Chapter 9

[204] See _ante_, i. 393, note 1.

[205] See _post_, April 10, 1778, and April 24, 1779.

[206] See _ante_, i. 216, note 2.

[207] See _ante_, March 20, 1776, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22.

[208] Dryden had been dead but thirty-six years when Johnson came to London.

[209] 'Owen MacSwinny, a buffoon; formerly director of the play-house.' Horace Walpole, _Letters_, i. 118. Walpole records one of his puns. 'Old Horace' had left the House of Commons to fight a duel, and at once 'returned, and was so little moved as to speak immediately upon the _Cambrick Bill_, which made Swinny say, "That it was a sign he was not _ruffled_."' _Ib_. p. 233. See also, _ib_. vi. 373 for one of his stories.

[210] A more amusing version of the story, is in _Johnsoniana_ (ed. 1836, p. 413) on the authority of Mr. Fowke. '"So Sir," said Johnson to Cibber, "I find you know [knew?] Mr. Dryden?" "Know him? O Lord! I was as well acquainted with him as if he had been my own brother." "Then you can tell me some anecdotes of him?" "O yes, a thousand! Why we used to meet him continually at a club at Button's. I remember as well as if it were but yesterday, that when he came into the room in winter time, he used to go and sit by the fire in one corner; and in summer time he would always go and sit in the window." "Thus, Sir," said Johnson, "what with the corner of the fire in winter and the window in summer, you see that I got _much_ information from Cibber of the manners and habits of Dryden.'" Johnson gives, in his _Life of Dryden_ (_Works_, vii. 300), the information that he got from Swinney and Cibber. Dr. Warton, who had written on Pope, found in one of the poet's female-cousins a still more ignorant survivor. 'He had been taught to believe that she could furnish him with valuable information. Incited by all that eagerness which characterised him, he sat close to her, and enquired her consanguinity to Pope. "Pray, Sir," said she, "did not you write a book about my cousin Pope?" "Yes, madam." "They tell me t'was vastly clever. He wrote a great many plays, did not he?" "I have heard of only one attempt, Madam." "Oh no, I beg your pardon; that was Mr. Shakespeare; I always confound them."' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 394.

[211] Johnson told Malone that 'Cibber was much more ignorant even of matters relating to his own profession than he could well have conceived any man to be who had lived nearly sixty years with players, authors, and the most celebrated characters of the age.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 95. See _ante_, ii. 92.

[212] 'There are few,' wrote Goldsmith, 'who do not prefer a page of Montaigne or Colley Cibber, who candidly tell us what they thought of the world, and the world thought of them, to the more stately memoirs and transactions of Europe.' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv. 43.

[213] _Essay on Criticism_, i. 66.

[214] 'Cibber wrote as bad Odes (as Garrick), but then Gibber wrote _The Careless Husband_, and his own _Life_, which both deserve immortality.' Walpole's _Letters_, v. 197. Pope (_Imitations of Horace_, II. i. 90), says:--

'All this may be; the people's voice is odd, It is, and it is not, the voice of God. To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays, And yet deny _The Careless Husband_ praise, Or say our fathers never broke a rule; Why then, I say, the public is a fool.'

See _ante_, April 6, 1775.

[215] See page 402 of vol. i. BOSWELL.

[216] Milton's _L'Allegro_, 1. 36.

[217] 'CATESBY. My Liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken. RICHARD. Off with his head. So much for Buckingham.' Colley Gibber's _Richard III_, iv. I.

[218] _Ars Poetica, i. 128.

[219] My very pleasant friend himself, as well as others _who remember old stories_, will no doubt be surprised, when I observe that _John Wilkes_ here shews himself to be of the WARBURTONIAN SCHOOL. It is nevertheless true, as appears from Dr. Hurd the Bishop of Worcester's very elegant commentary and notes on the '_Epistola ad Pisones_.'

