Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗
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By The Ancients; He Takes Those Passages Of Their Own Authors To Be
Really Sublime Which Come The Nearest To It; He Often Calls That A Noble
And A Great Thought Which Is Only A Pretty And A Fine One; And Has More
Instances Of The Sublime Out Of Ovid De Tristibus, Than He Has Out Of All
Virgil.
"I Shall Allow, Therefore, Only Those To Be Judges Of Philips, Who Make
The Ancients, And Particularly Virgil, Their Standard.
"But, Before I Enter On This Subject, I Shall Consider What Is Particular
In The Style Of Philips, And Examine What Ought To Be The Style Of
Heroick Poetry; And Next Inquire How Far He Is Come Up To That Style.
"His Style Is Particular, Because He Lays Aside Rhyme, And Writes In
Blank Verse, And Uses Old Words, And Frequently Postpones The Adjective
To The Substantive, And The Substantive To The Verb; And Leaves Out
Little Particles, _A_, And _The_; _Her_, And _His_; And Uses Frequent
Appositions. Now Let Us Examine, Whether These Alterations Of Style Be
Conformable To The True Sublime."
[Footnote 90: Isaac Vossius Relates, That He Also Delighted in having
His Hair Combed when He Could Have It Done By Barbers Or Other Persons
Skilled in the Rules Of Prosody. Of The Passage That Contains This
Ridiculous Fancy, The Following is A Translation: "Many People Take
Delight In the Rubbing of Their Limbs, And The Combing of Their Hair; But
These Exercises Would Delight Much More, If The Servants At The Baths,
And Of The Barbers, Were So Skilful In this Art, That They Could Express
Any Measures With Their Fingers. I Remember That More Than Once I Have
Fallen Into The Hands Of Men Of This Sort, Who Could Imitate Any
Measure Of Songs In combing the Hair, So As Sometimes To Express Very
Intelligibly Iambics, Trochees, Dactyls, &C. From Whence There Arose
To Me No Small Delight." See His Treatise De Poematum Cantu Et Viribus
Rythmi. Oxon. 1673. P. 62. Ii.]
[Footnote 91: This Ode I Am Willing to Mention, Because There Seems To Be
An Errour In all The Printed copies, Which Is, I Find, Retained in the
Last. They All Read;
Quam Gratiarum Cura Decentium
O! O! Labellis Cui Venus Insidet.
The Author Probably Wrote,
Quam Gratiarum Cura Decentium
Ornat; Labellis Cui Venus Insidet. Dr. J.
Hannes Was Professor Of Chemistry At Oxford, And Wrote One Or Two Poems
In The Musae Anglicanae. J.B.]
Walsh.
William Walsh, The Son Of Joseph Walsh, Esq. Of Abberley, In
Worcestershire, Was Born In 1663, As Appears From The Account Of Wood,
Who Relates, That At The Age Of Fifteen He Became, In 1678, A Gentleman
Commoner Of Wadham College.
He Left The University Without A Degree, And Pursued his Studies In
London And At Home; That He Studied, In whatever Place, Is Apparent From
The Effect, For He Became, In mr. Dryden'S Opinion, "The Best Critick In
The Nation."
He Was Not, However, Merely A Critick Or A Scholar, But A Man Of Fashion,
And, As Dennis Remarks, Ostentatiously Splendid In his Dress. He Was,
Likewise, A Member Of Parliament And A Courtier, Knight Of The Shire For
His Native County In several Parliaments; In another The Representative
Of Richmond In yorkshire; And Gentleman Of The Horse To Queen Anne, Under
The Duke Of Somerset.
Some Of His Verses Show Him To Have Been A Zealous Friend To The
Revolution; But His Political Ardour Did Not Abate His Reverence
Or Kindness For Dryden, To Whom He Gave A Dissertation On Virgil'S
Pastorals, In which, However Studied, He Discovers Some Ignorance Of The
Laws Of French Versification.
In 1705, He Began To Correspond With Mr. Pope, In whom He Discovered very
Early The Power Of Poetry. Their Letters Are Written Upon The Pastoral
Comedy Of The Italians, And Those Pastorals Which Pope Was Then Preparing
To Publish.
