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

Meaning, Where Light And Darkness Begin To

Mingle; To Approach The Precipice Of Absurdity, And Hover Over The Abyss

Of Unideal Vacancy. This Inclination Sometimes Produced nonsense, Which

He Knew; As,

 

 

 

  Move Swiftly, Sun, And Fly A Lover'S Pace,

  Leave Weeks And Months Behind Thee In thy Race.

  Amamel Flies

  To Guard Thee From The Demons Of The Air;

  My Flaming sword Above Them To Display,

  All Keen, And Ground Upon The Edge Of Day.

 

 

 

And Sometimes It Issued in absurdities, Of Which, Perhaps, He Was Not

Conscious:

 

 

 

  Then We Upon Our Orb'S Last Verge Shall Go,

  And See The Ocean Leaning on The Sky;

  From Thence Our Rolling neighbours We Shall Know,

  And On The Lunar World Securely Pry.

 

 

 

These Lines Have No Meaning; But May We Not Say, In imitation Of Cowley

On Another Book,

 

 

 

  'Tis So Like _Sense_ 'Twill Serve The Turn As Well?

 

 

 

This Endeavour After The Grand And The New, Produced sentiments Either

Great Or Bulky, And Many Images Either Just Or Splendid:

 

 

 

  I Am As Free As Nature First Made Man,

  Ere The Base Laws Of Servitude Began,

  When Wild In woods The Noble Savage Ran.

 

 

 

  --'Tis But Because The Living death Ne'Er Knew,

  They Fear To Prove It, As A Thing that'S New:

  Let Me Th' Experiment Before You Try,

  I'Ll Show You First How Easy 'Tis To Die.

 

 

 

  --There With A Forest Of Their Darts He Strove,

  And Stood Like Capaneus Defying jove,

  With His Broad Sword The Boldest Beating down,

  While Fate Grew Pale, Lest He Should Win The Town,

  And Turn'D The Iron Leaves Of His Dark Book

  To Make New Dooms, Or Mend What It Mistook.

 

 

 

  --I Beg No Pity For This Mouldering clay;

  For If You Give It Burial, There It Takes

  Possession Of Your Earth;

  If Burnt, And Scatter'D In the Air, The Winds

  That Strew My Dust Diffuse My Royalty,

  And Spread Me O'Er Your Clime; For Where One Atom

  Of Mine Shall Light, Know There Sebastian Reigns.

 

 

 

Of These Quotations The Two First May Be Allowed to Be Great, The Two

Latter Only Tumid.

 

 

 

Of Such Selection There Is No End. I Will Add Only A Few More Passages;

Of Which The First, Though It May, Perhaps, Not Be Quite Clear In prose,

Is Not Too Obscure For Poetry, As The Meaning that It Has Is Noble[123]:

 

 

 

  No, There Is A Necessity In fate,

  Why Still The Brave Bold Man Is Fortunate;

 

 

 

 

  He Keeps His Object Ever Full In sight;

  And That Assurance Holds Him Firm And Right;

  True, 'Tis A Narrow Way That Leads To Bliss,

  But Right Before There Is No Precipice;

  Fear Makes Men Look Aside, And So Their Footing miss.

 

 

 

Of The Images Which The Two Following citations Afford, The First Is

Elegant, The Second Magnificent; Whether Either Be Just, Let The Reader

Judge:

 

 

 

  What Precious Drops Are These,

  Which Silently Each Other'S Track Pursue,

  Bright As Young Diamonds In their Infant Dew?

 

 

 

  Resign Your Castle----

 

 

 

  --Enter, Brave Sir; For, When You Speak The Word,

  The Gates Shall Open Of Their Own Accord;

  The Genius Of The Place Its Lord Shall Meet,

  And Bow Its Tow'Ry Forehead At Your Feet.

 

 

 

These Bursts Of Extravagance, Dryden Calls The "Dalilahs" Of The Theatre;

And Owns That Many Noisy Lines Of Maximin And Almanzor Call Out For

Vengeance Upon Him: "But I Knew," Says He, "That They Were Bad Enough To

Please, Even When I Wrote Them." There Is, Surely, Reason To Suspect That

He Pleased himself, As Well As His Audience; And That These, Like The

Harlots Of Other Men, Had His Love, Though Not His Approbation.

 

 

 

He Had, Sometimes, Faults Of A Less Generous And Splendid Kind. He

Makes, Like Almost All Other Poets, Very Frequent Use Of Mythology, And

Sometimes Connects Religion And Fable Too Closely Without Distinction.

 

 

 

He Descends To Display His Knowledge With Pedantick Ostentation; As

When, In translating virgil, He Says, "Tack To The Larboard,"--And "Veer

Starboard;" And Talks, In another Work, Of "Virtue Spooning before The

Wind."--His Vanity Now And Then Betrays His Ignorance:

 

 

 

  They Nature'S King through Nature'S Opticks View'D;

  Revers'D, They View'D Him Lessen'D To Their Eyes.

 

 

 

He Had Heard Of Reversing a Telescope, And Unluckily Reverses The Object.

