Idler[15], he displays his true idea of beauty; and it is a very lame
piece of philosophy. Judge from a few samples: 'If a man, born blind,
was to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman was to be brought
before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not. Nor
if the most handsome and most deformed were produced, could he any
better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen
only these two.' And again, 'as we are then more accustomed to beauty
than deformity, we may conclude _that_ to be the reason why we approve
and admire it.' Moreover, 'though habit and custom cannot be said to be
the cause[16] of beauty, IT is certainly the cause of our liking it[17].
I have no doubt, but that, if we were more used to deformity than
beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take
that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree that _yes_ and _no_
should change their meanings, _yes_ would then deny, and _no_ would
affirm.' This is such a perfection of nonsense, that the reader will,
perhaps, think it a forgery; but he will find it _verbatim et
literatim_, and the whole number is in the same stile.
'Swift in his _petty_ treatise on the English language, allows that new
words _must_ sometimes be introduced, but proposes that _none_ should be
suffered to become obsolete[18].' The Doctor has not given a fair
quotation from Swift. One would imagine that Swift had proposed to
retain every word which is to be found in any of our popular authors,
but he neither said nor meant any such thing. His words are these:
'They' (the members of the proposed society) 'will find many words _that
deserve to be utterly thrown out of our language_!' And the Dean says
nothing afterwards which infers a contradiction[19].
In his account of Lyttleton, the Doctor's good nature is evident. He
speaks not a word as to the merit of the history of Henry II. but--'It
was published with such anxiety as only _vanity_ can dictate.' We are
next entertained with a page of dirty anecdotes concerning its
publication, which the Doctor seems to have picked up from some
printer's journeyman. 'The Persian Letters have something of that
indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius
_always_ catches when he enters the world, and _always_ suffers to cool
as he passes forward.' Of the admired monody to the memory of Lady
Lyttleton, we are told only that it is _long_. 'His dialogues of the
dead were very eagerly read, tho' the production rather, as it seems of
leisure than of study, rather effusions than compositions. The names of
his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their
conversation; and when they have met, they too often part without a
conclusion.' These remarks apply with peculiar justice to Dr Johnson's
dictionary, for that work is an _effusion_ rather than a _composition_.
His reader is for the most part able to anticipate his definitions, and
they generally end without conclusion. Lord Lyttleton's poems 'have
_nothing_ to be _despised_ and _little_ to be _admired_.' But here, as
usual, the Doctor contradicts himself, and in the very next line 'of his
Progress of Love, _it is sufficient blame to say_ that it is pastoral.
His blank verse in Blenheim has neither much force, nor much elegance.
His little performances, whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes
spritely, and sometimes _insipid_'--and of course _despicable_. The
candid and accurate author of the Rambler has forgot the existence of
that beautiful blossom of sensibility, that pure effusion of friendship,
the prologue to Coriolanus.
The life of Dr Young has been written by a lawyer, who conveys the
meanest thoughts in the meanest language. His stile is dry, stiff,
grovelling, and impure. His anecdotes and ideas, are evidently the cud
of Dr Johnson's conversation. He continues in the same fretful tone from
the first line to the last. He is at once most contemptuous and
contemptible. Whatever he says is insipid or disgusting. He is the bad
imitator of a bad original; and an honest man cannot peruse his libel
without indignation. He steps out of his way to remind us of Milton's
_corporal correction_, a story fabricated, as is well known, by his
Employer. His ignorance has already been illustrated in a periodical
pamphlet. Johnson himself, with all his imperfections, is often as far
superior to this unhappy penman, as the author of the Night-Thoughts is
superior to Johnson. And yet this critical assassin, this literary
jackall, is celebrated by the Doctor[20]. _Pares cum paribus facile
congregantur._
'Dryden's poem on the death of Mrs Killigrew is undoubtedly the noblest
ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a
torrent of enthusiasm. All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal.' He
proceeds to compare it with an imperial crown, &c. But, a little after,
'the ode on St Cecilia's day is allowed _to stand without a rival_[21].'
