sentiment. Every word may be understood separately, but in their present
arrangement they seem to have no meaning, or they mean nonsense, and
perhaps, contradiction; but this passage I leave to the supreme tribunal
of all authors--to the reason and common sense of the reader. He can
best determine whether he has 'never seen the notions in any other
place, yet persuades himself that he always felt them.' These ideas are
very beautifully expressed in many passages of Gaelic poetry: and Mr.
Gray, let it be remembered, to the honour of his taste and candour, was
the warm admirer of Fingal.
Comparing Gray's ode with an ode of Horace[63], he says, 'there is in
_the Bard_ more force, more thought, and more variety'--as indeed there
very well may, for in the one there are thirty-six lines only, and in
the other one hundred and forty-four. His whole works are full of such
trifling observations. 'But to copy is less than to invent, theft is
always dangerous.' If he means to insinuate that Gray's Bard is a copy
of Horace, (and this is the plain inference from his words) I charge him
in direct terms as _an atrocious violator of_ TRUTH.
'The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; (NO) but its revival
disgusts _us_ with apparent and unconquerable falsehood, _Incredulus
odi_[64].' How will the Doctor's verdict be digested at Aberdeen by 'a
poet, a philosopher, and a good man[65].' It is diverting to remark how
these _mutual admirers_ clash on the clearest point, with not a
possibility of reconcilement.
I pass by five or six lines, which are not worth contradiction, though
they cannot resist it. 'I do not _see_ that _the Bard_ promotes any
truth moral or political[66].' The Rambler's intellect is _blind_.--He
seems to have stared a great deal, to have seen little or nothing. The
Bard very forcibly impresses this moral, political, and important truth,
that eternal vengeance would pursue the English Tyrant and his
posterity, as enemies to posterity, and exterminators of mankind. Dr
Johnson, a stickler for the _jus divinum_, did not relish this idea.
He commends the 'Ode on Adversity,' but the hint was at 'first taken
from Horace[67].' The poem referred to has almost no resemblance to Mr
Gray's. And if we go on at this rate, where will we find any thing
original? He mistakes the title of this poem, which is not an 'Ode on,'
but a 'Hymn to' Adversity. This is a clear though trifling proof of his
inattention. As he dare not condemn this piece, it is dismissed in six
lines, to make room for '_The wonderful wonder of wonders_, the two
Sister Odes, by which many have been persuaded to think themselves
delighted[68].' He chews them through four tedious octavo pages. We come
then to Gray's Elegy, which occupies an equal share of a paragraph
containing only fourteen lines. So much more plentiful is the critic in
gall than honey! And in reading this fragment we may remark that
_nonsense_ is not _panegyric_.
Speaking of Welsh Mythology, he says, 'Attention recoils from the
repetition of a tale that, even when it was _first_ heard, was heard
with scorn[69].' There is no reason to think that the Welsh disbelieved
these fictions. It is much more likely that many believe them at this
day. Shakespeare has from this superstition made a whimsical picture of
Owen Glendower: He painted nature. This is one of those assertions which
our dictator should have qualified with a _perhaps_, an adverb, which,
wherever it _ought_ to be met with in the Doctor's pages, 'will not
easily be found[70].'
'But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed
that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example;
but suicide is always to be had without expence of thought[71].'
The lines objected to are these:
'He spoke, and headlong from the mountains height,
Deep in the roaring tide, he plung'd to endless night.'
Let the Doctor, if he can, give us a better conclusion.
'_The Prospect of Eaton College_ suggests nothing to Gray, which every
beholder does not equally think and feel[72].' He might as well have
said, that every man in England is capable of producing Paradise Lost.
We have seen with what tenderness Dr Johnson speaks of the dead, we
shall now see his tenderness to the living. 'Let us give the Indians
arms, and teach them discipline, and encourage them now and then to
plunder a plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of
sedition[73].' The Doctor seems here to be serious. The proposal must
reflect infinite honour on his wisdom and humanity.
'No part of the world has yet had reason to rejoice that COLUMBUS found
at last reception and employment[74].' This wild opinion is fairly
disproved by Dr Smith, a philosopher not much afraid of novelty; for he
has advanced a greater variety of original, interesting, and profound
ideas, than almost any other author since the first existence of books.
