The life of Richard Cumberland, esq. Embracing a critical examination of his various writings. With an occasional literary inquiry into the age in which he lived, and the contemporaries with whom he flourished

Front matter

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Dedication

TO FIELD-MARSHAL HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE DUKE OF KENT,

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Preface

W HEN the Memoirs of Cumberland wer£ published, I was forcibly impressed with their insufficiency in all that regarded the estimation of his literary character; and while I found in them all that could be wished about the man* I was conscious that whenever his death should happen, an ample and interesting opportunity would occur for the union of this personal history, with a minute enquiry into the pretensions of the author. In what way, however, I conceived this scheme might be best executed, may be easily known from the following pages, which I have endeavoured to make as interesting as I could. If I have failed, I will not seek to mitigate censure by an appeal to indulgence.

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X PREFACE.

Whether any thing respecting Cumberland, yet unknown, might have been obtained by application to his family, is uncertain. I forbore to try the experiment, because I wished to perform my undertaking with an unbiassed mind. Had I been indebted to them for any communications, or for courtesies of any kind, I should only have increased my own embarrassment, without, perhaps, increasing the advantage of the reader. No man can disregard the influence of those feelings which are generated by friendly intercourse, or by polite attentions ; and he might justly be charged with ingratitude and insincerity, who should obtain from the relatives of a person what information he needed, and then requite the obligation by giving them pain in his opinions. I resolved therefore to place myself in no such equivocal situation, for I wished to think with freedom, and with freedom to speak my thoughts. Nor do I imagine that much could have been given had I asked, and had they, whom I asked, been willing to give; for Cumberland probably told all that need be, if not all that could be, known.

PREFACE. XI

In examining the writings of Cumberland I have sometimes done it with a minuteness which may be thought unnecessary, and perhaps tedious. I did it, however, because I considered it as the fittest means of attaining my end, which was, to discover the full extent of his merits as an author. It enabled me, also, by adducing the grounds of my belief, to avoid the imputation of indiscriminate censure or praise.

In the note, p. 62, I have spoken of Lord Chatham's Letters to Lord Camelford, and drawn a false inference, from believing that they were addressed to the late nobleman of that name, who fell in a duel. I am indebted to the vigilance of a friend for being able to notice the error in this place.

I experienced some difficulty in ascertaining the dates of Cumberland's various productions, in which he has been inexcusably negligent. As often as I could I have supplied his deficiences ; but sometimes I found it impossible to do so without more loss of time than the acquisition would have cpmpensated.

Mi PREFACE.

The extracts which I have Occasionally made from his Memoirs, have been of such passages as either tended to illustrate particular events of his life, and in which I conceived the employment of his own language might confer a character of authenticity ; of such as exhibited his talents as a writer ; or, finally, where I imagined the amusement of the reader would be promoted by their introduction. I hope it will not be thought, however, that I have done this too copiously ; a splenetic reader, indeed, might tell me that I have not done it enough, by hinting that these extracts form the only valuable part of my book. I selected them sometimes with the expectation that they would relieve the aridity of continued critical discussion, or the barren commemoration of familiar and unimportant facts.

For the freedom with which I have expressed my opinions upon the works of living authors, I have no apology to offer, because I deem none necessary. I would have suppressed them, had I felt any adequate motive for it ; but I could not falsify

PREFACE. Xlll

them. I disclaim all influence of malignity or envy ; but I am not very anxious about the reception of my renunciation, because I know that the reverse will be more willingly believed by the majority of mankind. 06- trectatio et livor proms auribus accipiuntur. Tacit.— I have not sought occasions for censure ; but when they presented themselves I did not shrink from the expression of it. Let those who differ from me disprove my positions by argument, and I shall be ready to listen, and happy to be convinced, but if they answer by the compendious reasoning of scornful disregard, I shall know where the truth lies, and be sufficiently pleased with that proud silence which is more frequently the refuge of weakness than the conscious dignity of power disdaining to exert itself. It is often more prudent to despise an adversary than to oppose him, for while no evidence of inability is manifested, there will always be a credulous part of mankind who will disbelieve its existence.

When I had just begun the composition of the present volume I was informed, by a friend, that I might expect a competitor in

XIV PREFACE.

Sir James Bland Burges, who was meditating a similar posthumous memorial. As I doubted, however, whether the public curiosity about a man like Cumberland, would justify two such undertakings, I deemed it adviseable to communicate with Sir James upon the rumour, and to acquaint him with my own intentions.

