(i.e. Scaligerorum) Fabulae Confutatio.1 Of the great Julius Caesar Scaliger, 1484-1558, he makes but incidental mention, though showing particular acquaintance with the Poetics. He notes in the Life of Sheffield that "Scaliger in his poems terms Virgil sine labe monstrum";2 and in the Life of Cowley he says, "I know not whether Scaliger himself has persuaded many readers to join with him in his preference of the two favourite odes [of Horace], which he estimates in his raptures at the value of a kingdom." Mantuan's Bucolicks was dignified by Baudius with a comment and was received into the schools and studied as a classic in spite of the complaint of the older Scaliger. A final further reference to Scaliger occurs in the Preface to Shakespeare where he expresses doubt of his own emendations: "Yet Scaliger could confess to Salmasius how little satisfaction his emendations gave him: 'Illudunt nobis conjecturae nostrae, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in meliores codices incidimus.' And Lipsius could complain that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them: 'Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur.' And, indeed, where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald's." 4 Through the Scaligers then, Johnson may easily have made himself the heir of the whole learning of the Renaissance, critical and textual, and we need not proceed further than these two great figures to comprehend how completely our author had absorbed the spirit of that time. A number of other Renaissance critics and scholars are mentioned in the Lives of the Poets and elsewhere in Johnson's works. The Rhetorick of Vossius (1577-1649), the learned 1. Misc. I, 69. The reply of Joseph Scaliger, near the end of his life, to the scurrilous attack of Scioppius on the claim of the Scaligers to be descended from the house of La Scala. 2. Lives, II, 176, n. 4. Virgil is addressed as "O monstrum vitio carens." 2 Dutch critic, is recommended with Quintilian as an advanced textbook in Johnson's Preface to Dodsley's Preceptor, 1740. He gives credit to the Estiennes for the revival of literature in France, referring to Robert Estienne (1503-1559) and his son Henri (1528-1598), whose Greek and Latin lexicons and editions of Plato, Euripides, and Sophocles, printed on their own press, laid the foundations of French scholarship. He left by will, to Mr. Windham, Poetae Graeci Heroici per Henricum Stephanum.3 Ramus (1515-1572) is mentioned as being the first to disturb the quiet of the schools through his opposition to the ancient scholastic philosophy; one of the hundred tales of Poggio, the indefatigable discoverer of classical manuscripts, is pointed to as the source of Gay's Apparition; and Erythraeus is credited with having invented the term alliteration. In this connection Johnson's reference to Bentley in the Preface to Shakespeare should not be forgotten: “nor is it my intention to depreciate a study [conjectural criticism], that has exercised so many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the Bishop of Aleria" to English Bentley." s 4 Johnson must have had considerable familiarity with the French and Italian languages, for Boswell informs us that, though he did not know at what-time or by what means he had acquired a competent knowledge of these tongues, he was so well skilled in them as to be qualified as a translator. In Italian literature he seems to have been well equipped as far 1. Bos. III, 254. 2. Robertus: Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Dictionnaire français. Henricus: Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (long the source of all Greek lexicons). 3. Bos. IV, 402, n. 2. Published 1560. In Ibid. IV, 3, Johnson calls Mattaire's Stephanorum Historia, 1709, a heavy book. 4. Lives, I, 148. 5. Recovered Quintilian, Lucretius, 7 orations of Cicero, 12 plays of Plautus. 6. Venetian Latinist, born at Venice, lived in 1559. Lives, I, 295. 7. John Andreas, d. 1493. Secretary of the Vatican Library, published Herod otus, Strabo, Livy, Aulus Gellius. 8. Works, V, 151. back as the time of Petrarch. Dante he mentions only once and then to call attention to the striking similarity between the opening lines of Pilgrim's Progress and the Divine Comedy, an observation which any neo-classical critic might safely have made. Dante was not to become fashionable for another two generations. He had, however, a genuine love for Petrarch, dating from his boyhood days when he first became interested in the revival of learning in Italy. His consistent attacks upon modern conventional imitations brought forth some not unfavorable comment on Petrarch's employment of certain literary devices, as when he asserts that the "obligation to amorous ditties" was the means, through the Italian poet's tuneful homage to his Laura, of refining the manners of the lettered world, but that his imitators had made of it a lifeless convention. Waller's regret for his early poetry, Johnson remarks in another passage, may