Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

On Scotland's kirk he vents a bigot's gall',
Though her young chieftains prophesy like SAUL!!
On Tetty's state his frighted fancy runs 3,

And Heaven's appeased by cross unbutter'd buns *:
He sleeps and fasts, pens on himself a libel,
And still believes, but never reads the Bible 7.
Fame says, at school, of scripture science vain,
Bel and the Dragon smote him on the brain*;
Scared with the blow, he shunn'd the Jewish law,
And eyed the ark with reverential awe? :

Let priestly Strahan, in a godly fit,

The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ;

ven in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must iminish in passing from them to us, through the medium of human testimony.”— OURTENAY. [Mr. Courtenay's sneer at Dr Johnson's opinion on transubstantiation 9 surely unmerited. No doubt, if there were no other figurative expressions in the scriprres, this single text must have been understood literally by Dr. Johnson, or any other lan of common sense; and as to what Mr. Courtenay adds about the evidence of our ses, and attributes to Mr. Locke and Archbishop Tillotson, these writers, and par cularly Tillotson, appear to limit their assertion to doctrines, the subjects of which e properly within the evidence of our senses. Could Mr. Courtenay doubt that Tiltson believed in the Trinity?—Yet how stands that doctrine with the mere evidence f our senses?-ED.]

1 See his conversation with Lord Auchinleck. Boswell's Tour, ante, vol. iii. p. 78. -COURTENAY.

* See the First Book of Samuel, ch. x.-COURTENAY.

3" And I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife, beseechng thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state." Johnson's Meditations.— COURTENAY.

"I returned home, but could not settle my mind. At last I read a chapter. Then Fent down about six or seven, and eat two cross-buns.” Meditations, p. 154.— COURTENAY.

"I fasted, though less rigorously than at other times. I by negligence poured one milk into my tea." Ibid. p. 146. "Yesterday I fasted, as I have always, or ommonly done, since the death of Tetty; the fast was more painful than usual."— COURTENAY.

6. PURPOSES.

“To keep a journal. To begin this day (September 18th, 1766).

To spend four hours in study every day, and as much more as I can.

"To read a portion of scripture in Greek every Sunday.

"To rise at eight. Oct. 3d. Of all this I have done nothing." Ibid.-COURTENAY. "I resolved last Easter to read, within the year, the whole Bible; a great part of which I had never looked upon." Meditations. -COURTENAY.

"I have never yet read the Apocrypha. When I was a boy I have read or heard Bel and the Dragon." Meditations.-COURTENAY. It is not worth while to show hat, in several of the foregoing allusions, the verse above is often a misrepresentation of the prose below, and that Mr. Courtenay plays the mere verbal critic on these expressions, while the spirit escapes him. If, indeed (as from Dr. Strahan's preface might be believed), Dr. Johnson had directed the publication of these "Meditations" as an example of his own piety, or an incentive to that of others, Mr. Courtenay might have been forgiven if he had made his satire still more poignant. It is hoped, however, that, after the explanations given (ante, preface, vol. i. p. 213, and vol. v. p. 295), that Dr. Johnson will hereafter receive the full credit for the piety which prompted these "Meditations," without any of the ridicule or obloquy of having prepared them for publication.-ED.]

9 See the First Book of Samuel, ch. v. and vi., in which an account is given of the punishment of the Philistines for looking into the ark-COURTENAY.

Though candid Adams, by whom David fell ',
Who ancient miracles sustain'd so well,
To recent wonders may deny his aid,
Nor own a pious brother of the trade.

A coward wish, long stigmatized by fame,
Devotes Mæcenas to eternal shame 3;
Religious Johnson, future life to gain,
Would ev'n submit to everlasting pain:

How clear, how strong, such kindred colours paint
The Roman epicure and Christian saint!

O, had he lived in more enlighten'd times,

When signs from heaven proclaim'd vile mortals' crimes,
How had he groan'd, with sacred horrors pale,

When Noah's comet shook her angry tail * ;

1 The Rev. Dr. Adams, of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David Hume's "Essay on Miracles."-COURTENAY.

* From the following letter there is reason to apprehend that Dr. Adams would not support Mr. Strahan, if he should add this to the other singular anecdotes that he has published relative to Dr. Johnson.

·

"Oxford, 22d Oct. 1785.

“MR. URBAN,—In your last month's review of books, you have asserted, that the publication of Dr. Johnson's Prayers and Meditations' appears to have been at the instance of Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford. This, I think, is more than you are warranted by the editor's preface to say; and is so far from being true, that Dr. Adams never saw a line of these compositions, before they appeared in print, nor ever heard from Dr. Johnson, or the editor, that any such existed. Had he been consulted about the publication, he would certainly have given his voice against it: and he therefore hopes that you will clear him, in as public a manner as you can, from being any way accessary to it. "WM. ADAMS."-COURTENAY.

