"Depend upon it," said he, "that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.""

'A man must be a poor beast, that should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.'

'Imlac, in Rasselas, I spelt with a cat the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c.'

'Many a man is mad in certain instances, and

further upon it, that the opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition are much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the company, which consisted of men only, "There is not one of us who does not think he might be richer, if he would use his endeavour."'

'He thus characterized an ingenious writer of his acquaintance: "Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule"

"He may hold up that SHIELD against all his enemies," was an observation on Homer, in re

for example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.'

'He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first book of The Retreat of the Ten Thousand, was the first instance of the kind that was known.'

"Supposing," said he, "a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome; for instance, if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.""

'No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would if he thought he was within hearing.'

made by Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert, of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one. He had in general a very high opinion of that lady's understanding.'

'An observation of Bathurst's may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded-namely, it was somewhat remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into the company of any new person, one felt any wish or inclination to see him again.'

This year the Rev. Dr. Franklin, having published a translation of Lucian, inscribed to him the Demonax thus :

'To Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Demonax of the present age, this piece is inscribed by a sincere admirer of his respectable talents.

'THE TRANSLATOR.'

were, as I thought being particular upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in general that it was highly in his praise; and then he expressed himself as above.'

'He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him, that meeting, in the course of his studying English, with an excellent paper in the Spectator, one of four that were written by the respectable dissenting minister, Mr. Grove, of Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our country; as he thought, if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authors, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed.'

'He observed once. at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, that a beggar in the street will more readily ask alms from a man, though there should be no marks of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman; which he accounted for from the great degree of carefulness as to money that is to be found in women; saying

Though, upon a particular comparison of Demonax and Johnson, there does not seem to be a great deal of similarity between them, this dedication is a just compliment from the general character given by Lucian of the ancient sage

philosopher whom I have ever seen or known).

CHAPTER LII. 1781.

IN 1781, Johnson at last completed his Lives of the Poets, of which he gives this account:'Some time in March I finished The Lives of the Poets, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste.' In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them: 'Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety.'

This is the work which, of all Dr. Johnson's writings, will perhaps be read most generally, and with most pleasure. Philology and biography were his favourite pursuits, and those who lived most in intimacy with him heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the English Poets; upon the niccties of their characters, and the events of their progress through the world which they contributed to illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper, exhibiting first each poet's life, and then subjoining a critical examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, thesubject swelled in such a manner, that, instead of prefaces to each poet of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended,1 he produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the composition of his Institutions of Oratory, 'Latius se tamen aperiente materia, plus quàm imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi.' The booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the copyright, presented him with another hundred pounds, over and above two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he thought fit.

This was, however, but a small recompense for such a collection of biography, and such principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if digested and arranged in one system by some modern Aristotle or Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation can show. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part of the original and indeed only manuscript of this admirable work, I have an opportunity of observing with wonder the correctness with which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be assimilated to the Lady in Waller, who could impress with 'Love at first sight:'

'Some other nymphs with colours faint,
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart in time destroy;
She has a stamp, and prints the boy."

That he, however, had a good deal of trouble and some anxiety in carrying on the work, we see from a series of letters to Mr. Nichols, the printer, whose variety of literary inquiry and obliging disposition rendered him useful to John

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 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.'

In the Life of Waller, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative of public 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 oг 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. Delany 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 synonymes.

His dissertation upon the unfitness of poetry for the awful 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 nomination.

'[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 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 as a politician, or rather as a daring foe to good polity, was surely to be expected; and to those who censure him, I would recommend his commentary on Milton's celebrated complaint of his situation, when, by the lenity of Charles the Second-'a lenity of which,' as Johnson well observes, 'the world has had perhaps no other example'-he, who had written in justification of the murder of his sovereign, was safe under an Act of Oblivion: 'No sooner is he safe than he finds himself in danger, fallen on evil days and evil tongues, with darkness and with dangers compassed round. This darkness, had his eyes been better em ployed, had undoubtedly deserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger was ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen, indeed, on evil days; the time was come in which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. But of evil tongues for Milton to complain, required impudence at least equal to his other powers ;Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow that he never spared any asperity of reproach or brutality of insolence.'

