Etat. 1776. ney's information was no more than this,‹ That at Will's coffee-house Dryden had a particular chair for 67. himself, which was set by the fire in winter, and was then called his winter-chair; and that it was carried out for him to the balcony in summer, and was then called his summer-chair.' Cibber could tell no more but That he remembered him a decent old man, arbiter of critical disputes at Will's.' You are to consider that Cibber was then at a great distance from Dryden, had perhaps one leg only in the room, and durst not draw in the other." BoswELL." Yet Cibber was a man of observation ?" JOHNSON. “I think not." BOSWELL." You will allow his Apology' to be well done." JOHNSON. " Very well done, to be sure, Sir. That book is a striking proof of the justice of Pope's remark : "Each might his several province well command, "Would all but stoop to what they understand." BOSWELL." And his plays are good." JOHNSON. "Yes; but that was his trade; l'esprit du corps; he had been all his life among players and play-writers. I wondered that he had so little to say in conversation, for he had kept the best company, and learnt all that can be got by the ear. He abused Pindar to me, and then shewed me an ode of his own, with an absurd couplet, making a linnet soar on an eagle's wing. I told him that when the ancients made a similie, they always made it like something real." Mr. Wilkes remarked, that " among all the bold flights of Shakspeare's imagination, the boldest was making Birnam-wood march to Dunsinane; creating a wood where there never was a shrub; a wood in Scotland! ha ha ha!" And he also observed, that "the clannish slavery of the Highlands of Scotland was the single exception to Milton's remark of The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty,' being worshipped in all hilly countries."" When I was at Inverary (said he,) on a visit to my old friend, Archibald, Duke See page 316 of Vol. I, Etat. of Argyle, his dependents congratulated me on being 1776. such a favourite of his Grace. I said, 'It is then, gentlemen, truly lucky for me; for if I had displeased 67. the Duke, and he had wished it, there is not a Campbell among you but would have been ready to bring John Wilkes's head to him in a charger. It would have been only Off with his head! So much for Aylesbury.' I was then member for Aylesbury." Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes talked of the contested passage in Horace's Art of Poetry, " Difficile est propriè communia dicere." Mr. Wilkes, according to my note, gave the interpretation thus: "It is difficult to speak with propriety of common things; as, if a poet had to speak of Queen Caroline drinking tea, he must endeavour to avoid the vulgarity of cups and saucers." But upon reading my note, he tells me that he meant to say, that "the word communia being a Roman law-term, signifies here things communis juris, that is to say, what have never yet been treated by any body; and this appears clearly from what followed, -Tuque • Rectiùs Iliacum carmen deducis in actus Quàm si proferres ignota indictaque primus.' You will easier make a tragedy out of the Iliad than on any subject not handled before." JOHNSON. "He › My very pleasant friend himself, as well as others who remember old stories, will no doubt be surprised, when I observe that John Wilkes here shews himself to be of the WARBURTONIAN SCHOOL. It is nevertheless true, as appears from Dr. Hurd the Bishop of Worcester's very elegant commentary and notes on the “ Epistola ad Pisones." It is necessary to a fair consideration of the question, that the whole passage in which the words occur should be kept in view: "Si quid inexpertum scenæ committis, et audes 1776. means that it is difficult to appropriate to particular Etat, persons qualities which are common to all mankind, 67. as Homer has done." The "Commentary" thus illustrates it: "But the formation of quite new characters in a work of great difficulty and hazard. For here there is no generally received and fixed archetype to work after, but every one judges of common right, according to the extent and comprehension of his own idea; therefore he advises to labour and refit old characters and subjects, particularly those made known and authorized by the practice of Homer and the Epic writers.” The "Note" is "Difficile EST PROPRIE COMMUNIA DICERE." Lambin's Comment is "Communia boc loco appellat Horatius argumenta fabularum à nullo adbuc tractata : et ita, quæ cuivis exposita sunt et in medio quodammodo posita, quasi vacua et à nemine occupata.” And that this is the true meaning of communia is evidently fixed by the words ignota indictaque, which are explanatory of it; so that the sense given it in the commentary, is unquestionably the right one. Yet, notwithstanding the clearness of the case, a late critick has this strange passage: "Difficile quidem esse propriè communia dicere, boc est, materiam vulgarem, notam et è medio petitam, ita immutare atque exornare, ut nova et scriptori propria videatur, ultro concedimus; et maximi procul dubio ponderis ista est observatio. Sed omnibus utrinque collatis, et tum difficilis tum venusti, tam judicii quam ingenii ratione babitâ, major videtur esse gloria fabulam formare penitùs novam, quàm veterem, utcunque mutatam, de novo exhibere." (Poet. Præl. v. ii. p. 164.) Where having first put a wrong construction on the word communia, he employs it to introduce an impertinent criticism. For where does the poet prefer the glory of refitting old subjects to that of inventing new ones? The contrary is implied in what he urges about the superiour difficulty of the latter, from which he dissuades his countrymen, only in respect of their abilities and inexperience in these matters; and in order to cultivate in them, which is the main view of the Epistle, a spirit of correctness, by sending them to the old subjects, treated by the Greek writers." For my own part (with all deference for Dr. Hurd, who thinks the case clear,) I consider the passage, “ Difficile est propriè communia dicere,” to be a crux for the criticks on Horace. The explication which My Lord of Worcester treats with so much contempt, is nevertheless countenanced by authority which I find quoted