Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III) - Samuel Johnson (classic books to read txt) 📗
- Author: Samuel Johnson
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Forgotten, Produce That Particular Designation Of Mind, And Propensity
For Some Certain Science Or Employment, Which Is Commonly Called
Genius. The True Genius Is A Mind Of Large General Powers, Accidentally
Determined to Some Particular Direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Great
Painter Of The Present Age, Had The First Fondness For His Art Excited
By The Perusal Of Richardson'S Treatise.
By His Mother'S Solicitation He Was Admitted into Westminster School,
Where He Was Soon Distinguished. He Was Wont, Says Sprat, To Relate,
"That He Had This Defect In his Memory At That Time, That His Teachers
Never Could Bring it To Retain The Ordinary Rules Of Grammar."
This Is An Instance Of The Natural Desire Of Man To Propagate A Wonder.
It Is, Surely, Very Difficult To Tell Any Thing as It Was Heard, When
Sprat Could Not Refrain From Amplifying a Commodious Incident, Though
The Book To Which He Prefixed his Narrative, Contained its Confutation.
A Memory Admitting some Things And Rejecting others, An Intellectual
Digestion That Concocted the Pulp Of Learning, But Refused the Husks,
Had The Appearance Of An Instinctive Elegance, Of A Particular Provision
Made By Nature For Literary Politeness. But, In the Author'S Own Honest
Relation, The Marvel Vanishes: He Was, He Says, Such "An Enemy To All
Constraint, That His Master Never Could Prevail On Him To Learn The
Rules Without Book." He Does Not Tell, That He Could Not Learn The
Rules; But That, Being able To Perform His Exercises Without Them, And
Being an "Enemy To Constraint," He Spared himself The Labour.
Among The English Poets, Cowley, Milton, And Pope, Might Be Said "To
Lisp In numbers;" And Have Given Such Early Proofs, Not Only Of Powers
Of Language, But Of Comprehension Of Things, As, To More Tardy Minds,
Seems Scarcely Credible. But Of The Learned puerilities Of Cowley There
Is No Doubt, Since A Volume Of His Poems Was Not Only Written, But
Printed, In his Thirteenth Year[6]; Containing, With Other Poetical
Compositions, The Tragical History Of Pyramus And Thisbe, Written When
He Was Ten Years Old; And Constantia And Philetus, Written Two Years
After.
While He Was Yet At School, He Produced a Comedy, Called, Love'S Riddle,
Though It Was Not Published, Till He Had Been Some Time At Cambridge.
This Comedy Is Of The Pastoral Kind, Which Requires No Acquaintance With
The Living world, And, Therefore, The Time At Which It Was Composed adds
Little To The Wonders Of Cowley'S Minority.
In 1636, He Was Removed to Cambridge[7], Where He Continued his Studies
With Great Intenseness; For He Is Said To Have Written, While He Was Yet
A Young Student, The Greater Part Of His Davideis; A Work Of Which The
Materials Could Not Have Been Collected without The Study Of Many Years,
But By A Mind Of The Greatest Vigour And Activity.
Two Years After His Settlement At Cambridge He Published love'S Riddle,
With A Poetical Dedication To Sir Kenelm Digby, Of Whose Acquaintance
All His Contemporaries Seem To Have Been Ambitious; And Naufragium
Joculare, A Comedy, Written In latin, But Without Due Attention To
The Ancient Models; For It Is Not Loose Verse, But Mere Prose. It
Was Printed with A Dedication In verse, To Dr. Comber, Master Of The
College; But, Having neither The Facility Of A Popular, Nor The Accuracy
Of A Learned work, It Seems To Be Now Universally Neglected.
At The Beginning of The Civil War, As The Prince Passed through
Cambridge, In his Way To York, He Was Entertained with A Representation
Of The Guardian, A Comedy, Which, Cowley Says, Was Neither Written Nor
Acted, But Rough-Drawn By Him, And Repeated by The Scholars. That This
Comedy Was Printed during his Absence From His Country, He Appears To
Have Considered as Injurious To His Reputation; Though, During the
Suppression Of The Theatres, It Was Sometimes Privately Acted with
Sufficient Approbation.
In 1643, Being now Master Of Arts, He Was, By The Prevalence Of The
Parliament, Ejected from Cambridge, And Sheltered himself At St. John'S
College, In oxford; Where, As Is Said By Wood, He Published a Satire,
Called the Puritan And Papist, Which Was Only Inserted in the Last
Collection Of His Works[8]; And So Distinguished himself By The Warmth
Of His Loyalty And The Elegance Of His Conversation, That He Gained the
Kindness And Confidence Of Those Who Attended the King, And, Amongst
Others, Of Lord Falkland, Whose Notice Cast A Lustre On All To Whom It
Was Extended.
