Dictionary of National Biography Volume 47

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...champion of Pope's victims, in a satire in blank verse (with a prose introduction), entitled 'Sawney, an heroic poem occasioned by the " Dunciad,"' Sawney standing for Pope. The performance was a vehement and coarse attack on Pope, Swift, and Gay. Pope avenged himself by a dexterous use of the title of Ralph's poem, in the second edition of the ' Dunciad' (book iii. line 165): Silence, ye Wolves, while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous--Answer him, ye Owls! In a note (of 1729) Pope spoke contemptuously of Ralph as a 'low writer.' Ralph complained that Pope's distich and note prevented the booksellers for a time from employing him (johnson, Life of Pope, I Works, ii. 276). Ralph now tried the stage, but none of his pieces were successful. In 1730 he wrote the prologue to Henry Fielding's 'Temple Beau, ' and when in 1736 Fielding took the Haymarket Theatre, Ralph is said to have been a shareholder with him see Fielding, Henry. Certainly when, in 1741, Fielding started the 'Champion, 'an anti-ministerial paper, Ralph acted as a kind of co-editor, and continued to edit it after Fielding's connection with it ceased. He had already (1739-41) edited the ' Universal Spectator, ' and was engaged on the parliamentary debates. But he remained in pecuniary distress, and in the Birch MSS. (Brit. Mus. vol. xviii.)there are appeals from him to Dr.Birch for assistance (cf. Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ix. 590). Ralph's connection with the ' Champion' probablv procured VTM performances. In 1743 appeared his ' Critical History of the Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, by a Gentleman of the Middle Temple, ' a criticism not only of Walpole, but of his immediate successors in office. Although Horace Walpole (Memoirs of George II, iii. 345) says...