This I did in a letter, where I also apologised for obtruding myself upon his notice, personally a stranger to him as I was. As I am not fond enough of my own writings to make copies of my letters, I have consequently no one of this ; but if I remember its purport rightly, it simply stated what I had heard respecting his being engaged upon a life of Cumberland, informed him of my own plans, expressed my apprehensions whether a double attempt would be likely to succeed, and made, I believe, some slight proposal of a coalition, supposing the report I had heard to be true. To this communication I received the following very polite reply from Sir James :

PREFACE, XV

u I was yesterday favoured with your letter of the 11th instant, respecting your intended publication of Mr. Cumberland's Life.

" Nothing can be more unfounded than the report which has reached you of my having a similar intent. Mr. Cumberland, indeed, by his will, left the management and publication of his MSS. to the care of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Sharpe, and myself; but his daughter, Mrs. Jansen, has declined our interference, and has advertized in her own name, an edition of certain plays, which Mr. Cumberland had, in the last year of his life, advertized for publication. I rather apprehend that Mr. Cumberland has not left any thing of much importance behind him ; but, as he latterly wrote many things for the booksellers, and for various periodical publications, to which he did not affix his name, many of which have considerable merit, it might prove interesting to the public to notice them. In the most trifling of them, strong marks of his genius appear. I

XVI PREFACE.

am not aware that he ever wrote any thing in partnership, except the Exodiad, which we wrote together. After all, his great excellence was chiefly shewn in conversation, in which his entertaining powers were unequalled. Those who liv'd most with him could best appreciate this ; but this, like Garrick^s acting, vanished with him, and no adequate representation of it can be convey'd to posterity. My long intimacy with him, and the regard which I felt for him, make me rejoic'd to think, that so early a justice will be done to his memory, by a gentleman who appears to be so well qualified far the task which he has undertaken ; and J shall he ready to give you every information, on any point relating to him which may fall within my knowledge.

f With every good wish for the success of your intended publication,

" I am, Sir, u Your most obedient humble servant,

" J. B. BURGES/5

?J To William Mudford, Esq"

PREFACE. XVII

I was no less pleased with the gentlemanly ^courtesy of this letter, than with the unexpected opportunity, which it presented, of enriching my work. The grace of a voluntary kindness has always appeared to me the most interesting quality in any kindness ; and when Sir James so politely offered to give me every information in his power, I must own that I anticipated a very pleasing accession of novelty and interest to my undertaking. I hastened, therefore, to acknowledge his letter, and besides specifying some particular information that I wished relatively to Cumberland's anonymous writings for the booksellers, I solicited, in general, any other intelligence which he might wish to communicate or have it in his power to do. I expressed how much I was gratified by his unsolicited civility, and howhappy I should be to testify to the public the obligations I was to receive from him. Such, I believe, was the general purport of the letter ; but as I have no copy of it, and did not expect that its contents would ever become a question^ I can speak of it only from a very imperfect recollection.

XY111 PREFACE.

I now proceeded with my labour, and was hourly awaiting the proffered intelligence from Sir James. Day, however, passed after day, and no communication arrived. Still I was contented, for I could not imagine that a gentleman would thrust himself forward as a benefactor, and after all do nothing ; that he would make a vain parade of an unasked kindness, and let it evaporate in words ; that he would profess his delight at the justice to be done to his friend's memory, by one " so well qualified for the task," and yet withhold what might adorn or endear that memory. I could not suppose a deliberate intention to deceive, and I therefore candidly conjectured that the delay would be compensated by the value of the gift, and that he was only protracting the time that he might not make an offering unworthy of the occasion.

I love to think well of mankind, and this illusion, therefore, consoled me for many weeks ; but when, at length, I found the volume approaching rapidly to a close, and remembered that I had not only received no answer of any description from Sir James,

PREFACE. XIX

to my second letter, but that he had also only vapoured and paid compliments, instead of performing a voluntary offer, the illusion vanished, and I discovered a dreary void of moral insincerity.

No man is pleased to find himself the object of deception, when his own aims are fair and honourable ; and really, on this occasion, my surprise was at least as great as my indignation. I immediately considered what ought to be the conduct of a person who makes an unsolicited offer of his assistance, and finds that unsolicited offer accepted. No man, indeed, is bound to perform all that may be asked of him, but every man is bound to perform all that he promises ; and there is surely an additional obligation when that promise is the free offspring of his own judgment. Sir James thinks otherwise, however ; but I hope I shall never exchange my code of ethics for his. Perhaps he might reply that he altered his opinion afterwards, and that he did not wish to incur any publie responsibility ; if so, I would have candidlyacknowledged the validity of his plea ; but why did he not rescue himself from a disho-

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nourable suspicion, by telling me so ? I was sufficiently confident in my own powers not to sink into despair at the anticipation of losing the assistance of Sir James Bland Surges .

