Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗
- Author: Samuel Johnson
Book online «Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗». Author Samuel Johnson
Produced at Will By Wit And Labour, But Must Rise Unexpectedly In some
Hour Propitious To Poetry.
He Appears To Have Been One Of The First That Understood The Necessity
Of Emancipating translation From The Drudgery Of Counting lines, And
Interpreting single Words. How Much This Servile Practice Obscured the
Clearest, And Deformed the Most Beautiful Parts Of The Ancient Authors,
May Be Discovered by A Perusal Of Our Earlier Versions; Some Of Them
Are The Works Of Men Well Qualified, Not Only By Critical Knowledge,
But By Poetical Genius, Who Yet, By A Mistaken Ambition Of Exactness,
Degraded, At Once, Their Originals And Themselves.
Denham Saw The Better Way, But Has Not Pursued it With Great Success.
His Versions Of Virgil Are Not Pleasing; But They Taught Dryden To
Please Better. His Poetical Imitation Of Tully On Old Age Has Neither
The Clearness Of Prose, Nor The Sprightliness Of Poetry.
The "Strength Of Denham," Which Pope So Emphatically Mentions, Is To
Be Found In many Lines And Couplets, Which Convey Much Meaning in few
Words, And Exhibit The Sentiment With More Weight Than Bulk.
On The Thames.
Though With Those Streams He No Resemblance Hold,
Whose Foam Is Amber, And Their Gravel Gold;
His Genuine And Less Guilty Wealth T' Explore,
Search Not His Bottom, But Survey His Shore.
On Strafford.
His Wisdom Such, At Once, It Did Appear
Three Kingdoms' Wonder, And Three Kingdoms' Fear.
While Single He Stood Forth, And Seem'D, Although
Each Had An Army, As An Equal Foe;
Such Was His Force Of Eloquence To Make
The Hearers More Concern'D Than He That Spake:
Each Seem'D To Act That Part He Came To See,
And None Was More A Looker-On Than He;
So Did He Move Our Passions, Some Were Known
To Wish, For The Defence, The Crime Their Own.
Now Private Pity Strove With Public Hate,
Reason With Rage, And Eloquence With Fate.
On Cowley.
To Him No Author Was Unknown,
Yet What He Wrote Was All His Own;
Horace'S Wit, And Virgil'S State,
He Did Not Steal, But Emulate!
And, When He Would Like Them Appear,
Their Garb, But Not Their Clothes, Did Wear.
As One Of Denham'S Principal Claims To The Regard Of Posterity Arises
From His Improvement Of Our Numbers, His Versification Ought To
Be Considered. It Will Afford That Pleasure Which Arises From The
Observation Of A Man Of Judgment Naturally Right, Forsaking bad Copies
By Degrees, And Advancing towards A Better Practice, As He Gains More
Confidence In himself.
In His Translation Of Virgil, Written When He Was About Twenty-One
Years Old, May Be Still Found The Old Manner Of Continuing the Sense
Ungracefully From Verse To Verse:
Then All Those
Who In the Dark Our Fury Did Escape,
Returning, Know Our Borrow'D Arms, And Shape,
And Differing dialect; Then Their Numbers Swell
And Grow Upon Us; First Choroebus Fell
Before Minerva'S Altar; Next Did Bleed
Just Ripheus, Whom No Trojan Did Exceed
In virtue, Yet The Gods His Fate Decreed.
Then Hypanis And Dymas, Wounded by
Their Friends; Nor Thee, Pantheus, Thy Piety,
Nor Consecrated mitre, From The Same
Ill Fate Could Save; My Country'S Funeral Flame
And Troy'S Cold Ashes I Attest, And Call
To Witness For Myself, That In their Fall
No Foes, No Death, Nor Danger, I Declin'D,
Did, And Deserv'D No Less, My Fate To Find.
From This Kind Of Concatenated metre He Afterwards Refrained, And Taught
His Followers The Art Of Concluding their Sense In couplets; Which Has,
Perhaps, Been With Rather Too Much Constancy Pursued.
This Passage Exhibits One Of Those Triplets Which Are Not Unfrequent In
This First Essay, But Which It Is To Be Supposed his Maturer Judgment
Disapproved, Since, In his Latter Works, He Has Totally Forborne Them.
His Rhymes Are Such As Seem Found Without Difficulty, By Following the
Sense; And Are, For The Most Part, As Exact, At Least, As Those Of Other
Poets, Though Now And Then The Reader Is Shifted off With What He Can
Get:
O How _Transform'D!_
How Much Unlike That Hector, Who _Return'D_
Clad In achilles' Spoils!