He Is, Sometimes, Unexpectedly Mean. When He Describes The Supreme Being

As Moved by Prayer To Stop The Fire Of London, What Is His Expression?

 

 

 

  A Hollow Crystal Pyramid He Takes,

  In firmamental Waters Dipp'D Above,

  Of This A Broad _Extinguisher_ He Makes,

  And _Hoods_ The Flames That To Their Quarry Strove.

 

 

 

When He Describes The Last Day, And The Decisive Tribunal, He

Intermingles This Image:

 

 

 

  When Rattling bones Together Fly,

  From The Four Quarters Of The Sky.

 

 

 

It Was, Indeed, Never In his Power To Resist The Temptation Of A Jest. In

His Elegy On Cromwell:

 

 

 

  No Sooner Was The Frenchman'S Cause Embrac'D,

  Than The _Light Monsieur_ The _Grave Don_ Outweigh'D;

  His Fortune Turn'D The Scale----

 

 

 

He Had A Vanity, Unworthy Of His Abilities, To Show, As May Be Suspected,

The Rank Of The Company With Whom He Lived, By The Use Of French

Words, Which Had Then Crept Into Conversation; Such As _Fraicheur_ For

_Coolness, Fougue_ For _Turbulence_, And A Few More, None Of Which The

Language Has Incorporated or Retained. They Continue Only Where They

Stood First, Perpetual Warnings To Future Innovators.

 

 

 

These Are His Faults Of Affectation; His Faults Of Negligence Are Beyond

Recital. Such Is The Unevenness Of His Compositions, That Ten Lines Are

Seldom Found Together Without Something of Which The Reader Is Ashamed.

Dryden Was No Rigid Judge Of His Own Pages; He Seldom Struggled after

Supreme Excellence, But Snatched in haste What Was Within His Reach; And

When He Could Content Others, Was Himself Contented. He Did Not Keep

Present To His Mind An Idea Of Pure Perfection; Nor Compare His Works,

Such As They Were, With What They Might Be Made. He Knew To Whom He

Should Be Opposed. He Had More Musick Than Waller, More Vigour Than

Donham, And More Nature Than Cowley; And From His Contemporaries He Was

In No Danger. Standing, Therefore, In the Highest Place, He Had No Care

To Rise By Contending with Himself; But While There Was No Name Above His

Own, Was Willing to Enjoy Fame On The Easiest Terms.

 

 

 

He Was No Lover Of Labour. What He Thought Sufficient, He Did Not Stop

To Make Better; And Allowed himself To Leave Many Parts Unfinished, In

Confidence That The Good Lines Would Overbalance The Bad. What He Had

Once Written, He Dismissed from His Thoughts; And, I Believe, There Is No

Example To Be Found Of Any Correction Or Improvement Made By Him After

Publication. The Hastiness Of His Productions Might Be The Effect Of

Necessity; But His Subsequent Neglect Could Hardly Have Any Other Cause

Than Impatience Of Study.

 

 

 

What Can Be Said Of His Versification, Will Be Little More Than A

Dilatation Of The Praise Given It By Pope:

 

 

 

  Waller Was Smooth; But Dryden Taught To Join

  The Varying verse, The Full Resounding line,

  The Long Majestick March, And Energy Divine.

 

 

 

Some Improvements Had Been Already Made In english Numbers; But The Full

Force Of Our Language Was Not Yet Felt; The Verse That Was Smooth Was

Commonly Feeble. If Cowley Had Sometimes A Finished line, He Had It By

Chance. Dryden Knew How To Choose The Flowing and The Sonorous Words; To

Vary The Pauses, And Adjust The Accents; To Diversify The Cadence, And

Yet Preserve The Smoothness Of His Metre.

 

 

 

Of Triplets And Alexandrines, Though He Did Not Introduce The Use, He

Established it. The Triplet Has Long Subsisted among Us. Dryden Seems Not

To Have Traced it Higher Than To Chapman'S Homer; But It Is To Be Found

In Phaer'S Virgil, Written In the Reign Of Mary; And In hall'S Satires,

Published five Years Before The Death Of Elizabeth.

 

 

 

The Alexandrine Was, I Believe, First Used by Spenser, For The Sake

Of Closing his Stanza With A Fuller Sound. We Had A Longer Measure Of

Fourteen Syllables, Into Which The Aeneid Was Translated by Phaer, And

Other Works Of The Ancients By Other Writers; Of Which Chapman'S Iliad

Was, I Believe, The Last.

 

 

 

The Two First Lines Of Phaer'S Third Aeneid Will Exemplify This Measure:

 

 

 

  When Asia'S State Was Overthrown, And Priam'S Kingdom Stout,

  All Guiltless, By The Power Of Gods Above Was Rooted out.

