and chased one another in the varied features Like Milton and Addison, he seems to have of that expressive face; and by his own manner been fond of his Latin poetry. Those compoof reciting verses, which was wonderfully im-sitions show that he was an early scholar; but pressive, he plainly showed that he thought his verses have not the graceful ease that gave there was too much of artificial torre and mea- so much suavity to the poems of Addison. The sured cadence in the declamation of the theatre. translation of the Messiah labours under two The present writer well remembers being in disadvantages; it is first to be compared with conversation with Dr. Johnson near the side of Pope's inimitable performance, and afterwards the scenes during the tragedy of King Lear: with the Pollio of Virgil. It may appear trifling when Garrick came off the stage, he said, to remark, that he has made the letter o, in the "You two talk so loud you destroy all my feel-word Virgo, long and short in the same line; ings." "Prithee," replied Johnson, "do not Virgo, Virgo parit. But the translation has talk of feelings, Punch has no feelings." This great merit, and some admirable lines. In the seems to have been his settled opinion; admi- odes there is a sweet flexibility, particularly, To rable as Garrick's imitation of nature always his worthy friend Dr. Laurence; on himself at was, Johnson thought it no better than mere the theatre, March 8, 1771; the Ode in the Isle mimicry. Yet it is certain that he esteemed and of Sky; and that to Mrs. Thrale from the same loved Garrick; that he dwelt with pleasure on place. his praise; and used to declare, that he deserved His English poetry is such as leaves room to his great success, because on all applications think, if he had devoted himself to the Muses, for charity he gave more than was asked. Af- that he would have been the rival of Pope. His ter Garrick's death he never talked of him with-first production in this kind was London, a poem out a tear in his eye. He offered, if Mrs. Gar-in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. The rick would desire it of him, to be the editor of his works and the historian of his life.* It has been mentioned, that on his death-bed he thought of writing a Latin inscription to the memory of his friend. Numbers are still living who know these facts, and still remember with gratitude the friendship which he showed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years. His humanity and generosity, in proportion to his slender income were unbounded. It has been truly said, that the lame, the blind, and the sorrowful, found in his house a sure retreat. A strict adherence to truth he considered as a sacred obligation, insomuch that, in relating the most minute anecdote, he would not allow himself the smallest addition to embellish his story. The late Mr. Tyers, who knew Dr. Johnson intimately, observed, "that he always talked as if he was talking upon oath." vices of the metropolis are placed in the room of ancient manners. The author had heated his mind with the ardour of Juvenal, and, having the skill to polish his numbers, he became a sharp accuser of the times. The Vanity of Human Wishes is an imitation of the tenth Satire of the same author. Though it is translated by Dryden, Johnson's imitation approaches nearest to the spirit of the original. The subject is taken from the Alcibiades of Plato and has an intermixture of the sentiments of Socrates concerning the object of prayers offered up to the Deity. The general proposition is, that good and evil are so little understood by mankind, that their wishes when granted are always destructive. This is exemplified in a variety of instances, such as riches, state preferment, eloquence, military glory, long life, and the advantages of form and beauty. Juvenal's conclusion is worthy of a Christian poet, and such a pen as Johnson's. "Let us," he says, "leave it to the gods to judge what is fittest for us. Man is dearer to his Creator than to himself. If we must pray for spe After a long acquaintance with this excellent man, and an attentive retrospect to his whole conduct, such is the light in which he appears to the writer of this essay. The following lines of Horace may be deemed his picture in mi-cial favour, let it be for a sound mind in a sound niature. Iracundior est paulo, minus aptus acutis "Your friend is passionate, perhaps unfit FRANCIS' HOR. Book. i. Sat. 3. It remains to give a review of Johnson's works; and this, it is imagined, will not be unwelcome to the reader. body. Let us pray for fortitude, that we may think the labours of Hercules and all his sufferings preferable to a life of luxury and the soft repose of Sardanapalus. This is a blessing within the reach of every man; this we can give ourselves. It is virtue, and virtue only, that can make us happy." In the translation the zeal of the Christian conspired with the warmth and energy of the poet; but Juvenal is not eclipsed. For the various characters in the original, the reader is pleased, in the English poem, to