I have, indeed, often wondered how Milton, 'an acrimonious and surly Republican,' 'a man who in his domestic relations was so severe

and arbitrary, and whose head was filled with the hardest and most dismal tenets of Calvinism, should have been such a poet; should not only have written with sublimity, but with beauty, and even gaiety; should have exquisitely painted the sweetest sensations of which our nature is capable; imaged the delicate raptures of connubial love; nay, seemed to be animated with all the spirit of revelry. It is a proof that in the human mind the departments of judgment and imagination, perception and temper, may sometimes be divided by strong partitions; and that the light and shade in the same character may be kept so distinct as never to be blended.2

In the Life of Milton, Johnson took occasion to maintain his own and the general opinion of the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in English poetry; and quotes this apposite illustration of it by 'an ingenious critic,' that it seems to be verse only to the eye. The gentleman

3

1 Johnson's Life of Milton. -BOSWELL.

Mr. Malone thinks it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of those cheerful sensations which he has described; that on these topics it is the poet, and not the man, that writes. -BoSWELL.

whom he thus characterizes is (as he told Mr. Seward) Mr. Lock, of Norbury Park, in Surrey, whose knowledge and taste in the fine arts is universally celebrated; with whose elegance of manners the writer of the present work has felt himself much impressed, and to whose virtues a common friend, who has known him long, and is not much addicted to flattery, gives the highest testimony.

Various Readings in the Life of MILTON. 'I cannot find any meaning but this which [his most bigoted advocates] even kindness and reverence can give.

'[Perhaps no] scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few.

'A certain [rescue] preservative from oblivion. 'Let me not be censured for this digression as [contracted] pedantic or paradoxical.

'Socrates rather was of opinion that what we had to learn was how to [obtain and communicate happiness] do good and avoid evil.

'Its elegance [who can exhibit ?] is less attainable.'

I could with pleasure expatiate upon the masterly execution of the Life of Dryden, which, we have seen, was one of Johnson's literary projects at an early period, and which it is remarkable that, after desisting from it, from a supposed scantiness of materials, he should, at an advanced age, have exhibited so amply.

His defence of that great poet against the illiberal attacks upon him, as if his embracing the Roman Catholic communion had been a time-serving measure, is a piece of reasoning at once able and candid. Indeed, Dryden himself, in his Hind and Panther, hath given such a picture of his mind, that they who know the anxiety for repose as to the awful subject of our state beyond the grave, though they may think his opinion ill-founded, must think charitably of his sentiment:

'But, gracious GOD, how well dost Thou provide
For erring judgments an unerring guide!
Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
Oh! teach me to believe Thee thus conceal'd,
And search no further than Thyself reveal'd:
But Her alone for my director take,

Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake.
My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires,
My manhood long misled by wand'ring fires,
Follow'd false lights; and when their glimpse was
gone,

My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
Such was I, such by nature still I am;

Be Thine the glory, and be mine the shame.
Good life be now my task; my doubts are done;
What more could shock my faith than Three in One?'

Lordship observed one of his shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton's Paradise Lost; and having asked him what book it was, the man answered, 'An't please your Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an author; he would fain rhyme, but cannot get at it.'-BOSWELL.

In drawing Dryden's character, Johnson has given, though I suppose unintentionally, some touches of his own. Thus: 'The power that predominated in his intellectual operations was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt; and produced sentiments not such as nature enforces, but meditations pplies. With the simple and elemental passions as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted. He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others.' It may, indeed, be observed, that in all the numerous writings of Johnson, whether in prose or verse, and even in his Tragedy, of which the subject is the distress of an unfortunate princess, there is not a single passage that ever drew a tear.

Various Readings in the Life of DRYDEN. 'The reason of this general perusal, Addison has attempted to [find in] derive from the delight which the mind feels in the investigation of secrets.

'His best actions are but (convenient] inability of wickedness.

'When once he had engaged himself in disputation, [matter] thoughts flowed in on either side.

'The abyss of an unideal [emptiness] vacancy. 'These, like [many other harlots], the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation.

'He [sometimes displays] descends to display his knowledge with pedantic ostentation. 'French words which [were then used in] had then crept into conversation.'

The Life of Pope was written by Johnson con amore, both from the early possession which that writer had taken of his mind, and from the pleasure which he must have felt in for ever silencing all attempts to lessen his poetical fame by demonstrating his excellence, and pronouneing the following triumphant eulogium: 'After all this, it is surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by asking in return, if Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To circumscribe poetry by a definition, will only show the narrowness of the definer, though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look round upon the present time, and back upon the past; let us inquire to whom the voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the pretensions of Pope will be no more disputed.'

I remember once to have heard Johnson say, 'Sir, a thousand years may elapse before there

shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.' That power must undoubtedly be allowed its due share in enhancing the value of his captivating composition.

