Addison in the Spectator; he wrote in the Whig journal The Freethinker (1718-19), which was his own venture, and he translated some Persian tales. A series of short complimentary pieces, by which Philips paid court, as Johnson says, 'to all ages and characters, from Walpole, the steerer of the realm, to Miss Pulteney in the nursery,' procured him the nickname of Namby Pamby from Harry Carey (see page 330 below), a nickname cordially adopted by Pope as suited to Philips's eminence in the infantile style.' Of Philips's own achievement in the namby-pamby rhythm, the 'Dimply damsel, sweetly smiling,' addressed to Miss Margaret Pulteney, is one good example, and this is another :

To Miss Charlotte Pulteney, in her Mother's Arms.
Timely blossom, infant fair,
Fondling of a happy pair,
Every morn and every night
Their solicitous delight,
Sleeping, waking, still at ease,
Pleasing, without skill to please;
Little gossip, blithe and hale,
Tattling many a broken tale,
Singing many a tuneless song,
Lavish of a heedless tongue;
Simple maiden, void of art,
Babbling out the very heart,
Yet abandoned to thy will,
Yet imagining no ill,
Yet too innocent to blush,
Like the linnet in the bush,
To the mother linnet's note
Moduling her slender throat,
Chirping forth thy petty joys,
Wanton in the change of toys,
Like the linnet green, in May,
Flitting to each bloomy spray;
Wearied then, and glad of rest,
Like the linnet in the nest.
This thy present happy lot,
This in time will be forgot: .
Other pleasures, other cares,
Ever busy Time prepares;

And thou shalt in thy daughter see
This picture once resembled thee.

Epistle to the Earl of Dorset.
COPENHAGEN, March 9, 1709.
From frozen climes, and endless tracts of snow,
From streams which northern winds forbid to flow,
What present shall the Muse to Dorset bring,
Or how, so near the pole, attempt to sing?
The hoary winter here conceals from sight
All pleasing objects which to verse invite.
The hills and dales and the delightful woods,
The flowery plains and silver-streaming floods,
By snow disguised, in bright confusion lie,
And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye.
No gentle-breathing breeze prepares the spring,
No birds within the desert region sing.
The ships, unmoved, the boisterous winds defy,
While rattling chariots o'er the ocean fly.
The vast leviathan wants room to play,
And spout his waters in the face of day.

The starving wolves along the main sea prowl,
And to the moon in icy valleys howl.
O'er many a shining league the level main
Here spreads itself into a glassy plain :
There solid billows of enormous size,
Alps of green ice, in wild disorder rise.

And yet but lately have I seen, even here,
The winter in a lovely dress appear,
Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow,
Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow :
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose,
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view
The face of nature in a rich disguise,
And brightened every object to my eyes:
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn seemed wrought in glass;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.
The thick-sprung reeds which watery marshes yield,
Seemed polished lances in a hostile field.
The stag in limpid currents with surprise
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise:
The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine
Glazed over, in the freezing ether shine.
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.

When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,

The brittle forest into atoms flies;

The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends:
Or, if a southern gale the region warm,
And by degrees unbind the wintry charm,
The traveller a miry country sees,

And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees:

Like some deluded peasant Merlin leads

Through fragrant bowers and through delicious meads;
While here enchanted gardens to him rise,
And airy fabricks there attract his eyes,

His wandering feet the magick paths pursue,
And, while he thinks the fair illusion true,
The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air,

And woods, and wilds, and thorny ways appear:

A tedious road the weary wretch returns,
And as he goes the transient vision mourns.

From the First Pastoral-'Lobbin.'

If we, O Dorset, quit the city throng
To meditate in shades the rural song

By your command, be present; and O bring
The Muse along! The Muse to you shall sing.
Her influence, Buckhurst, let me there obtain,
And I forgive the famed Sicilian swain.

Begin. In unluxurious times of yore, When flocks and herds were no inglorious store. Lobbin, a shepherd boy, one evening fair, As western winds had cooled the sultry air, His numbered sheep within the fold now pent, Thus plained him of his dreary discontent; Beneath a hoary poplar's whispering boughs, He solitary sat to breathe his vows. Venting the tender anguish of his heart, As passion taught, in accents free of art; And little did he hope, while night by night His sighs were lavished thus on Lucy bright.