by the learned Baxter in his edition of Horace, "Difficile est propriè communia dicere, h, e. res vulgares disertis verbis enarrare, vel humile thema cum dignitate tractare. Difficile est communes res propriis explicare verbis. Vet, Schol." I was much disappointed to find that the great critick, Dr. Bentley, has no note upon this very difficult passage, as from his vigorous and illuminate mind I should have expected to receive more satisfaction than I have yet had. Sanadon thus treats of it. · Propriè communia dicere; c'est à dire, qu'il n'est pas aisé de former à ces personnages d'imagination, des caractêres particuliers et cependant vraisemblables. Comme l'on a été le maitre de les former tels qu'on a voulu, les fautes que l'on fait en cela sont moins pardonnables. C'est pourquoi Horace conseille de prendre toujours des sujets connus tels que sont par exemple ceux que l'on peut tirer des poèmes d' Homere." And Dacier observes upon it, Apres avoir marqué les deux qualités qu'il faut donner aux personnages qu'on invente, il conseille aux Poêtes tragiques, de n'user pas trop facilement de cette liberté qu'ils ont d'en inventer, car il est três difficile de reussir dans ces nouveaux caractères. Il est mal aisé, dit Horace, de traiter proprement, c'est à dire convenablement des sujets communs; c'est à dire, des sujets inventés, et qui n'ont aucun fondement ni dans l'Histoire ni dans la Fable; et il les appelle communs, parce qu'ils sont en disposition a tout le monde, et que tout le monde a le droit de les inventer, et qu'ils sont, comme on dit, au premier occupant." See his observations at large on this expression and the following. After all, I cannot help entertaining some doubt whether the words, Difficile est propriè communia dicere, may not have been thrown in by Horace to form a separate article in a "choice of difficulties" which a poet has to encounter, who chooses a WILKES. "We have no City-Poet now: that is an 1776. office which has gone into disuse. The last was Elka- Etat. nah Settle. There is something in names which one 67. cannot help feeling. Now Elkanah Settle, sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits." JOHNSON. "I suppose, Sir, Settle did as well for Aldermen in his time, as John Home could do now. Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English?" 66 Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON. Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren." BoSWELL. "Come, come, he is flattering the English. You have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there." JOHNSON." Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home." All these quick and lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and with a smile, which showed that he meant only wit. Upon this topick he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was a bond of union between them, and I was conscious that as both of them had visited Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance of those who imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused themselves with persevering in the old jokes. When I claimed a superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no man can be arrested there for a debt merely because new subject; in which case it must be uncertain which of the various explanations is the true one, and every reader has a right to decide as it may strike his own fancy. And even should the words be understood as they generally are, to be connected both with what goes before and what comes after, the exact sense cannot be absolutely ascertained; for instance, whether propriè is meant to signify in an appropriated manner, as Dr. Johnson here understands it, or, as it is often used by Cicero, with propriety, or elegantly. In short, it is a rare instance of a defect in perspicuity in an admirable writer, who with almost every species of excellence, is peculiarly remarkable for that quality. The length of this note perhaps requires an apology. Many of my readers, I doubt not, will admit that a critical discussion of a passage in a favourite classick is very engaging. 1776. another swears it against him; but there must first be Etat. the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its justice; 67. and that a seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained, can take place only, if his creditor should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in meditatione fugae: WILKES. "That, I should think, may be safely sworn of all the Scotch nation." JOHNSON. (to Mr. Wilkes) "You must know, Sir, I lately took my friend Boswell and shewed him genuine civilized life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might see for once real civility : for you know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London." WILKES. "Except when he is with grave, sober, decent people, like you and me." JOHNSON. (smiling) " And we ashamed of him.” 66 They were quite frank and easy. Johnson told the story of his asking Mrs. Macaulay to allow her footman to sit down with them, to prove the ridiculousness of the argument for the equality of mankind; and he said to me afterwards, with a nod of satisfaction, "You saw Mr. Wilkes acquiesced." Wilkes talked with all imaginable freedom of the ludicrous title given to the Attorney-General, Diabolus Regis; adding, "I have reason to know something about that officer; for I was prosecuted for a libel." Johnson, who many people would have supposed must have been furiously angry at hearing this talked of so lightly, said not a word. He was now, indeed, " a good-humoured fellow." 66 After dinner we had an accession of Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker lady, well known for her various talents, and of Mr. Alderman Lee. Amidst some patriotick groans, somebody, (I think the Alderman) said, " Poor old England is lost." JOHNSON. Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that Old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it."s WILKES. "Had Lord Bute governed Scotland only, I should not have taken the trouble to write his eulogy, and dedicate MORTIMER' to him." * It would not become me to expatiate on this strong and pointed remark, in which a very great deal of meaning is condensed. |