Memoir of Francis Hodgson
William Gifford to Francis Hodgson, 25 April 1809
My dear Sir,—Business and illness have conspired to
prevent me from noticing your obliging note before. I have just been with
Murray, and discovered that your
conjecture is well founded. I therefore, with great pleasure, entrust the
‘Four
Slaves’1 to your
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care. . . . I have read the poem
with great satisfaction. Is the plan of it original, or formed on some legend?
It is wild enough for an Arabian tale, but probability is not of much moment.
There are many beautiful flights of genuine poetry of the good old English
stamp. The light parts are very pleasant, but a passage here and there is too
familiar. There are, besides, a few ungrammatical terms; things not improper to
be noticed, especially when the general merit is so great. I hope that
Mr. Bland is by this time recovered.
I puzzled him sorely the other day by sending him a letter destined for a grave
divine; but it may be some consolation to him to know that I puzzled the said
divine still more.
The translation of
Hesiod, if you have leisure and inclination, is very much at your
service. I have just looked into it. The poetry, I suppose, is well enough for
the subject, which is neither very amusing nor very interesting. The notes are
stuffed out with corrections of Cooke;
about as wise a process, as if we had employed ourselves in the correction of
Rhodes. There is also a vast deal taken from Jacob Bryant’s ‘Mythology,’ which, I thought, no
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| 114 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. | |
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a smile. The
Doctor1 is
much pleased with your approbation of his book; it cost him much
pains—whether they might have been better bestowed, this deponent sayeth
not; but he has pleased the Westminsters. Autant de
gagné!
Ever, my dear Sir,
Most sincerely yours,
P.S. You are right. I have no northern coadjutor but
Scott;2 at
least, at present.
Robert Bland (1779 c.-1825)
Under-master at Harrow 1796-1805, where he taught Byron; he was a friend of Byron and of
Francis Hodgson. With John Herman Merivale he published
Translations,
chiefly from the Greek Anthology (1806).
Jacob Bryant (1717-1804)
English antiquary and classical scholar; author of
A New System, or, an
Analysis of Ancient Mythology, 3 vols (1774-76) and
A
Dissertation Concerning the War of Troy (1796).
Thomas Cooke [Hesiod Cooke] (1703-1756)
Whig poet and translator assailed by Pope in the
Dunciad; his
translation of Hesiod (1728) was long reprinted.
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
John Ireland (1761-1842)
Dean of Westminster and a close friend of William Gifford; he published
Nuptiae sacrae, or, An Enquiry into the Scriptural Doctrine of Marriage and
Divorce (1801).
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
