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
His Apprehensions Quick, His Judgment True:
That The Most Learn'D With Shame Confess,
His Knowledge More, His Reading only Less.
Of All This, However, If The Proof Be Demanded, I Will Not Undertake To
Give It; The Atoms Of Probability, Of Which My Opinion Has Been Formed,
Lie Scattered over All His Works; And By Him Who Thinks The Question
Worth His Notice, His Works Must Be Perused with Very Close Attention.
Criticism, Either Didactick Or Defensive, Occupies Almost All His Prose,
Except Those Pages Which He Has Devoted to His Patrons; But None Of His
Prefaces Were Ever Thought Tedious. They Have Not The Formality Of A
Settled style, In which The First Half Of The Sentence Betrays The Other.
The Clauses Are Never Balanced, Nor The Periods Modelled; Every Word
Seems To Drop By Chance, Though It Falls Into Its Proper Place. Nothing
Is Cold Or Languid; The Whole Is Airy, Animated, And Vigorous; What Is
Little, Is Gay; What Fe Great, Is Splendid. He May Be Thought To Mention
Himself Too Frequently; But, While He Forces Himself Upon Our Esteem, We
Cannot Refuse Him To Stand High In his Own. Every Thing is Excused by The
Play Of Images, And The Sprightliness Of Expression. Though All Is Easy,
Nothing is Feeble; Though All Seems Careless, There Is Nothing harsh; And
Though Since His Earlier Works More Than A Century Has Passed, They Have
Nothing yet Uncouth Or Obsolete.
He Who Writes Much Will Not Easily Escape A Manner, Such A Recurrence Of
Particular Modes As May Be Easily Noted. Dryden Is Always "Another And
The Same;" He Does Not Exhibit A Second Time The Same Elegancies In the
Same Form, Nor Appears To Have Any Art Other Than That Of Expressing
With Clearness What He Thinks With Vigour. His Style Could Not Easily Be
Imitated, Either Seriously Or Ludicrously; For, Being always Equable And
Always Varied, It Has No Prominent Or Discriminative Characters. The
Beauty Who Is Totally Free From Disproportion Of Parts And Features,
Cannot Be Ridiculed by An Overcharged resemblance.
From His Prose, However, Dryden Derives Only His Accidental And Secondary
Praise; The Veneration With Which His Name Is Pronounced by Every
Cultivator Of English Literature, Is Paid To Him As He Refined the
Language, Improved the Sentiments, And Tuned the Numbers Of English
Poetry.
After About Half A Century Of Forced thoughts, And Rugged metre, Some
Advances Towards Nature And Harmony Had Been Already Made By Waller And
Denham; They Had Shown That Long Discourses In rhyme Grew More Pleasing
When They Were Broken Into Couplets, And That Verse Consisted not Only In
The Number But The Arrangement Of Syllables.
But Though They Did Much, Who Can Deny That They Left Much To Do? Their
Works Were Not Many, Nor Were Their Minds Of Very Ample Comprehension.
More Examples Of More Modes Of Composition Were Necessary For The
Establishment Of Regularity, And The Introduction Of Propriety In word
And Thought.
Every Language Of A Learned nation Necessarily Divides Itself Into
Diction Scholastick And Popular, Grave And Familiar, Elegant And Gross:
And From A Nice Distinction Of These Different Parts Arises A Great Part
Of The Beauty Of Style. But If We Except A Few Minds, The Favourites Of
Nature, To Whom Their Own Original Rectitude Was In the Place Of Rules,
This Delicacy Of Selection Was Little Known To Our Authors; Our Speech
Lay Before Them In a Heap Of Confusion, And Every Man Took For Every
Purpose, What Chance Might Offer Him.
There Was, Therefore, Before The Time Of Dryden No Poetical Diction, No
System Of Words At Once Refined from The Grossness Of Domestick Use, And
Free From The Harshness Of Terms Appropriated to Particular Arts. Words
Too Familiar, Or Too Remote, Defeat The Purpose Of A Poet. From Those
Sounds Which We Hear On Small Or On Coarse Occasions, We Do Not Easily
Receive Strong Impressions, Or Delightful Images; And Words To Which
We Are Nearly Strangers, Whenever They Occur, Draw That Attention On
Themselves Which They Should Transmit To Things.
Those Happy Combinations Of Words Which Distinguish Poetry From Prose Had
Been Rarely Attempted; We Had Few Elegancies Or Flowers Of Speech; The
Roses Had Not Yet Been Plucked from The Bramble; Or Different Colours Had
Not Been Joined to Enliven One Another.