3" Debilem facito manu,

Debilem pede, coxa,

Tuber adstrue gibberum ;
Lubricos quate dentes,

Vita dum superest, bene est :

Hanc mihi, vel acuta

Si sedeam cruce, sustine."-Senec. Epist.

Let me but live, the famed Mæcenas cries,
Lame of both hands, and lame in feet and thighs;

Hump-back'd and toothless;-all convulsed with pain,

Ev'n on the cross, so precious life remain.

Dr. Johnson, in his last illness, is said to have declared (in the presence of Doctors H. and B.) that he would prefer a state of existence in eternal pain to annihilation. COURTENAY. [The editor finds no evidence of this, and the subsequent testimony of Drs. Heberden and Brocklesby inclines him to disbelieve it. It is not very clear here, whether Mr. Courtenay meant to censure Johnson for a "kindred" wish to that of Mæcenas, or to praise him as a "christian saint," for aspiring after even a painful immortality; but 'tis really of no importance. All these flippancies of Mr. Courtenay may be regretted on his own account, but they cannot affect the character of Dr. Johnson.-ED]

This last comet, which appeared in the year 1680, I may well call the most remarkable one that ever appeared; since, besides the former consideration, I shall presently show, that it is no other than that very comet, which came by the earth at the time of Noah's deluge, and which was the cause of the same." Whiston's Theory of the Earth, p. 188.-COURTENAY.

That wicked comet, which Will Whiston swore
Would burn the earth that she had drown'd before '!
Or when Moil Tofts, by throes parturient vex'd,
Saw her young rabbits peep from Esdras' text?!
To him such signs, prepared by mystick grace,
Had shown the impending doom of Adam's race.
But who to blaze his frailties feels delight,
When the great Author rises to our sight?
When the pure tenour of his life we view,
Himself the bright exemplar that he drew?
Whose works console the good, instruct the wise,
And teach the soul to claim her kindred skies.
By grateful bards his name be ever sung,
Whose sterling touch has fix'd the English tongue!
Fortune's dire weight, the patron's cold disdain,
"Shook off, like dew-drops from the lion's mane 3;"
Unknown, unaided, in a friendless state *,
Without one smile of favour from the great;

3

"Since 575 years appear to be the period of the comet that caused the deluge, at a learned friend, who was the occasion of my examination of this matter, suggests, I deserve to be considered; viz. Whether the story of the phoenix, that celebrated blem of the resurrection in christian antiquity, (that it returns once after five centuries, A goes to the altar and city of the sun, and is there burnt; and another arises out of ashes, and carries away the remains of the former, &c.) be not an allegorical resentation of this comet, which returns once after five centuries, and goes down to the I, and is there vehemently heated, and its outward regions dissolved; yet that it flies again, and carries away what remains after that terrible burning, &c.; and whether conflagration and renovation of things, which some such comet may bring on the th, be not hereby prefigured, I will not here be positive: but I own, that I do know of any solution of this famous piece of mythology and hieroglyphics, as this ms to be, that can be compared with it." Ibid. p. 196.-COURTENAY.

'Tis here foretold (by Esdras) that there should be signs in the woman; and ore all others this prediction has been verified in the famous rabbit-woman of Surrey, the days of King George I. This story has been so unjustly laughed out of counance, that I must distinctly give my reasons for believing it to be true, and alleging here as the fulfilling of this ancient prophecy before us. 1st. The man-midwife, r. Howard, of Godalmin, Surrey, a person of very great honesty, skill and reputation his profession, attested it. It was believed by King George to be real; and it was o believed by my old friends, the speaker and Mr. Samuel Collet, as they told me mselves, and was generally by sober persons in the neighbourhood. Nay, Mr. lyneux, the prince's secretary, a very inquisitive person, and my very worthy friend, ured me he had at first so great a diffidence in the truth of the fact, and was so le biassed by the other believers, even by the king himself, that he would not be isfied till he was permitted both to see and feel the rabbit, in that very passage, ence we all come into this world."—Whiston's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 110-COUR

NAY.