And Again:
From Thence A Thousand Lesser Poets _Sprung_
Like Petty Princes From The Fall Of _Rome_.
Sometimes The Weight Of Rhyme Is Laid Upon A Word Too Feeble To Sustain
It:
Troy Confounded falls
From All Her Glories: If It Might Have Stood
By Any Power, By This Right Hand It _Shou'D_.
--And Though My Outward State Misfortune _Hath_
Deprest Thus Low, It Cannot Reach My Faith.
--Thus, By His Fraud And Our Own Faith O'Ercome,
A Feigned tear Destroys Us, Against _Whom_
Tydides Nor Achilles Could Prevail,
Nor Ten Years' Conflict, Nor A Thousand Sail.
He Is Not Very Careful To Vary The Ends Of His Verses; In one Passage
The Word _Die_ Rhymes Three Couplets In six.
Most Of These Petty Faults Are In his First Productions, When He Was
Less Skilful, Or, At Least, Less Dexterous In the Use Of Words; And
Though They Had Been More Frequent, They Could Only Have Lessened the
Grace, Not The Strength Of His Composition. He Is One Of The Writers
That Improved our Taste, And Advanced our Language, And Whom We Ought,
Therefore, To Read With Gratitude, Though, Having done Much, He Left
Much To Do.
[Footnote 22: In hamilton'S Memoirs Of Count Grammont, Sir John Denham
Is Said To Have Been Seventy-Nine, When He Married miss Brook, About The
Year 1664; According to Which Statement He Was Born In 1585. But Dr.
Johnson, Who Has Followed wood, Is Right. He Entered trinity College,
Oxford, At The Age Of Sixteen, In 1631, As Appears By The Following
Entry, Which I Copied from The Matriculation Book.
Trin. Coll.
"1631. Nov. 18. Johannes Denham, Essex. Filius J. Denham De Horsley-Parva
In Com. Praedict. Militis, Annos Natus 16. Malone".]
[Footnote 23: In the Ninth And Tenth Chapters Of The Memoires De
Grammont, In andrew Marvell'S Works, And In aubrey'S Letters, Ii. 319,
Many Scandalous Anecdotes Respecting denham, Are Reported. Ed.]
[Footnote 24: It Is Remarkable That Johnson Should Not Have Recollected,
That This Image Is To Be Found In bacon. Aristoteles, More Otthomannorum,
Regnare Se Haud Tuto Posse Putabat, Nisi Fratres Suos Omnes
Contrucidasset. De Augment. Scient. Lib. 3.]
[Footnote 25: By Garth, In his Poem On Claremont: And By Pope, In his
Windsor Forest.]
Milton.
The Life Of Milton Has Been Already Written In so Many Forms, And With
Such Minute Inquiry, That I Might, Perhaps, More Properly Have Contented
Myself With The Addition Of A Few Notes On Mr. Fenton'S Elegant
Abridgment, But That A New Narrative Was Thought Necessary To The
Uniformity Of This Edition.
John Milton Was, By Birth, A Gentleman, Descended from The Proprietors
Of Milton, Near Thame, In oxfordshire, One Of Whom Forfeited his Estate
In The Times Of York And Lancaster. Which Side He Took I Know Not; His
Descendant Inherited no Veneration For The _White Rose._
His Grandfather, John, Was Keeper Of The Forest Of Shotover, A Zealous
Papist, Who Disinherited his Son, Because He Had Forsaken The Religion
Of His Ancestors.
His Father, John, Who Was The Son Disinherited, Had Recourse, For His
Support, To The Profession Of A Scrivener. He Was A Man Eminent For His
Skill In musick, Many Of His Compositions Being still To Be Found;
And His Reputation In his Profession Was Such, That He Grew Rich, And
Retired to An Estate. He Had, Probably, More Than Common Literature,
As His Son Addresses Him In one Of His Most Elaborate Latin Poems. He
Married a Gentlewoman Of The Name Of Caston, A Welsh Family, By Whom He
Had Two Sons, John, The Poet, And Christopher, Who Studied the Law, And
Adhered, As The Law Taught Him, To The King'S Party, For Which He Was
Awhile Persecuted, But Having, By His Brother'S Interest, Obtained
Permission To Live In quiet, He Supported himself So Honourably By
Chamber Practice, That, Soon After The Accession Of King james, He Was
Knighted, And Made A Judge; But, His Constitution Being too Weak
For Business, He Retired before Any Disreputable Compliances Became
Necessary.