When I conceive that any person has conducted himself towards me with incivility, I cannot suffer him to enjoy the triumph of doing it with impunity, but take an immediate opportunity of expressing, with decision,what are my sensations ; and, accordingly, when I thought, beyond the ptfwer of self-delusion, that Sir James had done so, I told him my opinion in the following letter, of which I kept a copy, anticipating its present use :

?.c Sir, November 11, 1811.

" I had the pleasure of answering your obliging letter dated September 16th, a few days after the. receipt of it, and, availing myself of the offer which it contained, requested from you some information respecting those things which Cumberland had written, anonymously, for the booksellers, and any other topic which you might deem interesting to the public.

PREFACE. XXI

u When I ventured to make this request, I own I had some pleasing anticipations of success, and imagined I should be able to enrich my work with some curious facts. So long a time has elapsed, however, without receiving any communications from you> that I now consider my hopes as having been vainly formed; and I have brought the volume nearly to a conclusion without any of those advantages to it which I was led to expect from your promises.

" I will not inquire from what motive this change in your intentions has arisen ; but, as I am conscious that I did not obtrude beyond what your politeness amply justified in me, I must freely confess that I feel no pleasure in reflecting upon your silence. As, also, in the expectation of what you promised, I more than hinted to my friends the obligations I was to receive from you, I am afraid it will be necessary for me to advert to the failure in my preface, though I Jiope to do it without acrimony or coarseness " I remain, Sir,

" Your obedient servant,

" To Sir James Bland Burgas'*

XXil , PREFACE.

To this letter I received an answer ; a very brief one ; just eight lines ; in which, however, Sir James, with much condescension, permits me to publish the correspondence that had taken place between us, " provided I published this letter with the rest." I was fully sensible of the value of the permission, and if I did not avail myself of it, it was only because I am more accustomed to act from my own judgment than from the dictates of others. I hope this apology will satisfy Sir James, for my omission of his laconic epistle, without wounding his self-importance. Its contents, indeed, do not deserve publicity ; for the only agreeable sentence in it is where he tells me that he should have held my letter " undeserving of an answer," if I had not threatened " to make free" with him in my preface ; and so he wrote me one in defiance. This is as it should be in a preux et hardi Chevalier ; and in the epic poet, of Richard Cceur de Lion.

I have certainly made free with him, as he terms it, and if my freedom has the effect of rectifying his notions upon promissory obligations, I shall not repine at the trouble.

PREFACE, XX111

There is an admirable disquisition in Paley's Moral Philosophy, (B. III. Part I. chap, v.) upon promises, the attentive perusal of which I would earnestly recommend to Sir James ; not so much with regard to the transaction between us, for in that it appears to me that he has made himself merely ridiculous, in having vainly decorated himself with the title of a benefactor, without the ability or intention, I know not which, to support the character ; but in reference to the general concerns of life, for, if he adopts the same laxity of performance in all his promises, he may find, perhaps, more serious consequences result from it, than such a good-humoured retaliation as I have employed.

W. MUDFORD

November 20, 1811.

THE LIFE

OP

RICHARD CUMBERLAND, Esq,

CHAP. L

Cumberland* s descent, a literary one. — His great grandfather, the Bishop of Peterborough, author of the work entitled De Legibus Naturae. — Anecdotes of him. — His primeval simplicity of character. — His works.- — Dr. Bentley, the maternal grandfather of Cumberland. His domestic character not deducihle from his writings. Anecdotes of him. — Curious coincidence between a passage in one of his sermons, and some lines in Popes Essay on Man.

I^UMBERLAND possessed one claim to the notice of his contemporaries and of posterity which is denied to many. He was derived from a literary stock, and some hereditary respect was attached to the descendant of Bentley and of Bishop Cumberland. Nor did this patrimonial honour languish in his hands ; he improved the possession which

B his ancestors had bequeathed to him, and transmitted it to his own posterity with increased value and renown. He was. proud indeed of the literary honours of his family ; but it was the pride of a man who wishes to prove himself worthy of th^m by his zealous emulation ; not of one who indolently reposes beneath the laurels which a preceding generation has earned, and which have devolved to him as the successor.

Bishop Cumberland was the paternal great grandfather of our author. He was a man of such conscientious feelings, such primeval integrity of manners, and with such acquirements as a scholar, that whatever renown his descendant might acquire, it would still be capable of addition, from his consanguinity with a man so eminently endowed. He was the son of a citizen of London, and received his education first at St. Paul's school, and afterwards at Cambridge, where he took a degree of B. A. in 1653 (being then in his twenty-first year) and of M. A. in 1656.