meet with Cardinal Wolsey, Buckingham stabbed by Felton, Lord Strafford, Clarendon, Charles XII. of Sweden; and for Tully and Demosthenes, Lydiat, Galileo, and Archbishop Laud. It is owing to Johnson's delight in biography that the name of Lydiat is called forth from obscurity. It may, therefore, not be useless to tell, that Lydiat was a learned divine and mathematician in the beginning of the last century. He attacked the doctrine of Aristotle and Scaliger, and wrote a number of sermons on the harmony of the Evangelists. With all his merit, he lay in the prison of Bocardo at Oxford, till Bishop Usher, Laud, and others paid his debts. He petitioned Charles I. to be sent to Ethiopia to procure manuscripts. | in the disasters of their country; a race of men, Having spoken in favour of monarchy and bi- quibus nulla ex honesto spes. shops, he was plundered by the Puritans, and The prologue to Irene is written with eletwice carried away a prisoner from his rectory.gance, and, in peculiar style, shows the literary He died very poor in 1646. An account of the various pieces contained in this edition, such as miscellaneous tracts, and philological dissertations, would lead beyond the intended limits of this essay. It will suffice to say, that they are the productions of a man who never wanted decorations of language, and always taught his readers to think. The life of the late king of Prussia, as far as it extends, is a model of the biographical style. The review of the Origin of Evil was, perhaps, written with asperity; but the angry epitaph which it provoked from Soame Jenyns, was an ill-timed resentment, unworthy of the genius of that amiable author. pride and lofty spirit of the author. The epilogue, The tragedy of Irene is founded on a passage we are told in a late publication was written by in Knolles' History of the Turks; an author Sir William Young. This is a new discovery, highly commended in the Rambler, No. 122. but by no means probable. When the appendAn incident in the Life of Mahomet the Great, ages to a dramatic performance are not assigned first Emperor of the Turks, is the hinge on which to a friend, or an unknown hand, or a person of the fable is made to move. The substance of fashion, they are always supposed to be written the story is shortly this. In 1453 Mahomet laid by the author of the play. It is to be wished, siege to Constantinople, and having reduced the however, that the epilogue in question could be place, became enamoured of a fair Greek, whose transferred to any other writer. It is the worst name was Irene. The sultan invited her to em-jeu d'esprit that ever fell from Johnson's pen.* brace the law of the Prophet, and to grace his throne. Enraged at this intended marriage, the Janizaries formed a conspiracy to dethrone the Emperor. To avert the impending danger, Mahomet, in a full assembly of the grandees, "catching with one hand," as Knolles relates it, "the fair Greek by the hair of her head, and drawing his falchion with the other, he, at one blow, struck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and, having so done, said unto them, Now, by this, judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or not." The story is simple, and it remained for the author to amplify it with proper episodes, and give it compli- The Rambler may be considered as Johnson's cation and variety. The catastrophe is changed, great work. It was the basis of that high reputaand horror gives place to terror and pity. But, tion which went on increasing to the end of his after all, the fable is cold and languid. There days. The circulation of those periodical essays is not, throughout the piece, a single situation to was not, at first equal to their merit. They had excite curiosity, and raise a conflict of passions. not, like the Spectators, the art of charming by The diction is nervous, rich, and elegant; but variety; and indeed how could it be expected? splendid language, and melodious numbers, will The wits of Queen Anne's reign sent their conmake a fine poem, not a tragedy. The senti-tributions to the Spectator; and Johnson stood ments are beautiful, always happily expressed, alone. "A stage-coach," says Sir Richard but seldom appropriated to the character, and Steele, "must go forward on stated days, whegenerally too philosophic. What Johnson has ther there are passengers or not." So it was with said of the tragedy of Cato may be applied to the Rambler, every Tuesday and Saturday, for Irene: "It is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama; rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language, than a representation of natural affections. Nothing excites or assuages emotion. The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we consider not what they are doing, nor what they are suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say. It is unaffecting elegance, and chill philosophy." The following speech, in the mouth of a Turk, who is supposed to have heard of the British constitution, has been often selected from the numberless beauties with which Irene abounds: "If there be any land, as fame reports Sure all unite to hold her league of rule, These are British sentiments. Above forty years ago they found an echo in the breast of applauding audiences; and to this hour they are the voice of the people, in defiance of the metaphysics and the new lights of certain politicians, who would gladly find their private advantage two years. In this collection Johnson is the Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, Texente nymphis serta Lycoride, Æthereis variata fucis. * Dr. Johnson informed Mr. Boswell that this epilogue was written by Sir William Young. See Boswell's Life nal evidence that it is not Johnson's, is very strong, partiof Johnson, vol. i. p. 166-70. 