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there arose multitudes of absurd followers, who, having at length corrupted the judgments of their indiscriminate readers, brought neglect and condemnation upon their original. For some years therefore we have heard the mob, the learned as well as the unlearned mob, talk in terms of uniform contempt and anger, of what they are pleased to call " the morbid sensi – bilities of sickly genius." Were this disapprobation confined to pretended feelings, of which the discovery requires a very small share of sagaciousness, it would be just. But it seems as if they meant to put their mark of scorn on every eccentricity of him who lives in that high temperament, in which alone works of genius can be produced.

Can we believe that Burns would have possessed the powers to produce his exquisite poem of "Tam O'Shanter" without having often trembled at some of those images, which the expansive blaze of his genius has there painted? Without a continued familiarity with all those hurried and impetuous feelings, which brought him to a premature grave, could he have written those enchanting songs which breathe so high a tone of fancy and passion? In the cold regions of worldly prudence, in the selfish habitations of dull propriety, may be found riches and health, and long life, and an insipid respect. But, if he who is born with the higher talents, long accustoms himself to the discipline of such habits, the splendour of his imagination will become impenetrably huddled up in the fogs of this heavy atmosphere, and he will scarce be able to produce higher efforts of intellect, than one" of Nature's fools."

When Beattie gave up his ambition to metaphysi

cal

cal philosophy, he ceased to be a poet. The lyre of Edwin, which had breathed all the soul of poetry in his first canto, began to flag and grow dull in the second; and then lost its tones, and never vibrated for the last thirty years of the owner's life. I certainly am too prejudiced to give a candid opinion; but I would have preferred a few more stanzas, in the style of the first, from the Minstrel's harp, to all the bulky volumes of prose that Beattie wrote.

How delightful to have left a perpetual memorial of some of those " ten thousand glorious visions," which are always floating across the brain of the highly endowed! But for those, who possess the ability, to go to the grave without having preserved a relic of them; to have suffered them to have passed "like the fleeting clouds," without one attempt to leave a memorial of the aspirations of a more exalted nature, is a morti fying reflection, which must depress true genius even to despondence. He, in whom Nature has sowed the energies of vigorous intellect, may be thrown into stations where there is nothing to fan the flames within him; in that case it is probable he may never discover any qualities above the herd of mankind: but an internal restlessness and discontent will prey upon his spirits and embitter his life.

There are no writer's criticisms so calculated to stifle the habits and the efforts of genius as those of Johnson. The cause of this is to be sought partly in the truly "morbid" propensities of his temper; and partly in the history of his life. I suspect that in the early resolution

"Nullius jurare in verba magistri,"

be soon sought originality at the expence of truth.

His love of contradiction therefore became a disease, and finding in preceding biographers too much inclination to panegyrize the subjects of their memoirs, and to contemplate them with a blind admiration, he determined to shew the powers of his anatomizing pen, and to tear off the veil of respect that covered them. Thus he was pleased to seize every opportunity of exhibiting their personal frailties, and mental defects; and of treating them sometimes with anger, and some times with haughtiness. But there was another circumstance which had a tendency to warp the justice of his sincere opinions. Early in life he had probably discovered the inclination of his own imagination to predominate dangerously over his reason. On this account he used every exertion to subdue it; to reduce it to the severest trammels of argumentation, and the most sober paths of mental employment. Hence he acquired a habit of preferring the lower departments of the Muse; he best liked reasoning in verse; dry ethical couplets; and practical observations upon daily life. His private feelings hesitated between Dryden and Pope; and all the praise he has given to Milton, or Cowley, or Akenside, or Collins, or Gray, is extorted, penurious, and mixed with every degrading touch that the ingenuity of his acute mind, and force of his energetic language could introduce.

The public received these disingenuous lives with ill-tempered avidity. They who had never known what it was to be warmed by the flights of fancy; in whose torpid heads the description of Eden, the wailings over Lycidas, and all the imagery of Comus never raised one corresponding idea, but who concealed their lamentable deficiencies of mind before the awful

name

name of Milton; now that they were sanctioned by Johnson, boldly gloried in their want of taste. All the gall which they had so long been nourishing in their hearts was now vomited forth without restraint, and the cry, which dulness had always secretly disseminated against the aberrations of genius, was avowed as the acknowledged dictate of sense and truth.

Johnson is a proof, among a thousand glaring proofs, how little the wisest men "know themselves;" and how often they pride themselves on points, in which they are strikingly deficient. His great boast seems to have been his attention to ..

"That which before us lies in daily life."

Yet did ever any man more offend the proprieties of daily life than Johnson? His unhappy and neglected person, his uncouth dress, his rude manners, and his irregular habits, required the full eminence of his fame, and force of his talents, to counterbalance their offensiveness. Yet probably he would have exclaimed

"Non tali auxilio, non defensoribus istis!"

He seems to have thought that he himself required no such set-offs. And, if we judge him by the rules by which he judged others, such set-offs ought not to have availed,

But I trust that I shall never judge by rules so harsh, and in my opinion so unwise. I regret the depravity of Johnson's taste, and I lament that excess of envy and pride, the unconquerable disease of his disposition, which, in spite of all his efforts, too frequently overpowered his reason. But I venerate his vast abilities, the strong and original operations of his mind,

his

the courage to put into language a train of thoughts, excited by an accidental observation, which I last night read in a book of criticism.

July 21, 1805.

ART. XIV. Calendarium Pastorale, sive Egloga Duodecim, Totidem anni mensibus accommodata. Anglice olim scripta ab Edmundo Spensero Anglorum Poetarum Principe: nunc autem eleganti Látino carmine donata a Theodoro Bathurst, Aula Pembrokiana apud Cantabrigienses aliquando socio. Londini, impensis M. M. T. C. & G. Bedell, ad portam Medii Templi in vico vulgo vocato Fleetstrect. Anno Domini 1653. 8vo. pp. 147. Accompanied on the opposite pages by the original eclogues.

This book is mentioned by Mr. Todd in his new edition of Spenser, Vol. I. p. CLXXVI. who says it was republished by John Ball with a Latin Dissertation "de vita et scriptis, Spenseri," and an augmented glossary, 1732.

It is dedicated by the editor, William Dillingham, of Emanuel College, to Francis Lane, Esq. in the following words:

Viro eximio, et vere generoso, Francisco Lane Armigero, Amico meo singulari, Salutem.

Plura sunt, præstantissime Domine, quæ me tibi devinxerunt plurimum; morum candor, omnegenus literatura, et prudentia tua singularis; hæ sunt artes et præstigiæ, quibus facile te induis in aliorum pectora, quotquot virtutum tuarum testes admovit sors fæ

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