About The Time When Oxford Was Surrendered to The Parliament, He
Followed the Queen To Paris, Where He Became Secretary To The Lord
Jermyn, Afterwards Earl Of St. Alban'S, And Was Employed in such
Correspondence As The Royal Cause Required, And Particularly In
Ciphering and Deciphering the Letters That Passed between The King and
Queen; An Employment Of The Highest Confidence And Honour. So Wide Was
His Province Of Intelligence, That, For Several Years, It Filled all His
Days And Two Or Three Nights In the Week.
In The Year 1647, His Mistress Was Published; For He Imagined, As
He Declared in his Preface To A Subsequent Edition, That "Poets Are
Scarcely Thought Freemen Of Their Company Without Paying some Duties, Or
Obliging themselves To Be True To Love."
This Obligation To Amorous Ditties Owes, I Believe, Its Original To The
Fame Of Petrarch, Who, In an Age Rude And Uncultivated, By His Tuneful
Homage To His Laura, Refined the Manners Of The Lettered world, And
Filled europe With Love And Poetry. But The Basis Of All Excellence Is
Truth: He That Professes Love Ought To Feel Its Power. Petrarch Was A
Real Lover, And Laura Doubtless Deserved his Tenderness. Of Cowley, We
Are Told By Barnes, Who Had Means Enough Of Information, That, Whatever
He May Talk Of His Own Inflammability, And The Variety Of Characters By
Which His Heart Was Divided, He, In reality, Was In love But Once, And
Then Never Had Resolution To Tell His Passion.
This Consideration Cannot But, Abate, In some Measure, The Reader'S
Esteem For The Work And The Author. To Love Excellence Is Natural; It
Is Natural, Likewise, For The Lover To Solicit Reciprocal Regard By An
Elaborate Display Of His Own Qualifications. The Desire Of Pleasing has,
In Different Men, Produced actions Of Heroism, And Effusions Of Wit; But
It Seems As Reasonable To Appear The Champion As The Poet Of An "Airy
Nothing," And To Quarrel As To Write For What Cowley Might Have Learned
From His Master Pindar, To Call "The Dream Of A Shadow."
It Is Surely Not Difficult, In the Solitude Of A College, Or In the
Bustle Of The World, To Find Useful Studies And Serious Employment. No
Man Needs To Be So Burdened with Life, As To Squander It In voluntary
Dreams Of Fictitious Occurrences. The Man That Sits Down To Suppose
Himself Charged with Treason Or Peculation, And Heats His Mind To An
Elaborate Purgation Of His Character From Crimes Which He Was Never
Within The Possibility Of Committing, Differs Only By The Infrequency Of
His Folly From Him Who Praises Beauty Which He Never Saw; Complains Of
Jealousy Which He Never Felt; Supposes Himself Sometimes Invited, And
Sometimes Forsaken; Fatigues His Fancy, And Ransacks His Memory, For
Images Which May Exhibit The Gaiety Of Hope, Or The Gloominess Of
Despair; And Dresses His Imaginary Chloris Or Phyllis, Sometimes In
Flowers Fading as Her Beauty, And Sometimes In gems Lasting as Her
Virtues.
At Paris, As Secretary To Lord Jermyn, He Was Engaged in transacting
Things Of Real Importance With Real Men And Real Women, And, At That
Time, Did Not Much Employ His Thoughts Upon Phantoms Of Gallantry. Some
Of His Letters To Mr. Bennet, Afterwards Earl Of Arlington, From April
To December, In 1650, Are Preserved in miscellanea Aulica, A Collection
Of Papers, Published by Brown. These Letters, Being written, Like Those
Of Other Men, Whose Minds Are More On Things Than Words, Contribute No
Otherwise To His Reputation, Than As They Show Him To Have Been Above
The Affectation Of Unseasonable Elegance, And To Have Known, That The
Business Of A Statesman Can Be Little Forwarded by Flowers Of Rhetorick.
One Passage, However, Seems Not Unworthy Of Some Notice. Speaking of The
Scotch Treaty, Then In agitation: "The Scotch Treaty," Says He, "Is The
Only Thing now In which We Are Vitally Concerned; I Am One Of The Last
Hopers, And Yet Cannot Now Abstain From Believing that An Agreement Will
Be Made; All People Upon The Place Incline To That Of Union. The Scotch
Will Moderate Something of The Rigour Of Their Demands; The Mutual
Necessity Of An Accord Is Visible, The King is Persuaded of It. And, To
Tell You The Truth, Which I Take To Be An Argument Above All The Rest,
Virgil Has Told The Same Thing to That Purpose."