'Ah! well-a-day, how long must I endure
This pining pain? Or who shall speed my cure?
Fond love no cure will have, seeks no repose,
Delights in grief, nor any measure knows :
And now the moon begins in clouds to rise;
The brightening stars increase within the skies;
The winds are hushed; the dews distil; and sleep
Hath closed the eyelids of my weary sheep;
I only, with the prowling wolf, constrained
All night to wake: with hunger he is pained,
And I with love. His hunger he may tame;
But who can quench, O cruel love, thy flame?
Whilome did I, all as this poplar fair,
Upraise my heedless head, then void of care,
'Mong rustick routs the chief for wanton game;
Nor could they merry-make till Lobbin came.
Who better seen than I in shepherd's arts,
To please the lads, and win the lasses' hearts?
How deftly, to mine oaten reed so sweet,
Wont they upon the green to shift their feet!
And, wearied in the dance, how would they yearn
Some well-devisèd tale from me to learn!
For many songs and tales of mirth had I,
To chase the loitering sun adown the sky :
But ah! since Lucy coy deep-wrought her spite
Within my heart, unmindful of delight,
The jolly grooms I fly, and all alone

To rocks and woods pour fourth my fruitless moan.
Oh! quit thy wonted scorn, relentless fair,
Ere, lingering long, I perish through despair.
Had Rosalind been mistress of my mind,

Though not so fair, she would have proved more kind.
O think, unwitting maid, while yet is time,
How flying years impair thy youthful prime!
Thy virgin bloom will not for ever stay,

And flowers, though left ungathered, will decay:
The flowers anew returning seasons bring,
But beauty faded has no second spring.
My words are wind! She, deaf to all my cries,
Takes pleasure in the mischief of her eyes.
Like frisking heifer loose in flowery meads,
She gads where'er her roving fancy leads;
Yet still from me. Ah me, the tiresome chase!
Shy as the fawn, she flies my fond embrace.
She flies, indeed, but ever leaves behind,
Fly where she will, her likeness in my mind.'

His Poems were published by Ambrose Philips in 1748, and reappeared in 1765.

John Philips (1676-1709), author of The Splendid Shilling, which Addison pronounced 'the finest burlesque poem in the English language,' was the son of the vicar of Brampton in Oxfordshire, who was also Archdeacon of Salop. He studied at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford; his life, mainly devoted to literature, was cut short by consumption. His early love of Milton is reflected in all his poems. The Splendid Shilling, a mock-heroic poem in Miltonic blank verse, is not in the least designed disrespectfully to burlesque Milton, whom Philips reverenced. He wrote also a Tory celebration of the battle of Blenheim; but his most considerable effort in serious verse was · Cyder, an imitation of Virgil's Georgics. The Splendid Shilling is a classic, read and reprinted while the other poems are forgotten.

The Splendid Shilling.

Happy the man who, void of cares and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains

A Splendid Shilling. He nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's Magpie or Town-hall repairs:
Where, mindful of the nymph whose wanton eye
Transfixed his soul and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe or Phillis, he each circling glass
Wishes her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.
But I, whom griping penury surrounds,
And hunger, sure attendant upon want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,
Wretched repast! my meagre corps sustain :
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chilled fingers; or from tube as black
As winter-chimney, or well-polished jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent :
Not blacker tube nor of a shorter size
Smokes Cambro-Briton, versed in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwalador and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale, when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High overshadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at th' Arvonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Ycleped Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flows nectareous wines that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renowned Falern.

Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow
With looks demure and silent pace, a dun,
Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,
To my aerial citadel ascends.

With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate,
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly
Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect
Thro' sudden fear: a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and, wonderful to tell!
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow
Entrench'd with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band, admired by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes; ye gods, avert
Such plagues from righteous men! Behind him stalks
Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called
A catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible and magic charms
First have endued: if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious, as whilom knights were wont,
To some enchanted castle is conveyed,
Where gates impregnable and coercive chains

In durance strict detain him till, in form Of money, Pallas sets the captive free.

Beware, ye debtors; when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect! oft with insidious ken
This caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallowed touch. So, poets sing,
Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Protending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowelled web
Arachne in a hall or kitchen spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable; nor will aught avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue;
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly, proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make: with eager strides
She tow'ring flies to her expected spoils :
Then with envenomed jaws the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.

