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Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1

S >> Samuel Johnson >> Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1




The sons of art all med'cines try'd,
And ev'ry noble remedy apply'd:

With emulation each essay'd
His utmost skill; _nay, more, they prayd;_
Was never losing game with better conduct play'd.

He had been a little inclined to merriment before upon the prayers of
a nation for their dying sovereign; nor was he serious enough to keep
heathen fables out of his religion:

With him th' innumerable crowd of armed prayers
Knock'd at the gates of heav'n, and knock'd aloud;
_The first well-meaning rude petitioners_
All for his life assail'd the throne;
All would have brib'd the skies by off'ring up their own.
So great a throng not heav'n itself could bar;
'Twas almost borne by force, _as in the giants' war._
The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve were heard:
His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd.

There is, throughout the composition, a desire of splendour without
wealth. In the conclusion he seems too much pleased with the prospect of
the new reign to have lamented his old master with much sincerity.

He did not miscarry in this attempt for want of skill either in lyrick or
elegiack poetry. His 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: "Fervet immensusque ruit." All the stanzas,
indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond;
the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter.

In his first ode for Cecilia's day, which is lost in the splendour of the
second, there are passages which would have dignified any other poet. The
first stanza is vigorous and elegant, though the word _diapason_ is too
technical, and the rhymes are too remote from one another:

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high.
Arise, ye more than dead.

Then cold and hot, and moist and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And musick's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began;
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in man.

The conclusion is likewise striking; but it includes an image so awful in
itself, that it can owe little to poetry; and I could wish the antithesis
of _musick untuning_ had found some other place:

As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move.
And sung the great creator's praise
To all the bless'd above:

So, when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the sky.

Of his skill in elegy he has given a specimen in his Eleonora, of which
the following lines discover their author:

Though all these rare endowments of the mind
Were in a narrow space of life confin'd,
The figure was with full perfection crown'd;
Though not so large an orb, as truly round:
As when in glory, through the publick place,
The spoils of conquer'd nations were to pass,
And but one day for triumph was allow'd,
The consul was constrain'd his pomp to crowd;
And so the swift procession hurry'd on,
That all, tho' not distinctly, might be shown;
So, in the straiten'd bounds of life confin'd,
She gave but glimpses of her glorious mind:
And multitudes of virtues pass'd along;
Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng,
Ambitious to be seen, and then make room
For greater multitudes that were to come.

Yet unemployed no minute slipp'd away;
Moments were precious in so short a stay.
The haste of heaven to have her was so great,
That some were single acts, though each complete;
And ev'ry act stood ready to repeat.

This piece, however, is not without its faults; there is so much likeness
in the initial comparison, that there is no illustration. As a king would
be lamented, Eleonora was lamented:

As, when some great and gracious monarch dies,
Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise
Among the sad attendants; then the sound
Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around,
Through town and country, till the dreadful blast
Is blown to distant colonies at last;
Who then, perhaps, were off'ring vows in vain,
For his long life, and for his happy reign:
So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fame
Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim,
Till publick as the loss the news became.

This is little better than to say in praise of a shrub, that it is as
green as a tree; or of a brook, that it waters a garden, as a river
waters a country.

Dryden confesses that he did not know the lady whom he celebrates: the
praise being, therefore, inevitably general, fixes no impression upon the
reader, nor excites any tendency to love, nor much desire of imitation.
Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the
architect.

The Religio Laici, which borrows its title from the Religio Medici of
Browne, is almost the only work of Dryden which can be considered as a
voluntary effusion; in this, therefore, it might be hoped, that the full
effulgence of his genius would be found. But, unhappily, the subject
is rather argumentative than poetical; he intended only a specimen of
metrical disputation:

And this unpolish'd rugged verse I chose
As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.

This, however, is a composition of great excellence in its kind, in which
the familiar is very properly diversified with the solemn, and the grave
with the humorous; in which metre has neither weakened the force, nor
clouded the perspicuity of argument; nor will it be easy to find another
example equally happy of this middle kind of writing, which, though
prosaick in some parts, rises to high poetry in others, and neither
towers to the skies, nor creeps along the ground.

Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, is the Hind and Panther,
the longest of all Dryden's original poems; an allegory intended to
comprise and to decide the controversy between the Romanists and
protestants. The scheme of the work is injudicious and incommodious; for
what can be more absurd, than that one beast should counsel another to
rest her faith upon a pope and council? He seems well enough skilled in
the usual topicks of argument, endeavours to show the necessity of an
infallible judge, and reproaches the reformers with want of unity; but
is weak enough to ask, why, since we see without knowing how, we may not
have an infallible judge without knowing where?

The hind, at one time, is afraid to drink at the common brook, because
she may be worried; but, walking home with the panther, talks by the way
of the Nicene fathers, and at last declares herself to be the catholick
church.

This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country
Mouse of Montague and Prior; and, in the detection and censure of
the incongruity of the fiction, chiefly consists the value of their
performance, which, whatever reputation it might obtain by the help of
temporary passions, seems, to readers almost a century distant, not very
forcible or animated.

Pope, whose judgment was, perhaps, a little bribed by the subject,
used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's
versification. It was, indeed, written when he had completely formed
his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his
deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre. We may, therefore, reasonably
infer, that he did not approve the perpetual uniformity which confines
the sense to couplets, since he has broken his lines in the initial
paragraph:

A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd.
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd:
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.
Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and hounds,
And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds
Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly,
And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.

These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, notwithstanding the
interruption of the pause, of which the effect is rather increase of
pleasure by variety, than offence by ruggedness.

To the first part it was his intention, he says, "to give the majestick
turn of heroick poesy;" and, perhaps, he might have executed his design
not unsuccessfully, had not an opportunity of satire, which he cannot
forbear, fallen sometimes in his way. The character of a presbyterian,
whose emblem is the wolf, is not very heroically majestick:

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race
Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face:
Never was so deform'd a beast of grace.
His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears,
Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears,
And pricks up his predestinating ears.

His general character of the other sorts of beasts that never go to
church, though sprightly and keen, has, however, not much of heroick
poesy:

These are the chief; to number o'er the rest,
And stand like Adam naming ev'ry beast,
Were weary work; nor will the muse describe
A slimy-born, and sun-begotten tribe,

Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound,
In fields their sullen conventicles found.
These gross, half-animated lumps I leave;
Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive;
But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher
Than matter, put in motion, may aspire;
Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,
So drossy, so divisible are they,
As would but serve pure bodies for allay:
Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things
As only buzz to heaven with evening wings;
Strike in the dark, offending but by chance;
Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.
They know no being, and but hate a name;
To them the hind and panther are the same.

One more instance, and that taken from the narrative part, where style
was more in his choice, will show how steadily he kept his resolution of
heroick dignity:

For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repair
To ferny heaths and to their forest lair,
She made a mannerly excuse to stay,
Proff'ring the hind to wait her half the way;
That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk
Might help her to beguile the tedious walk.
With much good-will the motion was embrac'd,
To chat awhile on their adventures past:
Nor had the grateful hind so soon forgot
Her friend and fellow-suff'rer in the plot.
Yet, wond'ring how of late she grew estrang'd,
Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance chang'd,
She thought this hour th' occasion would present
To learn her secret cause of discontent,
Which well she hop'd might be with ease redress'd,
Consid'ring her a well-bred civil beast.
And more a gentlewoman than the rest.
After some common talk what rumours ran,
The lady of the spotted muff began.

The second and third parts he professes to have reduced to diction more
familiar and more suitable to dispute and conversation; the difference is
not, however, very easily perceived; the first has familiar, and the two
others have sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs through the
whole: the king is now Caesar, and now the Lion; and the name Pan is
given to the supreme being.

But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven, the poem must be
confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of
knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is
embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and
enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions
are made are now become obscure, and, perhaps, there may be many
satirical passages little understood.

As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would
naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was
probably laboured with uncommon attention; and there are, indeed, few
negligencies in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety, and the
subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of
its first elements, has sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully
studied, as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument
suffers little from the metre.

In the poem on the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very
remarkable but the exorbitant adulation, and that insensibility of
the precipice on which the king was then standing, which the laureate
apparently shared with the rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him
of controversy, dismissed him from court, and made him again a playwright
and translator.

Of Juvenal there had been a translation by Stapylton, and another by
Holiday; neither of them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth; and
Holiday's is more esteemed for the learning of his notes. A new version
was proposed to the poets of that time, and undertaken by them in
conjunction. The main design was conducted by Dryden, whose reputation
was such that no man was unwilling to serve the muses under him.