These are his identical words; and his admirers may reconcile them if
they can. Indeed, he seems ashamed of his own inconsistency, and is
ready to relapse; but thinks, upon the whole, that Alexander's Feast
'may, _perhaps_, be pronounced superior to the ode on Killigrew.' Dr
Johnson is said to be the greatest critic of his age; yet the verses on
Mrs Killigrew are beneath all criticism; and, perhaps, no person ever
read them through, except their author, and himself.
Dryden's fable 'of the Cock and Fox seems hardly worth the labour of
_rejuvenescence_[22].' Some _narcotic_ seems to have _refrigerated_ the
red liquor which circulates in the Doctor's veins[23], and to have
_hebetated_ and _obtunded_ his powers of _excogitation_[24], for
elegance and wit never met more happily than here. Peruse only the first
page of this poem, and then judge. The nonsense which has been written
by critics is, in quantity and absurdity, beyond all conception. Perhaps
his admirers may answer, that my remark is but the _ramification_ of
envy, the _intumescence_ of ill-nature, the _exacerbation_ of 'gloomy
malignity.' However, it would not be amiss to commit that page of
_inanity_ to the power of _cremation_; and let not his fondest idolaters
confide in its _indiscerptibility_. In painting the sentiments and the
scenes of common life, to write English which Englishmen cannot read, is
a degree of insolence hardly known till now, and seems to be nothing but
the poor refuge of pedantic dullness.
His Abyssinian tale hath many beauties, yet the characters are insipid,
the narrative ridiculous, the moral invisible, and the reader
disappointed. '_Intercepting interruptions_ and _volant_ animals' are
above common comprehension. The Newtonian system had reached the happy
valley; for its inhabitants talk of the earth's _attraction_ and the
body's _gravity_[25]. To tell a tale is not the Doctor's most happy
talent; he can hardly be proud of his success in _that_ species of
fiction.
Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'The variety of sun and shade is here[26]
utterly unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or timber. The oak
and the thorn _is_ equally a stranger. They have neither wood for
palisades, nor thorns for hedges. A tree may be shown in Scotland as a
horse in Venice[27].' An _English_ reader may, perhaps, require to be
told, that there are thousands of trees of all ages and dimensions,
within a mile of Edinburgh; that there are numerous and thriving
plantations in Fife; and that, as some of them overshadow part of the
post-road to St Andrew's, the Doctor must have been blinder than
darkness, if he did not see them. But why would any man travel at all,
who is determined to believe nothing which he _hears_, and who, at the
same time, cannot _see_ six inches beyond his nose?
'We are not very sure that the bull is ever _without horns_, though we
have been told that such bulls there are[28].' Who are the _we_ he
refers to? and who but the Doctor ever started so weak a question? His
ignorance is below ridicule. It is true, that, in England, bulls which
_want_ horns are less numerous than husbands who _have_ them; yet such
bulls are always to be found. For the performance which contains this
profound remark, this _agglomerated ramification of torpid imbecility_,
be it known, that _we_ have paid six shillings, which verifies the
proverb, that _a fool and his money are soon parted_.
'We found a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of
Scotland[29]!' Here the fact _may_ be true; but Dr Johnson _must_ be
ignorant whether it is or not. It is certain, that some buildings of
that kind in Edinburgh, are no high specimens of national taste; but, if
the Rambler would insinuate that this want of elegance is general, we
must impeach his veracity; we must remind him, that there are gloomy,
dirty, and unwholesome cathedrals in _both_ countries; and we must
lament, that, when entering Scotland, the Doctor _left every thing
behind him but_ HIMSELF.