So pass my days. But when nocturnal shades
This world envelop and th' inclement air
Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines and crackling blaze of wood,
Me lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light
Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk
Of loving friend delights; distressed, forlorn,
Amidst the horrors of the tedious night,
Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts
My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse
Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,
Or desperate lady near a purling stream,
Or lover pendent on a willow-tree.
Meanwhile I labour with eternal drought,
And restless wish, and rave; my parchéd throat
Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose:
But if a slumber haply does invade
My weary limbs, my fancy 's still awake;
Thoughtful of drink, and eager, in a dream,
Tipples imaginary pots of ale,

In vain; awake, I find the settled thirst
Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.
Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarred,
Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays
Mature, John-apple, nor the downy peach,
Nor walnut in rough-furrowed coat secure,
Nor medlar fruit delicious in decay.
Afflictions great! yet greater still remains.
My galligaskins, that have long withstood
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued (what will not time subdue!)
An horrid chasm disclosed with orifice
Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds
Eurus and Auster, and the dreadful force
Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian waves,
Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts,
Portending agues. Thus, a well-fraught ship,
Long sailed secure, or through th' Ægean deep,
Or the Lonian, till, cruising near

The Lilybean shore, with hideous crush
On Scylla or Charybdis, dangerous rocks,
She strikes rebounding.; whence the shattered oak,
So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea; in at the gaping side

The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize

The mariners; death in their eyes appears;

They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray. Vain efforts! still the battering waves rush in, Implacable; till, deluged by the foam,

The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.

Juniper's Magpie and the Town-hall were Oxford alehouses. Mundungus, for tobacco, is from Span. mondongo, tripe, paunch. Cestrian is a Latinised adjective for of Chester' or of Cheshire; Arvonia is Carnarvon; Maridunum, Carmarthen; Brechinia, Brecknock; Vaga, the Wye; Ariconium is Kenchester (possibly Ross); Massic, Setinian, and Falernian were old wines of Italy, beloved of the Romans. Arachne is the spider; John-apple, or apple-john, is a variety best for use when long preserved and shrivelled. Cronian, from Kronos, Saturn, means simply Arctic: Lilybean, from the promontory of Lilybæum at the western end of Sicily, is here used for Sicilian at large.

Eustace Budgell (1686–1737) was a cousin of Addison, and from Trinity College, Oxford, entered the Temple. He accompanied Addison to Ireland as clerk, and afterwards rose to be Under-Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and a member of the Irish Parliament. Thirty-seven numbers of the Spectator are ascribed to Budgell; Dr Johnson reported them to have been so much 'mended' by Addison as to be almost his own. No doubt in style and humour they resemble those of Addison; but it was probable enough that Budgell should have tried his best to imitate Addison. In 1717 Budgell, who was vain and vindictive, quarrelled with the Irish Secretary, and wrote pamphlets on his grievances; the result of which was his dismissal from office and return to England. He lost a fortune in the South Sea Scheme, in a series of law-suits, and in attempts to gain a seat in the English House of Commons, and subsequently figured principally as a pamphleteer writer for the Craftsman and Grub Street hack, being at times 'disordered in his senses.' His declining reputation suffered a mortal blow by a charge of having forged a testament in his own favour. By the will of Dr Matthew Tindal, the deist, it appeared (1733) that a legacy of £2000 had been left to Budgell. The will was set aside and the unhappy author disgraced. To this Pope alludes in the couplet :

Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on my quill,
And write whate'er he please-except my will.

In May 1737 this wretched man, involved in debts
and difficulties, and dreading an execution in his
house, committed suicide by leaping from a boat
while shooting London Bridge. On his desk was
found a slip of paper, on which he had written :
What Cato did, and Addison approved,
Cannot be wrong.

In this he misrepresented Addison, who made the dying Cato say:

Yet methinks a beam of light breaks in
On my departing soul. Alas! I fear

I've been too hasty. O ye powers that search
The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts,
If I have done amiss, impute it not.
The best may err, but you are good.

The Art of Growing Rich.

The first and most infallible method towards the attaining of this end is thrift; all men are not equally qualified for getting money, but it is in the power of every one alike to practise this virtue; and I believe there are very few persons who, if they please to reflect on their past lives, will not find, that had they saved all those little sums which they have spent unnecessarily, they might at present have been masters of a competent fortune. Diligence justly claims the next place to thrift; I find both these excellently well recommended to common use in the three following Italian proverbs: 'Never do that by proxy which you can do yourself;' 'Never defer that until to-morrow which you can do to-day; Never neglect small matters and expenses.'

A third instrument in growing rich is method in business, which, as well as the two former, is also attainable by persons of the meanest capacities.

The famous De Witt, one of the greatest statesmen of the age in which he lived, being asked by a friend how he was able to despatch that multitude of affairs in which he was engaged, replied, That his whole art consisted in doing one thing at once. If, says he, I have any necessary despatches to make, I think of nothing else until those are finished; if any domestic affairs require my attention, I give myself up wholly to them until they are set in order.