be compared to the sentiments of his great predecessor Petrarch, which he “bequeathed to posterity upon his review of that love and poetry which have given him immortality." In pursuit of his old enemy, pastoral imitation, he tells how Petrarch revived the ancient practice of writing eclogues and entertained the learned men of the age with the novelty of modern pastorals in Latin.1 Ariosto and Tasso, the two epic poets who became the subject of controversy for successive generations of critics, were naturally known to Johnson. In summarizing the claims of Dryden to greatness he grants him the surpassing quality of attraction and delight. "By his proportion of this predomination I will consent that Dryden should be tried: of this, which, in opposition to reason, makes Ariosto the darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism, continues Shakespeare the sovereign of the drama.” 2 Tasso is frequently mentioned, though not often by any specific 1. Lives, III, 317. 2. Ibid. I, 454. criticism. On his visit to General Paoli, Johnson begged him to repeat one of the introductory stanzas of the first book of Jerusalem Delivered, and then found fault with the simile of sweetening the edges of a cup for a child, in that it was transferred from Lucretius into an epic poem.1 Of Machiavelli and Boccaccio there is no mention, but the works of both are included in his library. He quotes Dryden as saying that Shakespeare's plots are to be found in the hundred novels of Cinthio. He lays the "metaphysical abuse" at the doors of Marino and his followers, and speaks of Dryden's Fables as being the first in English of a mode of writing which the Italians call rifacimento, a renovation of ancient writers by modernizing their language. "Thus the old poem of Boiardo has been new-dressed by Domenichi and Berni."3 In commenting on the authors of the Tatler and the Spectator, he commends the book of Manners by Casa and the Courtier of Castiglione as having accomplished the same reformation of manners in Italy. Johnson's brief, though comprehensive, history of the pastoral, however, gives the best impression that he must have read widely in Italian literature of the Renaissance and must have comprehended the rise of certain literary conventions which he set himself to oppose. His consistent antagonism to pastoral imitation led him to look with something like contempt upon the followers of Theocritus and Virgil during the revival of learning. He describes the Italian pastoral dialogues and the mythological trappings of this species of poetry, and names Petrarch and "our Spenser" as followers of the fashion. Mantuan's popularity in the schools is mentioned; Sannazaro's Arcadia in native prose and verse, and Guarini's Pastor Fido and Favole Boscareccie, or Sylvan Dramas, 1. Bos. III, 330. The simile is to be found in Jerusalem, canto I, stanza 3, and in de Rerum Natura, I, 935, and Ibid. IV, 125. 4. Ibid. II, 92, 95. 2. Nos. 549 and 304. 3. Lives, I, 454-55 receive their condemnation: "and all nations of Europe filled volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and Thestylis and Phyllis."1 Tasso and Guarini come in for further censure when, describing Gay's lighter pieces, he observes: "Dione is a counterpart to Amynta and Pastor Fido, and other trifles of the same kind, easily imitated, and unworthy of imitation."2 Turning to the literature of the French Renaissance, we find a very different situation. Montaigne and Rabelais he had read, but except for them he seems to have been ignorant of the whole period. If this be true, and we have but negative evidence for it, he was, like Boileau, weak in his knowledge of French literary history, and, like him, he failed to perceive that the Pleiade and its members were the real founders of that school of criticism of which he became one of the substantial representatives. Moreover, a decided break in his knowledge of the history of literary criticism must have become evident had he actually undertaken to compile one of his projected works on the subject. The presumption seems to be that if he had been well read in that field, he would frequently have used his information. He was familiar, however, with French literature after the year 1600. Mrs. Thrale notes that he was a great reader of French literature, and Thomas Tyers makes a similar observation. Though he despised the French in particular and all foreigners in general, claiming that, for all he could see, most of them were fools, he nevertheless applauded the number of French books and the graces of their style. Boswell declares 1. Lives, III, 317-19. 2. Ibid. II, 284. See Ibid. III, 317. “Being not ignorant of Greek, and finding nothing in the word Eclogue of rural meaning, he [Petrarch] supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his own productions Aeglogues, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it meant only the talk of goats." 3. Misc. I, 334; II, 363. 4. Bos. II, 403; IV, 15; I, 115, n. 1. 5. Misc. I, 216. |