Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

"were thofe of Genius; thofe of Milton

[ocr errors]

The former,

"of the MAN OF GENIUS. "arifes from imagination getting the, "better of judgment; the latter from "babit getting the better of imagination. "Shakespeare's faults were those of a

[ocr errors]

great poet thofe of Milton of a little "pedant. When Shakespeare is execra "ble he is fo exquifitely fo, that he is inimitable in his blemishes as in his beauties The puns of Milton betray "a narrowness of education, and a dege"neracy of habit,”

Thus far Dr. Johnson's exhibition of Milton in the scale of poetical merit, which perhaps at the bottom may amount to ho more than that Milton could not make a faddle, or dance upon

the

the rope. But this too we leave to critics on poetry, of whom we fhould requeft to explain the difference between a Genius and a Man of Genius, and by what operation habit, in the abftract, gets the better of imagination; remarking only for ourselves, that for the balance-mafter to reproach Milton for his pedantry is certainly betraying a strange unconsciousness of his own talents, unless he depends upon his reader's fagacity in difcriminating a great pedant from a little one. He is obliged, however, to complete the humiliation of Milton, to put his profe-works into the scale.

"His theological quibbles and per*plexed fpeculations are daily equalled

* See Cibber's Letter to Pope, p. 35.

"" and

7

"and excelled by the most abject en"thufiafts; and if we confider him as a

66

[ocr errors]

profe-writer, he has neither the learn

ing of a scholar, nor the manners of a gentleman. There is no force in his "reafoning, no elegance in his style, and "no tafte in his compofition."

Peremptory, but not decifive! To make this go down, even with a moderate tory, it should have been added, that the narrowness of Milton's education prevented, not only his proficiency in the ftudy of the abftrufer fciences, but even in the elemental acquifitions of reading or fpelling.

"We are therefore," continues the critic, "to confider him in one fixed

[ocr errors]

point of light, that of a great poet,

[blocks in formation]

"with a laudable envy of rivalling,

eclipfing, and excelling, all who at"tempted fublimity of fentiment and "description."

Could this be a hopeful attempt in fo wretched a writer of profe? or does the critic propofe to entertain his readers with a miracle, or only with a paradox? Immediately however the critic withdraws Milton from this fixed point of light, and places his fublimity of fentiment and defcription in contraft with Shakespeare's amiable variety; and concludes," that "Shakespeare could have wrote like "Milton, but Milton could never have "wrote like Shakespeare."

Does not the Doctor here overturn his own metaphyfical fyftem? Shakespeare's

judge

judgement, to have qualified him to write like Milton, must have got the better of his imagination; a confinement of Shakefpeare's powers not half fo poffible as. that Dr. Johnson fhould turn Whig..

"Some may think," fays the Doctor, in this fame poetical scale, "that I have "under-valued the character of Waller; “but, in my own opinion, I have rather "over-rated it."

He has however made ample amends for this lenity in writing Waller's life; and it is a very gentle cenfure paffed upon him by the Critical Reviewers *, "that the Doctor's remarks on fome of "our best poets, particularly Milton and "Waller, whofe political opinions by no

*For May, 1779.

C 2

" means

« VorigeDoorgaan »