It is necessary to a fair consideration of the question, that the whole passage in which the words occur should be kept in view:

'Si quid inexpertum scenae committis, et audes Personam formare novam, servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet. Difficile est propriè communia dicere: tuque Rectiùs Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, Quàm si proferres ignota indictaque primus, Publica materies privati juris erit, si Non circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem, Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus Interpres; nee desilies imitator in artum Unde pedem proferre pudor vetat aut operis lex.'

The 'Commentary' thus illustrates it: 'But the formation of quite _new characters_ is a work of great difficulty and hazard. For here there is no generally received and fixed _archetype_ to work after, but every one _judges_ of common right, according to the extent and comprehension of his own idea; therefore he advises to labour and refit _old characters and subjects_, particularly those made known and authorised by the practice of Homer and the Epick writers.'

The 'Note' is,

'_Difficile_ EST PROPRIE COMMUNIA DICERE.' Lambin's Comment is, '_Communia hoc loco appellat Horatius argumenta fabularum à nullo adhuc tractata: et ita, quae cuivis exposita sunt et in medio quodammodo posita, quasi vacua et à nemine occupata_.' And that this is the true meaning of _communia_ is evidently fixed by the words _ignota indictaque_, which are explanatory of it; so that the sense given it in the commentary is unquestionably the right one. Yet, notwithstanding the clearness of the case, a late critick has this strange passage: '_Difficile quidem esse propriè communia dicere, hoc est, materiam vulgarem, notam et è medio petitam, ita immutare atque exornare, ut nova et scriptori propria videatur, ultra concedimus; et maximi procul dubio ponderis ista est observatio. Sed omnibus utrinque collatis, et tum difficilis, tum venusti, tam judicii quam ingenii ratione habitá, major videtur esse gloria fabulam formare penitùs novam, quàm veterem, utcunque mutatam, de novo exhibere_. (Poet. Prael. v. ii. p. 164.) Where, having first put a wrong construction on the word _comnmnia_, he employs it to introduce an impertinent criticism. For where does the poet prefer the glory of refitting _old_ subjects to that of inventing new ones? The contrary is implied in what he urges about the superiour difficulty of the latter, from which he dissuades his countrymen, only in respect of their abilities and inexperience in these matters; and in order to cultivate in them, which is the main view of the Epistle, a spirit of correctness, by sending them to the old subjects, treated by the Greek writers.'

For my own part (with all deference for Dr. Hurd, who thinks the _case clear_,) I consider the passage, '_Difficile est propriè communia dicere_,' to be a _crux_ for the criticks on Horace.

The explication which My Lord of Worcester treats with so much contempt, is nevertheless countenanced by authority which I find quoted by the learned Baxter in his edition of Horace: '_Difficile est propriè communia dicere_, h.e. res vulgares disertis verbis enarrare, vel humile thema cum dignitate tractare. _Difficile est communes res propriis explicare verbis_. Vet. Schol.' I was much disappointed to find that the great critick, Dr. Bentley, has no note upon this very difficult passage, as from his vigorous and illuminated mind I should have expected to receive more satisfaction than I have yet had.

_Sanadon_ thus treats of it: '_Propriè communia dicere; c'est à dire, qu'il n'est pas aisé de former à ces personnages d'imagination, des caractêres particuliers et cependant vraisemblables. Comme l'on a eté le maitre de les former tels qu'on a voulu, les fautes que l'on fait en cela sont moins pardonnables. C'est pourquoi Horace conseille de prendre toujours des sujets connus tels que sont par exemple ceux que l'on peut tirer des poèmes d'Homere_.'

