With these beautiful turns I confess myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a conversation which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller, and Sir John Denham. ... This hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my youth, the famous Cowley.' Dryden's Works, ed. 1821, xiii. III.
[134] In one of his letters to Nichols, Johnson says:--'You have now all Cowley. I have been drawn to a great length, but Cowley or Waller never had any critical examination before.' Gent. Mag. 1785, p.9.
[135] Life of Sheffield. BOSWELL. Johnson's Works, vii. 485.
[136] See, however, p.11 of this volume, where the same remark is made and Johnson is there speaking of prose. MALONE.
[137]
'Purpureus, late qui splendeat unus et alter Assuitur pannus.'
'... Shreds of purple with broad lustre shine Sewed on your poem.'
FRANCIS. Horace, Ars Poet. 15.
[138] The original reading is enclosed in crochets, and the present one is printed in Italicks. BOSWELL.
[139] I have noticed a few words which, to our ears, are more uncommon than at least two of the three that Boswell mentions; as, 'Languages divaricate,' Works, vii. 309; 'The mellifluence of Pope's numbers,' ib. 337; 'A subject flux and transitory,' ib. 389; 'His prose is pure without scrupulosity,' ib. 472; 'He received and accommodated the ladies' (said of one serving behind the counter), ib. viii. 62; 'The prevalence of this poem was gradual,' ib. p. 276; 'His style is sometimes concatenated,' ib. p. 458. Boswell, on the next page, supplies one more instance--'Images such as the superficies of nature readily supplies.'
[140] See ante, iii. 249.
[141] Veracious is perhaps one of the 'four or five words' which Johnson added, or thought that he added, to the English language. Ante, i. 221. He gives it in his Dictionary, but without any authority for it. It is however older than his time.
[142] See Johnson's Works, vii. 134, 212, and viii. 386.
[143] Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 452) writes of Johnson's 'Billingsgate on Milton.' A later letter shows that, like so many of Johnson's critics, he had not read the Life. Ib. p. 508.
[144] Works, vii. 108.
[145] Thirty years earlier he had written of Milton as 'that poet whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated.' Ante, i. 230. See ante, ii. 239.
[146] Earl Stanhope (Life of Pitt, ii. 65) describes this Society in 1790, 'as a Club, till then of little note, which had a yearly festival in commemoration of the events of 1688. It had been new-modelled, and enlarged with a view to the transactions at Paris, but still retained its former name to imply a close connection between the principles of 1688 in England, and the principles of 1789 in France.' The Earl Stanhope of that day presided at the anniversary meeting on Nov. 4, 1789. Nov. 4 was the day on which William III. landed.
[147] See An Essay on the Life, Character, and writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a proper allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; whom I cannot however but admire for his liberality in speaking thus of my illustrious friend:--
'He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, and his judgement 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 him for nervous and pointed repartees.'
'His Dictionary, 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.
[148] Boswell paraphrases the following passage:--'The King, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other example, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or his father's wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all, except those whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliament doomed none to capital punishment but the wretches who had immediately co-operated in the murder of the King. Milton was certainly not one of them; he had only justified what they had done.' Johnson's Works, vii. 95.
[149] 'Though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues, In darkness, and with dangers compast round.' Paradise Lost, vii.