Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗
- Author: Samuel Johnson
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Himself, And Be So Critical In other Men'S Writings. Fortune Is Fancied
Standing on A Globe, Not On A _Sphere_, As He Told Us In the First Act.
"Because 'Elkanah'S Similes Are The Most Unlike Things To What They Are
Compared in the World,' I'Ll Venture To Start A Simile In his Annus
Mirabilis: He Gives This Poetical Description Of The Ship Called the
London:
"The Goodly London In her Gallant Trim,
The Phoenix-Daughter Of The Vanquisht Old,
Like A Rich Bride Does On The Ocean Swim,
And On Her Shadow Rides In floating gold.
Her Flag Aloft Spread Ruffling in the Wind,
And Sanguine Streamers Seem'D The Flood To Fire:
The Weaver, Charm'D With What His Loom Design'D,
Goes On To Sea, And Knows Not To Retire.
With Roomy Decks, Her Guns Of Mighty Strength,
Whose Low-Laid Mouths Each Mounting billow Laves,
Deep In her Draught, And Warlike In her Length,
She Seems A Sea-Wasp Flying on The Waves.
"What A Wonderful Pother Is Here, To Make All These Poetical
Beautifications Of A Ship! That Is A _Phoenix_ In the First Stanza, And
But A _Wasp_ In the Last: Nay, To Make His Humble Comparison Of A _Wasp_
More Ridiculous, He Does Not Say It Flies Upon The Waves As Nimbly As A
Wasp, Or The Like, But It Seemed a _Wasp_. But Our Author At The Writing
Of This Was Not In his Altitudes, To Compare Ships To Floating palaces: A
Comparison To The Purpose, Was A Perfection He Did Not Arrive To Till His
Indian Emperor'S Days. But, Perhaps, His Similitude Has More In it Than
We Imagine; This Ship Had A Great Many Guns In her, And They, Put All
Together, Made The Sting in the Wasp'S Tail; For This Is All The Reason I
Can Guess, Why It Seem'D A _Wasp_. But, Because We Will Allow Him All We
Can To Help Out, Let It Be A _Phoenix Sea-Wasp_, And The Rarity Of Such
An Animal May Do Much Towards Heightening the Fancy.
"It Had Been Much More To His Purpose, If He Had Designed to Render The
Senseless Play Little, To Have Searched for Some Such Pedantry As This:
"Two Ifs Scarce Make One Possibility.
If Justice Will Take All And Nothing give,
Justice, Methinks, Is Not Distributive.
To Die Or Kill You, Is The Alternative.
Rather Than Take Your Life, I Will Not Live.
"Observe How Prettily Our Author Chops Logick In heroick Verse. Three
Such Fustian Canting words As _Distributive, Alternative_, And _Two Ifs_,
No Man But Himself Would Have Come Within The Noise Of. But He'S A Man Of
General Learning, And All Comes Into His Play.
"'Twould Have Done Well Too If He Could Have Met With A Rant Or Two,
Worth The Observation; Such As,
"Move Swiftly, Sun, And Fly A Lover'S Pace,
Leave Months And Weeks Behind Thee In thy Race.
"But Surely The Sun, Whether He Flies A Lover'S Or Not A Lover'S Pace,
Leaves Weeks And Months, Nay, Years Too, Behind Him In his Race.
"Poor Robin, Or Any Other Of The Philo-Mathematicks, Would Have Given Him
Satisfaction In the Point:
"If I Could Kill Thee Now, Thy Fate'S So Low,
That I Must Stoop, Ere I Can Give The Blow.
But Mine Is Fixt So Far Above Thy Crown,
That All Thy Men,
Piled on Thy Back, Can Never Pull It Down.
"Now Where That Is, Almanzor'S Fate Is Fixt, I Cannot Guess; But,
Wherever It Is, I Believe Almanzor, And Think That All Abdalla'S
Subjects, Piled upon One Another, Might Not Pull Down His Fate So Well As
Without Piling: Besides, I Think Abdalla So Wise A Man, That, If Almanzor
Had Told Him Piling his Men Upon His Back Might Do The Feat, He Would
Scarce Bear Such A Weight, For The Pleasure Of The Exploit; But It Is A
Huff, And Let Abdalla Do It If He Dare.
"The People Like A Headlong Torrent Go,
And Ev'Ry Dam They Break Or Overflow.
But, Unoppos'D, They Either Lose Their Force,
Or Wind In volumes To Their Former Course.
