Page images
PDF
EPUB

the rope. But this too we leave to crì-* tics on poetry, of whom we should requeft to explain the difference between a Genius and a Man of Genius, and by what' operation habit, in the abftract, gets the better of imagination; remarking only' for ourselves, that for the balance-mafter to reproach Milton for his pedantry is certainly betraying a ftrange unconIciousness of his own talents, unless he depends upon his reader's fagacity in difcriminating a great pedant from a little oné. He is obliged, however, to com plete the humiliation of Milton, to put his profe-works into the scale.

"His theological quibbles and perplexed fpeculations are daily equalled

* See Cibber's Letter to Pope, p. 35.

7

❝ and

"and excelled by the most abject en"thufiafts; and if we confider him as a "profe-writer, he has neither the learn

66

ing of a scholar, nor the manners of a gentleman. There is no force in his "reasoning, no elegance in his ftyle, and no tafte in his compofition."

[ocr errors]

Peremptory, but not decifive! To make this go down, even with a moderate tory, it should have been added, that the narrowness of Milton's education prevented, not only his proficiency in the ftudy of the abftrufer feiences, but even in the elemental acquifitions of reading or fpelling.

"We are therefore," continues the eritic, "to confider him in one fixed

66.

point of light, that of a great poet, " with

C

[ocr errors]

"with a laudable envy of rivalling, "eclipfing, and excelling, all who at"tempted fublimity of fentiment and "description."

Could this be a hopeful attempt in fo wretched a writer of profe? or does the critic propofe to entertain his readers with a miracle, or only with a paradox? Immediately however the critic withdraws Milton from this fixed point of light, and places his fublimity of fentiment and defcription in contraft with Shakespeare's amiable variety; and concludes, "that "Shakespeare could have wrote like "Milton, but Milton could never have "wrote like Shakespeare."

Does not the Doctor here overturn his own metaphyfical fyftem? Shakespeare's

judge

t

judgement, to have qualified him to write like Milton, müft have got the better of his imagination; a confinement of Shakespeare's powers not half fo poffible as that Dr. Johnson fhould turn Whig.

"Some may think," fays the Doctor, in this fame poetical scale, "that I have "under-valued the character of Waller; “but, in my own opinion, I have rather "over-rated it."

He has however made ample amends for this lenity in writing Waller's life; and it is a very gentle cenfure paffed upon him by the Critical Reviewers *. "that the Doctor's remarks on some of "our best poets, particularly Milton and "Waller, whofe political opinions by no

*For May, 1779.

C 2

" means

"means coincided with his own, may be "thought rather too fevere."

It was Waller's misfortune (a misfortune only in the scale of Dr. Johnfon) to be born of a mother who was fifter to the illuftrious patriot John Hampden, whom the Doctor calls the zealot of rebellion, by the fame figure of speech which reprefents Christopher Milton, as. taught by the law to adhere to king Charles, who was breaking the law every day by a thoufand of thofe arbitrary acts and oppref fions which make up the defcription of a tyrant.

It is not eafy to determine which, in this character of Hampden, is the more confpicuous, the zeal of the loyalift, or the manners of the gentleman. The man

3:

talks

« PreviousContinue »