Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗
- Author: Samuel Johnson
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Such Was The Simple And Unpretending advertisement That Announced the
Lives Of The English Poets; A Work That Gave To The British Nation A New
Style Of Biography. Johnson'S Decided taste For This Species Of Writing,
And His Familiarity With The Works Of Those Whose Lives He Has Recorded,
Peculiarly Fitted him For The Task; But It Has Been Denounced by Some As
Dogmatical, And Even Morose; Minute Critics Have Detected inaccuracies;
The Admirers Of Particular Authors Have Complained of An Insufficiency
Of Praise To The Objects Of Their Fond And Exclusive Regard; And The
Political Zealot Has Affected to Decry The Staunch And Unbending
Champion Of Regal And Ecclesiastical Rights. Those, Again, Of High And
Imaginative Minds, Who "Lift Themselves Up To Look To The Sky Of Poetry,
And Far Removed from The Dull-Making cataract Of Nilus, Listen To The
Planet-Like Music Of Poetry;" These Accuse Johnson Of A Heavy And
Insensible Soul, Because He Avowed that Nature'S "World Was Brazen, And
That The Poets Only Delivered a Golden[1]."
But In spite Of The Censures Of Political Opponents, Private Friends,
And Angry Critics, It Will Be Acknowledged, By The Impartial, And
By Every Lover Of Virtue And Of Truth, That Johnson'S Honest Heart,
Penetrating mind, And Powerful Intellect, Has Given To The World
Memoirs Fraught With What Is Infinitely More Valuable Than Mere Verbal
Criticism, Or Imaginative Speculation; He Has Presented, In his Lives Of
The English Poets, The Fruits Of His Long And Careful Examination Of Men
And Manners, And Repeated in his Age, With The Authoritative Voice Of
Experience, The Same Dignified lessons Of Morality, With Which He
Had Instructed his Readers In his Earlier Years. And If These Lives
Contained few Merits Of Their Own, They Confessedly Amended the
Criticism Of The Nation, And Opened the Path To A More Enlarged and
Liberal Style Of Biography Than Had, Before Their Publication, Appeared.
The Bold Manner In which Johnson Delivered what He Believed to Be The
Truth, Naturally Provoked hostile Attack, And We Are Not Prepared to
Say, That, In many Instances, The Strictures Passed upon Him Might Not
Be Just. We Will Call The Attention Of Our Readers To Some Few Of The
Charges Brought Against The Work Now Before Us, And Then Leave It To
Their Candid And Unbiased judgment To Decide, Whether The Deficiencies
Pointed out Are But As Dust In the Balance, When Brought To Weigh
Against The Sterling excellence With Which This Last And Greatest
Production Of Our Moralist Abounds.
He Has Been Accused of Indulging a Spirit Of Political Animosity, Of An
Illiberal And Captious Method Of Criticism, Of Frequent Inaccuracies,
And Of A General Haughtiness Of Manner, Indicative Of A Feeling of
Superiority Over The Subjects Of His Memorial.
In The Life Of Milton His Political Prejudices Are Most Apparent. It Is
Not Our Duty, Neither Our Inclination, In this Place, To Discuss The
Accuracy Of Johnson'S Political Wisdom. We Cannot, However, But Respect
The Integrity With Which He Clung To The Instructions Of His Youth,
Amidst Poverty, And All Those Inconveniencies Which Usually Drive Men To
A Discontent With Things As They Are.
Those Who Censure Him Without Qualification Or Reserve, Are As Bad, Or
Worse, On The Opposite Side.
They Accuse Him Of Narrow-Minded prejudice, And Of Bigoted attachment To
Powers That Be With A Rancour Little Befitting the Liberality Of Which
They Make Such Vaunting professions. Johnson Had A Really Benevolent
Heart, But Despised and Detested the Affectation Of A Sentimental And
Universal Philanthropy, Which Neglects The Practical Charities Of
Home And Kindred, In its Wild And Excursive Flights After Distant And
Romantic Objects. He Was No Tyrant, Even In theory, But He Dreaded, And,
Therefore, Sought To Expose, The Lurking designs Of Those Who Opposed
Constituted authorities, Because They Hated subjection; And Who, When
They Gained power Themselves, Proved the Well-Grounded nature Of The
Fears Entertained respecting their Sincerity. Johnson Was A Firm
English Character, And His Surly Expressions Were Often Philanthropy In
Disguise. They Have Little Studied his Real Disposition, Who Impute His
Occasional Austerity Of Manner To Misanthropy At Heart. The Man Who Is
Smooth To All Alike, Is Frequently The Friend Of None, And Those Who
Entertain No Aversions, Have, Perhaps, Few Of The Warmer Emotions Of
Friendship.