His first intention was to study physic, and he made some progress in those enquiries which would have fitted him to practise with some skill, though perhaps with less eminence than accidental causes might have conferred upon a candidate less worthy of success. It has often been observed that a young physician is generally the plaything of fortune or of fashion: he either toils through life to acquire the reward he deserves;

or a lucky concurrence of circumstances gives him at once, the meed without, perhaps, the merit that should earn it. In the country, a physician may secure a respectable practice, because he acquires it commonly without much competition : but in the metropolis, he is confounded with a throng of aspirers, with those who do, and with those who do not, deserve the success they aim at ; and the finest talents, the most consummate skill, are doomed to obscurity for want of one fortuitous occasion to display themselves; while adventurers of humbler capacity start into notice and pursue a resplendent track of fame and fortune, the children and votaries of fashion and of prejudice. They divide, among themselves, the patronage of the town, and leave to their less successful brethren the fees of those whose confidence in their skill is, perhaps, less than their apprehension of heavy charges from their much employed superiors. I have heard a young physician, possessing talents formed to succeed, if talents alone could succeed, lament with much bitterness this unequal distribution of reward and favour.

From a profession so little calculated to engage the fancy of an aspiring mind, but pre-eminently adapted to satisfy the longings of a good one, Cumberland soon turned aside, and directed his views towards the church ; a patroness equally capricious, perhaps, in the disposition of her favours. He diligently applied himself to the requisite studies,

B 2 and soon obtained a living, to the sequestered privacy of which he retired, attentive to his duties, and without a wish to change. The unaffected piety of his manners, and the zealous discharge of his office made him loved and respected : while his talents and erudition acquired him the applause and esteem of those who were best able to appreciate their extent and importance.

During this unambitious retreat from the world and its cares, at Stamford, he published his work entitled* De Legibus Nature Disquisitio Philosophica, Sfc. ; which received the testimony of the learned in its favour, while the author lived, and was recommended by Johnson, in his preface to Dodsiey's Preceptor, as one of those books which " teach the obligations of morality without forgetting the sanctions of Christianity," and by which " religion appears to be the voice of reason, and morality the will of God." The author then takes his station with Grotius, Puffendorf, and Addison, as a fellow labourer in a cause so noble.

When the Revolution took place, and it was thought necessary to secure the protestant establishment, by the induction of such men into the vacant sees, as were known to revere the institution they were paid to support, Cumberland was not forgotten. The blameless purity of his life, the labours of his pen, and the orthodox tenets which he not only possessed but acted upon, distinguished him as peculiarly qualified to form one of that band which was now to rally round the church, and secure her from the open or secret attacks of her enemies. He was accordingly nominated Bishop of Peterborough in 1691, in the room of Dr. Thomas White, who refused to subscribe to the new oath.

This preferment, however, he neither sought, nor accepted with avidity when offered. He had learned to moderate his desires, and to find, in the rewards of his living at Stamford, an ample provision for every want that his heart could feel. He had now passed through those years of life when wishes are most likely to be formed, and their gratification most vehemently sought. He was now on the verge of his grand climacteric, and shrunk from, rather than coveted, those episcopal duties, which would irresistibly call upon him for performance, if he accepted the station to which they were annexed.

The first intelligence of his promotion to the see of Peterborough, was conveyed to him through a paragraph in the public papers ; and when he heard of it by the ordinary channel of communication, he hesitated to accept the honour : either from an inherent timidity of character, from a real moderation of happiness, or from the suggestions of a scrupulous mind, that he was now too old to undertake its duties. The persuasions of his friends, however, subdued his disinclination from whatever cause it arose, and he accepted the dignity of which the government had considered him worthy.

The see of Peterborough was but moderately endowed ; yet no solicitations could, afterwards, induce him to permit a translation to a wealthier one. He never suffered his attention to be withdrawn from the obligations which it imposed upon him, but sedulously devoted himself to their discharge, without permitting the sophistry of self-delusion to persuade him that the smallest might be dispensed with. This rigorous enforcement of his own duties he practised to the last month of his life ; and when his friends endeavoured to dissuade him from labour, which they deemed so far beyond his strength to sustain, his constant reply was, " I will do my duty as long as I can/' Nor was this a new principle that he had adopted with his elevation to the prelacy: for when he was a young man, he habituated himself to the same inflexible mode of life ; and if he was told, (as sometimes his friends did, from an allowable apprehension of the consequences of such scrupulous exactness) that he would injure his health, he usually answered, " a man had better wear out than rust out."