In short, we often see men of dull and phlegmatick tempers arriving to great estates, by making a regular and orderly disposition of their business; and that, without it, the greatest parts and most lively imaginations rather puzzle their affairs than bring them to an happy issue. From what has been said, I think I may lay it down as a maxim, that every man of good common sense may, if he pleases, in his particular station of life, most certainly be rich. The reason why we sometimes see that men of the greatest capacities are not so, is either because they despise wealth in comparison of something else, or at least are not content to be getting an estate unless they may do it their own way, and at the same time enjoy all the pleasures and gratifications of life.

But besides these ordinary forms of growing rich, it must be allowed that there is room for genius as well in this as in all other circumstances of life. Though the ways of getting money were long since very numerous, and though so many new ones have been found out of late years, there is certainly still remaining so large a field for invention, that a man of an indifferent head might easily sit down and draw up such a plan for the conduct and support of his life as was never yet once thought of. We daily see methods put in practice by hungry and ingenious men, which demonstrate the power of invention in this particular. It is reported of Scaramouche, the first famous Italian comedian, that being in Paris, and in great want, he bethought himself of constantly plying near the door of a noted perfumer in that city, and when any one came out who had been buying snuff, never failed to desire a taste of them: when he had by

this means got together a quantity made up of several different sorts, he sold it again at a lower rate to the same perfumer, who, finding out the trick, called it tabac de mille fleurs, or snuff of a thousand flowers. The story further tells us, that by this means he got a very comfortable subsistence, until, making too much haste to grow rich, he one day took such an unreasonable pinch out of the box of a Swiss officer as engaged him in a quarrel, and obliged him to quit this ingenious way of life. Nor can I in this place omit doing justice to a youth of my own country, who, though he is scarce yet twelve years old, has, with great industry and application, attained to the art of beating the Grenadiers' March on his chin. I am credibly informed, that by this means he does not only maintain himself and his mother, but that he is laying up money every day, with a design, if the war continues, to purchase a drum at least, if not a pair of colours.

I shall conclude these instances with the device of the famous Rabelais, when he was at a great distance from Paris, and without money to bear his expenses thither. This ingenious author being thus sharp set, got together a convenient quantity of brick-dust, and having disposed of it into several papers, writ upon one, Poyson for Monsieur;' upon a second, 'Poyson for the Dauphin;' and on a third, 'Poyson for the King.' Having made this provision for the royal family of France, he laid his papers so that his landlord, who was an inquisitive man and a good subject, might get a sight of them. The plot succeeded as he desired; the host gave immediate intelligence to the secretary of state. The secretary presently sent down a special messenger, who brought up the traitor to court, and provided him at the king's expense with proper accommodations on the road. As soon as he appeared, he was known to be the celebrated Rabelais; and his powder upon examination being found very innocent, the jest was only laught at; for which a less eminent droll would have been sent to the galleys.

Trade and commerce might doubtless be still varied a thousand ways, out of which would arise such branches as have not yet been touched. The famous Doily is still fresh in every one's memory, who raised a fortune by finding out materials for such stuffs as might at once be cheap and genteel. I have heard it affirmed, that, had not he discovered this frugal method of gratifying our pride, we should hardly have been able to carry on the last war. I regard trade not only as highly advantagious to the commonwealth in general, but as the most natural and likely method of making a man's fortune, having observed, since my being a Spectator in the world, greater estates got about 'Change than at Whitehall or St James's. I believe I may also add, that the first acquisitions are generally attended with more satisfaction, and as good a conscience.

I must not, however, close this essay without observ. ing, that what has been said is only intended for persons in the common ways of thriving, and is not designed for those men who, from low beginnings, push themselves up to the top of states and the most considerable figures in life. My maxim of saving is not designed for such as these, since nothing is more usual than for thrift to disappoint the ends of ambition; it being almost impossible that the mind should be intent upon trifles while it is, at the same time, forming some great design.

(From The Spectator, No. 283.)

The story about Rabelais is quite apocryphal, though it was long current; the Scaramouch (scaramuccia, skirmish) was not a person, but a character in the old Italian comedy, who was drubbed by the harlequin; Doily's achievements are noted under Gay, at page 175.