In Dwelling thus Long On A Part Of Johnson'S Character, On Which We Have
Elsewhere[2] Avowed that We Could Not Speak With Perfect Pleasure, We
Are Not Attempting to Vindicate Him In all His Violent Reproaches Of
Those Whom He Politically Disliked. We Would, However, Wish To Deprecate
Unmitigated condemnation, And Also To Ask, Whether The Conduct Of Those
Whom He Denounced, Was Not, In its Turn, So Harsh And Arbitrary, As
Almost To Justify The Utmost Severity Of Censure. Were They Not Men Who
Would "Scarcely Believe In the Substance Of Their Liberty, If They Did
Not See It Cast A Shadow Of Slavery Over Others."
With Respect To Johnson'S Powers As A Critic, We Confess That He Had But
Little Natural Taste For Poetry, As Such; For That Poetry Of Emotion
Which Produces In its Cultivators And Admirers An Intensity Of
Excitement, To Which Language Can Scarcely Afford An Utterance, To Which
Art Can Give No Body, And Which Spreads A Dream And A Glory Around Us.
All This Johnson Felt Not, And, Therefore, Understood Not; For He Wanted
That Deep Feeling which Is The Only Sure And Unerring test Of Poetic
Excellence. He Sought The Didactic In poetry, And Wished for Reasoning
In Numbers. Hence His Undivided admiration Of Pope And The French
School, Who Cultivated exclusively The Poetry Of Idea, Where Each Moral
Problem Is Worked out With Detailed, And Often Tedious, Analysis; Where
All Intense Emotion Is Frittered away By A Ratiocinative Process.
Johnson, We Repeat, Had No Natural Perception Nor Relish For The High
And Excursive Range Of Poetic Fancy, And The Age At Which He Composed
His Criticisms On The English Poets, Was Far Advanced beyond That When
Purely Imaginative Poetry Usually Affords Delight. Hence, No Doubt,
Proceeded his Capricious Strictures On The Odes Of Gray To Which
We, With Painful Candour, Advert. In criticism And In poetry, For
Indignation Only Poured forth The Torrent Of His Song, He Kept Steadily
In View The Interests Of Morality And Virtue: These He Would Not
Compromise For The Glitter Of Genius, And For Their Maintenance Of
These, The Main Objects Of His Own Life And Labour, He Praised many An
Author Whom Other More Courtly Critics Have Thought It Not Cruelty To
Ridicule. He Sums Up His Eulogium On A Poet With The Reflection, That He
Left
No Line Which, Dying, He Could Wish To Blot.
Johnson Has Also Not Escaped animadversion For Entitling his Collection
The Lives Of The English Poets, When He Has Taken So Confined a Range.
It Must Be Remembered, That He Only Professed, In the First Instance,
To Prefix Lives To The Works Which The Booksellers Chose To Publish; He
Was, Therefore, Confined to A Task, At Which He More Than Once Expressed
His Repugnance To Boswell. It Should Also, In fairness To His Memory,
Be Borne In mind, That He Wrote, As He Confesses In his Preface, From
Scanty Materials, And On Various Authors. It Was Very Easy, Therefore,
For Each Successive Biographer, Who Devoted his Time To The Collection
Of Memoirs For Some Single Individual, To Point Out Inaccuracies In
Johnson'S General Statements; And Very Natural, Also For One Who Had
Contracted an Affection For The Subject Of His Labours, By Continually
Having him Present In his Thoughts, To Carp At All Those Who Were Not As
Alive To The Merits, And As Blind To The Defects Of His Idol As Himself.