It May Be Doubted whether Waller And Denham Could Have Overborne The
Prejudices Which Had Long Prevailed, Fend Which Even Then Were Sheltered
By The Protection Of Cowley. The New Versification, As It Was Called, May
Be Considered as Owing its Establishment To Dryden; From Whose Time It Is
Apparent That English Poetry Has Had No Tendency To Relapse To Its Former
Savageness.
The Affluence And Comprehension Of Our Language Is Very Illustriously
Displayed in our Poetical Translations Of Ancient Writers; A Work Which
The French Seem To Relinquish In despair, And Which We Were Long Unable
To Perform With Dexterity. Ben Jonson Thought It Necessary To Copy Horace
Almost Word By Word; Feltham, His Contemporary And Adversary, Considers
It As Indispensably Requisite In a Translation To Give Line For Line. It
Is Said That Sandys, Whom Dryden Calls The Best Versifier Of The
Last Age, Has Struggled hard To Comprise Every Book Of His English
Metamorphoses In the Same Number Of Verses With The Original. Holyday Had
Nothing in view But To Show That He Understood His Author, With So Little
Regard To The Grandeur Of His Diction, Or The Volubility Of His Numbers,
That His Metres Can Hardly Be Called verses; They Cannot Be Read Without
Reluctance, Nor Will The Labour Always Be Rewarded by Understanding
Them. Cowley Saw That Such Copyers Were A Servile Race; He Asserted his
Liberty, And Spread His Wings So Boldly That He Left His Authors. It Was
Reserved for Dryden To Fix The Limits Of Poetical Liberty, And Give Us
Just Rules And Examples Of Translation.
When Languages Are Formed upon Different Principles, It Is Impossible
That The Same Modes Of Expression Should Always Be Elegant In both. While
They Run On Together, The Closest Translation May Be Considered as The
Best; But When They Divaricate, Each Must Take Its Natural Course. Where
Correspondence Cannot Be Obtained, It Is Necessary To Be Content With
Something equivalent. "Translation, Therefore," Says Dryden, "Is Not So
Loose As Paraphrase, Nor So Close As Metaphrase."
All Polished languages Have Different Styles; The Concise, The Diffuse,
The Lofty, And The Humble. In the Proper Choice Of Style Consists The
Resemblance Which Dryden Principally Exacts From The Translator. He Is To
Exhibit His Author'S Thoughts In such A Dress Of Diction As The Author
Would Have Given Them, Had His Language Been English; Rugged magnificence
Is Not To Be Softened; Hyperbolical Ostentation Is Not To Be Repressed;
Nor Sententious Affectation To Have Its Point Blunted. A Translator Is To
Be Like His Author; It Is Not His Business To Excel Him.
The Reasonableness Of These Rules Seems Sufficient For Their Vindication;
And The Effects Produced by Observing them Were So Happy, That I Know Not
Whether They Were Ever Opposed, But By Sir Edward Sherburne, A Man Whose
Learning was Greater Than His Powers Of Poetry, And Who, Being better
Qualified to Give The Meaning than The Spirit Of Seneca, Has Introduced
His Version Of Three Tragedies By A Defence Of Close Translation. The
Authority Of Horace, Which The New Translators Cited in defence Of Their
Practice, He Has, By A Judicious Explanation, Taken Fairly From Them; But
Reason Wants Not Horace To Support It.
It Seldom Happens That All The Necessary Causes Concur To Any Great
Effect: Will Is Wanting to Power, Or Power To Will, Or Both Are Impeded
By External Obstructions. The Exigencies In which Dryden Was Condemned
To Pass His Life, Are Reasonably Supposed to Have Blasted his Genius,
To Have Driven Out His Works In a State Of Immaturity, And To Have
Intercepted the Full-Blown Elegance, Which Longer Growth Would Have
Supplied.
Poverty, Like Other Rigid Powers, Is Sometimes Too Hastily Accused. If
The Excellence Of Dryden'S Works Was Lessened by His Indigence, Their
Number Was Increased; And I Know Not How It Will Be Proved, That If He
Had Written Less He Would Have Written Better; Or That, Indeed, He Would
Have Undergone The Toil Of An Author, If He Had Not Been Solicited by
Something more Pressing than The Love Of Praise.
But, As Is Said By His Sebastian,
What Had Been Is Unknown; What Is, Appears.
We Know That Dryden'S Several Productions Were So Many Successive
Expedients For His Support; His Plays Were, Therefore, Often Borrowed;
And His Poems Were Almost All Occasional.