The Earl of Halifax (1661-1715) was, under his own name of Charles Montagu, famous as a wit in the days of Charles II., but survived to be the patron of Congreve, Addison, Steele, Rowe, and Tickell. Grandson of the parliamentary Earl of Manchester, he was born at Horton, Northamptonshire, and passed from Westminster to Trinity College, Cambridge. His most notable poetical achievement was his share in the parody on Dryden's Hind and Panther, called The Town and Country Mouse (1687), of which he was jointauthor with Matthew Prior. His career in Parliament as financier and Chancellor of the Exchequer is beyond the scope of these pages, where he is commemorated rather as a patron of literature than as a poet. In 1697 he became Premier, but his arrogance and vanity soon made him unpopular, and on the Tories coming into power in 1699 he was obliged to accept the auditorship of the Exchequer and withdraw from the Commons as Baron Halifax. He strongly supported the union with Scotland and the Hanoverian succession; and on George I.'s arrival became an earl and Prime-Minister.

Edward Cave (1691-1754), an enterprising and far-sighted editor, deserves mention here as the original Sylvanus Urban.' He was born at Newton near Rugby, where he received some schooling; and after many vicissitudes he became apprentice to a printer. Obtaining money enough to set up a small printing-office, in 1731 he started the Gentleman's Magazine, for which Samuel Johnson became parliamentary reporter in 1740; and amidst his endless periodicals and other undertakings, Cave published Johnson's Rambler, his Irene, London, and Life of Savage. He died with his hand in Johnson's.

Lord Lansdowne (1667-1735), made a peer by Queen Anne, and imprisoned for a year and a half after the Hanoverian succession, was born at Hornby the son of a Yorkshire squire. As George Granville (or Grenville) he wrote many poems to Myra' (or 'Mira;' the Countess of Newburgh), and produced a comedy, a tragedy, an adaptation of the Merchant of Venice, a masque, and an opera-none of any permanent interest. He went into Parliament and public life in 1702. Waller, whom he imitated, commended him; and Pope commemorated 'Granville the polite' among his pretty numerous patrons.

John Oldmixon (1673-1742), one of the heroes of the Dunciad, was of an old Somersetshire family. He began to publish poems at twenty-two, but was better known as a pamphleteer and the author of dull partisan histories of the British Empire in America, and of England (against Clarendon and for Burnet); as also of 'memoirs'

of France, Scotland, and Ireland, designed to 'shew up' the plans of the French, the Stewarts, and the 'Papists.' In his Essay on Criticism he attacked Addison, Swift, Pope, and others, and thus and in other ways provoked Pope's antipathy.

Thomas Hearne (1678-1735), 'who studied and preserved Antiquities,' was born at White Waltham in Berkshire, studied at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and in 1712 became second keeper of the Bodleian Library-a post he had to resign as a Jacobite in 1716, though he continued to live at Oxford till his death. He compiled and edited forty-one works, full of laborious learning but

poor in style. Among them were Reliquia

Bodleiana, Leland's Itinerary and Collectanea, Curious Discourses upon English Antiquities; and the editions of Camden's Annals, William of Newburgh, Fordun's Scotichronicon, Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, and that of Peter Langtoft. The Bibliotheca Hearniana was published in 1848; the Reliquiæ Hearniance in 1857. His autobiography is to be found in the Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood (1772). His Collections were edited for the Oxford Historical Society (vols. i.-iii. by Doble, 1885-89; vols. iv.-v. by Rannie, 1902).

Thomas Carte (1686-1754) was born at Clifton-upon- Dunsmore vicarage, near Rugby, and educated at University College, Oxford. After taking orders, he was appointed reader at the Abbey Church, Bath; nevertheless in 1714 he resigned rather than take the oaths to the Hanoverian Government. In 1722 he was suspected of complicity in the conspiracy of Atterbury, whose secretary he was, and Icoo was offered for his apprehension; but he escaped to France, where he remained till 1728. After his return he published a Life of James, Duke of Ormonde (2 vols. 1736), and a History of England to 1654 (4 vols. 1747-55), whose prospects were blighted by an unlucky note ascribing to the Pretender the gift of touching for the king's evil. Subscribers withdrew their names, and the historian was 'left forlorn and abandoned amid his extensive collections.' His style was not attractive, but Carte's laborious history was a real triumph of research, and greatly above the level of any work that had yet appeared in England. Till now the most considerable had been the (partisan Whig) Compleat History, finally issued in 1706 by White Kennett; Echard's (1707); and the clear, methodical, and comparatively impartial English history by Paul Rapin de Thoyras, a French Protestant who had come to England with William III. and had fought at the Boyne and at Limerick. It was at the Hague and at Wesel that Rapin wrote his eight-volume Histoire d'Angleterre (1724), which was soon translated (1726-31) and became the standard work even in England. Against it Carte justly complained that Rapin had no knowledge of documents save those in Rymer's Fœdera, and had never looked at the