hands, and discriminating. JOHNSON. "No, Sir. There is, to be sure, in Sheridan, something to reprehend and every thing to laugh at; but, Sir, he is not a bad man. No, Sir; were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand considerably within the ranks of good. And, Sir, it must be allowed that Sheridan excels in plain declamation, though he can exhibit no character." I should, perhaps, have suppressed this disquisition concerning a person of whose merit and worth I think with respect, had he not attacked Johnson so outrageously in his Life of Swift, and, at the same time, treated us his admirers as a set of pigmies. (1) He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it. Mrs. Montagu, a lady distinguished for having written an Essay on Shakspeare, being mentioned: REYNOLDS. “I think that essay does her honour." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; it does her honour, but it would do nobody else honour. I have, indeed, not read it all. But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery. Sir, I will venture to say, there is not one sentence of true criticism in her book." GARRICK. "But, Sir, surely it shows how much Voltaire has mistaken Shakspeare, which nobody else has done." JOHNSON. "Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while. And what merit is there (1) ["There is a writer, at present of gigantic fame in these days of little men, who has pretended to scratch out a Life of Swift, but so miserably executed as only to reflect back on himself that disgrace, which he meant to throw upon the character of the Dean."- SHERIDAN.] in that? You may as well praise a schoolmaster for whipping a boy who has construed ill. No, Sir, there is no real criticism in it: none showing the beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human heart." The admirers of this Essay (1) may be offended at the slighting manner in which Johnson spoke of it: but let it be remembered, that he gave his honest opinion unbiassed by any prejudice, or any proud jealousy of a woman intruding herself into the chair of criticism; for Sir Joshua Reynolds has told me, that when the Essay first came out, and it was not known who had written it, Johnson wondered how Sir Joshua could like it. At this time Sir Joshua himself had received no information concerning the author, except being assured by one of our most eminent literati, that it was clear its author did not know the Greek tragedies in the original. One day at Sir Joshua's table, when it was related that Mrs. Montagu, in an excess of compliment to the author of a modern tragedy (2), had exclaimed, “I tremble for Shakspeare," Johnson said, "When Shakspeare (1) Of whom I acknowledge myself to be one, considering it as a piece of the secondary or comparative species of criticism; and not of that profound species which alone Dr. Johnson would allow to be "real criticism." It is, besides, clearly and elegantly expressed, and has done effectually what it professed to do, namely, vindicated Shakspeare from the misrepresentations of Voltaire; and considering how many young people were misled by his witty, though false observations, Mrs. Montagu's Essay was of service to Shakspeare with a certain class of readers, and is, therefore, entitled to praise. Johnson, I am assured, allowed the merit which I have stated, saying (with reference to Voltaire), "It is conclusive ad hominem." (2) Probably Mr. Jephson, the author of "Braganza." — C. has gotfor his rival, and Mrs. Montagu for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed." (1) Johnson proceeded : "The Scotchman has taken the right method in his 'Elements of Criticism.' I do not mean that he has taught us any thing; but he has told us old things in a new way." MURPHY. "He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomising the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it." GOLDSMITH. "It is easier to write that book, than to read it." JOHNSON. "We have an example of true criticism in Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful;' and, if I recollect, there is also Du Bos (2); and Bouhours (3), who shews all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this ghost is better than that. You must shew how terror is impressed on the human heart. In the description of night in (1) And yet when Mrs. Montagu_showed him some China plates which had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth, he told her, "that they had no reason to be ashamed of their present possessor, who was so little inferior to the first.". PIOZZI. It has been generally supposed, that the coolness between Mrs. Montagu and Dr. Johnson arose out of his treatment of Lord Lyttelton, in the "Lives of the Poets;" but we see that he began to speak disrespectfully of her long before that publication; and, indeed, there is hardly any point of Dr. Johnson's conduct less respectable, than the contemptuous way in which he appears to have sometimes spoken of a lady, to whom he continued to address such extravagant compliments as that quoted by Mrs. Piozzi, and to write such flattering letters as we shall read in the course of this work. - C. (2) [Reflexions Critiques sur la Poésie et sur la Peinture.] Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness inspissated gloom." (1) Politics being mentioned, he said, "This petitioning (2) is a new mode of distressing government, and a mighty easy one. I will undertake to get petitions either against quarter guineas or half guineas, with the help of a little hot wine. There must be no yielding to encourage this. The object is not important enough. We are not to blow up half a dozen palaces, because one cottage is burning." The conversation then took another turn. JOHNSON. "It is amazing what ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence. A wit about town, who wrote Latin bawdy verses, asked me, how it happened that England and Scotland, which were once two kingdoms, were now one: and Sir Fletcher Norton did not seem to know that there were such publications as the Reviews." The ballad of Hardyknute (3) has no great merit, (1) [ "Ere the bat hath flown His cloister'd flight; ere, to black Hecat's summons (2) A great number of petitions, condemnatory of the proceedings against Mr. Wilkes, and inflamed with all the violence of party, were at this period presented to the King. — C. (3) It is unquestionably a modern fiction. It was written by Sir John Bruce of Kinross, and first published at Edinburgh in folio, 1719. See "Percy's Relics of ancient English Poetry," vol. ii. pp. 96. 111. Fourth edition. MALONE. Mr. Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, who has favoured me with several notes and corrections, says, that the real author of the ballad was Lady Wardlaw, daughter of Sir Charles Halket, of Pitferrane, Bart., and wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie, Bart. she died about 1727. The reason why Sir John But if it be really ancient. People talk of nature. mere obvious nature may be exhibited with very of mind." little power On Thursday, October 19. I passed the evening with him at his house. He advised me to complete a Dictionary of words peculiar to Scotland, of which I showed him a specimen. "Sir," said he, "Ray (1) has made a collection of north-country words. By collecting those of your country, you will do a useful thing towards the history of the language." He bade me also go on with collections which I was making upon the antiquities of Scotland. "Make a large book; a folio." BOSWELL. "But of what use will it be, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Never mind the use; do it." I complained that he had not mentioned Garrick in his Preface to Shakspeare; and asked him if he did not admire him. JOHNSON. "Yes, as a poor player, who frets and struts his hour upon the stage ;' as a shadow." BoswELL. "But has he not brought Shakspeare into notice?" JOHNSON. "Sir, to allow that, would be to lampoon the age. Many of Shakspeare's plays are the worse for being acted: Macbeth, for instance." BosWELL. "What, Sir, is nothing gained by decoration and action? Indeed, I Bruce's name has been mentioned was, probably, that she introduced her ballad to the world by the hands of that gentleman, who was her brother-in-law.-C. 1835. [The ballad of Hardyknute was the first poem I ever read, and it will be the last I shall forget. - SIR WALTER SCOTT.] (1) [John Ray, author of the "Historia Plantarum," English Proverbs," &c. was born in 1628, and died in 1705.] |
