Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III) - Samuel Johnson (classic books to read txt) 📗

Prefatory Notice To The Lives Of The Poets.

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