(published 12 May 1738)
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Text from the Gentleman’s Magazine, lv (January 1785), 4–5. Two letters from Johnson in the early months of 1738 to Edward Cave, the proprietor of the Gentleman’s Magazine. Johnson does not identify himself as the author of his poem; it was published anonymously. |
Sir
When I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I did not expect a repetition of the same pleasure so soon; for a pleasure I shall always think it to converse in any manner with an ingenious and candid man; but having the inclosed poem in my hands to dispose of for the benefit of the author (of whose abilities I shall say nothing, since I send you this performance), I believed I could not procure more advantageous terms from any person than from you, who have so much distinguished yourself by your generous encouragement of poetry; and whose judgement of that art nothing but your commendation of my trifle1 can give me any occasion to call in question. I do not doubt but you will look over this poem with another eye, and reward it in a different manner, from a mercenary bookseller, who counts the lines he is to purchase, and considers nothing but the bulk. I cannot help taking notice, that, besides what the author may hope for on account of his abilities, he has likewise another claim to your regard, as he lies at present under very disadvantageous circumstances of fortune. I beg therefore that you will favour me with a letter to-morrow, that I may know what you can afford to allow him, that he may either part with it to you, or find out (which I do not expect) some other way more to his satisfaction.
I have only to add, that as I am sensible I have transcribed it very coarsely, which, after having altered it, I was obliged to do, I will, if you please to transmit the sheets from the press, correct it for you; and will take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike.
By exerting on this occasion your usual generosity, you will not only encourage learning, and relieve distress, but (though it be in comparison of the other motives of very small account) oblige in a very sensible manner, Sir,
your very humble servant, Sam. Johnson.
Sir
I waited on You to take the copy to Dodsley’s;2 as I remember the number of lines which it contains, it will be longer than Eugenio,3 with the quotations, which must be subjoined at the bottom of the page, part of the beauty of the performance (if any beauty be allowed it) consisting in adapting Juvenals sentiments to modern facts and persons. It will, with those additions, very conveniently make five sheets.
1802
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Text from the Critical Enquiry, 68–80. Mudford (1782–1848) —a journalist and later editor of John Bull— published his Critical Enquiry into the Moral Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson under the pseudonym ‘Attalus’. His ‘essays’ had previously appeared in the London newspaper, the Porcupine in 1801. See Introduction, p. 21. |
…some lines may justly contest even the superiority with Pope. But London presents less of these than the Vanity of Human Wishes. Yet the former is said to have obtained the approbation of a man (Pope) well qualified to judge; who declared that the author of such an excellent work could not be long concealed.1 This story is related, but is, I think, little deserving of credit. Pope, whose ear was accustomed to the nicest harmony, and who could easily discern the minutest deviation from propriety, can hardly be supposed to have overlooked the many weak lines and puerile tautologies which this presents; and if he saw them, it can as little be supposed that he would have conferred upon it such a disqualified commendation.*
It is an invidious mode of criticism to detect and expose trifling errors in a work, which otherwise abounds in beauties; it displays a mean appetence to detraction; and a mind void of sensibility. Yet as much indiscriminate praise has been lavished on this poem of Johnson’s, and [it] has even been preferred by some to his Vanity of Human Wishes, and as its faults have been hitherto unnoticed, a few remarks may be offered without any disingenuous imputation. I am far from wishing to detract
in the smallest degree from the great fame of Johnson, and I am besides aware, that no examination of his poetry can do it, however severe it may be. He has been read, and praised, and imitated, as a philosopher, a moralist, and an elegant prose writer; but none yet ever did, or ever can, confer upon him the appellation of poet. I therefore only propose to myself, in exposing a few trifling errors, to give confidence to unambitious modesty, and to instruct the blind admirers of this stupendous genius that even he is not infallible.
It is always deemed unlucky to stumble upon the threshold. In the third couplet, however, Johnson has fallen into a manifest tautology.
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Resolved at length from vice and London far To breathe in distant fields a purer air. |
This indeed was hardly to have been expected from the usual correctness of his language, which was in general scrupulous of the words adopted, even to a fault. Yet we have the same impropriety again, a few lines afterwards.
With slavish tenets taint our poisoned youth.2
It is impossible to taint a body already poisoned. If there be a weaker line in the namby pamby verses of Philips, or the dull page of Tate,3 I will confess my inability to discover it. It is indeed surprizing, that the perspicuity of Johnson’s mind, which could so readily detect the deviations of other poets, should have been incapable of correcting his own.* But the fondness of a parent, rarely beholds the imperfections of his offspring.
