Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

from being effectively fo; her military expences, the i the national debt, together with the great fums paid f due to foreigners, make a large breach in it, fo that. military phrafe, there is little more to do, than to ord tack, to know bow to conduct it with fpirit, and forthwit the breach.'- -Spoke like a true Frenchman.

But though our Author, we hope, is greatly mif drawing this conclufion; yet we think many of his pren thy of due confideration, from thofe who have it mot power to promote the real interefts of Great Britain.

The Life of Cardinal Reginald Pole, written originally by Lodovico Beccatelli, Archbishop of Ragufa; and now lated into English. With Notes critical and hiftorical. is added, an appendix, fetting forth the Plagiarifs, fa lations, and falfe Grammar in Thomas Phillips's Hif Life of Reginald Pole. By the Reverend Benjamin Pye 8vo. 3s. 6d. Bathurst.

POOR

OOR Mr. Phillips really feems to have met with fate! Ridley first knocked him down; Neale t him the coup de grace; and now comes Pye, to kill hi But is it not fomewhat inhuman, thus to lay the flain, barously triumph over the dead? Does not this refe cruelty of the Roman catholics, who used to harro breathlefs bodies of the proteftant reformers, try then herefies of their departed fouls, and hang and burn the five carcafes, with as much zeal as if they were alive, able of feeling the edge of fuch keen arguments?-at a popish author ftands but a poor chance of making con his writings, in this heretical country: and we may c if the Romish faith does, as hath been much afferted gain ground among us, it must be owing to other mea

The zeal of a proteftant divine, to counteract the ef Romish priest, may be easily accounted for, and will be approved, in a proteftant country; but that such fhould be at the pains of tranflating, and the expence ing, a panegyrical account of the life of a Romifh written by a Romish ecclefiaftic, is a circumftance t feem to demand fome explanation.--Let Mr. Pye, explain it :

Thefe curious remains,' fays he, in his dedication prefent Bishop of Durham, were lately refcued from t vion of almost two hundred years, by one of Pole's zeal mirers, Cardinal Quirini, who profefles to have drawn

outlines of his character of Pole from this Italian mafier, though he hath filled up the canvas afterwards with fome strange daubing of his own, in which he hath fince been followed by a very humbly copyist in our own language.

It may not therefore, my Lord! be altogether unfeasonable to exhibit a true and fimple reprefentation of the original itself; which, though modeft in its appearance in comparison with the piece of a late biographer, hath too much of the fictitious caft of panegyric to have been offered to the public, unless it had been contrafted at the fame time with the plainness and fimplicity of historical truth, that it may be seen at one view, not only what Pole's tranfcendent merits were in the partial eye of his fecretary and dependent Beccatelli; but alfo what was his true and genuine character in his travels, his retirements, his embaffies, his legation, and his primacy.'

The contraft with biftorical truth, above intimated, will be found in our learned Tranflator's very large and numerous annotations; in which he hath strictly fcrutinized, not only every fact advanced by his Author, but also the fubfequent reprefentations, of Quirini, and his follower Mr. Phillips: fo that all three are here made to undergo fuch a cross-examination, as none but the plainest and most upright evidence could poffibly endure. No wonder then, if the unguarded fallies and fallacious colouring of profeffed panegyrifts fhould be found unable to ftand fo fevere a teft.

It is very well obferved, by Mr. Pye in his prefatory difcourfe, that a biographer feems to be by profeffion a writer of panegyric; as it is a strong predilection in favour of fome particular character, that generally determines him in the choice of his fubject: praise therefore being the fixed object of his plan, he often makes a facrifice of truth without fcruple, to his partiality for a friend, or his gratitude to a benefactor.

• Compofitions of this kind have therefore their principal merits in their elegant variety of compliment, and delicacy of expreffion; and it would be as unreasonable in a reader to complain of want of hiftorical truth, in a work of pure declamation; as it would be abfurd in a writer to make fuch effufions of the fancy, however ingenious, the bafis and ground-work of real hiftory. The Italian language, which, from its smoothness and melody, is the very dialect of flattery, feems alfo peculiarly fuited to this fpecies of compofition; and the complexional genius of that nation, prone to admire every thing that is fpecious, together with the dependent ftate of the literati among them, bred up either in the libraries of their popes, the palaces of their petty fovereigns, or the colleges of their cardinals, in the learned fervitude of librarians, and fecretaries, confpire to form the talents of their men of letters to this particular mode of writing.

• This

This may be a probable reason why writers o fhould be the more prodigal growth of Italy than o foil; and they seem to have been at no period fo numer 16th century, when scarce a perfon of eminence appe them, but, foon as ever he left the stage, next to buft, and monumental infcription, fucceeded the bis Memory, though under the lefs flattering denor The Hiftory of bis Life.'

As no account hath ever been given of Beccatelli, the panegyrical hiftory of his friend and patron Ca our Tranflator hath collected a few anecdotes conce from his own writings, and other memoirs in the c Cardinal Quirini: of thefe we shall give a very conc

Beccatelli was a native of Bologna, and had his e Padua; where he became acquainted with Pole, at a made by the Cardinal to that univerfity. The in friendship in which they engaged, may be traced, fa thor, through the progrefs of both their lives, for mo fucceeding years, till Pole's promotion to the fee of and Beccatelli's fettlement in that of Ragufa.

But this intimacy, continues our Author, was not by any particular connection till after the death of Car tarini in 1542, during which interval Beccatelli was diate fecretary and domeftic, and spent the feven la which that cardinal lived, chiefly in his family, who his arms at Bologna, Auguft 24, 1542.

Upon this misfortune, he feems to have paffed o diately into the houfhold of C. Pole, carrying with grateful and affectionate remembrance of their comm and as he had oftentimes before been his companio tendant in his journies and his embaffies, he became chearful partner of his happier hours in his elegant Viterbo.

