44 THE LIFE OF COWLEY. [A.D. 1781. Johnson. Mr. Steevens appears, from the papers in my possession, to have supplied him with some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed his labours' have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his communications in private society. It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings. The Life of COWLEY he himself considered as the best of the whole, on account of the dissertation which it contains on the Metaphysical Poets. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had mentioned them in his excellent Dedication of his Juvenal, but had barely mentioned them'. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with such paragraph he writes, first Philips, and next Phillips. His spelling was sometimes careless (ante, i. 302, note 1). In the Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 10, another of these notes is published :— In reading Rowe in your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece has not only appeared in the Works of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope into the Miscellanies he published in his own name and that of Dean Swift.' 'He published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's Biographia Dramatica. Baker was a grandson of De Foe. Gent. Mag. 1782, p. 77. ' Dryden writing of satiric poetry, says :-'Had I time I could enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the satire is un happy Aetat. 72.] THE LIFE OF COWLEY. 45 happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical hemisphere'. It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet', that amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I do not find that this is applicable to prose'. We shall see that though his amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the pannus assutus; the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been there at first, is very seldom unfit to have remained. Various Readings" in the Life of COWLEY. 'All [future votaries of] that may hereafter pant for solitude. 'To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] pains and the pleasures of other minds. "The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a summer noon.' doubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns I confess myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a conversation which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller, and Sir John Denham. . . . This hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my youth, the famous Cowley.' Dryden's Works, ed. 1821, xiii. III. 1 In one of his letters to Nichols, Johnson says:-'You have now all Cowley. I have been drawn to a great length, but Cowley or Waller never had any critical examination before.' Gent. Mag. 1785, p. 9. 2 Life of Sheffield. BOSWELL. Johnson's Works, vii. 485. ' See ante, iv. 13, where the same remark is made and Johnson is there speaking of prose. MALONE. 'Purpureus, late qui splendeat unus et alter '... Shreds of purple with broad lustre shine FRANCIS. Horace, Ars Poet. 15. 'The original reading is enclosed in crochets, and the present one is printed in Italicks. BOSWELL. 46 THE LIFE OF WALLER. [A.D. 1781. In the Life of WALLER, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative of publick affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a Tory History of his country. So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than three uncommon or learned words'; one, when giving an account of the approach of Waller's mortal disease, he says, 'he found his legs grow tumid;' by using the expression his legs swelled, he would have avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being followed by the interesting question to his physician, 'What that swelling meant?' Another, when he mentions that Pope had emitted proposals; when published or issued would have been more readily understood; and a third, when he calls Orrery and Dr. Delany3, writers both undoubtedly veracious; when true, honest, or faithful, might have been used. Yet, it must be owned, that none of these are hard or too big words; that custom would make them seem as easy as any others; and that a language is richer and capable of more beauty of expression, by having a greater variety of synonimes. I have noticed a few words which, to our ears, are more uncommon than at least two of the three that Boswell mentions; as, 'Languages divaricate,' Works, vii. 309; 'The mellifluence of Pope's numbers,' ib. 337; 'A subject flux and transitory,' ib. 389; 'His prose is pure without scrupulosity,' ib. 472; 'He received and accommodated the ladies' (said of one serving behind the counter), ib. viii. 62; 'The prevalence of this poem was gradual,' ib. p. 276; 'His style is sometimes concatenated,' ib. p. 458. Boswell, on the next page, supplies one more instance-'Images such as the superficies of nature readily supplies.' 'See ante, iii. 283. ' Veracious is perhaps one of the 'four or five words' which Johnson added, or thought that he added, to the English language. See ante, i. 256. He gives it in his Dictionary, but without any authority for it. It is however older than his time. Aetat. 72.] THE LIFE OF MILTON. 47 His dissertation' upon the unfitness of poetry for the aweful subjects of our holy religion, though I do not entirely agree with him, has all the merit of originality, with uncommon force and reasoning. Various Readings in the Life of WALLER. 'Consented to [the insertion of their names] their own nomi nation. "[After] paying a fine of ten thousand pounds. 'Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] recovered right. 'He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his powers] scorned as a prostituted mind. 'The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings are [elegance] sprightliness and dignity. 'Blossoms to be valued only as they [fetch] foretell fruits. 'Images such as the superficies of nature [easily] readily supplies. [His] Some applications [are sometimes] may be thought too remote and unconsequential. 'His images are [sometimes confused] not always distinct.' Against his Life of MILTON, the hounds of Whiggism have opened in full cry'. But of Milton's great excellence as a poet, where shall we find such a blazon as by the hand of Johnson? I shall select only the following passage concerning Paradise Lost : 'Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked his reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current, through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the 'See Johnson's Works, vii. 134, 212, and viii. 386. • Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 452) writes of Johnson's 'Billingsgate on Milton.' A later letter shows that, like so many of Johnson's critics, he had not read the Life. Ib. p. 508. 3 Johnson's Works, vii. 108. vicissitudes 48 The Life of Milton. [A.D. 1781. vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation'.' Indeed even Dr. Towers, who may be considered as one of the warmest zealots of The Revolution Society itself, allows, that Johnson has spoken in the highest terms of the abilities of that great poet, and has bestowed on his principal poetical compositions the most honourable encomiums'.' That a man, who venerated the Church and Monarchy as Johnson did, should speak with a just abhorrence of Milton 1 Thirty years earlier he had written of Milton as 'that poet whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated.' See ante, i. 267; ii. 274. * Earl Stanhope (Life of Pitt, ii. 65) describes this Society in 1790, 'as a Club, till then of little note, which had a yearly festival in commemoration of the events of 1688. It had been new-modelled, and enlarged with a view to the transactions at Paris, but still retained its former name to imply a close connection between the principles of 1688 in England, and the principles of 1789 in France.' The Earl Stanhope of that day presided at the anniversary meeting on Nov. 4, 1789. Nov. 4 was the day on which William III landed. * See An Essay on the Life, Character, and writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a proper allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; whom I cannot however but admire for his liberality in speaking thus of my illustrious friend : 'He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, and his judgement keen and penetrating. He had a strong sense of the importance of religion; his piety was sincere, and sometimes ardent; and his zeal for the interests of virtue was often manifested in his conversation and in his writings. The same energy which was displayed in his literary productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which was various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever equalled him for nervous and pointed repartees.' 'His Dictionary, his moral Essays, and his productions in polite literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant entertainment, as long as the language in which they are written shall be understood.' BOSWELL. as |