Johnson, who had done liberal justice to Warburton in his edition of Shakspeare, which was published during the life of that powerful writer, with still greater liberality, took an opportunity, in the Life of Pope, of paying the tribute due to him when he was no longer in 'high place,' but numbered with the dead.1

Of Johnson's conduct towards Warburton, a very nonourable notice is taken by the editor of Tracts by Warburton, and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the Collection of their respective Works. After an able and 'fond, though not undistinguishing,' consideration of Warburton's character, he says: 'In two immortal works, Johnson has stood forth in the foremost rank of his admirers. By the testimony of such a man, impertinence must be abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. Of literary merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most severe judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that he always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the "balance of the sanctuary." He was too courageous to propitiate a rival, and too proud to truckle to a superior. Warburton he knew, as I know him, and as every man of sense and virtue would wish to be known, -I mean both from his own writings, and from the writings of those who dissented from his principles, or who enviel his reputation. But, as to favours, he had never received or asked any from the Bishop of Gloucester and if my memory fails me not, he had seen him only once, when they met almost without design, conversed without much effort, and parted without any lasting impression of hatred or affection. Yet, with all the ardour of sympathetic genius, Johnson had done that spontaneously

and ably, which, by some writers, had been before attempted injudiciously, and which, by others, from whom more successful attempts might have been expected, has not hitherto been done at all. He spoke well of Warburton, without insulting those whom Warburton despised. He suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordinary man, while he endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and transcendental excellences. He defended him when living, amidst the clamours of his enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the silence of his friends.'

Having availed myself of this editor's [Dr. Parr) eulogy on my departed friend, for which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the lustre of his reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning and vigorous eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of illiberality. He has been accused of invidiously dragging again into light certain writings of a person (Bishop Hurd] respectable by his talents, his learning, his station, and his age, which were published a great many years ago, and have since, it is said, been silently given up by their author. But when it is considered that these writings were not sins of youth, but deliberate works of one well advanced in life, overflowing at once with flattery to a great man of great interest in the Church, and with unjust and acrimonious abuse of two men of eminent merit; and that, though it would have been unreasonable to expect a humiliating recantation, no apology whatever has been made in the cool of the

It seems strange that two such men as Johnson and Warburton, who lived in the same age and country, should not only not have been in any degree of intimacy, but been almost personally unacquainted. But such instances, though we must wonder at them, are not rare. If I am rightly informed, after a careful inquiry, they never met but once, which was at the house of Mrs. French, in London, well known for her elegant assemblies, and bringing eminent characters together. The interview proved to be mutually agreeable.

I am well informed that Warburton said of Johnson, 'I admire him, but I cannot bear his style;' and that Johnson being told of this, said, 'That is exactly my case as to him.' The manner in which he expressed his admiration of the fertility of Warburton's genius, and of the variety of his materials, was, 'The table is always full, sir. He brings things from the north, and the south, and from every quarter. In his Divine Legation you are always entertained. He carries you round and round, without carrying you forward to the point; but then you have no wish to be carried forward.' He said to the Rev. Mr. Strahan, 'Warburton is perhaps the last man who has written with a mind full of reading and reflection.'

It is remarkable, that in the Life of Broome Johnson takes notice of Dr. Warburton's using a mode of expression which he himself used, and that not seldom, to the great offence of those who did not know him. Having occasion to mention a note, stating the different parts which were executed by the associated translators of The Odyssey, he says, 'Dr. Warburton told me, in his warm language, that he thought the relation given in the note a lie. The language is warm indeed; and, I must own, cannot be justified in consistency with a decent regard to the established forms of speech.' Johnson had accustomed himself to use the word lie, to express a mistake or an error in relation; in short, when the thing was not so as told, though the relater did not mean to deceive. When he thought there was intentional falsehood in the relater, his expression was, 'He lies, and he knows he lies.'

Speaking of Pope's not having been known to excel in conversation, Johnson observes, that traditional memory retains no sallies of raillery, or sentences of observation; nothing either pointed or solid, wise or merry; and that one apophthegm only is recorded.' In this respect Pope differed widely from Johnson, whose

evening for the oppressive fervour of the heat of the day; no slight relenting indication has appeared in any note, or any corner of later publications; is it not fair to understand him as superciliously persevering? When he allows the shafts to remain in the wounds, and will not stretch forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, is it not generous, to become an indignant avenger?BOSWELL.