Selected Essays (Penguin Classics)

by Samuel Johnson

  But he did not trust so much to natural sagacity, as wholly to neglect the help of books. When the theatres were shut, he retired to Richmond with a few select writers, whose opinions he impressed upon his memory by unwearied diligence; and when he returned with other wits to the town, was able to tell, in very proper phrases, that the chief business of art is to copy nature; that a perfect writer is not to be expected, because genius decays as judgment increases; that the great art is the art of blotting, and that according to the rule of Horace every piece should be kept nine years.1

  Of the great Authors he now began to display the Characters, laying down as an universal position that all had beauties and defects. His opinion was,2 that Shakespear, committing himself

  wholly to the impulse of Nature, wanted that correctness which learning would have given him; and that Johnson,3 trusting to learning, did not sufficiently cast his eye on Nature. He blamed the Stanza of Spenser, and could not bear the Hexameters of Sidney. Denham and Waller he held the first reformers of English Numbers, and thought that if Waller could have obtained the strength of Denham, or Denham the sweetness of Waller, there had been nothing wanting to complete a Poet. He often expressed his commiseration of Dryden’s poverty, and his indignation at the age which suffered him to write for bread; he repeated with rapture the first lines of All for Love, but wondered at the corruption of taste which could bear any thing so unnatural as rhyming Tragedies. In Otway4 he found uncommon powers of moving the passions, but was disgusted by his general negligence, and blamed him for making a Conspirator his Hero; and never concluded his disquisition, without remarking how happily the sound of the clock is made to alarm the audience. Southern5 would have been his favourite, but that he mixes comick with tragick scenes, intercepts the natural course of the passions, and fills the mind with a wild confusion of mirth and melancholy. The versification of Rowe6 he thought too melodious for the stage, and too little varied in different passions. He made it the great fault of Congreve,7 that all his persons were wits, and that he always wrote with more art than nature. He considered Cato rather as a poem than a play, and allowed Addison8 to be the complete master of Allegory and grave humour, but paid no great deference to him as a Critick. He thought the chief merit of Prior9 was in his easy tales and lighter poems, tho’ he allowed that his Solomon had many noble sentiments elegantly expressed. In Swift10 he discovered an inimitable vein of irony, and an easiness which all would hope and few would attain. Pope11 he was inclined to degrade from a Poet to a Versifier, and thought his Numbers rather luscious than sweet. He often lamented the neglect of Phædra and Hippolitus,12 and wished to see the stage under better regulations.

  These assertions passed commonly uncontradicted; and if now and then an opponent started up, he was quickly repressed by the suffrages of the company, and Minim went away from every dispute with elation of heart and increase of confidence.

  He now grew conscious of his abilities, and began to talk of the present state of dramatick Poetry; wondered what was become of the comick genius which supplied our ancestors with wit and pleasantry, and why no writer could be found that durst now venture beyond a Farce. He saw no reason for thinking that the vein of humour was exhausted, since we live in a country where liberty suffers every character to spread itself to its utmost bulk, and which therefore produces more originals than all the rest of the world together.13 Of Tragedy he concluded business to be the soul, and yet often hinted that love predominates too much upon the modern stage.

  He was now an acknowledged Critick, and had his own seat in the coffee-house, and headed a party in the pit. Minim has more vanity than ill-nature, and seldom desires to do much mischief; he will perhaps murmur a little in the ear of him that sits next him, but endeavours to influence the audience to favour, by clapping when an actor exclaims ye Gods, or laments the misery of his country.

  By degrees he was admitted to Rehearsals, and many of his friends are of opinion, that our present Poets are indebted to him for their happiest thoughts; by his contrivance the bell was rung twice in Barbarossa,14 and by his persuasion the author of Cleone15 concluded his Play without a couplet; for what can be more absurd, said Minim, than that part of a play should be rhymed, and part written in blank verse? and by what acquisition of faculties is the Speaker who never could find rhymes before, enabled to rhyme at the conclusion of an Act!

  He is the great investigator of hidden beauties, and is particularly delighted when he finds the Sound an Echo to the Sense.16 He has read all our Poets with particular attention to this delicacy of Versification, and wonders at the supineness with which their Works have been hitherto perused, so that no man has found the sound of a Drum in this distich,

  When Pulpit, Drum ecclesiastic,

  Was beat with fist instead of a stick;17

  and that the wonderful lines upon Honour and a Bubble have hitherto passed without notice.

  Honour is like the glassy Bubble,

  Which costs Philosophers such trouble,

  Where one part crack’d, the whole does fly,

  And Wits are crack’d to find out why.18

  In these Verses, says Minim, we have two striking accommodations of the Sound to the Sense. It is impossible to utter the two lines emphatically without an act like that which they describe; Bubble and Trouble causing a momentary inflation of the Cheeks by the retention of the breath, which is afterwards forcibly emitted, as in the practice of blowing bubbles. But the greatest excellence is in the third line, which is crack’d in the middle to express a crack, and then shivers into monosyllables. Yet has this diamond lain neglected with common stones, and among the innumerable admirers of Hudibras the observation of this superlative passage has been reserved for the sagacity of Minim.