The general character of this translation will be given when it is
said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The
peculiarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed
sentences and declamatory grandeur. His points have not been neglected;
but his grandeur none of the band seemed to consider as necessary to be
imitated, except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth satire. It is,
therefore, perhaps, possible to give a better representation of that
great satirist, even in those parts which Dryden himself has translated,
some passages excepted, which will never be excelled.

With Juvenal was published Persius, translated wholly by Dryden. This
work, though like all the other productions of Dryden it may have shining
parts, seems to have been written merely for wages, in an uniform
mediocrity without any eager endeavour after excellence, or laborious
effort of the mind.

There wanders an opinion among the readers of poetry that one of
these satires is an exercise of the school. Dryden says, that he once
translated it at school; but not that he preserved or published the
juvenile performance.

Not long afterwards he undertook, perhaps, the most arduous work of its
kind, a translation of Virgil, for which he had shown how well he was
qualified, by his version of the Pollio, and two episodes, one of Nisus
and Euryalus, the other of Mezentius and Lausus.

In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of
Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is
grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are, therefore,
difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The
massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of
elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own
images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must, at
all hazards, follow his original, and express thoughts which, perhaps,
he would not have chosen. When to this primary difficulty is added the
inconvenience of a language so much inferiour in harmony to the Latin, it
cannot be expected that they who read the Georgicks and the Aeneid should
be much delighted with any version.

All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter.
The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered
its honour as interested in the event. One gave him the different
editions of his author, and another helped him in the subordinate parts.
The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison.

The hopes of the publick were riot disappointed. He produced, says Pope,
"the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language." It
certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have
satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his
enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it; but his outrages
seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than
bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased.

His criticism extends only to the Preface, Pastorals, and Georgicks; and,
as he professes to give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, he has
added his own version of the first and fourth Pastorals, and the first
Georgick. The world has forgotten his book; but, since his attempt has
given him a place in literary history, I will preserve a specimen of his
criticism, by inserting his remarks on the invocation before the first
Georgick, and of his poetry, by annexing his own version.

Ver. 1.

"What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn
The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn.

"It's _unlucky_, they say, _to stumble at the threshold_: but what has
a _plenteous harvest_ to do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescribe
_rules_ for _that_ which depends not on the _husbandman's_ care, but the
_disposition of heaven_ altogether. Indeed, the _plenteous crop_ depends
somewhat on the _good method of tillage_; and where the _land'_s
ill-manur'd, the _corn_, without a miracle, can be but _indifferent_; but
the _harvest_ may be _good_, which is its _properest_ epithet, tho' the
_husbandman's skill_ were never so _indifferent_. The next _sentence_
is _too literal_: and _when to plough_ had been _Virgil's_ meaning, and
intelligible to every body; and _when to sow the corn_, is a needless
_addition_.

Ver. 3.

"The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine,
And when to geld the lambs, and shear the swine,

"would as well have fallen under the _cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit
pecori_, as Mr. D.'s _deduction_ of particulars.

Ver. 5

"The birth and genius of the frugal bee
I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee.

"But where did _experientia_ ever signify _birth andgenius_? or what
ground was there for such a _figure_ in this place? How much more manly
is Mr. Ogylby's version?

"What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs
'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines:
What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees,
And several arts improving frugal bees;
I sing, Maecenas.

"Which four lines, though faulty enough, are yet much more to the purpose
than Mr. D.'s six.

Ver. 22.

"From fields and mountains to my song repair.

"For _patrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lycaei_--Very well explained!

Ver. 23, 24.

"Inventor Pallas, of the fatt'ning oil,
Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil!

"Written as if _these_ had been _Pallas's invention_. The _ploughman's
toil's_ impertinent.

Ver. 25.

"The shroud-like cypress----

"Why _shroud-like_? Is a _cypress_ pulled up by the _roots_, which the
_sculpture_ in the _last Eclogue_ fills _Silvanus's_ hand with, so very
like a _shroud_? Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind of _cypress_ used
often for _scarves and hatbands_, at funerals formerly, or for _widows'
veils_, &c. ? If so, 'twas a _deep, good thought_.

Ver. 26.

"That wear
The royal honours, and increase the year.