'Such is the unevenness of Dryden's compositions that ten lines are
seldom found together without something of which the reader is
ashamed[75].' This is a very wide _aberration_ from truth. In Dryden's
fables we may frequently meet with five hundred lines together, without
_ten_ among them, which could have disgraced the most eminent writer.
His prologues and epilogues are a never failing fountain of good sense
and genuine poetry. But it were insulting the taste of the English
nation to insist any farther on this point. We shall presently see how
far Dr Johnson's Dictionary will answer the foregoing description.
Dryden it is said discovers 'in the preface to his fables, that he
translated the first book of the Iliad without knowing what was in the
second[76].' This insinuation revolts against all probability; and
whoever peruses that elegant and delightful preface will find it to be
NOT TRUE.
'The highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception
is that of rest after fatigue[77].' And _sensitive_ is defined '_having
sense or perception; but not reason_.' If I understand the meaning of
this passage, it is, that no pleasure communicated through any of the
organs of sense is equal to that of _rest_. This assertion leads to the
most absurd consequences. In man, to separate sensitive from rational
perception appears to be simply impossible. Even rest is not in strict
language any pleasure. It is merely a mitigation of pain. The reader
will decide whether I do the Doctor justice, while I say, that he must
have been petrified when he composed this maxim. Thirst and hunger had
been long forgot. Handel and Titian had no power to charm. We learn that
a lover can receive, and his mistress can bestow nothing which is equal
to the rapturous enjoyment of an _easy chair_. The thought is new; no
human being ever did, or ever will conceive it, except this immortal
IDLER.
'Physicians and lawyers are no friends to religion, and many
_conjectures_ have been formed to discover the _reason_ of such _a
combination_ between men who agree in _nothing else_, and who seem to be
less affected in their own provinces by religious opinions than any
other part of the community[78].' He then proceeds in the tone of an
author, who has made a discovery to inform us of the cause. 'They have
all seen a parson, seen him in a habit different from their own, and
therefore _declared war_ against him.' But _this_ can be no motive for
peculiar antipathy to parsons, allowing such antipathy to exist; for in
habit all other classes differ no less from the clergy, than the lawyer
and physician. But the remark itself is frivolous and false. Boerhaave
and Hale were men of eminent piety. Physicians and lawyers have as much
regard for religion as any other people generally have. Their _agreeing
in nothing else_ is another of the blunders crowded into this passage.
But I have too much respect for the reader's understanding to insist any
farther on this point. The _conjecturers_, the _combination_, and the
_declaration of war_, exist no where but in the Doctor's pericranium. He
was at a loss what to say, and the position is only to be regarded as a
_turbid ebullition of amphibological inanity_. But while we thus meet
with something which is ridiculous in every page, we are not to forget
even for a moment, what we have often heard, and what is most
unquestionably _true_, viz. That Dr Johnson is the father of British
literature, capital author of his age, and the greatest man in
Europe[79]!!!
'We are by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided
almost into different species, who regard one another for the most part
with scorn and malignity[80].' The Doctor is himself a proof, that a man
may look upon almost all of his own profession with scorn and malignity:
So that between his precept and his practice, the world seems bad
enough. But I hope every heart revolts at this gross insult on the
characters of mankind. He brings as an instance the aversion which
subsists between soldiers and sailors. There no doubt have been
jealousies and bloodshed between these two classes of men, but the same
accidents fall out more frequently between soldiers themselves. The
_scorn_ and _malignity_ of admirals seldom affect any line of service
but their own. His captain of foot[81], who saw no danger in a sea-fight
was a fool, and just such a specimen of English officers, as the Doctor
himself is of English travellers. Our repulse at Carthagena was not
owing to an antipathy between the _common_ men. Our late victory at
Savannah proves with what ardour they can unite. The Doctor has insulted
almost every order of society.
Coblers with coblers smoke away the night,
Even players in the common cause, unite.
AUTHORS alone with more than mortal rage,
Eternal war with brother authors wage[82].