  No. 61. Saturday, 16 June 1759.

  Mr. Minim had now advanced himself to the zenith of critical reputation; when he was in the Pit, every eye in the Boxes was fixed upon him, when he entered his Coffee-house, he was surrounded by circles of candidates, who passed their noviciate of literature under his tuition; his opinion was asked by all who had no opinion of their own, and yet loved to debate and decide; and no composition was supposed to pass in safety to posterity, till it had been secured by Minim’s approbation.

  Minim professes great admiration of the wisdom and munificence by which the Academies of the Continent were raised, and often wishes for some standard of taste, for some tribunal,1 to which merit may appeal from caprice, prejudice, and malignity. He has formed a plan for an Academy of Criticism, where every work of Imagination may be read before it is printed, and which shall authoritatively direct the Theatres what pieces to receive or reject, to exclude or to revive.

  Such an institution would, in Dick’s opinion, spread the fame of English literature over Europe, and make London the metropolis of elegance and politeness, the place to which the learned and ingenious of all countries would repair for instruction and improvement, and where nothing would any longer be applauded or endured that was not conformed to the nicest rules, and finished with the highest elegance.

  Till some happy conjunction of the planets shall dispose our Princes or Ministers to make themselves immortal by such an Academy, Minim contents himself to preside four nights in a week in a Critical Society selected by himself, where he is heard without contradiction, and whence his judgment is disseminated through the great vulgar and the small.

  When he is placed in the chair of Criticism, he declares loudly for the noble simplicity of our ancestors, in opposition to the petty refinements, and ornamental luxuriance.2 Sometimes he is sunk in despair, and perceives false delicacy daily gaining ground, and sometimes brightens his countenance with a gleam of hope, and predicts the revival of the true sublime. He then fulminates his loudest censures against the monkish barbarity of rhyme;3 wonders how beings that pretend to reason can be pleased with one line always ending like another; tells how unjustly and unnaturally sense is sacrificed to sound; how often the best thoughts are mangled by the necessity of co
nfining or extending them to the dimensions of a couplet; and rejoices that genius has, in our days, shaken off the shackles which had encumbered it so long. Yet he allows that rhyme may sometimes be borne, if the lines be often broken, and the pauses judiciously diversified.

  From Blank Verse he makes an easy transition to Milton, whom he produces as an example of the slow advance of lasting reputation. Milton is the only writer whose books Minim can read for ever without weariness. What cause it is that exempts this pleasure from satiety he has long and diligently enquired, and believes it to consist in the perpetual variation of the numbers,4 by which the ear is gratified and the attention awakened.

  The lines that are commonly thought rugged and unmusical, he conceives to have been written to temper the melodious luxury of the rest, or to express things by a proper cadence: for he scarcely finds a verse that has not this favourite beauty; he declares that he could shiver in a hot-house when he reads that

  the ground

  Burns frore, and cold performs th’ effect of fire.5

  And that when Milton bewails his blindness, the verse

  So thick a drop serene has quench’d these orbs,6

  has, he knows not how, something that strikes him with an obscure sensation like that which he fancies would be felt from the sound of Darkness.

  Minim is not so confident of his rules of Judgment as not very eagerly to catch new light from the name of the author. He is commonly so prudent as to spare those whom he cannot resist, unless, as will sometimes happen, he finds the publick combined against them. But a fresh pretender to fame he is strongly inclined to censure, ’till his own honour requires that he commend him. ’Till he knows the success of a composition, he intrenches himself in general terms; there are some new thoughts and beautiful passages, but there is likewise much which he would have advised the author to expunge. He has several favourite epithets, of which he has never settled the meaning, but which are very commodiously applied to books which he has not read, or cannot understand. One is manly, another is dry, another stiff, and another flimzy; sometimes he discovers delicacy of style, and sometimes meets with strange expressions.

  He is never so great, or so happy, as when a youth of promising parts is brought to receive his directions for the prosecution of his studies. He then puts on a very serious air; he advises the pupil to read none but the best Authors, and, when he finds one congenial to his own mind, to study his beauties, but avoid his faults, and, when he sits down to write, to consider how his favourite Author would think at the present time on the present occasion. He exhorts him to catch those moments when he finds his thoughts expanded and his genius exalted, but to take care lest imagination hurry him beyond the bounds of Nature. He holds Diligence the mother of Success, yet enjoins him, with great earnestness, not to read more than he can digest, and not to confuse his mind by pursuing studies of contrary tendencies. He tells him, that every man has his genius, and that Cicero could never be a Poet. The boy retires illuminated, resolves to follow his genius, and to think how Milton would have thought; and Minim feasts upon his own beneficence till another day brings another Pupil.

  No. 65. Saturday, 14 July 1759.

