This gentleman was born at Gillingham
near Shaftsbury, in the county of Dorset. His
parents, and family were all of the Romish persuasion,
but they could not instil their principles into our
author, who, as soon as he began to reason, was able
to discover the errors, and foppery of that church.
His father was a member of the society of Grays-Inn,
and suffered much for the Royal cause. The first
rudiments of learning Mr. Gildon had at the place
of his nativity; thence his relations sent him to
the English college of secular priests at Doway in
Hainault, with a design of making him a priest; but
after five years study there, he found his inclination
direct him to a quite different course of life.
When he was nineteen years old he returned to England,
and as soon as he was of age, and capable of enjoying
the pleasures of gaiety, he came to London, where
he spent the greatest part of his paternal estate.
At about the age of twenty-three, to crown his other
imprudences, he married, without improving his
reduced circumstances thereby.
During the reign of King James ii.
he dedicated his time to the study of the prevailing
controversies, and he somewhere declares, it cost him
above seven years close application to books, before
he could entirely overcome the prejudices of his education.
He never believed the absurd tenets of the church
of Rome; nor could he embrace the ridiculous doctrine
of her infallibility: But as he had been taught
an early reverence to the priesthood, and a submissive
obedience to their authority, it was a long while
before he assumed courage to think freely for himself,
or declare what he thought.
His first attempt in the drama, was
not till he had arrived at his 32d year; and he himself
in his essays tells us, that necessity (the general
inducement) was his first motive of venturing to be
an author.
He is the author of three plays, viz.
1. The Roman Bride’s Revenge,
a Tragedy; acted at the Theatre-Royal 1697. This
play was written in a month, and had the usual success
of hasty productions, though the first and second
acts are well written, and the catastrophe beautiful;
the moral being to give us an example, in the punishment
of Martian, that no consideration ought to make us
delay the service of our country.
2. Phaeton, or the Fatal Divorce;
a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre-Royal 1698, dedicated
to Charles Montague, Esq; This play is written in
imitation of the ancients, with some réflexions
on a book called a Short View of the Immorality of
the English Stage, written by Mr. Collier, a Non-juring
Clergyman, who combated in the cause of virtue, with
success, against Dryden, Congreve, Dennis, and our
author. The plot of this play, and a great many
of the beauties, Mr. Gildon owns in his preface, he
has taken from the Medea of Euripides.
3. Love’s. Victim,
or the Queen of Wales; a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre
in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields.
He introduced the Play called the
Younger Brother, or the Amorous Jilt; written by Mrs.
Behn, but not brought upon the stage ’till after
her decease. He made very little alteration in
it. Our author’s plays have not his name
to them; and his fault lies generally in the stile,
which is too near an imitation of Lee’s.
He wrote a piece called the New Rehearsal,
or Bays the Younger; containing an Examen of the Ambitious
Step-mother, Tamerlane, The Biter, Fair Penitent,
The Royal Convert, Ulysses, and Jane Shore, all written
by Mr. Rowe; also a Word or Two on Mr. Pope’s
Rape of the Lock, to which is prefixed a Preface concerning
Criticism in general, by the Earl of Shaftsbury, Author
of the Characteristics, 8v. Scene the Rose
Tavern. The freedom he used with Mr. Pope in remarking
upon the Rape of the Lock, it seems was sufficient
to raise that gentleman’s resentment, who was
never celebrated for forgiving. Many years after,
Mr. Pope took his revenge, by stigmatizing him as
a dunce, in his usual keen spirit of satire:
There had arisen some quarrel between Gildon and Dennis,
upon which, Mr. Pope in his Dunciad, B. iii. has the
following lines,
Ah Dennis! Gildon ah! what ill-starr’d
rage
Divides a friendship long confirm’d
by age?
Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor,
But fool with fool is barb’rous
civil war.
Embrace; embrace my sons! be foes no more,
Nor glad vile poets with true critics
gore.
This author’s other works are chiefly these,
The Post-Boy Robb’d of his Mail, or the Packet
Broke Open; consisting of
Five Hundred Letters to several Persons of Quality,
&.
He published the Miscellaneous Works
of Charles Blount, Esq; to which he prefixed the Life
of the Author, and an Account, and Vindication of his
Death, in 12m. In this volume are several
of the publisher’s own letters.
Likewise Letters, and Essays, on several
Subjects, philosophical, historical, critical, amorous,
&c. in Prose and Verse, to John Dryden, Esq; George
Granville, Esq; Walter Moyle, Esq; Mr. Congreve, Mr.
Dennis, and other ingenious gentlemen of the age.
Miscellaneous Poems, on several Occasions,
and Translations from Horace, Persius, Petronius Arbiter,
&c. with an Essay upon Satire, by the famous M. Dacier,
8v.
A Review of Her Royal Highness Princess
Sophia’s Letters to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury,
and that of Sir Rowland Gwynn’s, to the Right
Hon. the Earl of Stamford, 8v.
Canons, or the Vision; a Poem, addressed
to the Right Hon. James Earl of Carnarvon, &.
The Laws of Poetry, as laid down by
the Duke of Buckingham in his Essay on Poetry, by
the Earl of Roscommon in his Essay upon Translated
Verse; and by Lord Lansdown on Unnatural Flights in
Poetry, explained and illustrated, &v.
A Continuation of Langbain’s Lives of the Poets.
Mr. Coxeter has imputed to him a piece
called Measure for Measure, or Beauty the best Advocate;
altered from Shakespear, and performed at the Theatre
in Lincoln’s Inn-Fields 1700, with the addition
of several Entertainments of Music. Prologue
and Epilogue by Mr. Oldmixon.
The Deist’s Manual, or Rational
Enquiry into the Christian Religion, with some Animadversions
on Hobbs, Spinosa, the Oracles of Reason, Second Thoughts,
&c. to which is prefixed a Letter from the Author of
the Method with the Deists, 1705.
Complete Art of Poetry.
Mr. Gildon died on the 12th of January
1723, and in the words of Boyer’s Political
State, vol. xxvii. . we shall sum up his
character.
’On Sunday, January 12, died
Mr. Charles Gildon, a person of great literature,
but a mean genius; who having attempted several kinds
of writing, never gained much reputation in any.
Among other treatises, he wrote the English Art of
Poetry, which he had practised himself very unsuccessfully
in his dramatic performances. He also wrote an
English Grammar, but what he seemed to build his chief
hopes of fame upon, was, his late Critical Commentary
on the Duke of Buckingham’s Essay on Poetry,
which last piece was perused, and highly approved,
by his grace.’