'To raise esteem we must benefit others,' is an assertion advanced in
the same page. But the Doctor, if he knows any thing, must know that
_esteem_ is often felt for an enemy. We value for his courage or
ingenuity the man who never heard our name, or who would not give a
guinea to save us from perdition. We can esteem the hero who butchers
nations, and the pedant who perplexes truth. Marlborough's avarice led
him to continue the continental war, till he had laid the great
foundation of our public debt. He was detested as much as any general
_now_ in England, and yet 'he was so great a man (said one of his
enemies) that I have forgot his faults.' Posterity, while they suffer
for his baseness, pay the due tribute of esteem to his genius and
intrepidity.
In every point of view this maxim is 'the baseless fabrick of a vision.'
And what had so far _obumbrated_ the Rambler's powers of
_ratiocination_, it is not easy to guess. We sometimes feel it
impossible to esteem even our benefactor. 'I have received obligations
(said Chatterton) without being obliged.' And of consequence, his
benefactors had forfeited his esteem. The father of British literature
has in forty other places contradicted his own words. He has proved that
esteem is involuntary, and that benefits do not always procure it.
The Doctor says, 'That Cowley having, when very young, read Spenser,
became _irrecoverably_ a poet[83].' And he adds a remark that shows his
good sense: 'Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and
sometimes perhaps forgotten, PRODUCE that particular designation of mind
and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly
called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers,
_accidentally_ determined to some particular direction. The great
painter of the present age had the first fondness for his art excited by
a perusal of Richardson's treatise.' This drawling definition
contradicts common sense. Does the Doctor mean that Cowley would have
become a painter by perusing Richardson? or that Reynolds would have
become a poet by perusing Spenser? This is the clear inference from his
words, and its absurdity is 'too evident for detection, and too gross
for aggravation[84].' At this rate Garrick might have eclipsed Newton,
and Voltaire defeated Frederick. Plato possessed 'a mind of large
general powers.' He read Homer. He wrote verses, and he found that he
could not be a poet. The Doctor himself has 'large general powers;' but
he could never have been made a decent dancing master. Marcel might have
broke his heart, before his pupil had acquired three steps of a minuet.
In his dictionary the Doctor, without a word of _accidental_
determination, defines genius to be 'disposition of _nature_, by which
any one is qualified for some peculiar employment.' And here I cannot
help adding, that 'the great painter' has by stepping out of his own
line, discovered the narrowness of even a great man's knowledge. He
affirms[85], That _scarce a poet from Homer down to Dryden ever felt his
fire diminished merely by his advance in years_. There is nothing more
absurd, says Cicero, than what we hear asserted by some of the
philosophers. Even in painting, the President's own profession, that
rule does not hold. Cellini tells us, that Michael Angelo's genius
decayed with years; and he speaks of it as common to all artists. His
notion was perhaps grafted on an opinion of the Doctor's about the
durability of Waller's genius[86]. But Waller was a feeble poet; he
never had a genius, so that we need not wonder he never lost it. All his
verses are hardly worth one of Dr Johnson's imitations of Juvenal.
Rowe (the famous tragic poet) 'seldom moves either pity or terror[87].'
Paradise Lost is a work which 'the reader admires, and lays down, _and
forgets to take up again_[88],' But Rowe's Lucan, which is very little
read, the Doctor pronounces to be 'one of the _greatest_ productions of
English poetry.' Dr Johnson's sycophants have asserted, that 'in the
walks of criticism and biography he has long been without a rival.' And
they are no doubt willing to support their idol in his infamous
assertion, that Swift 'excites neither surprise nor admiration[89].' The
Doctor's disregard for the unanimous sentiments of mankind often excites
surprize, but never admiration. Let us here apply his own observation,
that 'there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous train of
invective and contempt, more eager and venemous than is vented by the
most furious controvertist in politics, against whom he is hired to
defame[90].' We may illustrate the Rambler's remark by his own example:
'Theobald, a man of narrow comprehension, and small acquisitions, with
no native and intrinsick splendour of genius, with little of the
artificial light of learning--his contemptible ostentation I have
frequently concealed[91].' The definer of a fiddlestick proceeds thus:
'I have in some places shewn him, as he would have shewn himself for the
reader's diversion, that the _inflated_ emptiness of some notes may
justify or excuse the contraction of the rest.'--The advocate for
tenderness and decorum goes on to tell us, that 'Theobald, thus weak and
ignorant, thus _mean_ and FAITHLESS, thus petulant and ostentatious, by
the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and escaped
_alone_ with reputation from this undertaking. So easily is he praised
whom no man can envy[92].' How does it appear that Theobald was weak and
ignorant? The Doctor himself had in the preceding page told us, that 'he
(Theobald) collated the antient copies, and rectified _many_ errors.'