8vo. edit. 1804. The intercularly in the line "But how the devil," &c. It is remarkable that the pomp of diction, | imagination, alive to the first objects of nature which has been objected to Johnson, was first and of art. He reaches the sublime without assumed in the Rambler. His Dictionary was any apparent effort. When he tells us, “If we going on at the same time, and, in the course of consider the fixed stars as so many oceans of that work, as he grew familiar with technical flame, that are each of them attended with a difand scholastic words, he thought that the bulk ferent set of planets; if we still discover new of his readers were equally learned; or at least firmaments and new lights that are sunk further would admire the splendour and dignity of the in those unfathomable depths of æther, we are style. And yet it is well known that he praised lost in a labyrinth of suns and worlds, and conin Cowley the easy and unaffected structure of founded with the magnificence and immensity the sentences. Cowley may be placed at the of nature;" the ease with which this passage head of those who cultivated a clear and natural rises to unaffected grandeur, is the secret charm style. Dryden, Tillotson, and Sir William that captivates the reader. Johnson is always Temple, followed. Addison, Swift, and Pope, lofty; he seems, to use Dryden's phrase, to be with more correctness, carried our language o'er-informed with meaning, and his words do well nigh to perfection. Of Addison, Johnson not appear to himself adequate to his conception. was used to say, He is the Raphael of Essay He moves in state, and his periods are always Writers. How he differed so widely from such harmonious. His Oriental Tales are in the true elegant models is a problem not to be solved, style of Eastern magnificence, and yet none of unless it be true that he took an early tincture them are so much admired as the Visions of from the writers of the last century, particularly Mirza. In matters of criticism, Johnson is neSir Thomas Browne. Hence the peculiarities ver the echo of preceding writers. He thinks of his style, new combinations, sentences of an and decides for himself. If we except the Esunusual structure, and words derived from the says on the Pleasures of Imagination, Addison learned languages. His own account of the cannot be called a philosophical critic. His momatter is, "When common words were less ral Essays are beautiful: but in that province pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signi- nothing can exceed the Rambler, though Johnfication, I familiarized the terms of philosophy, son used to say, that the Essay on The burthens by applying them to popular ideas." but he for- of mankind (in the Spectator No. 558) was the got the observation of Dryden: If too many fo- most exquisite he had ever read. Talking of reign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if himself, Johnson said, "Topham Beauclerk has they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to wit, and every thing comes from him with ease; conquer them. There is, it must be admitted, a but when I say a good thing I seem to labour." swell of language, often out of all proportion to When we compare him with Addison, the conthe sentiment; but there is, in general, a fulness trast is still stronger. Addison lends grace and of mind, and the thought seems to expand with ornament to truth: Johnson gives it force and the sound of the words. Determined to discard energy. Addison makes virtue amiable; Johncolloquial barbarisms and licentious idioms, he son represents it as an awful duty. Addison inforgot the elegant simplicity that distinguishes sinuates himself with an air of modesty; Johnthe writings of Addison. He had what Locke son commands like a dictator; but a dictator in calls a round-about view of his subject; and his splendid robes, not labouring at the plough. though he was never tainted, like many modern Addison is the Jupiter of Virgil, with placid sewits, with the ambition of shining in paradox, renity talking to Venus: he may be fairly called an ORIGINAL THINKER. "Vultu, quo cœlum tempestatesque serenat." His reading was extensive. He treasured in his mind whatever was worthy of notice, but he Johnson is Jupiter tonans: he darts his lightadded to it from his own meditation. He col-ning, and