From an attention thus assiduous, however, to his ecclesiastical duties, he found leisure to prosecute his literary researches, and spent many years of his life in examining Sanchoniatho's

Phenician History, to which undertaking he was impelled by reasons laudable in themselves and likely to produce benefit to society. They are detailed by Mr. Paj^ne, (who married his daughter and published his posthumous works, among which was the one now mentioned,) and may be here briefly adverted to.

The errors of popery had been making rapid strides during the short reign of a popish king. Protected by the royal countenance it had assumed an open and undisguised shape, and, from its very nature, threatened the overthrow of the established religion. Of that religion, however, Cumberland was a zealous and a sincere supporter ; and he could not contemplate, without concern, the growing danger that now menaced its prosperity. Revolving in his mind the plan most likely to secure its future stability, he conceived that the enlightened part of its opponents might be most effectually converted from their heretical opinions, by a precise exposition of the fallacies upon which they rested, and an historical detail of their origin and progress among mankind. Idolatry was the capital error of the Romish church, and to exhibit how it became first established, under what pretences, and supported by what authority, would be, in his estimations labour not un worthy a protestant divine, and not unlikely to destroy its ascendancy in the minds of the enquiring and rational adherents to the catholic faith.

S LIFE OF CUMBERLAND.

Of idolatry, however, the earliest account was to be found in Sanchoniatho's fragment, and this he studied with deep attention, labouring to extract from it those evidences of the commencement of idolatrous worship which he wanted for his purpose. In this object he considered himself to have succeeded ; but his labour was rendered ineffectual by the timidity of his bookseller, who feared to publish any thing against popery, at that critical period when it was a question which the most penetrating observer of human affairs could not decide, whether the see of Rome or the church of England would triumph. But this repulse discouraged the Bishop so much that, though he did not abandon the prosecution of his design, he relinquished all intention of making his labours public. He went on with his investigations because he believed them to lead to important results: but he withheld them from the world, because he shrunk from that controversy which the promulgation of his opinions would be so likely to generate. If it be asked why a man, so conscientiously attentive to the performance of whatever he considered as his duty, should have forborne, in this instance, to perform it from any apprehension of the consequences, the answer must be found in that apparent inconsistency which is discoverable in every character, but which would often cease to be such if we could exactly appreciate the motives of the actor. His labours, however, were not lost to posterity, for his son-inlaw published them after his death; but as they were abstrusely learned upon topics interestingonly to a few, their success was necessarily limited.

Bishop Cumberland lived to an advanced age, and his death was gentle. He was found in his chair, in the attitude of one asleep, with a book in his hand, which he had been reading, the vital principle extinct, and the immortal one gone whither the mind of man cannot follow. He was in the 86th year of his age. His character is thus given by his great grandson :

" To such of his friends as pressed him to exchange his see for a better, he was accustomed to reply, that Peterborough was his first espoused, and should be his only one ; and, in fact, according to his principles, no church revenue could enrich him ; for I have heard my father say, that, at the end of every year, whatever overplus he found upon a minute inspection of his accounts was by him distributed to the poor, reserving only one small deposit of 22/. in cash, found at his death in his bureau, with directions to employ it for the discharge of his funeral expences ; a sum, s in his modest calculation, fully sufficient to commit his body to the earth.

" Such was the humility of this truly christian prelate, and such his disinterested sentiments as to the appropriation of his episcopal revenue. The wealthiest see could not have tempted him to accumulate, the poorest sufficed for his expences, and of those he had to spare for the poor. Yet he was hospitable in his plain and primitive style of living, and had a table ever open to his clergy and his friends ; he had a sweetness and placidity of temper that nothing ever ruffled or disturbed. I know it cannot be the lot of human creature to attain perfection, yet so wonderfully near did this good man approach to consummate rectitude, that unless benevolence may be carried to excess, no other failing was ever known to have been discovered in his character. His chaplain, Archdeacon Payne, who married one of his daughters and whom I am old enough to remember, makes this observation in the short sketch of the bishop's life, which he has prefixed to his edition of TheSanchoniatho. This, and his other works, are in the hands of the iearned, and cannot need any effort on my part to elucidate what they so clearly display, the vast erudition and patient investigation of their author.

" He possessed his faculties to the last, verifying the only claim he was ever heard to make as to mental endowments ; for whilst he acknowledged himself to be gifted by nature with good wearing parts, he made no pretensions to quick and brilliant talents, and in that respect he seems to have estimated himself very truly, as we rarely find such meek and modest qualities as he possessed in men of warmer imaginations, and a brighter glow of genius with less solidity of understanding, and, of course, more liable to the influences of their passions."