This assertion our author, with his wonted consistency, has flatly
contradicted in the very next line. 'What _little_ he (Theobald) did was
commonly right.' Has the Doctor adduced, or has he attempted to adduce
evidence, that Theobald was _mean_ and _faithless_, or what provocation
has he to load this man's memory with such injurious epithets? His burst
of vulgarity can reflect disgrace on nobody but himself. It is evident,
tho' he thinks proper to deny it, that he considered Theobald as an
object of envy; yet he is obliged to confess that Theobald 'escaped, and
escaped _alone_, with reputation,' from the talk of amending
Shakespeare. In assigning a reason for this applause of Theobald, Dr
Johnson pays a very poor compliment to the penetration of the public,
for surely to combat a writer of so much merit and popularity as Pope,
was not the plainest road to eminence in the literary world.
'In his (Shakespeare's) tragic scenes there is _always something
wanting_'----NO[93]----'In his comic scenes he is seldom very
successful, when he engages his characters in _reciprocations_ of
smartness, and contests of sarcasms; their ideas are _commonly gross_,
and their pleasantry _licentious_.' This accusation is cruel and unjust,
as all the world knows already. But a great part of that preface is an
incoherent jumble of reproach and panegyrick[94]. If any thing can be
yet more faulty than what we have just now seen, it is what follows:
'Whenever he (Shakespeare) solicits his invention, or strains his
faculties[95], the offspring of his _throes_ is _tumour_ (i. e. _puffy_
grandeur[96]), _meanness_, _tediousness_, and _obscurity_. His
declamations or set speeches are _commonly cold and weak_.' The _set
speeches_ (as the Doctor elegantly terms them) of Petruchio, of Jacques,
of Wolsey, and of Hamlet, are _perhaps_ neither cold nor weak. The
conclusion of this period is worthy of such a beginning; he mentions
certain attempts from which Shakespeare 'seldom escapes without the pity
or resentment of his reader.' The Doctor himself is an object of pity.
Shakespeare has been in his grave near two centuries--His life was
innocent--His writings are immortal. To feel resentment against so great
a man because his works are not every where equal, is an idea highly
becoming the generosity of Dr Johnson.
What 'truth, moral or political,' is promoted by telling us, that, when
Thomson came to London, _his first want was a pair of shoes_; that Pope
'wore a kind of fur doublet, under a shirt of very coarse warm linen,
with fine sleeves[97];' and a long string of such tiresome and disgusting
trifles, which make his narrative seem ridiculous. Had Dr Johnson been
Pope's apothecary, we would certainly have heard of the frequency of his
pulse, the colour of his water, and the quantity of his stools.
'Though Pope seemed angry when a dram was offered him, he did not
forbear to drink it[98].' And who the Devil cares whether he did or not?
The Doctor needed hardly to have told us, that 'his petty peculiarities
were communicated by a female domestic;' for no gentleman would have
confessed that they came within the reach of his observation.
The _truly illustrious_ author of the RAMBLER, has exerted his venemous
eloquence, _through several pages_, in order to convince us, that 'never
were penury of knowledge and _vulgarity_ of sentiment so happily
disguised,' as in Pope's Essay on Man. For this purpose, the Doctor
celebrates the character of Crousaz, whose intentions 'were _always_
right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure[99].' In
opposition to such authorities, let us hear the great and immortal
citizen of Geneva.
