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." 2 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."-(Pr. and Med., pp. 174. 190.)

แ

This is the work which, of all Dr. Johnson's writings, will perhaps be read most generally,

There were many points in which Johnson did not resemble Demonax, who was high-born and rich, very mild in his manners, gentle in argument and even in his reprimands, and lived to a great age in uninterrupted health; but in some other particulars Lucian's character seems applicable to Johnson; and indeed his tract resembles (in little) Boswell's own work, being a collection of observations on several topics, moral, critical, and religious, made by a phil. sopher of strong sense, ready wit, and fearless veracity; and the character which Lucian ascribes to the conversation of Demonax appears to me not unlike (making due allowance for the difference of ancient and modern habits and topics) the style of that of Dr. Johnson.-CROKER.

This facility of writing, and this dilatoriness ever to write, Dr. Johnson always retained, from the days that he lay a-bed and dictated his first publication to Mr. Hector, to the moment he made me copy out those variations in Pope's Homer which are printed in the Lives of the Poets. 'And Dow,' said he, when I had finished it for him, I fear not Mr. Nichols [the printer] of a pin.'- Piozzi. The first livraison

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 niceties 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, the subject swelled in such a manner, that instead of prefaces to each poet, of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended, 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," "Latiùs se tamen aperiente materiâ, 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.*

for such a collection of biography, and such This was, however, but a small recompence 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."

was published in 1779. This edition of the Poets was in sixty volumes, small octavo.- CROKER.

3 His design is thus announced in his advertisement: "The booksellers having determined to publish a body of English poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a preface to the works of each author; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult. My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an advertisement, like that which we find in the French Miscellanies,' containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention. I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure. - BOSWELL.

The bargain was for two hundred guineas, and the booksellers spontaneously added a third hundred; on this occasion Dr. Johnson observed to me," Sir, I always said the booksellers were a generous set of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason to complain. The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but that I have written too much." The Lives" were soon published in a separate edition; when, for a very few corrections, he was presented with another hundred guineas.- NICHOLS. Antè, p. 531. n. 1.-C.

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 Johnson. Thus::

"In the Life of Waller, Mr. Nichols will find a reference to the Parliamentary History, from which a long quotation is to be inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will send it from Streatham.

66 Clarendon is here returned.

"By some accident I laid your note upon Duke up so safely, that I cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must beg it again, with another list of our authors, for I have laid that with the other. I have sent Stepney's Epitaph. Let me have the revises as soon as can be. December, 1778.

"I have sent Philips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do something. It may be added to the Life of Philips. The Latin page is to be added to the Life of Smith. I shall be at home to revise the two sheets of

Milton. March 1. 1779.

"Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's Letters; and try to get Dennis upon Blackmore and upon Cato, and any thing of the same writer against Pope. Our materials are defective.

"As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it may please them. But it is not necessary.

"An account of the Lives and Works of some of the most eminent English Poets, by,' &c. The English Poets, biographically and critically considered, by Sam. Johnson.' Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make another to his mind. May, 1781.

"You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not enclosed. Of Gay's Letters I see not that any use can be made, for they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of a philosophical society is something; but surely he could be but a corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how to put it in, and it is of little importance." 1

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

1 See several more in "The Gentleman's Magazine," 1785. The editor of that miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being preserved. — BOSWELL. The originals are now in the British Museum. - P.CUNNINGHAM.

A fair hand, in more than one sense-her writing is an almost perfect specimen of caligraphy, as beautiful, I think, as I ever saw; and this power remained unimpaired to the last years of her long life. - CROKER.

3 Hawkins says, that he also gave it the preference, as containing a nicer investigation and discrimination of the

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 Metaphyscal 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 illus tration 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 àssutus; 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 past 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 disthat variegated period, with strong yet nice tinct and animated narrative of public affairs in touches of character; and having a fair oppor tunity 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 or learned words: one, when giving an account of the approach of Waller's mortal disease, he says, "he found his legs grow tumid;" by

characteristics of wit, than is elsewhere to be found- CROKER.

4 Life of Sheffield. — BOSWELL.

5 See, however, p. 657. of this volume, where the same re mark is made, and Johnson is there speaking of prose. la his Life of Dryden, his observations on the opera of Khig Arthur" furnish a striking instance of the truth of this remark.- MALONE.