rolls his thunder, in the cause of virtue lected, quæ reconderet, auctaque promeret. Addison was not so profound a thinker. He was born to write, converse, and live with ease; and he found an early patron in Lord Somers. He depended, however, more upon a fine taste than the vigour of his mind. His Latin poetry shows, that he relished, with a just selection, all the refined and delicate beauties of the Roman classics; and when he cultivated his native language, no wonder that he formed that graceful style, which has been so justly admired; simple, yet elegant; adorned, yet never overwrought; rich in allusion, yet pure and perspicuous; correct, without labour; and though sometines deficient in strength, yet always musical. His essays, in general, are on the surface of life; if ever original, it was in pieces of humour. Sir Roger de Coverly, and the Tory Fox-hunter, need not to be mentioned. Johnson had a fund of humour, but he did not know it: nor was he willing to descend to the familiar idiom and the variety of diction which that mode of composition required. The letter, in the Rambler, No. 12, from a young girl that wants a place, will illustrate this observation. Addison possessed an unclouded and piety. The language seems to fall short of ideas; he pours along, familiarizing the terms of philosophy, with bold inversions, and sonorous periods; but we may apply to him what Pope has said of Homer: "It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it; like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, as the breath within is more powerful, and the heat more intense." It is not the design of this comparison to decide between these two eminent writers. In matters of taste every reader will choose for himself. Johnson is always profound, and of course gives the fatigue of thinking. Addison charms while he instructs; and writing, as he always does, a pure, an elegant and idiomatic style, he may be pronounced the safest model for imitation. The essays written by Johnson in the Adventurer may be called a continuation of the Rambler. The Idler, in order to be consistent with the assumed character, is written with abated vigour, in a style of ease and unlaboured elegance. It is the Odyssey after the Illiad. In from his own apprehensions. The discourse on the nature of the soul gives us all that philosophy knows, not without a tincture of superstition. It is remarkable that the vanity of human pursuits was, about the same time, the subject that employed both Johnson and Voltaire: but Candide is the work of a lively imagination; and Rasselas, with all its splendour of eloquence, exhibits a gloomy picture. It should, however, be remembered, that the world has known the weeping as well as the laughing philosopher. tense thinking would not become the Idler. The first number presents a well-drawn portrait of an Idler, and from that character no deviation could be made. Accordingly, Johnson forgets his austere manner, and plays us into sense. He still continues his lectures on human life, but he adverts to common occurrences, and is often content with the topic of the day. An advertisement in the beginning of the first volume informs us, that twelve entire essays were a contribution from different hands. One of these, No. 33, is the journal of a Senior Fellow at Cambridge, but The Dictionary does not properly fall within as Johnson, being himself an original thinker, the province of this essay. The preface, howalways revolted from servile imitation, he has ever, will be found in this edition. He who reads printed the piece, with an apology, importing that the close of it, without acknowledging the force the journal of a citizen in the Spectator almost of the pathetic and sublime, must have more inprecluded the attempt of any subsequent writer. sensibility in his composition than usually falls This account of the Idler may be closed, after to the share of a man. The work itself, though observing, that the author's mother, being buried in some instances abuse has been loud, and in on the 23d of January, 1759, there is an admira- others malice has endeavoured to undermine its ble paper occasioned by that event, on Saturday fame, still remains the MOUNT ATLAS of English the 27th of the same month, No. 41. The read-Literature. er, if he pleases, may compare it with another fine paper in the Rambler, No. 54, on the conviction that rushes on the mind at the bed of a dying friend. Though storms and tempests thunder on its brow, And oceans break their billows at its feet, It stands unmoved, and glories in its height. "Rasselas," says Sir John Hawkins, "is a That Johnson was eminently qualified for the specimen of our language scarcely to be paral-office of a commentator on Shakspeare, no man leled; it is written in a style refined to a degree can doubt; but it was an office which he never of immaculate purity, and displays the whole force cordially embraced. The public expected more of turgid eloquence." One cannot but smile at than he had diligence to perform; and yet his this encomium. Rasselas is