The concluding line of this poem is remarkably weak, and the last part is indeed a mere languid iteration of the former.
These are a few of the faults of this imitation, and these are sufficient
to answer my purpose. I now hasten to the more agreeable task of pointing out some of its most striking beauties, which I trust will be more agreeable to my reader. The description of London is spirited and just; for who can deny but that
Here malice, rapine, accident, conspire,
And now a rabble rages, now a fire;
[quotes to l. 18]
There is something colloquial and vulgar in the expression talks you dead (l. 18), which is not suited to the dignity of poetry. In these lines also, he uses the initial resemblances, or alliterations, though he censures them in his life of Gray.6
Johnson had the power of reasoning in verse, though he did not always reason with cogency, nor did he possess the vigour of Pope in condensing much meaning in a few words. That is a power granted but to few, and is not much the effect of study. But he is seldom more pleasing than in the following lines:
But thou, should tempting villainy present
All Marlborough hoarded or all Villiers spent,
[quotes to l. 90]
After enumerating with indignation, the vices and snares of the metropolis, the poet takes occasion to break out into the following exclamation.
Has heaven reserved in pity to the poor
No pathless waste or undiscovered shore?
[quotes to l. 177]
These are perhaps the beauties of Johnson’s poem, but they surely are not the beauties of poetry.
The Vanity of Human Wishes is by far more energetic, and more pleasing than London. —Whether it be that the author had improved his taste or his judgment; whether he was seized with some sudden inspiration, or whether he was intent upon exposing what he had long beheld with pain and anxiety, I know not; but it certainly contains more masterly touches, more spirited delineations, more vigour of sentiment, and compression of language than his London. This was indeed his favourite topic.
His Vanity of Human Wishes was published the year preceding the
commencement of his Rambler.7 It may therefore be expected to contain some of those sombre pictures, and doleful declamations which that work presents. And this expectation will not be disappointed, for it does in fact abound in them, and they are, in consequence, the most pleasing parts of the poem. Some of these I shall transcribe, as exhibiting more happy efforts of Johnson’s poetic powers.
I will not vouch for the truth of the following lines, but must affirm, that they afford a rich repast to the melancholy mind, and to those whom disappointments have taught the necessity of patience.
On ev’ry stage the foes of peace attend,
Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their end.
[quotes to l. 90]
There is much of keen satire and animated diction in this passage, and it would have been no disgrace to the pen of Pope or Dryden. It has indeed been the opinion of some, that had Johnson cultivated poetry, he would have equalled the former author in his versification, and in his language. Of this no one can be certain; and all conjectures are vain; but there exist no solid grounds for the inference. Those who regard poetry as mechanical, may perhaps believe it; but those who consider it as intuitive and not to be acquired, will reject it as idle. What Johnson could not attain at forty years of age, it is not likely he ever would attain afterwards. It is my opinion, that no labour or study, however assiduous, could possibly have ever rendered him equal to Pope, whose melody and genius yet remain unequalled.
[summarizes and comments on various passages from the Vanity.]
