HALIFAX.
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HE life of the Earl of Halifax was properly that of an artful and activestatesman, employed in balancing parties, contriving expedients, andcombating opposition, and exposed to the vicissitudes of advancement anddegradation; but in this collection poetical merit is the claim toattention; and the account which is here to be expected may properly beproportioned, not to his influence in the State, but to his rank amongthe writers of verse. Charles Montague was born April 16, 1661, at Horton, in Northamptonshire,the son of Mr. George Montague, a younger son of the Earl of Manchester.He was educated first in the country, and then removed to Westminster,where, in 1677, he was chosen a King’s Scholar, and recommended himselfto Busby by his felicity in extemporary epigrams. He contracted a veryintimate friendship with Mr. Stepney; and in 1682, when Stepney waselected at Cambridge, the election of Montague being not to proceed tillthe year following, he was afraid lest by being placed at Oxford he mightbe separated from his companion, and therefore solicited to be removed toCambridge, without waiting for the advantages of another year. It seemed indeed time to wish for a removal, for he was already aschoolboy of one-and-twenty. His relation, Dr. Montague, was then Master of the college in which hewas placed a Fellow-Commoner, and took him under his particular care.Here he commenced an acquaintance with the great Newton, which continuedthrough his life, and was at last attested by a legacy. In 1685 his verses on the death of King Charles made such an impressionon the Earl of Dorset that he was invited to town, and introduced by thatuniversal patron to the other wits. In 1687 he joined with Prior in “TheCity Mouse and the Country Mouse,” a burlesque of Dryden’s “Hind andPanther.” He signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, and sat inthe Convention. He about the same time married the Countess Dowager ofManchester, and intended to have taken Orders; but, afterwards alteringhis purpose, he purchased for £1,500 the place of one of the clerks ofthe Council. After he had written his epistle on the victory of the Boyne, his patronDorset introduced him to King William with this expression, “Sir, I havebrought a _mouse_ to wait on your Majesty.” To which the King is said tohave replied, “You do well to put me in the way of making a _man_ ofhim;” and ordered him a pension of £500. This story, however current,seems to have been made after the event. The King’s answer implies agreater acquaintance with our proverbial and familiar diction than KingWilliam could possibly have attained. In 1691, being member of the House of Commons, he argued warmly in favourof a law to grant the assistance of counsel in trials for high treason;and in the midst of his speech falling into some confusion, was for awhile silent; but, recovering himself, observed, “how reasonable it wasto allow counsel to men called as criminals before a court of justice,when it appeared how much the presence of that assembly could disconcertone of their own body.” After this he rose fast into honours and employments, being made one ofthe Commissioners of the Treasury, and called to the Privy Council. In1694 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the next year engaged inthe great attempt of the recoinage, which was in two years happilycompleted. In 1696 he projected the _general fund_ and raised the creditof the Exchequer; and after inquiry concerning a grant of Irish Crownlands, it was determined by a vote of the Commons that Charles Montague,Esq., _had deserved his Majesty’s favour_. In 1698, being advanced tothe first Commission of the Treasury, he was appointed one of the regencyin the King’s absence: the next year he was made Auditor of theExchequer, and the year after created Baron Halifax. He was, however,impeached by the Commons; but the Articles were dismissed by the Lords. At the accession of Queen Anne he was dismissed from the Council; and inthe first Parliament of her reign was again attacked by the Commons, andagain escaped by the protection of the Lords. In 1704 he wrote an answerto Bromley’s speech against occasional conformity. He headed the inquiryinto the danger of the Church. In 1706 he proposed and negotiated theUnion with Scotland; and when the Elector of Hanover received the Garter,after the Act had passed for securing the Protestant Succession, he wasappointed to carry the ensigns of the Order to the Electoral Court. Hesat as one of the judges of Sacheverell, but voted for a mild sentence.Being now no longer in favour, he contrived to obtain a writ forsummoning the Electoral Prince to Parliament as Duke of Cambridge. At the Queen’s death he was appointed one of the regents; and at theaccession of George I. was made Earl of Halifax, Knight of the Garter,and First Commissioner of the Treasury, with a grant to his nephew of thereversion of the Auditorship of the Exchequer. More was not to be had,and this he kept but a little while; for on the 19th of May, 1715, hedied of an inflammation of his lungs. Of him, who from a poet became a patron of poets, it will be readilybelieved that the works would not miss of celebration. Addison began topraise him early, and was followed or accompanied by other poets; perhapsby almost all, except Swift and Pope, who forbore to flatter him in hislife, and after his death spoke of him—Swift with slight censure, andPope, in the character of Bufo, with acrimonious contempt. He was, as Pope says, “fed with dedications;” for Tickell affirms that nodedication was unrewarded. To charge all unmerited praise with the guiltof flattery, and to suppose that the encomiast always knows and feels thefalsehoods of his assertions, is surely to discover great ignorance ofhuman nature and human life. In determinations depending not on rules,but on experience and comparison, judgment is always in some degreesubject to affection. Very near to admiration is the wish to admire. Every man willingly gives value to the praise which he receives, andconsiders the sentence passed in his favour as the sentence ofdiscernment. We admire in a friend that understanding that selected usfor confidence; we admire more, in a patron, that judgment which, insteadof scattering bounty indiscriminately, directed it to us; and, if thepatron be an author, those performances which gratitude forbids us toblame, affection will easily dispose us to exalt. To these prejudices, hardly culpable, interest adds a power alwaysoperating, though not always, because not willingly, perceived. Themodesty of praise wears gradually away; and perhaps the pride ofpatronage may be in time so increased that modest praise will no longerplease. Many a blandishment was practised upon Halifax which he would never haveknown had he no other attractions than those of his poetry, of which ashort time has withered the beauties. It would now be esteemed nohonour, by a contributor to the monthly bundles of verses, to be toldthat, in strains either familiar or solemn, he sings like Montague.
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