"What's meant by _increasing the year_? Did the _gods_ or _goddesses_
add more _months_, or _days_, or _hours_, to it? Or how can _arva tueri_
signify to _wear rural honours_? Is this to _translate_, or _abuse_ an
_author_? The next _couplet_ is borrowed from Ogylby, I suppose, because
_less to the purpose_ than ordinary.

Ver. 33.

"The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard.

"_Idle_, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the _precedent
couplet_; so again, _he interpolates Virgil_ with that and _the round
circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st
around_; a ridiculous _Latinism_, and an _impertinent addition_; indeed
the whole _period_ is but one piece of _absurdity_ and _nonsense_, as
those who lay it with the _original_ must find.

Ver. 42, 43.

"And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.

"Was he _consul_ or _dictator_ there?

"And wat'ry virgins for thy bed shall strive.

"Both absurd _interpolations_."

Ver. 47, 48.

"Where in the void of heaven a place is free.

"_Ah, happy_ D----n, _were_ that place for _thee_!

"But where is _that void_? Or, what does our _translator_ mean by it? He
knows what Ovid says God did to prevent such a void in heaven; perhaps
this was then forgotten: but Virgil talks more sensibly.

Ver. 49.

"The scorpion ready to receive thy laws.

"No, he would not then have _gotten out of his way_ so fast.

Ver. 56.

"Though Proserpine affects her silent seat.

"What made her then so _angry_ with _Ascalaphus_, for preventing her
return? She was now mus'd to _Patience_ under the _determinations of
Fate_, rather than _fond_ of her _residence_,

Ver. 61, 62, 63.

"Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares,
Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs,
And use thyself betimes to hear our prayers.

"Which is such a wretched _perversion_ of Virgil's _noble thought_ as
Vicars would have blushed at; but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends, by his
better lines:

"O, wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline,
And grant assistance to my bold design!
Pity, with me, poor husbandmen's affairs,
And now, as if translated, hear our prayers.

"This is _sense_, and _to the purpose_: the other, poor _mistaken
stuff_."

Such were the strictures of Milbourne, who found few abetters, and of
whom it may be reasonably imagined, that many who favoured his design
were ashamed of his insolence.

When admiration had subsided, the translation was more coolly examined,
and found, like all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and sometimes
licentious. Those who could find faults, thought they could avoid them;
and Dr. Brady attempted, in blank verse, a translation of the Aeneid,
which, when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry,
I have never seen it; but that such a version there is, or has been,
perhaps some old catalogue informed me.

With not much better success, Trapp, when his Tragedy and his Prelections
had given him reputation, attempted another blank version of the Aeneid;
to which, notwithstanding the slight regard with which it was treated, he
had afterwards perseverance enough to add the Eclogues and Georgicks. His
book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandestine refuge
of schoolboys.

Since the English ear has been accustomed to the mellifluence of Pope's
numbers, and the diction of poetry has become more splendid, new attempts
have been made to translate Virgil; and all his works have been attempted
by men better qualified to contend with Dryden. I will not engage myself
in an invidious comparison by opposing one passage to another; a work of
which there would be no end, and which might be often offensive without
use.

It is not by comparing line with line, that the merit of great works is
to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is
easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to
find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by
force into the version: but what is given to the parts may be subducted
from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may
commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by
their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good
in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps
the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness,
and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion
is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon
departing day [122].

By his proportion of this predomination I will consent that Dryden should
be tried; of this, which, in opposition to reason, makes Ariosto the
darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism,
continues Shakespeare the sovereign of the drama.

His last work was his Fables, in which he gave us the first example of a
mode of writing, which the Italians call _refaccimento_, a renovation
of ancient writers, by modernizing their language. Thus the old poem
of Boiardo has been new dressed by Domenichi and Berni. The works of
Chaucer, upon which this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by
Dryden, require little criticism. The tale of the Cock seems hardly
worth revival; and the story of Palamon and Arcite, containing an action
unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be suffered to
pass without censure of the hyperbolical commendation which Dryden has
given it in the general preface, and in a poetical dedication, a piece
where his original fondness of remote conceits seems to have revived.

Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, Sigismunda may be defended by
the celebrity of the story. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not
much moral, yet afforded opportunities of striking description. And Cymon
was formerly a tale of such reputation, that, at the revival of letters,
it was translated into Latin by one of the Beroalds.

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