positively—and in two places—that Dryden translated only one of Ovid's Epistles, whereas he translated at least two; attributes to Settle what is by Pordage; and, from not looking into Burnet for himself, makes Dryden the author of an answer actually written by Varillas." In the allusion, here or elsewhere, to the appointment of Dryden to the post of historiographer, Mr. Cunningham might have borne more explicit testimony to Mr. Bell's service in placing that affair in its true light. In his note on Johnson's text ("King James added the office of historiographer") Mr. Cunningham merely says, "Here is a great mistake. King James only continued him in the office of Historiographer; for the same letters patent (18th August, 1670) which created him Poet Laureate on Davensnt's death, created him Historiographer Royal at the death of Howell." This surely was the place to acknowledge Mr. Bell's recent contribution to the subject. In a previous note, too, à propos of Dryden's motives toward "conversion," Mr. Cunningham says the reader should consult Scott, Southey, and Macaulay: "Both Scott and Southey acquit Dryden of being biassed by motives of temporary convenience; but Mr. Macaulay is painfully positive that his conversion was a mere money-matter." Strange that the reader is not also referred to that particular author (Robert Bell) whose particular part it has been, to show cause against the particular accusation of "painfully positive" Mr. Macaulay. It is unfair, however, to charge Mr. Cunningham with wholly ignoring Bell's Annotated edition of Dryden; he mentions it, and his obligations to it, more than once, if not in quite the right place, or with the due significance.

Yet we might search his own annotations for some time ere we found a "discovery" of equal moral value or biographic interest. The specimens already given of Mr. Cunningham's revising labours, afford a fair notion of the quality, if none at all of the quantity, of bis marginalia. He is in his element when recording the history of Milton's covenant of indenture for the sale of "Paradise Lost," through what auction-rooms it has passed, and on what terms; or when supplying Johnson's omission of one of Milton's many places of residence, a bonne bouche for him who compiled the admirable "Handbook of London;" or when enumerating