"A Very Pretty Allusion, Contrary To All Sense Or Reason. Torrents, I
Take It, Let Them Wind Never So Much, Can Never Return To Their Former
Course, Unless He Can Suppose That Fountains Can Go Upwards, Which Is
Impossible; Nay, More, In the Foregoing page He Tells Us So Too; A Trick
Of A Very Unfaithful Memory:
"But Can No More Than Fountains Upward Flow;
"Which Of A _Torrent_, Which Signifies A Rapid Stream, Is Much More
Impossible. Besides, If He Goes To Quibble, And Say That It Is Possible
By Art Water May Be Made Return, And The Same Water Run Twice In one And
The Same Channel: Then He Quite Confutes What He Says; For It Is By Being
Opposed, That It Runs Into Its Former Course; For All Engines That Make
Water So Return, Do It By Compulsion And Opposition. Or, If He Means A
Headlong Torrent For A Tide, Which Would Be Ridiculous, Yet They Do Riot
Wind In volumes, But Come Foreright Back, (If Their Upright Lies Straight
To Their Former Course,) And That By Opposition Of The Sea-Water, That
Drives Them Back Again.
"And For Fancy, When He Lights Of Any Thing like It, 'Tis A Wonder If It
Be Not Borrowed. As Here, For Example Of, I Find This Fanciful Thought In
His Ann. Mirab.
"Old Father Thames Rais'D Up His Rev'Rend Head;
But Fear'D The Fate Of Simoeis Would Return:
Deep In his Ooze He Sought His Sedgy Bed;
And Shrunk His Waters Back Into His Urn.
"This Is Stolen From Cowley'S Davideis, P. 9.
"Swift Jordan Started, And Strait Backward Fled,
Hiding amongst Thick Reeds His Aged head.
And When The Spaniards Their Assault Begin,
At Once Beat Those Without And Those Within.
"This Almanzor Speaks Of Himself; And, Sure, For One Man To Conquer An
Army Within The City, And Another Without The City, At Once, Is Something
Difficult; But This Flight Is Pardonable To Some We Meet With In granada:
Osmin, Speaking of Almanzor,
"Who, Like A Tempest That Outrides The Wind,
Made A Just Battle, Ere The Bodies Join'D.
"Pray, What Does This Honourable Person Mean By A 'Tempest That Outrides
The Wind?' A Tempest That Outrides Itself. To Suppose A Tempest Without
Wind, Is As Bad As Supposing a Man To Walk Without Feet; For If He
Supposes The Tempest To Be Something distinct From The Wind, Yet, As
Being the Effect Of Wind Only, To Come Before The Cause Is A Little
Preposterous; So That, If He Takes It One Way, Or If He Takes It The
Other, Those Two _Ifs_ Will Scarce Make One _Possibility_." Enough Of
Settle.
Marriage A-La-Mode, 1673, Is A Comedy Dedicated to The Earl Of Rochester;
Whom He Acknowledges Not Only As The Defender Of His Poetry, But The
Promoter Of His Fortune. Langbaine Places This Play In 1673. The Earl Of
Rochester, Therefore, Was The Famous Wilmot, Whom Yet Tradition Always
Represents As An Enemy To Dryden, And Who Is Mentioned by Him With Some
Disrespect In the Preface To Juvenal.
The Assignation, Or Love In a Nunnery, A Comedy, 1673, Was Driven Off The
Stage, "Against The Opinion," As The Author Says, "Of The Best Judges."
It Is Dedicated, In a Very Elegant Address, To Sir Charles Sedley; In
Which He Finds An Opportunity For His Usual Complaint Of Hard Treatment
And Unreasonable Censure.
Amboyna, 1673, Is A Tissue Of Mingled dialogue In verse And Prose, And
Was, Perhaps, Written In less Time Than The Virgin Martyr; Though The
Author Thought Not Fit, Either Ostentatiously Or Mournfully, To Tell How
Little Labour It Cost Him, Or At How Short A Warning he Produced it. It
Was A Temporary Performance, Written In the Time Of The Dutch War,
To Inflame The Nation Against Their Enemies; To Whom He Hopes, As He
Declares In his Epilogue, To Make His Poetry Not Less Destructive Than
That By Which Tyrtaeus Of Old Animated the Spartans. This Play Was
Written In the Second Dutch War, In 1673.
Troilus And Cressida, 1679, Is A Play Altered from Shakespeare; But So
Altered, That, Even In langbaine'S Opinion, "The Last Scene In the Third
Act Is A Masterpiece." It Is Introduced by A Discourse On The Grounds
Of Criticism In tragedy, To Which I Suspect That Rymer'S Book Had Given
Occasion.