From these quotations it is, I think, manifest how far superior the present poem is to the London of Johnson. While the former contains nothing that is remarkable, this frequently presents striking lines and paragraphs, and is often laboured into dignity; the language is more pure, the ideas more vivid, and the versification more harmonious: yet Johnson’s claim to poetry is very doubtful. He was too much given to reasoning and declamation ever to attain those heights of sublimity which astonish and delight. If he seldom offends by his harshness he as seldom exhilarates by his vivacity; and though he did not detract from our poetic dignity, he cannot be said to have added any thing to it. As his reflections were always melancholy, so his writings have the same cast: and as this is a disease which does not allow very vigorous or very frequent
excursions to the intellect, his images are not much varied; and analogous ideas are generally excited by events the most dissimilar. It was not in his power to assume much variety, nor did he seek to improve this inability by labour; for he was, I believe, little ambitious of the title of poet; an indifference proceeding, perhaps, from a consciousness of natural disqualifications for the exercise of that exalted function. The soft graces he never could attain, though he sometimes exhibits strength and elegance. He was, indeed, soon aware that his abilities did not consist in poetry; for he began it late, and abandoned it early:8 and it is very probable that had he been exempt from want, he never would have produced the imitations of Juvenal. In short, his poetic character may be given in his own words: ‘He is elegant but not great; he never labours after exquisite beauties; and he seldom falls into gross faults. His versification is smooth, but rarely vigorous; and his rhymes are remarkably exact.’9
1804
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Text from Letters to a Young Lady, 273–8. Aikin (1747–1822), brother to Mrs Barbauld (see No. 26), was a prolific writer though a physician by profession. The purpose of his Letters to a Young Lady on a Course of English Poetry, 1804, was to introduce his pupil to ‘a course of poetical reading as may best conduce to the forming of [her] taste and cultivating [her] understanding’. Aikin’s knowledge of Johnson’s poems is more comprehensive than was evident among most contemporary critics. See Introduction, p. 21f. |
An example of what may be done by strong sense, learning and cultivated taste towards producing valuable poetry, without a truly poetical genius, is afforded by several pieces in verse of the celebrated Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON, whose great name in literature has been acquired by his prose compositions. The walk in which a writer so qualified is most likely to succeed, is that of the morally didactic. Energy of language, vigour and compass of thought, and correctness of versification, are the principal requisites for the moral poet; and few have possessed them in a higher degree than the author in question.
His imitations of two satires of Juvenal, under the title of London, and The Vanity of Human Wishes, are, perhaps, the most manly compositions of the kind in our language. The Roman poet is distinguished by the earnest and pointed severity of his invective, as well as by the force of his painting, and the loftiness of his philosophy; and the imitation does not fall short of the original in these respects, whilst it is free from its grossness and impurity. The London indeed, written in the earlier part of Johnson’s literary career, while he was a warm oppositionist in politics, and had scarcely acquired that confirmed relish for the metropolis which afterwards characterised him, has a considerable mixture of coarse exaggeration. The other piece possesses more calm dignity; and the examples drawn from modern history to parallel those from antient history in the original, are, for the most part, well chosen. That of Charles of Sweden is written with peculiar animation. The conclusion, which is sublime in the Latin, is as much more so in the English, as the theology of the modern writer was superior to that of the antient. Nobler lines than the following were never composed:
[quotes Vanity of Human Wishes, ll. 357–64.]
Both these imitations have an excellence to an English reader not always found in compositions of this class—that of being complete in themselves, and not depending for their effect upon allusion to the originals.
The same vigour of thought and style has made Johnson the author of the finest prologue our language can boast, with the exception, perhaps, of Pope’s to [Addison’s] Cato. It was written on the occasion of opening the Drury-lane theatre in 1747, and was meant to usher in that better choice of plays which took place under the management of his friend Garrick. The sketch of the vicissitudes of the English drama is drawn with justness and spirit, and the concluding appeal to the good-sense and taste of the audience is truly dignified. Another prologue, to the benefit-play [Comus] given to Milton’s grand-daughter, is likewise much superior to the ordinary strain of these compositions.
The Odes of Johnson have, I think, the same air of study, the same frigid elegance, which he has derided in those of Akenside. The sublimer flights of the lyric muse he has judiciously not attempted, conscious of his want of enthusiasm; his want of gaiety equally unfitted him for her sprightly strains. The pieces denominated from the four seasons of the year have little characteristic painting: he was, indeed, precluded by corporeal defects from any lively perception of the imagery of rural nature. The translation of Anacreon’s ‘Dove’ is, however, very happily executed. Cowley would have done it with scarcely more ease, and with less elegance.
There is one piece, written, too, at an advanced age, which may be produced as an example of perfection in its kind—I allude to the stanzas on the death of Levett. I know not the poem of equal length in which it would be so difficult to change a single line, or even word, for the better. The subject supplied matter neither for sublimity nor pathos: the mature decease of a man in obscure life, and with no other quality than humble utility, was to be recorded; and who but Johnson could have filled such a meagre outline with such admirable finishing? Every line is a trait of character or sentiment. What a picture of life is given in the following stanza!
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In misery’s darkest caverns known, His useful care was ever nigh, Where hopeless anguish pour’d his groan, And lonely want retir’d to die. |
I confess, that much as I admire the flights of a poetical imagination, it is these sober serious strains to which at present I recur with most delight. Your taste may reasonably be different; yet I trust in the solidity of your understanding to lead you to set a just value upon that verse, which, while it gratifies the ear, also touches and meliorates the heart.
Farewell!