LORD HALIFAX,

LITERATURE'S GREAT PATRON.

(1661-1715.)

MACAULAY, in describing the period when Samuel Johnson first went up to London, calls it "a dark night between two sunny days. The age of Mæcenases had passed away. The age of general curiosity and intelligence had not arrived." He then goes on to speak of the honors and rewards that were showered upon men of letters by the chiefs of both the great parties in the reigns. of William III., of Anne, and of George I. "It was to a poem on the death of Charles II. and to the City and Country Mouse that Montague owed his introduction into public life, his earldom, his garter and his auditorship of the exchequer." Charles Montague, afterward the Earl of Halifax, was indebted to the Earl of Dorset, who introduced him to William III. shortly after the latter's coronation, for his rise in life. "Your

Dr.

majesty, I have brought a Mouse to have the honor of kissing your hand." To which the king replied: "You will do well to put me in the way of making a man of him," and thereupon ordered him a pension of five hundred pounds until something better should turn up. Johnson in his life of Halifax discredits this story, for the reason that it implies a greater acquaintance with English proverbial expressions than King William, who was a Hollander, could possibly have attained. However that may be, honors and preferments fell fast and thick upon Montague, and in quick succession he was made one of the commissioners of the treasury, was called to the privy council and became chancellor of the exchequer. Higher honors were also in reserve for him.

As a poet and man of letters merely the name of Charles Montague would no longer be remembered. He wrote verse that was not contemptible, but which no one cares to read a second time. His chief performance, which was written in collaboration with Matthew Prior, was entitled "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse," being a parody or burlesque of Dryden's “Hind and Panther." In the latter poem Dryden, who had become a convert to Roman Catholicism, under

took to show the superiority and greater purity
of the Catholic church over the Anglican, and he
portrays the one as a hind, pure and unspotted,
and the other as a panther, fierce, vindictive and
savage.
A specimen of poem and parody may
be given:

A Milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;

Without unspotted, innocent within,

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin;

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,
And Scythian shafts, and many-winged wounds ;
Aimed at her heart; was often forc'd to fly,
And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.

Montague's verse runs thus:

A Milk-white Mouse, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on soft cheese, and o'er the dairy rang'd;
Without unspotted, innocent within.
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no gin;
Yet had she oft been scarr'd by bloody claws
Of winged owls and stern grimalkin's paws,
Aimed at her destin'd head, which made her fly,
Tho' she was doom'd to death, and fated not to die.

To modern taste, familiar with parodies far superior to this, Montague's performance has no great interest, particularly as the questions involved no longer affect us. But in those days parody was a new form of humor, while the conflict be

tween the churches was deadly. Consequently the burlesque made a tremendous impression, with the result that when King William came in he did all in his power to "make a man of the mouse" and to shower favors on Montague.

Nor was Montague at all forgetful of what he owed to patronage, and on his own part became in turn one of the most munificent and distinguished patrons of letters. It is to this, rather than to what he wrote, that he owes his place among the "wits of Queen Anne's time."

Charles Montague was born in 1661, and was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was first intended for the Church, but a poem he wrote in 1685 on the death of Charles II. attracted much attention and introduced him to the wits of London. Next followed his burlesque on Dryden, and it was thought by his friends that so much genius ought no to be lost in a country rectory. Through the influence of Dorset he became a member of parliament, and soon attracted attention by his eloquence and ability. Under King William he became one of the most powerful of ministers, and it was he, in connection with the Lord Keeper Somers, Isaac Newton and John Locke, who reformed the English currency and gave it stability.

The story of this feat of statesmanship forms one of the most interesting chapters in Macaulay's history.

Montague was also the founder of the Bank of England, and in many other ways he impressed his statesmanship permanently upon the history of Great Britain. He proposed and negotiated the union between England and Scotland, founded the East India Company, and for a number of years his career was more splendid and more successful than had ever before fallen to the lot of a member of the House of Commons. From obscurity he had risen to great preferment, and from a writer of mediocre verses he had become the foremost statesman of the age.

Small wonder that so brilliant a career should excite envy and multiply enemies, still less wonderful is it that his own head should be turned and personal vanity and arrogance overmaster him. He became the mark for slander, detraction and ridicule, and a crowd of libelers assailed him. Boundless rapacity and all manner of corruption were charged against him. Twice he was impeached by the House of Commons and twice the articles of impeachment were dismissed by the House of Lords. When Anne succeeded to the throne Montague was dismissed from