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

All, And All They Knew,

  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