'M. de Crousaz has lately given us a refutation of the ethic epistles of
Mr Pope, which I have read; but it did not please me. I will not take
upon me to say, which of these two authors is in the right; but I am
persuaded, that the book of the former will never excite the reader to
do any one virtuous action, whereas _our zeal for every thing great and
good is awakened by that of_ POPE[100].'
The Essay on Man, he says, 'affords an egregious instance of the
predominance of genius, the dazzling splendour of imagery, and the
seductive powers of eloquence. The reader feels his mind full, though he
learns NOTHING; and when he meets it in its new array, no longer knows
the talk of his mother, and his nurse[101].' If the conversations of Dr
Johnson's mother and his nurse were equal to Mr Pope's verses, it is a
pity the Doctor had not preserved them. He could hardly have spent his
time so well. And it is a wonder that with so many rare opportunities of
improvement, the Doctor has never yet eclipsed his nurse. Voltaire
pronounces Pope's Essay to be the finest didactick poem in the world,
and he would no doubt have replied to the Doctor's objections in that
tone of contempt with which the Doctor replied to some of his--'These
are the petty cavils of petty minds[102].'
In the Essay on Man 'so little was any evil tendency discovered, that,
as innocence is unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of
piety[103];'--and will continue to read it, when the cavils of Dr
Johnson are forgotten or despised.
'He (Pope) nursed in his mind a foolish disesteem of Kings.' And again,
'He gratified that ambitious petulance with which he affected to insult
the great[104].'
Dr Johnson himself is by no means remarkable for his respect to the
great. In the preface to his folio Dictionary, he tells us, that it was
written 'without any patronage of the _great_,' which is a mistake; for
he had published a pamphlet, some years before, wherein he acknowledges,
that Chesterfield had patronized him; and why the Doctor should retract
his own words, it is hard to say; for Chesterfield continued his friend
to the last; and such a man was very likely _the strongest spoke in the
Doctor's wheel_. But his Lordship is now dead, and the Doctor is always
and eminently _grateful_.
'It has been maintained by some, _who love to talk of what they do not
know_, that pastoral is the _most antient_ poetry.' But in the next
period, 'pastoral poetry was the _first_ employment of the human
imagination[105].' The Doctor, therefore, by his own account, is one of
those, _who love to talk of_ (and what is yet worse, to assert) _what
they do not know_. In North America, the natives have no conception of
pastoral life among themselves, and their poetry, such as it is, hath no
relation to that state of society.
Pastoral poetry 'is generally pleasing, because it entertains the mind
with representations of scenes, familiar to _almost every_ imagination,
and of which _all_ can equally judge whether they are well described, or
not[106].'
This period is so closely interwoven with nonsense, that it will take
some pains to disentangle it. Rural scenes are not familiar to _almost
every_ imagination. In England half the people are shut up in large
towns, and such is the gross ignorance of some of them, that an old
woman in London once asked, _whether potatoes grew on trees_. Neither is
every man an equal judge even of what is familiar to him. Observe how
the Rambler confounds the distinction between _all_, and _almost every_.
The whole number is in the same stile.
'At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole had
filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the
want, and with care for liberty which was not in danger[107].'
No man was more violent than Dr Johnson in abusing Walpole. We have
already seen some of those political definitions, which at this hour
deform the Doctor's Dictionary. His late zeal for government could arise
from self interest only. And to take his own words, he comes under
suspicion _as a wretch hired to vindicate the late measures of the
Court_[108]. He accuses Milton as a tool of authority, as a forger hired
to assassinate the memory of Charles I. These charges came with a very
bad grace from the Rambler. They are long since refuted in a separate
publication, and yet they will be reprinted in every future edition of
his book.
Will any man be the wiser, the better, or the merrier, by reading what
follows--'Lyttleton was his (Shenstone's) neighbour, and his rival,
whose empire, spacious and opulent, looked with disdain on the _petty
state_ that appeared behind it. For a while the inhabitants of Hagley
affected to tell their acquaintance of the _little fellow_ that was
trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced
themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which
they could not suppress, by conducting their visitants perversely to
inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a
walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily
complain[109].' The paragraph closes with a _deep_ observation.