undoubtedly both edition has been the ground on which every subelegant and sublime. It is a view of human life, sequent commentator has chosen to build. One displayed, it must be owned, in gloomy colours. note for its singularity, may be thought worthy The author's natural melancholy, depressed, at of notice in this place. Hamlet says; "For if the time, by the approaching dissolution of his the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a mother, darkened the picture. A tale, that should God-kissing carrion." In this Warburton diskeep curiosity awake by the artifice of unexpect- covered the origin of evil. Hamlet, he says, ed incidents, was not the design of a mind preg-breaks off in the middle of the sentence; but the nant with better things. He, who reads the heads of the chapters will find, that it is not a course of adventures that invites him forward, but a discussion of interesting questions; Reflections on Human life, the History of Imlac, the Man of Learning; a Dissertation upon Poetry; the Character of a wise and happy Man, who discourses with energy on the government of the passions, and on a sudden, when Death. deprives him of his daughter, forgets all his maxims of wisdom and the eloquence that adorned them, yielding to the stroke of affliction with all the vehemence of the bitterest anguish. It is by pictures of life, and profound moral reflection, that expectation is engaged and gratified throughout the work. The History of the Mad Astronomer, who imagines that, for five years, he possessed the regulation of the weather, and that the sun passed from tropic to tropic by his direction, represents in striking colours the sad effect of a distempered imagination. It becomes the more affecting when we recollect that it proceeds from one who lived in fear of the same dreadful visitation; from one who says emphatically, "Of the uncertainties in our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason." The inquiry into the cause of madness, and the dangerous prevalence of imagination, till in time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention, and the mind recurs constantly to the favourite conception, is carried on in a strain of acute observation; but it leaves us room to think that the author was transcribing learned commentator knows what he was going to say, and being unwilling to keep the secret, he goes on in a train of philosophical reasoning that leaves the reader in astonishment. Johnson, with true piety, adopts the fanciful hypothesis, declaring it to be a noble emendation, which almost sets the critic on a level with the author. The general observations at the end of the several plays, and the preface will be found in this edition. The former, with great elegance and. precision, give a summary view of each drama. The preface is a tract of great erudition and philosophical criticism. Johnson's political pamphlets, whatever was his motive for writing them, whether gratitude for his pension, or the solicitation of men in power, did not support the cause for which they were undertaken. They are written in a style truly harmonious, and with his usual dignity of language. When it is said that he advanced positions repugnant to the common rights of mankind, the virulence of party may be suspected. It is, perhaps, true that in the clamour raised throughout the kingdom, Johnson over-heated his mind; but he was a friend to the rights of man, and he was greatly superior to the littleness of spirit that might incline him to advance what he did not think and firmly believe. In the False Alarm, though many of the most eminent men in the kingdom concurred in petitions to the throne, yet Johnson, having well surveyed the mass of the people, has given, with great humour, and no less truth, what may be called, the birth, parentage, and education of a remonstrance: On the subject | largest Bull* in England, and some of the best of Falkland's Islands, the fine dissuasive from too Sermons. hastily involving the world in the calamities of war, must extort applause even from the party that wished, at that time, for the scenes of tumult and commotion. It was in the same pamphlet that Johnson offered battle to JUNIUS; a writer, who, by the uncommon elegance of his style, charmed every reader, though his object was to inflame the nation in favour of a faction. Junius fought in the dark; he saw his enemy and had his full blow; while he himself remained safe in obscurity. But let us not, said Johnson, mistake the venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow. The keen invective which he published on that occasion, promised a paper war between two combatants, who knew the use of their weapons. A battle between them was as eagerly expected as between Mendoza and Big Ben. But Junius, whatever was his reason, never returned to the field. He laid down his arms, and has, ever since, remained as secret as tne man in the mask in Voltaire's History. We now come to the Lives of the Poets, a work undertaken at the age of seventy, yet the most brilliant, and certainly the most