The Kindnesses Which Are First Experienced are Seldom Forgotten. Pope
Always Retained a Grateful Memory Of Walsh'S Notice, And Mentioned him,
In One Of His Latter Pieces, Among Those That Had Encouraged his Juvenile
Studies:
Granville The Polite,
And Knowing walsh, Would Tell Me I Could Write.
In His Essay On Criticism He Had Given Him More Splendid Praise; And,
In The Opinion Of His Learned commentator, Sacrificed a Little Of His
Judgment To His Gratitude.
The Time Of His Death I Have Not Learned. It Must Have Happened between
1707, When He Wrote To Pope, And 1711, When Pope Praised him In his
Essay. The Epitaph Makes Him Forty-Six Years Old: If Wood'S Account Be
Right, He Died in 1709.
He Is Known More By His Familiarity With Greater Men, Than By Any Thing
Done Or Written By Himself.
His Works Are Not Numerous. In prose He Wrote Eugenia, A Defence Of
Women; Which Dryden Honoured with A Preface.
Esculapius, Or The Hospital Of Fools, Published after His Death.
A Collection Of Letters And Poems, Amorous And Gallant, Was Published in
The Volumes Called dryden'S Miscellany, And Some Other Occasional Pieces.
To His Poems And Letters Is Prefixed a Very Judicious Preface Upon
Epistolary Composition And Amorous Poetry.
In His Golden Age Restored, There Was Something of Humour, While The
Facts Were Recent; But It Now Strikes No Longer. In his Imitation Of
Horace, The First Stanzas Are Happily Turned; And, In all His Writings,
There Are Pleasing passages. He Has, However, More Elegance Than Vigour,
And Seldom Rises Higher Than To Be Pretty.
Dryden[92].
Of The Great Poet Whose Life I Am About To Delineate, The Curiosity Which
His Reputation Must Excite, Will Require A Display More Ample Than Can
Now Be Given. His Contemporaries, However They Reverenced his Genius,
Left His Life Unwritten; And Nothing, Therefore, Can Be Known Beyond What
Casual Mention And Uncertain Tradition Have Supplied.
John Dryden Was Born August 9, 1631[93], At Aldwinkle, Near Oundle,
The Son Of Erasmus Dryden, Of Titchmersh; Who Was The Third Son Of
Sir Erasmus Dryden, Baronet, Of Canons Ashby. All These Places Are In
Northamptonshire; But The Original Stock Of The Family Was In the County
Of Huntingdon[94].
He Is Reported by His Last Biographer, Derrick, To Have Inherited, From
His Father, An Estate Of Two Hundred a Year, And To Have Been Bred, As
Was Said, An Anabaptist. For Either Of These Particulars No Authority Is
Given[95]. Such A Fortune Ought To Have Secured him From That Poverty
Which Seems Always To Have Oppressed him; Or, If He Had Wasted it, To
Have Made Him Ashamed of Publishing his Necessities. But, Though He
Had Many Enemies, Who, Undoubtedly, Examined his Life With A Scrutiny
Sufficiently Malicious, I Do Not Remember That He Is Ever Charged with
Waste Of His Patrimony. He Was, Indeed, Sometimes Reproached for His
First Religion. I Am, Therefore, Inclined to Believe That Derrick'S
Intelligence Was Partly True And Partly Erroneous[96].
From Westminster School, Where He Was Instructed, As One Of The King'S
Scholars, By Dr. Busby, Whom He Long After Continued to Reverence,
He Was, In 1650, Elected to One Of The Westminster Scholarships At
Cambridge[97].
Of His School Performances Has Appeared only A Poem On The Death Of
Lord Hastings, Composed with Great Ambition Of Such Conceits As,
Notwithstanding the Reformation Begun By Waller And Denham, The Example
Of Cowley Still Kept In reputation. Lord Hastings Died of The Smallpox;
And His Poet Has Made Of The Pustules First Rosebuds, And Then Gems; At
Last Exalts Them Into Stars; And Says,
No Comet Need foretell His Change Drew On,
Whose Corpse Might Seem A Constellation.