He Had, Likewise, A Daughter, Anne, Whom He Married with A Considerable
Fortune, To Edward Philips, Who Came From Shrewsbury, And Rose In the
Crown Office To Be Secondary: By Him She Had Two Sons, John And Edward,
Who Were Educated by The Poet, And From Whom Is Derived the Only
Authentick Account Of His Domestick Manners.
John, The Poet, Was Born In his Father'S House, At The Spread-Eagle, In
Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, Between Six And Seven In the Morning. His
Father Appears To Have Been Very Solicitous About His Education; For He
Was Instructed, At First, By Private Tuition, Under The Care Of Thomas
Young, Who Was Afterwards Chaplain To The English Merchants At Hamburgh,
And Of Whom We Have Reason To Think Well, Since His Scholar Considered
Him As Worthy Of An Epistolary Elegy.
He Was Then Sent To St. Paul'S School, Under The Care Of Mr. Gill; And
Removed, In the Beginning of His Sixteenth Year, To Christ'S College In
Cambridge, Where He Entered a Sizar[26], Feb. 12,1624.
He Was, At This Time, Eminently Skilled in the Latin Tongue; And He
Himself, By Annexing the Dates To His First Compositions, A Boast Of
Which The Learned politian Had Given Him An Example, Seems To Commend
The Earliness Of His Own Proficiency To The Notice Of Posterity. But
The Products Of His Vernal Fertility Have Been Surpassed by Many, And
Particularly By His Contemporary Cowley. Of The Powers Of The Mind It Is
Difficult To Form An Estimate: Many Have Excelled milton In their First
Essays, Who Never Rose To Works Like Paradise Lost.
At Fifteen, A Date Which He Uses Till He Is Sixteen, He Translated
Or Versified two Psalms, 114 And 136, Which He Thought Worthy Of The
Publick Eye; But They Raise No Great Expectations: They Would, In any
Numerous School, Have Obtained praise, But Not Excited wonder.
Many Of His Elegies Appear To Have Been Written In his Eighteenth Year,
By Which It Appears That He Had Then Read The Roman Authors With Very
Nice Discernment. I Once Heard Mr. Hampton, The Translator Of Polybius,
Remark, What I Think Is True, That Milton Was The First Englishman Who,
After The Revival Of Letters, Wrote Latin Verses With Classick Elegance.
If Any Exceptions Can Be Made, They Are Very Few: Haddon And Ascham, The
Pride Of Elizabeth'S Reign, However They Have Succeeded in prose, No
Sooner Attempt Verse Than They Provoke Derision. If We Produced any
Thing worthy Of Notice Before The Elegies Of Milton, It Was, Perhaps,
Alabaster'S Roxana[27].
Of The Exercises Which The Rules Of The University Required, Some
Were Published by Him In his Maturer Years. They Had Been Undoubtedly
Applauded; For They Were Such As Few Can Perform; Yet There Is Reason To
Suspect That He Was Regarded in his College With No Great Fondness. That
He Obtained no Fellowship Is Certain; But The Unkindness With Which He
Was Treated, Was Not Merely Negative. I Am Ashamed to Relate What I Fear
Is True, That Milton Was One Of The Last Students In either University,
That Suffered the Publick Indignity Of Corporal Correction[28].
It Was, In the Violence Of Controversial Hostility, Objected to Him,
That He Was Expelled: This He Steadily Denies, And It Was Apparently Not
True; But It Seems Plain, From His Own Verses To Diodati, That He Had
Incurred rustication, A Temporary Dismission Into The Country, With,
Perhaps, The Loss Of A Term:
Me Tenet Urbs, Reflua Quam Thamesis Alluit Unda,
Meque Nec Invitum Patria Dulcis Habet.
Jam Nec Arundiferum Mihi Cura Revisere Camum,
Nec Dudum _Vetiti_ Me _Laris_ Angit Amor.
Nec Duri Libet Usque Minas Perferre Magistri,
Caeteraque Ingenio Non Subeunda Meo.
Si Sit Hoc _Exilium_ Patrios Adiise Penates,
Et Vacuum Curis Otia Grata Sequi,
Non Ego Vel _Profugi_ Nomen Sortemve Recuso,
Laetus Et _Exilii_ Conditione Fruor.
I Cannot Find Any Meaning but This, Which Even Kindness And Reverence
Can Give To The Term "Vetiti Laris," A Habitation From Which He Is
Excluded; Or How
Comments (0)