"The incumbrances of fortune were shaken from his mind, like dew-drops from lion's mane." Johnson's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare.—COURTENAY. ■ Every reader of sensibility must be strongly affected by the following pathetic ssages:-"Much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has en trifled away, and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was ssing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my

The bulky tome his curious care refines,
Till the great work in full perfection shines:
His wide research and patient skill displays
What scarce was sketch'd in Anna's golden days ';
What only learning's aggregated toil

Slowly accomplish'd in each foreign soil.
Yet to the mine though the rich coin he trace,
No current marks his early essays grace;
For in each page we find a massy store
Of English bullion mix'd with Latian ore :
In solemn pomp, with pedantry combined,
He vents the morbid sadness of his mind ';
In scientifick phrase affects to smile,

Form'd on Brown's turgid Latin-English style+;
Where oft the abstract in stiff state presides',
And measured numbers, measured periods guides:
But all propriety his Ramblers mock,

When Betty prates from Newton and from Locke;

assistance foreign nations and distant ages gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle."-"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.” Preface to Dr. Johnson's Dictionary.-COURTENAY.

1 See Swift's letter to Lord Oxford for the institution of an academy to improve and fix the English language.-COURTENAY.

2 The great French and Italian Dictionaries were not the productions of an individual, but were compiled by a body of academicians in each country.-COURTENAY.

3" In times and regions so disjoined from each other, that there can scarcely be imagined any communication of sentiments, either by commerce or tradition, has prevailed a general and uniform expectation of propitiating God by corporal austerities, of anticipating his vengeance by voluntary inflictions, and appeasing his justice by a speedy and cheerful submission to a less penalty when a greater is incurred." Rambler, No. 110.-COURTENAY.

4 The style of the "Ramblers" seems to have been formed on that of Sir Thomas Brown's "Vulgar Errors and Christian Morals." "But ice is water congealed by the frigidity of the air, whereby it acquireth no new form, but rather a consistence or determination of its deffluency, and amitteth not its essence, but condition of fluidity. Neither doth there any thing properly conglaciate but water, or watery humidity, for the determination of quicksilver is properly fixation, that of milk coagulation, and that of oil and unctuous bodies only incrassation."-Is this written by Brown or Johnson ?— COURTENAY. [This criticism is not just, or at least not well placed. Brown is treating of scientific effects, and uses learned language; any other writer would probably have done the same: the real objection is that which Mr. Courtenay states afterwardsnamely, that Johnson uses these learned words on inappropriate occasions.-ED.]

In the "Ramblers" the abstract too often occurs instead of the concrete;-one of Dr. Johnson's peculiarities.-COURTENAY.

of

When no diversity we trace between
The lofty moralist and gay fifteen '.

Yet genius still breaks through the encumbering phrase;
His taste we censure, but the work we praise:

There learning beams with fancy's brilliant dyes,
Vivid as lights that gild the northern skies;
Man's complex heart he bares to open day,
Clear as the prism unfolds the blended ray:
The picture from his mind assumes its hue,
The shade's too dark, but the design still true.
Though Johnson's merits thus I freely scan,
And paint the foibles of this wond'rous man;
Yet can I coolly read, and not admire,
When learning, wit, and poetry conspire

To shed a radiance o'er his moral

page,

And spread truth's sacred light to many an age:
For all his works with innate lustre shine,
Strength all his own, and energy divine:

While through life's maze he darts his piercing view,
His mind expansive to the object grew.

In judgment keen he acts the critic's part,
By reason proves the feelings of the heart;
In thought profound, in nature's study wise,
Shows from what source our fine sensations rise;
With truth, precision, fancy's claims defines,
And throws new splendour o'er the poet's lines 2.
When specious sophists with presumption scan
The source of evil, hidden still from man3;
Revive Arabian tales, and vainly hope
To rival St. John and his scholar, Pope';
Though metaphysicks spread the gloom of night,
By reason's star he guides our aching sight;

See "Victoria's Letter," Rambler, No. 130.-"I was never permitted to sleep till I had passed through the cosmetick discipline, part of which was a regular lustration performed with bean-flower water and may-dews; my hair was perfumed with a variety unguents, by some of which it was to be thickened, and by others to be curled. The softness of my hands was secured by medicated gloves, and my bosom rubbed with a pomade prepared by my mother, of virtue to discuss dimples and clear discolorations." -COURTENAY.

[ocr errors]

See his admirable "Lives of the Poets," and particularly his disquisition on metaphysical and religious poetry.-COURTENAY.

3 See his review of Soame Jennings's [Jenyns]" Essay on the Origin of Evil;” a masterpiece of composition, both for vigour of style and precision of ideas-COURTENAY. Pope's, or rather Bolingbroke's, system was borrowed from the Arabian metaphysicians.-COURTENAY.

The scheme of the "Essay on Man" was given by Lord Bolingbroke to Pope.COURTENAY. [Dr. Johnson doubted this, and there seems good reason to believe that Bolingbroke's contribution towards the Essay on Man has been greatly overstated.—ED.]

« AnteriorContinuar »