And _Dacier_ observes upon it, '_Apres avoir marqué les deux qualités qu'il faut donner aux personnages qu'on invente, il conseille aux Poêtes tragiques, de n'user pas trop facilement de cette liberté quils ont d'en inventer, car il est três difficile de reussir dans ces nouveaux caractêres. Il est mal aisé, dit Horace_, de traiter proprement, _c'st à dire_ convenablement, _des_ sujets communs; _c'est à dire, des sujets inventés, et qui n'ont aucun fondement ni dans l'Histoire ni dans la Fable; et il les appelle_ communs, _parce qu'ils sont en disposition à tout le monde, et que tout le monde a le droit de les inventer, et qu'ils sont, comme on dit, au premier occupant_.' See his observations at large on this expression and the following.

After all, I cannot help entertaining some doubt whether the words, _Difficile est propriè communia dicere_, may not have been thrown in by Horace to form a _separate_ article in a 'choice of difficulties' which a poet has to encounter, who chooses a new subject; in which case it must be uncertain which of the various explanations is the true one, and every reader has a right to decide as it may strike his own fancy. And even should the words be understood as they generally are, to be connected both with what goes before and what comes after, the exact sense cannot be absolutely ascertained; for instance, whether _propriè_ is meant to signify _in an appropriated manner_, as Dr. Johnson here understands it, or, as it is often used by Cicero, _with propriety_, or _elegantly_. In short, it is a rare instance of a defect in perspicuity in an admirable writer, who with almost every species of excellence, is peculiarly remarkable for that quality. The length of this note perhaps requires an apology. Many of my readers, I doubt not, will admit that a critical discussion of a passage in a favourite classick is very engaging. BOSWELL. Boswell's French in this tedious note is left as he printed it.

[220] Johnson, after describing Settle's attack on Dryden, continues (_Works_, vii. 277):--'Such are the revolutions of fame, or such is the prevalence of fashion, that the man whose works have not yet been thought to deserve the care of collecting them, who died forgotten in an hospital, and whose latter years were spent in contriving shows for fairs ... might with truth have had inscribed upon his stone:--

"Here lies the Rival and Antagonist of Dryden."'

Pope introduces him in _The Dunciad_, i. 87, in the description of the Lord Mayor's Show:--

'Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces, Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners and broad faces. Now night descending the proud scene was o'er, But lived in Settle's numbers one day more.'

In the third book the ghost of Settle acts the part of guide in the Elysian shade.

[221] Johnson implies, no doubt, that they were both Americans by birth. Trecothick was in the American trade, but he was not an American. Walpole's _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iii. 184, note. Of Beckford Walpole says:--'Under a jovial style of good humour he was tyrannic in Jamaica, his native country.' _Ib_. iv. 156. He came over to England when young and was educated in Westminster School. Stephens's _Horne Tooke_, ii. 278. Cowper describes 'a jocular altercation that passed when I was once in the gallery [of the House], between Mr. Rigby and the late Alderman Beckford. The latter was a very incorrect speaker, and the former, I imagine, not a very accurate scholar. He ventured, however, upon a quotation from Terence, and delivered it thus, _Sine Scelere et Baccho friget venus_. The Alderman interrupted him, was very severe upon his mistake, and restored Ceres to her place in the sentence. Mr. Rigby replied, that he was obliged to his worthy friend for teaching him Latin, and would take the first opportunity to return the favour by teaching him English.' Southey's _Cowper_, iii. 317. Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, said of Trecothick:--'I do not know in office a more upright magistrate, nor in private life a worthier man.' _Parl. Hist_. xvi. 1101. See _post_, Sept. 23, 1777.

[222]

'Oft have I heard thee mourn the wretched lot Of the poor, mean, despised, insulted Scot, Who, might calm reason credit idle tales, By rancour forged where prejudice prevails, Or starves at home, or practises through fear Of starving arts which damn all conscience here.'

Churchill's _Prophecy of Famine, Poems_, i. 105.

[223] For Johnson's praise of Lichfield see _ante_, March 23, 1776. For the use of the word _civility_, see _ante_ ii. 155.

[224] See _ante_, i. 447.

[225] See _ante_, April 18, 1775.

[226] See _post_, April 15, 1778.