Here he indulged his natural bent to poetry, the lightful amufement of a difengaged mind, in the foci gay and lively Flaminius, who has addreffed him in an copy of verfes published by Mr. Pope, in the fecond w

the Poemata Italorum.

• When C. Pole was called away from his repofe at in 1545, Beccatelli accompanied him, in character of to the council of Trent: here we find him extremely bi duties of his office, and pofting to and fro between R Trent, to receive fresh orders from the pope as new d arofe in the council, and to communicate to him minu the bufinefs which paffed there.

After this time he feems to have continued a do: the English cardinal's; and it has been faid (though

Beccatelli himself) was one among the vaft fhoal of Italians who attended him into England, to fhare in the bounty of a bigoted queen, and in the penfions of a very opulent metropolitan.'

Our Translator, not conceiving himself obliged to follow his Author to the grave, drops him at the council of Trent, in 1562; and proceeds to characterize him, as the panegyrift of Cardinal Pole. He has dwelt upon, fays Mr. Pye, and embellished, every incident of his ftory that can throw a luftre round his favourite character; and expunged, or caft into fhades, whatever might seem to blemish or obfcure it.-And yet, notwithstanding this avowed partiality, either through a natural candour in his temper, or rather through a ftrong prepoffeffion of the unblameablenefs of his hero's conduct, he has developed fome actions of the cardinal's life with a freedom and unrefervedness uncommon in the writers of the papal party, which his copyifts both in Latin and English, A. Dudithius and T. Phillips, have either diverfified or difguifed.

As a foreigner, he is very deficient in his knowlege of the hiftory, customs, revenues, and even fituation of our country; infomuch that I fhould apprehend (if no evidences appear to afcertain it) he never fet his foot upon the island; but if he did, the very short stay he certainly made here, will intitle him to pardon for fome not very material inaccuracies.

As a minute biographer, he has entered into a petty detail of every the most familiar circumftance of Pole's domestic œconomy and converfation: he has taken pains to bring us acquainted with his air, his person, and his countenance; and has even defcended to a frivolous repetition of his table-talk, his fallies of mirth, and his repartees; which they, who can admire the like in Plutarch, may not difapprove in Beccatelli.'

Beccatelli's original work, we are informed, in a note, is. in the 5th volume of Cardinal Quirini's Collections, intituled, Epiftolæ Cardinalis Poli, & aliorum ad ipfum," -and was published from two MSS. in the library at Brefcia in 1757; one taken from the original MS. in the Vatican at Rome, the other communicated to him by a family of the name of Beccatelli, at Bologna.'

The ufe made by Mr. Phillips, of this work of the Italian archbishop's, is confidered by our Tranflator, as a downright plagiarism; the English writer having, as Mr. Pye strongly afferts, mangled and disguised, and fent it abroad into the world, as his own perfonal property.As to the intrinfic merit of Beccatelli's compofition, he thus fpeaks of it, in the conclufion of his preface. Let, fays he, this elegant piece of flattery of Beccatelli's have its true merits, and let it ftand in the first rank, of the many ingenious compofitions of the fame kind, which REV. April, 1766. employed

X

employed the pens of the literati in the 16th century; and let its characteristic title be, Splendidè Mendax.

But let not this fenfible nation, ever intent on manly truth, both in historical as well as philofophical inquiries, fuffer a writer to have any fhare of credit or commendation here, whofe boafted hiftory is but the fpurious offspring of a fpecious panegyric.'

We think it inexpedient to give any fpecimen of this life of Cardinal Pole; our Readers having, probably, been fufficiently entertained with the fubject already: we shall therefore juft mention the Tranflator's Appendix, and conclude the article.

This Appendix is divided into eight parts. In the first, we have 14 pages employed to exhibit our Tranflator's proofs of Mr. Phillips's plagiarijms from Cardinal Quirini's Diatriba; in the fecond, we have a collection of Mr. P.'s falfe translations and falfe references, &c. The third divifion contains Falfe Tranflations, &c. of Les Ambaffades de Noailles.' In the 4th we have • Plagiarisms from a noted papistical work, printed by the king's printer, entitled Hiftorical Collections, &c.' written, adds our Author, by fome infidious papift,-the P-ps of his time." Next come Plagiarifms from Collier's Church-history.' Sixth, Plagiarisms from Father Paul, Meff. Bayle, Moreri, &c.' Seventh, Canons of plagiarifm;' and laftly, Specimens, ungrammatical, unintelligible, and nonfenfical."

With respect to the charge of plagiarifm, fo often urged against Mr. Phillips, it will be but juice to him, in this place, to lay before our Readers what he has, very lately, faid in his own defence, on that head. The paffage we fhall quote, is taken from a little tract of his, entitled An Anfwer to the principal Objections which have been made to the Hiftory of the Life of Cardinal Pole;' and added to a third edition of his Difcourfe on the Study of Sacred Literature, juft printed. The charge of plagiarifm, fays he, is fubmitted to the decifion of every equitable and intelligent reader, when he has collated the paffages; but not to the spleen of a determined adverfary, who fets out with no other view than to find fault. But, if the language, the defcriptions, the images, the drawing of the characters, and what the French term, l'ordonnance du tableau, the difpofition of the whole piece, be the author's genuine product, he does not fee how he can be treated as a plagiary. He gives a hiftory of facts which happened 200 years ago, and, confequently, muft have been related by others, and, fometimes, very differently. He has not only confulted original documents, but, alfo, intermediate writers, whofe authority appeared warrantable and he has not fwelled his notes with endlefs and unneceflary references to books and authors fufficiently indicated throughout the whole work.'

How

« ZurückWeiter »