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THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For JULY, 1779.

ART. I., The Works of the English Poets, with Prefaces Biographical and Critical. By Samuel Johnfon. The Heads engraved by Bartolozzi, &c. Small Evo. 60 Vols. 71. 10s. half bound. Bathurst, &c.

TH

1779.

HE long-expected beautiful edition of the English poets has at length made its appearance. Promifes that are delayed too frequently, end in difappointment; but to this remark the prefent publication is an exception. We must ingenuously confefs, that, from the first of its being advertised, we confidered Dr. Johnfon's name merely as a lure which the proprietors of the work had obtained, to draw in the unwary purchaser; taking it for granted that he would have just allotted, as he owns he originally intended, to every poet, an advertisement, like thofe which are found in the French mifcelJanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; an undertaking, as he obferves, not very tedious or difficult; and, we may add, an undertaking alfo that would have conferred not much reputation upon the 'Writer, nor have communicated much information to his readers. Happily for both, the honeft defire of giving ufeful pleasure, to borrow his own expreffion, has led him beyond his firft intention. This honeft defire is very amply gratified. In the walk of biography and criticism, Dr. Johnson has long been without a rival. It is barely juftice to acknowledge that he ftill maintains his fuperiority. The prefent work is no way inferior to the beft of his very celebrated productions of the fame clafs.

Of the four volumes of his Prefaces already published (more lives being promised), the firft is allotted to Cowley and Waller, the fecond to Milton and Butler, the third is appropriated entirely to Dryden, and the fourth is divided between poets of inferior name, Denham, Sprat, Rofcommon, Rochefter, Yalden, OtVOL. LXI.

B

way,

.

way, Duke, Dorfet, Halifax, Stepney, Walsh, Garth, King, J. Philips, Smith, Pomfret, and Hughes.

In the narrative of Cowley's life there is little, except the manner in which it is told, that is new; but this deficiency, which was not in the Biographer's power to remedy, is fully compenfated for in the review of his writings, which abounds in original criticifm. Cowley's poetical character is introduced I with an account of a race of writers who appeared about the beginning of the feventeenth century, whom Dr. Johnfon terms the Metaphyfical Poets.

The metaphyfical poets, fays he, were men of learning, and to fhew their learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily refolving to fhew it in rhyme, inftead of writing poetry, they only wrote verfes, and very often fuch verfes as ftood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was fo imperfect, that they were only found to be verfes by counting the fyllables.

If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry Tín ann, an imitative art, thefe writers will, without great wrong, lofe their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be faid to have imitated any thing: they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of matter, nor reprefented the operations of intellect.

Thofe however who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confeffes of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit, but maintains that they furpafs him in poetry.

If Wit be well defcribed by Pope, as being "that which has been often thought, but was never before fo well expreffed," they certainly never attained, nor ever fought it; for they endeavoured to be fingular in their thoughts, and were carelefs of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous: he depreffes it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from ftrength of thought to happiness of language.

If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be confidered as Wit, which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be jutt; if it be that, which he that never found it, wonders how he miffed; to wit of this kind the metaphyfical poets have seldom rifen. Their thoughts are often new, but feldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he miffed them, wonders more frequently by what perverfenefs of industry they were ever found.

But Wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philofophically confidered as a kind of difcordia concors; a combination of diffimilar images, or discovery of occult refemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ranfacked for ilJuftrations, comparifons, and allufions; their learning inftructs, and their fubtilty furprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improve

ment

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pleased.

From this account of their compofitions it will be readily inferred, that they were not fuccefsful in reprefenting or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on fomething unexpected and furprifing, they had no regard to that uniformity of fentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never enquired what, on any occafion, they should have faid or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impaffive and at leifure; as Epicurean deities making remarks on the actions of men, and the viciffitudes of life, without intereft and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of forrow. Their wish was only to fay what they hoped had been never faid before.

Nor was the fublime more within their reach than the pathetic ; for they never attempted that comprehenfion and expanfe of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is fudden aftonishment, and the fecond rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by difperfion. Great thoughts are always general, and confift-in pofitions not limited by exceptions, and in defcriptions not defcending to minutenefs. It is with great propriety that Subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of diftinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former obfervation. Their attempts were always analytic; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more reprefent, by their flender conceits and laboured particularities, the profpects of nature, or the fcenes of life, than he, who diffects a fun beam with a prifm, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a fum

mer noon.

• What they wanted however of the fublime, they endeavoured to fupply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not only reafon but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confufed magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined.

Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly loft: if they frequently threw away their wit upon falfe conceits, they likewife fometimes ftruck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it was at least neceffary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphyfical poet, nor affume the dignity of a wri ter, by defcriptions copied from defcriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary fimiles, by readinels of rhyme, and volubility of fyllables.

In perufing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercifed either by recollection or inquiry; either fomething already learned is to be retrieved, or fomething new is to be examined. If their greatness feldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflec

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