The Works of William Cowper. William Cowper
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#litres_trial_promo">[129] and the writers on whom he has bestowed his animadversions. It is a matter of indifference to me whether I think with the world at large or not, but I wish my friends to be of my mind. The same work will wear a different appearance in the eyes of the same man, according to the different views with which he reads it; if merely for his amusement, his candour being in less danger of a twist from interest or prejudice, he is pleased with what is really pleasing, and is not over-curious to discover a blemish, because the exercise of a minute exactness is not consistent with his purpose. But if he once becomes a critic by trade, the case is altered. He must then, at any rate, establish, if he can, an opinion in every mind of his uncommon discernment, and his exquisite taste. This great end he can never accomplish by thinking in the track that has been beaten under the hoof of public judgment. He must endeavour to convince the world that their favourite authors have more faults than they are aware of, and such as they have never suspected. Having marked out a writer universally esteemed, whom he finds it for that very reason convenient to depreciate and traduce, he will overlook some of his beauties, he will faintly praise others, and in such a manner as to make thousands, more modest though quite as judicious as himself, question whether they are beauties at all. Can there be a stronger illustration of all that I have said than the severity of Johnson's remarks upon Prior—I might have said the injustice? His reputation as an author, who, with much labour indeed, but with admirable success, has embellished all his poems with the most charming ease, stood unshaken till Johnson thrust his head against it. And how does he attack him in this his principal fort? I cannot recollect his very words, but I am much mistaken indeed, if my memory fails me with respect to the purport of them. "His words," he says, "appear to be forced into their proper places. There indeed we find them, but find likewise that their arrangement has been the effect of constraint, and that without violence they would certainly have stood in a different order."[130] By your leave, most learned Doctor, this is the most disingenuous remark I ever met with, and would have come with a better grace from Curl or Dennis. Every man conversant with verse-writing knows, and knows by painful experience, that the familiar style is of all styles the most difficult to succeed in. To make verse speak the language of prose, without being prosaic, to marshal the words of it in such an order as they might naturally take in falling from the lips of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most arduous tasks a poet can undertake. He that could accomplish this task was Prior; many have imitated his excellence in this particular, but the best copies have fallen far short of the original. And now to tell us, after we and our fathers have admired him for it so long, that he is an easy writer indeed, but that his ease has an air of stiffness in it; in short, that his ease is not ease, but only something like it, what is it but a self-contradiction, an observation that grants what it is just going to deny, and denies what it has just granted, in the same sentence, and in the same breath?—But I have filled the greatest part of my sheet with a very uninteresting subject. I will only say that, as a nation, we are not much indebted, in point of poetical credit, to this too sagacious and unmerciful judge; and that, for myself in particular, I have reason to rejoice that he entered upon and exhausted the labours of his office, before my poor volume could possibly become an object of them.
[That Johnson, in his "Lives of the Poets," has exhibited many instances of erroneous criticism, and that he sometimes censures where he might have praised, is we believe very generally admitted. His treatment of Swift, Gay, Prior, and Gray, has excited regret; and Milton, though justly extolled as a sublime poet, is lashed as a republican, with unrelenting severity.[131] Few will concur in Johnson's remarks on Gray's celebrated "Progress of Poetry;" and Murphy, in speaking of his critique on the well-known and admired opening of "The Bard,"
"Ruin seize thee, ruthless king," &c.
expresses a wish that it had been blotted out.[132] But Johnson was the Jupiter Tonans of literature, and not unfrequently hurls his thunder and darts his lightning with an air of conscious superiority, which, though it awakens terror by its power, does not always command respect for its judgment.
With all these deductions, the "Lives of the Poets" is a work abounding in inimitable beauties, and is a lasting memorial of Johnson's fame. It has been justly characterized as "the most brilliant, and, certainly, the most popular, of all his writings."[133] The most splendid passage, among many that might be quoted, is perhaps the eloquent comparison instituted between the relative merits of Pope and Dryden. As Cowper alludes to this critique with satisfaction, we insert an extract from it, to gratify those who are not familiar with its existence. Speaking of Dryden, Johnson observes: "His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation; and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope." Again: "Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller."
"Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems."
He concludes this brilliant comparison in the following words. "If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing; if of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight."[134]
We now insert the sequel of the preceding letter to Mr. Unwin.]
You have already furnished John's memory with by far the greatest part of what a parent would wish to store it with. If all that is merely trivial, and all that has an immoral tendency, were expunged from our English poets, how would they shrink, and how would some of them completely vanish! I believe there are some of Dryden's Fables, which he would find very entertaining; they are for the most part fine compositions, and not above his apprehension; but Dryden has written few things that are not blotted here and there with an unchaste allusion, so that you must pick his way for him, lest he should tread in the dirt. You did not mention Milton's "Allegro" and "Penseroso," which I remember being so charmed with when a boy, that I was never weary of them. There are even passages in the paradisiacal part of "Paradise Lost," which he might study with advantage. And to teach him, as you can, to deliver some of the fine orations made in the Pandæmonium, and those between Satan, Ithuriel, and Zephon, with emphasis, dignity, and propriety, might be of great use to him hereafter. The sooner the ear is formed, and the organs of speech are accustomed to the various inflections of the voice, which the rehearsal of those passages demands, the better. I should think too that Thomson's "Seasons" might afford him some useful lessons. At least they would have a tendency to give his mind an observing and a philosophical turn. I do not forget that he is but a child, but I remember that he is a child favoured with talents superior to his years. We were much pleased with his remarks on your alms-giving, and doubt not but it will be verified with respect to the two guineas you sent us, which have made four Christian people happy. Ships I have none, nor have touched a pencil these three years; if ever I take it up again, which I rather suspect I shall not (the employment requiring stronger eyes than mine,) it shall be at John's service.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[135]