At The University He Does Not Appear To Have Been Eager Of Poetical
Distinction, Or To Have Lavished his Early Wit Either On Fictitious
Subjects, Or Publick Occasions. He Probably Considered, That He, Who
Proposed to Be An Author, Ought First To Be A Student. He Obtained,
Whatever Was The Reason, No Fellowship In the College. Why He Was
Excluded cannot Now Be Known, And It Is Vain To Guess; Had He Thought
Himself Injured, He Knew How To Complain. In the Life Of Plutarch He
Mentions His Education In the College With Gratitude; But, In a Prologue
At Oxford, He Has These Lines:
Oxford To Him A Dearer Name Shall Be
Than His Own Mother-University:
Thebes Did His Rude, Unknowing youth Engage;
He Chooses Athens In his Riper Age.
It Was Not Till The Death Of Cromwell, In 1658, That He Became A Publick
Candidate For Fame, By Publishing heroick Stanzas On The Late Lord
Protector[98]; Which, Compared with The Verses Of Sprat And Waller, On
The Same Occasion, Were Sufficient To Raise Great Expectations Of The
Rising poet.
When The King was Restored, Dryden, Like The Other Panegyrists Of
Usurpation, Changed his Opinion, Or His Profession, And Published astrea
Redux; A Poem On The Happy Restoration And Return Of His Most Sacred
Majesty King charles The Second.
The Reproach Of Inconstancy Was, On This Occasion, Shared with Such
Numbers, That It Produced neither Hatred nor Disgrace! If He Changed, He
Changed with The Nation. It Was, However, Not Totally Forgotten When His
Reputation Raised him Enemies.
The Same Year He Praised the New King in a Second Poem On His
Restoration. In the Astrea Was The Line,
An Horrid _Stillness_ First _Invades_ The _Ear_,
And In that Silence We A Tempest Fear--
For Which He Was Persecuted with Perpetual Ridicule, Perhaps With
More Than Was Deserved. _Silence_ Is, Indeed, Mere Privation; And, So
Considered, Cannot _Invade_; But Privation, Likewise, Certainly Is
_Darkness_, And Probably _Cold_; Yet Poetry Has Never Been Refused the
Right Of Ascribing effects Or Agency To Them As To Positive Powers. No
Man Scruples To Say That _Darkness_ Hinders Him From His Work; Or That
_Cold_ Has Killed the Plants. Death Is Also Privation; Yet Who Has Made
Any Difficulty Of Assigning to Death A Dart, And The Power Of Striking?
In Settling the Order Of His Works There Is Some Difficulty; For, Even
When They Are Important Enough To Be Formally Offered to A Patron, He
Does Not Commonly Date His Dedication; The Time Of Writing and Publishing
Is Not Always The Same; Nor Can The First Editions Be Easily Found, If
Even From Them Could Be Obtained the Necessary Information[99].
The Time At Which His First Play Was Exhibited is Not Certainly Known,
Because It Was Not Printed till It Was, Some Years Afterwards, Altered
And Revived; But Since The Plays Are Said To Be Printed in the Order In
Which They Were Written, From The Dates Of Some, Those Of Others May
Be Inferred; And Thus It May Be Collected, That In 1663, In the
Thirty-Second Year Of His Life, He Commenced a Writer For The Stage;
Compelled, Undoubtedly, By Necessity, For He Appears Never To Have Loved
That Exercise Of His Genius, Or To Have Much Pleased himself With His Own
Dramas.
Of The Stage, When He Had Once Invaded it, He Kept Possession For Many
Years; Not, Indeed, Without The Competition Of Rivals Who Sometimes
Prevailed, Or The Censure Of Criticks, Which Was Often Poignant, And
Often Just; But With Such A Degree Of Reputation As Made Him, At Least,
Secure Of Being heard, Whatever Might Be The Final Determination Of The
Publick.
His First Piece Was A Comedy Called the Wild Gallant[100]. He Began With
No Happy Auguries; For His Performance Was So Much Disapproved, That He
Was Compelled to Recall It, And Change It From Its Imperfect State To The
Form In which
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