This Expression From A Secretary Of The Present Time Would Be Considered
As Merely Ludicrous, Or, At Most, As An Ostentatious Display Of
Scholarship; But The Manners Of That Time Were So Tinged with
Superstition, That I Cannot But Suspect Cowley Of Having consulted,
On This Great Occasion, The Virgilian Lots[9], And To Have Given Some
Credit To The Answer Of His Oracle.
Some Years Afterwards, "Business," Says Sprat, "Passed of Course Into
Other Hands;" And Cowley, Being no Longer Useful At Paris, Was, In 1656,
Sent Back Into England, That, "Under Pretence Of Privacy And Retirement,
He Might Take Occasion Of Giving notice Of The Posture Of Things In this
Nation."
Soon After His Return To London, He Was Seized by Some Messengers Of The
Usurping powers, Who Were Sent Out In quest Of Another Man; And, Being
Examined, Was Put Into Confinement, From Which He Was Not Dismissed
Without The Security Of A Thousand Pounds, Given By Dr. Scarborough.
This Year He Published his Poems, With A Preface, In which He Seems To
Have Inserted something suppressed in subsequent Editions, Which Was
Interpreted to Denote Some Relaxation Of His Loyalty. In this Preface He
Declares, That "His Desire Had Been For Some Days Past, And Did Still
Very Vehemently Continue, To Retire Himself To Some Of The American
Plantations, And To Forsake This World For Ever."
From The Obloquy Which The Appearance Of Submission To The Usurpers
Brought Upon Him, His Biographer Has Been Very Diligent To Clear Him,
And, Indeed, It Does Not Seem To Have Lessened his Reputation. His Wish
For Retirement We Can Easily Believe To Be Undissembled; A Man Harassed
In One Kingdom, And Persecuted in another, Who, After A Course Of
Business That Employed all His Days, And Half His Nights, In ciphering
And Deciphering, Comes To His Own Country, And Steps Into A Prison, Will
Be Willing enough To Retire To Some Place Of Quiet And Of Safety. Yet
Let Neither Our Reverence For A Genius, Nor Our Pity For A Sufferer,
Dispose Us To Forget, That, If His Activity Was Virtue, His Retreat Was
Cowardice[10].
He Then Took Upon Himself The Character Of Physician, Still, According
To Sprat, With Intention "To Dissemble The Main Design Of His Coming
Over;" And, As Mr. Wood Relates, "Complying with The Men Then In power,
Which Was Much Taken Notice Of By The Royal Party, He Obtained an Order
To Be Created doctor Of Physick; Which Being done To His Mind, Whereby
He Gained the Ill Will Of Some Of His Friends, He Went Into France
Again, Having made A Copy Of Verses On Oliver'S Death."
This Is No Favourable Representation, Yet Even In this Not Much Wrong
Can Be Discovered. How Far He Complied with The Men In power, Is To Be
Inquired before He Can Be Blamed. It Is Not Said, That He Told Them Any
Secrets, Or Assisted them By Intelligence Or Any Other Act. If He Only
Promised to Be Quiet, That They In whose Hands He Was Might Free Him
From Confinement, He Did What No Law Of Society Prohibits.
The Man Whose Miscarriage In a Just Cause Has Put Him In the Power
Of His Enemy May, Without Any Violation Of His Integrity, Regain His
Liberty, Or Preserve His Life, By A Promise Of Neutrality; For, The
Stipulation Gives The Enemy Nothing which He Had Not Before: The
Neutrality Of A Captive May Be Always Secured by His Imprisonment Or
Death. He That Is At The Disposal Of Another May Not Promise To Aid Him
In Any Injurious Act, Because No Power Can Compel Active Obedience. He
May Engage To Do Nothing, But Not To Do Ill.
There Is Reason To Think That Cowley Promised little. It Does Not Appear
That His Compliance Gained him Confidence Enough To Be Trusted without
Security, For The Bond Of His Bail Was Never Cancelled; Nor That It Made
Him Think Himself Secure, For, At That Dissolution Of Government Which
Followed the Death Of Oliver, He Returned into France, Where He Resumed
His Former Station, And Staid Till The Restoration[11].
"He Continued," Says His Biographer, "Under These Bonds, Till The
General Deliverance;" It Is, Therefore, To Be Supposed, That
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