The Spanish Fryar, 1681, Is A Tragicomedy, Eminent For The Happy
Coincidence And Coalition Of The Two Plots. As It Was Written Against The
Papists, It Would Naturally, At That Time, Have Friends And Enemies; And
Partly By The Popularity Which It Obtained at First, And Partly By The
Real Power Both Of The Serious And Risible Part, It Continued long A
Favourite Of The Publick.
It Was Dryden'S Opinion, At Least For Some Time, And He Maintains It In
The Dedication Of This Play, That The Drama Required an Alternation Of
Comick And Tragick Scenes; And That It Is Necessary To Mitigate, By
Alleviations Of Merriment, The Pressure Of Ponderous Events, And The
Fatigue Of Toilsome Passions. "Whoever," Says He, "Cannot Perform Both
Parts, Is But Half A Writer For The Stage."
The Duke Of Guise, A Tragedy, 1683, Written In conjunction With Lee, As
Oedipus Had Been Before, Seems To Deserve Notice Only For The Offence
Which It Gave To The Remnant Of The Covenanters, And In general To The
Enemies Of The Court, Who Attacked him With Great Violence, And Were
Answered by Him; Though, At Last, He Seems To Withdraw From The Conflict,
By Transferring the Greater Part Of The Blame Or Merit To His Partner. It
Happened that A Contract Had Been Made Between Them, By Which They Were
To Join In writing a Play; And "He Happened," Says Dryden, "To Claim The
Promise Just Upon The Finishing of A Poem, When I Would Have Been Glad Of
A Little Respite. _Two_-Thirds Of It Belonged to Him; And To Me Only The
First Scene Of The Play, The Whole Fourth Act, And The First Half, Or
Somewhat More, Of The Fifth."
This Was A Play Written Professedly For The Party Of The Duke Of York,
Whose Succession Was Then Opposed. A Parallel Is Intended between The
Leaguers Of France, And The Covenanters Of England: And This Intention
Produced the Controversy.
Albion And Albanius, 1685, Is A Musical Drama Or Opera, Written, Like
The Duke Of Guise, Against The Republicans. With What Success It Was
Performed, I Have Not Found[103].
The State Of Innocence And Fall Of Man, 1675, Is Termed, By Him, An
Opera: It Is Rather A Tragedy In heroick Rhyme, But Of Which The
Personages Are Such As Cannot Decently Be Exhibited on The Stage. Some
Such Production Was Foreseen By Marvel, Who Writes Thus To Milton:
Or If A Work So Infinite Be Spann'D,
Jealous I Was, Lest Some Less Skilful Hand
(Such As Disquiet Always What Is Well,
And By Ill-Imitating would Excel,)
Might Hence Presume The Whole Creation'S Day
To Change In scenes, And Show It In a Play.
It Is Another Of His Hasty Productions; For The Heat Of His Imagination
Raised it In a Month.
This Composition Is Addressed to The Princess Of Modena, Then Dutchess Of
York, In a Strain Of Flattery Which Disgraces Genius, And Which It Was
Wonderful That Any Man, That Knew The Meaning of His Own Words, Could Use
Without Self-Detestation. It Is An Attempt To Mingle Earth And Heaven, By
Praising human Excellence In the Language Of Religion.
The Preface Contains An Apology For Heroick Verse And Poetick License; By
Which Is Meant Not Any Liberty Taken In contracting or Extending words,
But The Use Of Bold Fictions And Ambitious Figures.
The Reason Which He Gives For Printing what Was Never Acted, Cannot Be
Overpassed: "I Was Induced to It In my Own Defence, Many Hundred copies
Of It Being dispersed abroad Without My Knowledge Or Consent, And Every
One Gathering new Faults, It Became, At Length, A Libel Against Me."
These Copies, As They Gathered faults, Were Apparently Manuscript; And
He Lived in an Age Very Unlike Ours, If Many Hundred copies Of Fourteen
Hundred lines Were Likely To Be Transcribed. An Author Has A Right To
Print His Own Works, And Needs Not Seek An Apology In falsehood; But He
That Could Bear To Write The Dedication, Felt No Pain In writing the
Preface.
Aureng Zebe, 1676, Is A Tragedy Founded on The Actions Of A Great Prince
Then Reigning, But Over Nations Not Likely To Employ Their Criticks Upon
The Transactions Of The English Stage. If He Had Known And Disliked
His Own Character, Our Trade Was Not In those Times Secure From His
Resentment. His Country Is At Such A Distance, That The Manners Might Be
Safely Falsified, And The Incidents Feigned;
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