'Suspicion has been always considered, when it exceeds the common
measure, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer has
laid it down as a standing maxim, that _he who believes not the oath of
another, knows himself to be perjured_.--Suspicion is, indeed, a temper
so uneasy and restless, that it is very justly appointed the
concomitant of guilt. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to
happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious, and he
that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt[30].' This cannot
always be true; but, if it were, the Rambler is by far the greatest
miscreant who ever infested society. Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'I
know not whether I found man or woman whom I interrogated concerning
payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of
_deceiving me_, by representing every thing as dearer than it is.--The
Scot must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than
truth[31].' Apply the Doctor's maxims to his own conduct, and then judge
of his honesty. He adds a little after: 'The civility and respect which
we found at every place, it is _ungrateful_ to omit, and tedious to
repeat[32].' He should not have spoke of ingratitude. The picture grows
quite shocking.
'How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess. They cultivate
hardly any other plant for common tables; and, when they had not kail,
_they probably had_ NOTHING[33].' As the word _kail_ is not to be found
in his Dictionary, an English reader will be at a loss to find out what
he means. His conjecture is ridiculous; and here a _new_ contradiction
must be swallowed by the Doctor's believers; for, if OATS be 'a grain,
which, in England, is generally given to horses, but, in Scotland,
_supports_ the people[34],' in that case, it is easy to guess how they
lived without _kail_. Any thing else had surely been better than to fill
up his heavy folios with such peevish nonsense.
In his life of Butler, the Doctor has confined his remarks to
_Hudibras_, though the rest of that author's works, both in prose and
verse, merit equal attention. What are we to think of this invidious and
culpable omission? Hudibras itself would, perhaps, have been omitted, if
the book had not tended to ridicule dissenters; for no man in England
seems to hate that sect so heartily. In Watt's life, he takes care to
tell us, that the author was to be praised in every thing but his
_non-conformity_; and, in his ever memorable Tour, the Rambler says, 'I
found several (Highland Ministers), with whom I could not converse,
without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been
presbyterians[35].' Here a critic has very properly interrogated the
Doctor, what he would have said or thought, if the Highland ministers
had lamented that _he_ was _not_ a presbyterian? This man has no
tincture of the liberal and humane manners of the present age; and yet,
with his peculiar consistency, he laughs at the dissenter who refused to
eat a Christmas pye[36]. This quondam believer in the Cocklane ghost
says, 'though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and
weaknesses, I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged
with _superstition_[37];' yet, with all the Doctor's 'contempt of old
women and their tales[38],' he would, if a Roman consul, have disbanded
his army for the scratching of a rat[39].
'We found tea here, as in every other place, but our spoons were of
horn[40].' This important fact had been hinted in a former page; and
such is the Doctor's politeness!
Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produc'd thee in a storm. POPE.
'They do what I found it not very easy to endure. They _pollute_ the
tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese[41].' The
happiness of this remark will be fully felt by those acquainted with the
peculiar purity of Pomposo's person.
'M'Leod left them _lying_ dead by families as they _stood_[42].' This is
_profound_; for no man can stand and lie at the same time. The line
ought to be read thus: 'M'Leod left them lying _dead_ by families as
they HAD _stood_.'
Of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Doctor says: 'If the whole may be
estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of
Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope, the want of more will
not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules, are so
little practised, that they are not known; nor can the satire be
understood but by the learned: He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then
drives them away: He cures diseases that were never felt.
'For this reason[43], the joint production of three great writers has
never obtained _any_ notice from mankind. It has been little read, or
when read, has been forgotten, as no man could be wiser, better, or
merrier by remembering it.
'The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its general
resemblance to _Don Quixote_, there will be found in it particular
imitations of the history of Mr Ouffle.
'Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as supplied him with hints for
his travels; and with those the world might have been contented, though
the rest had been suppressed[44].'
Here we have a copious specimen of the Doctor's _taste_; and all the
volumes of English criticism cannot produce a poorer page.
The work thus condemned, displays a very rich vein of wit and learning.
The follies which it exposes, though a little heightened, were, in that
age, frequent, and perfectly well known. The writers whom it ridicules,
have sunk into _nihility_. The book is always reprinted with the prose
works of Pope, and Swift, and Arbuthnot; and what stronger mark of
_notice_ can the public bestow? Every man who reads it, must be the
wiser and the merrier; and the satire may be understood with very little
learning.