But Johnson, Feeling a Manly Consciousness Of Ability, Which He Affected
Not To Hide, Was Not Dazzled by The Lustre Of Brilliant Talents, And Was
Far Too Honest To Veil From Public View The Faults And Failings Of The
Sons Of Genius. This He Did Not From A Sour Delight In detecting and
Exposing the Frailties Of His Fellow Men, But From A Belief That, In so
Doing, He Was Promoting the Good Of Mankind. "It Is Particularly The
Duty," Says He, "Of Those Who Consign Illustrious Names To Posterity,
To Take Care Lest Their Readers Be Misled by Ambiguous Examples. That
Writer May Justly Be Condemned as An Enemy To Goodness, Who Suffers
Fondness Or Interest To Confound Right With Wrong, Or To Shelter The
Faults, Which Even The Wisest And The Best Have Committed, From That
Ignominy Which Guilt Ought Always To Suffer, And With Which It Should Be
More Deeply Stigmatized, When Dignified by Its Neighbourhood To Uncommon
Worth: Since We Shall Be In danger Of Beholding it Without Abhorrence,
Unless Its Turpitude Be Laid Open, And The Eye Secured from The
Deception Of Surrounding splendour[3]." "If Nothing but The Bright Side
Of Characters Should Be Shown," He Once Remarked to Malone, "We Should
Sit Down In despondency, And Think It Utterly Impossible To Imitate Them
In Any Thing[4]." It Was This Conscientious Freedom, We Believe, That
Has, More Than Any Other Cause, Subjected the Lives Of The Poets To
Severe Censure. We Readily Avow This Our Belief, Since We Are Persuaded
That It Is Now Generally Admitted by All, But Those Who Are Influenced
By An Irreligious Or A Party Spirit. We Might Diffuse These Remarks To
A Wide Extent, By Allusions To The Opinions Of Different Authors On The
Lives, And By Critiques On The Separate Memoirs Themselves; But We Will
Not Longer Occupy Our Readers, Since The Literary History Of The Lives
Has Been Elsewhere So Fully Detailed, And Is Now So Almost Universally
Known[5].
What We Have Already Advanced, Has Chiefly Been With A View To Invite To
The Perusal Of A Work, Which, For Sound Criticism, Instructive Memoir,
Pleasing diction, And Pure Morality, Must Constitute The Most Lasting
Monument Of Johnson'S Fame.
[Footnote 1: See Sir Philip Sidney'S Defence Of Poetry.]
[Footnote 2: See Vol. Vi. 153.]
[Footnote 3: Rambler, 164.]
[Footnote 4: See Malone'S Letter, In boswell, Iv. 55.]
[Footnote 5: See Boswell; Dr. Drake'S Literary Life Of Johnson; And,
Since We Dread Not Examination, Potter'S Inquiry Into Some Passages In
Dr. Johnson'S Lives Of The Poets; Graves'S Recollections Of Shenstone;
Mitford'S Preface To Gray'S Works; Roscoe'S Preface To Pope'S Works, &C.]
Cowley
The Life Of Cowley, Notwithstanding the Penury Of English Biography, Has
Been Written By Dr. Sprat, An Author Whose Pregnancy Of Imagination
And Elegance Of Language Have Deservedly Set Him High In the Ranks Of
Literature; But His Zeal Of Friendship, Or Ambition Of Eloquence, Has
Produced a Funeral Oration Rather Than A History: He Has Given The
Character, Not The Life, Of Cowley; For He Writes With So Little Detail,
That Scarcely Any Thing is Distinctly Known, But All Is Shown Confused
And Enlarged through The Mist Of Panegyrick.
Abraham Cowley Was Born In the Year One Thousand Six Hundred and
Eighteen. His Father Was A Grocer, Whose Condition Dr. Sprat Conceals
Under The General Appellation Of A Citizen; And, What Would Probably Not
Have Been Less Carefully Suppressed, The Omission Of His Name In the
Register Of St. Dunstan'S Parish Gives Reason To Suspect That His Father
Was A Sectary. Whoever He Was, He Died before The Birth Of His Son, And,
Consequently, Left Him To The Care Of His Mother; Whom Wood Represents
As Struggling earnestly To Procure Him A Literary Education, And Who, As
She Lived to The Age Of Eighty, Had Her Solicitude Rewarded, By Seeing
Her Son Eminent, And, I Hope, By Seeing him Fortunate, And Partaking
His Prosperity. We Know, At Least, From Sprat'S Account, That He Always
Acknowledged her Care, And Justly Paid The Dues Of Filial Gratitude.
In The Window Of His Mother'S Apartment Lay Spenser'S Fairy Queen; In
Which He Very Early Took Delight To Read, Till, By Feeling the Charms
Of Verse, He Became, As He Relates, Irrecoverably A Poet. Such Are
The Accidents Which, Sometimes
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