6 The original reading is enclosed in brackets, and the present one is printed in italics. - BOSWELL.

using the expression his legs swelled, he would have avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being followed by the in"What that teresting question to his physician, 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. Delaney 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 pros

tituted mind.

readily supplies.

his work, and marked his reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current, through I cannot but conceive him calm fear and silence. 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 genera

tion."

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 employed, 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

Iman 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 sensa

"He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His memory was remarkbly retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, and his judgment keen and penetrating. He had a strong sense of the importance of religion; his piety was sincere, and sometimes ardent; and his zeal for the interests of virtue was often manifested in his conversation and in his writings. The same energy which was displayed in his literary productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which was various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever equalled His Dictionary, him for nervous and pointed repartees.

his Moral Essays, and his productions in polite literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant entertainment, as long as the language in which they are written shall be understood."- BOSWELL.

3 Johnson's Life of Milton. - BOSWELL.

tions 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.'

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 whom he thus characterises 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 attain

able."

I could, with pleasure, expatiate upon the masterly execution of the Life of DRYDEN, which we have seen 3 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,

1 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.

One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His 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

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.
O! teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd;
And search no farther 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?"

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 sensi bility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt; and produced sentiments not such as nature enforces, but meditation supplies. 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 Dayden. "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.

tation, [matter] thoughts flowed in on either side. "When once he had engaged himself in dispu

"The abyss of an un-ideal [emptiness] racancy. "These, like [many other harlots], the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation. "He [sometimes displays] descends to display bas knowledge with pedantic ostentation.

"French words which [were then used in] Aud then crept into conversation."

a very odd sort of an author: he would fain rhyme, but can not get at it."— BOSWELL.

3 See antè, p. 516.- BOSWELL.

4 It seems to me, that there are many pathetic passages ta Johnson's works, both prose and verse. - KEARNEY. The deep and pathetic morality of the fanity of Human Wishes has often extracted tears from those whose eyes wander dry over the pages of professed sentimentality.-WALTER SCOTT.

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 pronouncing 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

1 Mr. D'Israeli has, in the third volume of his “Literary Curiosities," favoured the public with an original memorandum of Dr. Johnson's, of hints for the "Life of Pope," written down as they were suggested to his mind in the course of his researches.-CHALMERS.

2 Of Johnson's conduct towards Warburton, a very honourable 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 envied 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 excellencies. 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 the eulogy of this editor [Dr. Parr] 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

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.

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 which was at the house of Mrs. French, in a careful inquiry, they never met but once, London, well known for her elegant assemblies and bringing eminent characters together. The interview proved to be mutually agreeable. 3

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

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 an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever has been made in the cool of the 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? - BoswRLL. Warburton himself did not feel, as Mr. Boswell was disposed to think he did, kindly or gratefully towards Johnson:" for in one of his letters to a friend, he says,—

"The remarks he (Dr. Johnson) makes in every page on my commentaries, are full of insolent and malignant reflections, which, had they not in them as much folly as malignity, I should have had reason to have been offended with. As it is, I think myself obliged to him in thus setting before the public so many of my notes, with his remarks upon them: for though I have no great opinion of the trifling part of the public, which pretends to judge of this part of literature, in which boys and girls decide, yet I think nobody can be mistaken in this comparison: though I think their thoughts have never yet extended thus far as to reflect, that to discover the corruption in an author's text, and by a happy sagacity to restore it to sense, is no easy task: but when the discovery is made, then to cavil at the conjecture, to propose an equivalent, and defend nonsense, by producing out of the thick darkness it occasions a weak and faint glimmering of sense (which has been the business of this editor throughout) is the easiest, as well as the dullest, of all literary efforts.". Warburton's Letters, published by Bp. Hurd, 8vo. 367. —— CROKER.

3 Johnson being asked "whether he had ever been in company with Dr. Warburton?" answered," I never saw him till one evening, about a week ago, at the Bishop of St. [Asaph's]: at first he looked surlily at me; but after we had been jostled into conversation, he took me to a window, asked me some questions, and before we parted was so well pleased with me, that he patted me." "You always, Sir, preserved a respect for him?" "Yes, and justly: when as yet I was in no favour with the world, he spoke well of me, and I hope I never forgot the obligation."— Hawkins's Apoph. — CROKER.