Dr Arbuthnot was a Scotsman, and, probably, a Presbyterian. He was an
amiable man. He is _dead_. Dr Johnson feels himself to be his inferior;
and, therefore, endeavours to murder the reputation of his works. To
gain credit with the reader, he artfully draws a very high character of
Arbuthnot, a few pages before, and here, in effect, overturns it. He had
said that Arbuthnot was 'a scholar, with great brilliancy of wit.' But,
if his wit and learning are not displayed in the Memoirs of Scriblerus,
we may ask where wit and learning are to be found?
Of this extract, the style is as slovenly as the leading sentiments are
false.
The book is said to be, the 'production of Arbuthnot.' Within ten lines,
it is 'the joint production of _three_ great writers.' How can follies
be practised which are not known? or diseases cured, which were never
felt? He claims the attributes of omniscience when saying, that 'it has
been little read, or when read, has been forgotten;' for, as it has been
so frequently reprinted, no human being can be certain that it has been
little read, or forgotten; but there is the strongest evidence of the
contrary. This period concludes, as it began, with a most absurd
assertion. If 'the design cannot boast of much originality,' there is
nothing original in the literary world. Who is Mr Ouffle? and who told
the Doctor that Swift carried any part of Scriblerus into Ireland, to
supply hints for his travels? When Gulliver was published, Dr Arbuthnot,
as appears from their correspondence, did not know whether that book was
written by Swift or not; so that we are sure the Dean carried _nothing_
of Arbuthnot's along with him. Had Dr Johnson 'flourished and stunk' in
their age, he would have been the hero of Martin's memoirs; and, to
suppose him conscious of this circumstance, will account for the
Rambler's malevolence, and explain why the bull broke into a
china-shop.
I beg particular attention to the following passage.
'His (Pope's) version may be said to have tuned the English tongue; for,
since its appearance, no writer[45], however deficient in other powers,
has wanted _melody_[46].' This is wild enough; but, of Gray's two
longest Odes, 'the language is laboured into _harshness_.' Hammond's
verses 'never glide in a stream of _melody_.' The diction of Collins
'was often _harsh_, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected.
His lines, commonly, are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with
clusters of consonants.' Of the style of Savage, 'The general fault is,
_harshness_.' The diction of Shenstone 'is often _harsh_, improper, and
affected,' &c.
Of these five poets, some were not born when Pope's version was
published; and, of the rest, not one had penned a line now extant. They
are all here charged, in the strongest terms, with _harshness_; and yet,
(_mirabile dictu!_) since the appearance of Pope's version, 'no writer,
however deficient in other powers, has wanted _melody_.'
It is no less curious, that the author of this wonder-working
translation is himself charged with want of melody; and that too in a
poem written many years after the appearance of Pope's Homer. 'The essay
on man contains more lines unsuccessfully laboured, more _harshness_ of
diction, more thoughts imperfectly expressed, more levity without
elegance, and more heaviness without strength,[47]' &c.
'Gray thought his language more poetical, as it was more remote from
common use[48].' This assertion is not entirely without foundation, but
it is very far from being quite true.
'Finding in Dryden, honey _redolent of spring_, an expression that
reaches the utmost limits of our language, Gray drove it a little more
beyond common apprehension, by making _gale_ to be _redolent of joy and
youth_[49].' The censure is just. But Dr Johnson is the last man alive,
who should blame an author for driving our language to its utmost
limits: For a very great part of his life has been spent in corrupting
and confounding it. In some verses to a Lady, he talks of his
_arthritic_ pains[50], an epithet not very suitable to the dialect of
Parnassus. Dr Johnson himself cannot always write common sense. 'In a
short time many were content to be shewn beauties which _they could not
see_[51].' He must here mean--'Beauties which they could not have
seen;'--for it is needless to add, that no man can be shewn what he
cannot see.