In An Occasional Performance No Height Of Excellence Can Be Expected
From Any Mind, However Fertile In itself, And However Stored with
Acquisitions. He Whose Work Is General And Arbitrary Has The Choice Of
His Matter, And Takes That Which His Inclination And His Studies Have
Best Qualified him To Display And Decorate. He Is At Liberty To Delay His
Publication Till He Has Satisfied his Friends And Himself, Till He Has
Reformed his First Thoughts By Subsequent Examination, And Polished away
Those Faults Which The Precipitance Of Ardent Composition Is Likely To
Leave Behind It. Virgil Is Related to Have Poured out A Great Number Of
Lines In the Morning, And To Have Passed the Day In reducing them To
Fewer.
The Occasional Poet Is Circumscribed by The Narrowness Of His Subject.
Whatever Can Happen To Man Has Happened so Often, That Little Remains
For Fancy Or Invention. We Have Been All Born; We Have Most Of Us Been
Married; And So Many Have Died before Us, That Our Deaths Can Supply
But Few Materials For A Poet. In the Fate Of Princes The Publick Has An
Interest; And What Happens To Them Of Good Or Evil, The Poets Have Always
Considered as Business For The Muse. But After So Many Inauguratory
Gratulations, Nuptial Hymns, And Funeral Dirges, He Must Be Highly
Favoured by Nature, Or By Fortune, Who Says Any Thing not Said Before.
Even War And Conquest, However Splendid, Suggest No New Images; The
Triumphal Chariot Of A Victorious Monarch Can Be Decked only With Those
Ornaments That Have Graced his Predecessors.
Not Only Matter But Time Is Wanting. The Poem Must Not Be Delayed till
The Occasion Is Forgotten. The Lucky Moments Of Animated imagination
Cannot Be Attended; Elegancies And Illustrations Cannot Be Multiplied
By Gradual Accumulation; The Composition Must Be Despatched, While
Conversation Is Yet Busy, And Admiration Fresh; And Haste Is To Be
Made, Lest Some Other Event Should Lay Hold Upon Mankind. Occasional
Compositions May, However, Secure To A Writer The Praise Both Of Learning
And Facility; For They Cannot Be The Effect Of Long Study, And Must Be
Furnished immediately From The Treasures Of The Mind.
The Death Of Cromwell Was The First Publick Event Which Called forth
Dryden'S Poetical Powers. His Heroick Stanzas Have Beauties And Defects;
The Thoughts Are Vigorous, And, Though Not Always Proper, Show A Mind
Replete With Ideas; The Numbers Are Smooth; And The Diction, If Not
Altogether Correct, Is Elegant And Easy.
Davenant Was, Perhaps, At This Time, His Favourite Author, Though
Gondibert Never Appears To Have Been Popular; And From Davenant He
Learned to Please His Ear With The Stanza Of Four Lines Alternately
Rhymed.
Dryden Very Early Formed his Versification; There Are In this Early
Production No Traces Of Donne'S Or Jonson'S Ruggedness; But He Did Not So
Soon Free His Mind From The Ambition Of Forced conceits. In his Verses On
The Restoration, He Says Of The King'S Exile:
He, Toss'D By Fate,
Could Taste No Sweets Of Youth'S Desir'D Age,
But Found His Life Too True A Pilgrimage.
And Afterwards, To Show How Virtue And Wisdom Are Increased by Adversity,
He Makes This Remark:
Well Might The Ancient Poets Then Confer
On Night The Honour'D Name Of Counsellor:
Since, Struck With Rays Of Prosperous Fortune Blind,
We Light Alone In dark Afflictions Find.
His Praise Of Monk'S Dexterity Comprises Such A Cluster Of Thoughts
Unallied to One Another, As Will Not Elsewhere Be Easily Found:
'Twas Monk, Whom Providence Design'D To Loose
Those Real Bonds False Freedom Did Impose.
The Blessed saints That Watch'D This Turning scene
Did From Their Stars With Joyful Wonder Lean,
To See Small Clues Draw Vastest Weights Along,
Not In their Bulk, But In their Order Strong.
Thus Pencils Can By One Slight Touch Restore
Smiles To That Changed face That Wept Before.
With Ease Such Fond Chimeras We Pursue.
As Fancy Frames For Fancy To Subdue;
But, When Ourselves To Action We Betake,
It Shuns The Mint Like Gold That Chymists Make:
How Hard Was Then His Task, At Once To Be
What In the Body Natural We See!
Man'S Architect Distinctly Did Ordain
The Charge Of Muscles, Nerves, And Of The Brain,
Through Viewless Conduits Spirits To Dispense
The Springs Of Motion From The Seat Of Sense:
'Twas Not
Comments (0)