[227] It would not become me to expatiate on this strong and pointed remark, in which a very great deal of meaning is condensed. BOSWELL.

[228] 'Mr. Wilkes's second political essay was an ironical dedication to the Earl of Bute of Ben Jonson's play, _The Fall of Mortimer_. "Let me entreat your Lordship," he wrote, "to assist your friend [Mr. Murphy] in perfecting the weak scenes of this tragedy, and from the crude labours of Ben Jonson and others to give us a _complete play_. It is the warmest wish of my heart that the Earl of Bute may speedily complete the story of Roger Mortimer."' Almon's _Wilkes_, i. 70, 86.

[229] Yet Wilkes within less than a year violently attacked Johnson in parliament. He said, 'The two famous doctors, Shebbeare and Johnson, are in this reign the state hirelings called pensioners.' Their names, he continued, 'disgraced the Civil List. They are the known pensioned advocates of despotism.' _Parl. Hist_. xix. 118. It is curious that Boswell does not mention this attack, and that Johnson a few months after it was made, speaking of himself and Wilkes, said:--'The contest is now over.' _Post_, Sept 21, 1777.

[230] The next day he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'For my part, I begin to settle and keep company with grave aldermen. I dined yesterday in the Poultry with Mr. Alderman Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Lee, and Counsellor Lee, his brother. There sat you the while, so sober, with your W----'s and your H----'s, and my aunt and her turnspit; and when they are gone, you think by chance on Johnson, what is he doing? What should he be doing? He is breaking jokes with Jack Wilkes upon the Scots. Such, Madam, are the vicissitudes of things.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 325.

[231] See _ante_, March 20, 1776.

[232] If he had said this on a former occasion to a lady, he said it also on a latter occasion to a gentleman--Mr. Spottiswoode. _Post_, April 28, 1778. Moreover, Miss Burney records in 1778, that when Johnson was telling about Bet Flint (_post_, May 8, 1781) and other strange characters whom he had known, 'Mrs. Thrale said, "I wonder, Sir, you never went to see Mrs. Rudd among the rest." "Why, Madam, I believe I should," said he, "if it was not for the newspapers; but I am prevented many frolics that I should like very well, since I am become such a theme for the papers."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 90.

[233] Pope, _Essay on Man_, ii. 2.

[234] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on May 14 (Tuesday):--'----goes away on Thursday, very well satisfied with his journey. Some great men have promised to obtain him a place, and then a fig for my father and his new wife.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 324. He is writing no doubt of Boswell; yet, as Lord Auchinleck had been married more than six years, it is odd his wife should be called _new_. Boswell, a year earlier, wrote to Temple of his hopes from Lord Pembroke:--'How happy should I be to get an independency by my own influence while my father is alive!' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 182. Johnson, in a second letter to Mrs. Thrale, written two days after Boswell left, says:--'B---- went away on Thursday night, with no great inclination to travel northward; but who can contend with destiny? ... He carries with him two or three good resolutions; I hope they will not mould upon the road.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 333.

[235] 1 _Corinthians_, xiii. 5.

[236] This passage, which is found in Act iii, is not in the acting copy of _Douglas_.

[237] Malone was one of these gentlemen. See _post_, under June 30, 1784. Reynolds, after saying that eagerness for victory often led Johnson into acts of rudeness, while 'he was not thus strenuous for victory with his intimates in tête-à-tête conversations when there were no witnesses,' adds:--'Were I to write the Life of Dr. Johnson I would labour this point, to separate his conduct that proceeded from his passions, and what proceeded from his reason, from his natural disposition seen in his quiet hours.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 462.

[238] These words must have been in the other copy. They are not in that which was preferred. BOSWELL.

[239] On June 3 he wrote that he was suffering from 'a very serious and troublesome fit of the gout. I enjoy all the dignity of lameness. I receive ladies and dismiss them sitting. _Painful pre-eminence_.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 337. 'Painful pre-eminence' comes from Addison's _Cato_,