popular, of all our Author's writings. For this perform ance he needed little preparation. Attentive always to the history of letters, and by his own natural bias fond of biography, he was the more willing to embrace the proposition of the Booksellers. He was versed in the whole body of English Poetry, and his rules of criticism were settled with precision. The dissertation, in the Life of Cowley, on the metaphysical Poets of the last century, has the attraction of novelty as well as sound observation. The writers who followed Dr. Donne, went in quest of something better than truth and nature. As Sancho says in Don Quixote, they wanted better bread than is made with wheat. They took pains to bewilder themselves, and were ingenious for no other purpose than to err. In Johnson's review of Cowley's works, false wit is detected in all its shapes, and the Gothie taste for glittering conceits, and far-fetched allusions, is exploded, never, it is hoped, to revive again. An author who has published his observations on the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson, speak The account of his journey to the Hebrides, or Western Isles of Scotland, is a model for such as shall hereafter relate their travels. The author did not visit that part of the world in the character of an Antiquary, to amuse us with wonders taken from the dark and fabulous ages;ing of the Lives of the Poets, says, "These com nor as a Mathematician, to measure a degree, and settle the longitude and latitude of the several islands. Those, who expected such information, expected what was never intended. In every work regard the writer's end. Johnson went to see men and manners, modes of life, and the progress of civilization. His remarks are so artfully blended with the rapidity and elegance of his narrative, that the reader is inclined to wish, as Johnson did with regard to Gray, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his employment. As to Johnson's Parliamentary Debates, nothing with propriety can be said in this place. They are collected in two volumes by Mr. Stockdale, and the flow of eloquence which runs through the several speeches is sufficiently known. It will not be useless to mention two more volumes, which may form a proper supplement to this edition. They contain a set of Sermons left for publication by John Taylor, LL. D. The Reverend Mr. Hayes, who ushered these Discourses into the world, has not given them as the composition of Dr. Taylor. All he could say for his departed friend was, that he left them in silence among his papers. Mr. Hayes knew them to be the production of a superior mind; and the writer of these Memoirs owes it to the candour of that elegant scholar, that he is now warranted to give an additional proof of Johnson's ardour in the cause of piety, and every moral duty. The last discourse in the collection was intended to be delivered by Dr. Taylor at the funeral of Johnson's wife; but that reverend gentleman declined the office, because, as he told Mr. Hayes, the praise of the deceased was too much amplified. He, who reads the piece, will find it a beautiful moral lesson, written with temper, and no where over-charged with ambitious ornaments. The rest of the Discourses were the fund, which Dr. Taylor, from time to time carried with him to his pulpit. He had the positions abounding in strong and acute remark, and with many fine and even sublime passages, have unquestionably great merit; but if they be regarded merely as containing narrations of the lives, delineations of the characters, and strictures of the several authors, they are far from being always to be depended on." He adds, "The characters are sometimes partial, and there is sometimes too much malignity of misrepresentation, to which, perhaps, may be joined no inconsiderable portion of erroneous criticism." The several clauses of this censure deserve to be answered as fully as the limits of this essay will permit. In the first place, the facts are related upon the best intelligence, and the best vouchers that could be geaned, after a great lapse of time. Probability was to be inferred from such materials as could be procured, and no man better understood the nature of historical evidence than Dr. Johnson; no man was more religiously an observer of truth. If his History is any where defective, it must be imputed to the want of better information, and the errors of uncertain tradition. Ad nos vix tenuis famæ perlabitur aura. If the strictures on the works of the various authors are not always satisfactory, and if erroneous criticism may sometimes be suspected, who can hope that in matters of taste all shall agree? The instances in which the public mind has differed from the positions advanced by the author, are few in number. It has been said, that justice has not been done to Swift, that Gay and Prior are undervalued; and that Gray has been harshly treated. This charge, perhaps, ought not to be disputed. Johnson, it is well known had conceived a prejudice against * See Johnson's Letters from Ashbourne, in this edi tion. |