  The Sequel of Clarendon’s History,1 at last happily published, is an accession to English Literature equally agreeable to the admirers of elegance and the lovers of truth; many doubtful facts may now be ascertained, and many questions, after long debate, may be determined by decisive authority. He that records transactions in which himself was engaged, has not only an opportunity of knowing innumerable particulars which escape spectators, but has his natural powers exalted by that ardour which always rises at the remembrance of our own importance, and by which every man is enabled to relate his own actions better than another’s.

  The difficulties thro’ which this Work has struggled into light, and the delays with which our hopes have been long mocked, naturally lead the mind to the consideration of the common fate of posthumous compositions.

  He who sees himself surrounded by admirers, and whose vanity is hourly feasted with all the luxuries of studied praise, is easily persuaded that his influence will be extended beyond his life; that they who cringe in his presence will reverence his memory, and that those who are proud to be numbered among his friends, will endeavour to vindicate his choice by zeal for his reputation.

  With hopes like these, to the Executors of Swift was committed the History of the last years of Queen Anne, and to those of Pope the Works which remained unprinted in his closet. The performances of Pope were burnt by those whom he had perhaps selected from all mankind as most likely to publish them; and the History had likewise perished, had not a straggling transcript fallen into busy hands.

  The Papers left in the closet of Peiresc supplied his heirs with a whole winter’s fuel,2 and many of the labours of the learned Bishop Lloyd3 were consumed in the kitchen of his descendants.

  Some Works, indeed, have escaped total destruction, but yet have had reason to lament the fate of Orphans exposed to the frauds of unfaithful Guardians. How Hale would have borne the mutilations which his Pleas of the Crown have suffered from the Editor, they who know his character will easily conceive.4

  The original Copy of Burnet’s History, tho’ promised to some publick* Library, has been never given;5 and who then can prove the fidelity of the publication, when the authenticity of Clarendon’s History, tho’ printed with the sanction of one of the first Universities of the World, had not an unexpected manuscript been happily discovered, would, with the help of factious credulity, have been brought into question by the two lowest of all human beings,6 a Scribbler for a Party, and a Commissioner of Excise?

  Vanity is often no less mischievous than negligence or dishonesty. He that possesses a valuable Manuscript, hopes to raise its esteem by concealment, and delights in the distinction which he imagines himself to obtain by keeping the key of a treasure which he neither uses nor imparts. From him it falls to some other owner, less vain but more negligent, who considers it as useless lumber, and rids himself of the incumbrance.

  Yet there are some works which the Authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust. He that writes the history of his own times, if he adheres steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure. He must be content to reposite his book till all private passions shall cease, and love and hatred give way to curiosity.

  But many leave the labour of half their life to their executors and to chance, because they will not send them abroad unfinished, and are unable to finish them, having prescribed to themselves such a degree of exactness as human diligence scarcely can attain. Lloyd, says Burnet, did not lay out his learning with the same diligence as he laid it in.7 He was always hesitating and enquiring, raising objections and removing them, and waiting for clearer light and fuller discovery. Baker, after many years past in Biography, left his manuscripts to be buried in a library, because that was imperfect which could never be perfected.8

  Of these learned men let those who aspire to the same praise, imitate the diligence and avoid the scrupulosity. Let it be always remembered that life is short, that knowledge is endless, and that many doubts deserve not to be cleared. Let those whom nature and study have qualified to teach mankind, tell us what they have learned while they are yet able to tell it, and trust their reputation only to themselves.

  No. 66. Saturday, 21 July 1759.

  No complaint is more frequently repeated among the learned, than that of the waste made by time among the labours of Antiquity. Of those who once filled the civilized world with their renown nothing is now left but their names, which are left only to raise desires that never can be satisfied, and sorrow which never can be comforted.

  Had all the writings of the ancients been faithfully delivered down from age to age, had the Alexandrian library been spared, and the Palatine repositories1 remained unimpaired, how much might we have known of which we are now doomed to be ignorant; how
many laborious enquiries, and dark conjectures, how many collations of broken hints and mutilated passages might have been spared. We should have known the Successions of Princes, the Revolutions of Empire, the Actions of the Great, and Opinions of the Wise, the Laws and Constitutions of every State, and the Arts by which public Grandeur and Happiness are acquired and preserved. We should have traced the progress of Life, seen Colonies from distant regions take possession of European deserts, and troops of Savages settled into Communities by the desire of keeping what they had acquired; we should have traced the gradations of civility, and travelled upward to the original of things by the light of History, till in remoter times it had glimmered in fable, and at last sunk into darkness.

  If the works of imagination had been less diminished, it is likely that all future times might have been supplied with inexhaustible amusement by the fictions of Antiquity. The Tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides would have shewn all the stronger passions in all their diversities, and the Comedies of Menander2 would have furnished all the maxims of domestic life. Nothing would have been necessary to moral wisdom but to have studied these great Masters, whose knowledge would have guided doubt, and whose authority would have silenced cavils.