 

 

 

As These Lines Had Their Break, Or Caesura, Always At The Eighth Syllable,

It Was Thought, In time, Commodious To Divide Them: And Quatrains Of

Lines, Alternately, Consisting of Eight And Six Syllables, Make The Most

Soft And Pleasing of Our Lyrick Measures; As,

 

 

 

  Relentless Time, Destroying pow'R,

  Which Stone And Brass Obey,

  Who Giv'St To Ev'Ry Flying hour

  To Work Some New Decay.

 

 

 

In The Alexandrine, When Its Power Was Once Felt, Some Poems, As

Drayton'S Polyolbion, Were Wholly Written; And Sometimes The Measures Of

Twelve And Fourteen Syllables Were Interchanged with One Another. Cowley

Was The First That Inserted the Alexandrine At Pleasure Among The Heroick

Lines Of Ten Syllables, And From Him Dryden Professes To Have Adopted

It[124].

 

 

 

The Triplet And Alexandrine Are Not Universally Approved. Swift Always

Censured them, And Wrote Some Lines To Ridicule Them. In examining

Their Propriety, It Is To Be Considered that The Essence Of Verse Is

Regularity, And Its Ornament Is Variety. To Write Verse, Is To Dispose

Syllables And Sounds Harmonically By Some Known And Settled rule; A Rule,

However, Lax Enough To Substitute Similitude For Identity, To Admit

Change Without Breach Of Order, And To Relieve The Ear Without

Disappointing it. Thus A Latin Hexameter Is Formed from Dactyls And

Spondees, Differently Combined; The English Heroick Admits Of Acute Or

Grave Syllables, Variously Disposed. The Latin Never Deviates Into Seven

Feet, Or Exceeds The Number Of Seventeen Syllables; But The English

Alexandrine Breaks The Lawful Bounds, And Surprises The Reader With Two

Syllables More Than He Expected.

 

 

 

The Effect Of The Triplet Is The Same: The Ear Has Been Accustomed to

Expect A New Rhyme In every Couplet; But Is On A Sudden Surprised with

Three Rhymes Together, To Which The Reader Could Not Accommodate His

Voice, Did He Not Obtain Notice Of The Change From The Braces Of The

Margins. Surely There Is Something unskilful In the Necessity Of Such

Mechanical Direction.

 

 

 

Considering the Metrical Art Simply As A Science, And, Consequently,

Excluding all Casualty, We Must Allow That Triplets And Alexandrines,

Inserted by Caprice, Are Interruptions Of That Constancy To Which Science

Aspires. And Though The Variety Which They Produce May Very Justly Be

Desired, Yet, To Make Our Poetry Exact, There Ought To Be Some Stated

Mode Of Admitting them.

 

 

 

But Till Some Such Regulation Can Be Formed, I Wish Them Still To Be

Retained in their Present State. They Are Sometimes Grateful To The

Reader, And Sometimes Convenient To The Poet. Fenton Was Of Opinion, That

Dryden Was Too Liberal, And Pope Too Sparing, In their Use.

 

 

 

The Rhymes Of Dryden Are Commonly Just, And He Valued himself For His

Readiness In finding them; But He Is Sometimes Open To Objection.

 

 

 

It Is The Common Practice Of Our Poets To End The Second Line With A Weak

Or Grave Syllable:

 

 

 

  Together O'Er The Alps Methinks We Fly,

  Fill'D With Ideas Of Fair Italy.

 

 

 

Dryden Sometimes Puts The Weak Rhyme In the First:

 

 

 

  Laugh All The Powers That Favour _Tyranny_,

  And All The Standing army Of The Sky.

 

 

 

Sometimes He Concludes A Period Or Paragraph With The First Line Of A

Couplet, Which, Though The French Seem To Do It Without Irregularity,

Always Displeases In english Poetry.

 

 

 

The Alexandrine, Though Much His Favourite, Is Not Always Very Diligently

Fabricated by Him. It Invariably Requires A Break At The Sixth Syllable;

A Rule Which The Modern French Poets Never Violate, But Which Dryden

Sometimes Neglected:

 

 

 

  And With Paternal Thunder Vindicates His Throne.

 

 

 

Of Dryden'S Works It Was Said By Pope, That He "Could Select From Them

Better Specimens Of Every Mode Of Poetry Than Any Other English Writer

Could Supply." Perhaps No Nation Ever Produced a Writer That Enriched

His Language With Such Variety Of Models. To Him We Owe The Improvement,

Perhaps The Completion, Of Our Metre, The Refinement Of Our Language, And

Much Of The Correctness Of Our Sentiments. By Him We Are Taught "Sapere

Et Fari," To Think Naturally And Express Forcibly. Though Davies Has

Reasoned in rhyme Before Him, It May Be, Perhaps, Maintained that He Was

The First Who Joined argument With Poetry. He Showed us The True Bounds

Of A Translator'S Liberty. What Was Said Of Rome, Adorned by Augustus,

May Be Applied by An Easy Metaphor To English Poetry, Embellished by

Dryden, "Lateritiam Invenit, Marmoream Reliquit." He Found It Brick, And

He Left It Marble.

 

 

 

The Invocation Before The Georgicks Is Here Inserted from Mr. Milbourne'S

Version, That, According