It is curious to observe a man draw his own picture, without intending
it. Pomposo, when censuring some of Gray's odes, observes, That 'Gray is
too fond of words arbitrarily compounded. The mind of the writer seems
to work with unnatural violence. _Double, double, toil and trouble._' He
(the author of an Elegy in a country church-yard) 'has a kind of
strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his
struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease, or
nature. In all Gray's odes, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which
we wish away[52].' We may say like Nathan, _Thou art the man_.
Mr. Gray, and Mr. Horace Walpole, are said to have _wandered_ through
France and Italy[53]. And as a contrast to this polite expression, I
shall add some remarks which have occurred on the Doctor's own mode of
wandering.
'It must afford peculiar entertainment to see a person of his character,
who has scarcely ever been without the precincts of this metropolis
(London), and _who has been long accustomed to the adulation of a little
knot of companions of his own trade_, sallying forth in quest of
discoveries--Neither the people nor the country that he has visited will
perhaps be considered as the most extraordinary part of the phaenomena he
has described.--The Doctor has endeavoured to give an account of his
travels; but he has furnished his readers with a picture of himself. He
has seen very little, and observed still less. His narration is neither
supported by vivacity, to make it entertaining, nor accompanied with
information, to render it instructive. It exhibits the pompous
artificial diction of the Rambler with the same _vacuity of
thought_.--The reader is led from one Highland family to another merely
to be informed of the number of their children, the barrenness of their
country, and of the kindness with which the Doctor was treated. In the
Highlands he is like a foolish peasant brought for the first time into a
great city, staring at every sign-post, and gaping with equal wonder and
astonishment at every object he meets[54].'
'At Florence they (Gray and Walpole) quarelled and parted; and Mr.
Walpole is _now_ content to have it told that it was by his fault[55].'
This is a dirty insinuation; and the rant which follows in the next
period is of equal value.
He observes, That '_A long story_ perhaps adds little to Gray's
reputation[56].' _Perhaps_ was useless here, and indeed the Doctor has
introduced it in a thousand places, where it was useless, and left it
out in as many where it was necessary. In justice to Gray, he ought to
have added, that their Author rejected, from a correct edition of his
works, this insipid series of verses.
'Gray's reputation was now so high that he had the honour of refusing
the laurel[57].' No man's reputation has ever yet acquired him the
laurel, without some particular application from a courtier. What
honour is acquired by refusing the laurel? An hundred pounds a-year
would have enabled an oeconomist like Mr Gray to preserve his
independence and exert his generosity. The office of laureat is only
ridiculous in the hands of a fool. Mr. Savage in that character produced
nothing which would dishonour an Englishman and a poet. It is probable
that Mr. Gray, a very costive writer, could hardly have made a decent
number of verses within the limited time. From the passage now quoted
the reader will not fail to remark, that the Rambler 'nurses in his mind
a foolish disesteem of kings[58].'
Mr. Gray 'had a notion not very peculiar, that he could not write but at
certain times, or at happy moments; a fantastic foppery to which _my_
kindness for a man of learning and of virtue wishes him to have been
superior[59].' Milton, who was no doubt a shallow fellow compared with
the Reformer of our language, had the same 'fantastic foppery.' Mr Hume
remarks that Milton had not leisure 'to watch the returns of
genius.'--Every man feels himself at some times less capable of
intellectual effort, than at others. The Rambler himself has, in the
most express terms, contradicted his present notion. In Denham's life he
quotes four lines which must, he says, have been written 'in some _hour
propitious to poetry_.' In another place in the same lives his tumid and
prolix eloquence disembogues itself to prove, what no man ever doubted,
viz. 'That a tradesman's hand is often out, he cannot tell why.' And an
inference is drawn, That this is still more apt to be the case with a
man straining his mental abilities.
In Gray's ode on spring, 'The thoughts have nothing new, the morality is
natural, but too stale[60].' Read the poem, and then esteem the critic
if you can. Speaking of _the Bard_ he says, 'Of the first stanza the
abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but _technical_ beauties can give
praise only to the inventor[61].' The question here is, What he means
by a _technical_ beauty? That word he explains, 'Belonging to arts; not
in common or popular use'--How can this word in either of these senses
apply here with propriety?