rest. The inn is crowded, his orders are neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste what the cook has spoiled, and drive on in quest of better entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious house, but the best is always worse than he expected.2 He at last enters his native province, and resolves to feast his mind with the conversation of his old friends, and the recollection of juvenile frolics. He stops at the house of his friend, whom he designs to overpower with pleasure by the unexpected interview. He is not known till he tells his name, and revives the memory of himself by a gradual explanation. He is then coldly received, and ceremoniously feasted. He hastes away to another, whom his affairs have called to a distant place, and, having seen the empty house, goes away disgusted, by a disappointment which could not be intended because it could not be foreseen. At the next house he finds every face clouded with misfortune, and is regarded with malevolence as an unreasonable intruder, who comes not to visit but to insult them. It is seldom that we find either men or places 1 When Johnson became rich enough to travel luxuriously he expressed himself very differently. "As we were driven rapidly along in the post-chaise he said to me, 'Life has not many things better than this.'"-Boswell's Johnson, ii. 453. 2 "He expatiated on the felicity of England in its taverns and inns, and triumphed over the French for not having in any perfection the tavern life. No, sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."—Ib., p. such as we expect them. He that has pictured a prospect upon his fancy, will receive little pleasure from his eyes; he that has anticipated the conversation of a wit, will wonder to what prejudice he owes his reputation. Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction. No. 60. SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1759. RITICISM is a study by which men grow important and formidable at a very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may by mere labour be obtained is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert such judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a Critic. I hope it will give comfort to great numbers who are passing through the world in obscurity, when I inform them how easily distinction may be obtained. All the other powers of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but Criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, who will meet the slow, and encourage the timorous; the want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she recompenses with malignity. This profession has one recommendation peculiar to itself, that it gives vent to malignity without real mischief. No genius was ever blasted by the breath of critics. The poison, which, if confined, would have burst the heart, fumes away in empty hisses, and malice is set at ease with very little danger to merit. The Critic is the only man whose triumph is without another's pain, and whose greatness does not rise upon another's ruin. To a study at once so easy and so reputable, so malicious and so harmless, it cannot be necessary to invite my readers by a long or laboured exhortation; it is sufficient, since all would be Critics if they could, to shew by one eminent example that all can be critics if they will. Dick Minim, after the common course of puerile studies, in which he was no great proficient, was put an apprentice to a brewer, with whom he had lived two years, when his uncle died in the city, and left him a large fortune in the stocks. Dick had for six months before used the company1 of the lower players, of whom he had learned to scorn a trade, and, being now at liberty to follow his genius, he resolved to be a man of wit and humour. That he might be properly initiated in his new character, he frequented the coffeehouses near the theatres, where he listened very diligently, day after day, to those who talked of language and sentiments, and unities and 1 Johnson does not in his Dictionary give any example of this idiom "used the company." catastrophes, till by slow degrees he began to think that he understood something of the stage, and hoped in time to talk himself. But he did not trust so much to natural sagacity as wholly to neglect the help of books. When the theatres were shut, he retired to Richmond with a few select writers, whose opinions he impressed upon his memory by unwearied diligence ;1 and, when he returned with other wits to the town, was able to tell, in very proper phrases, that the chief business of art is to copy nature;2 that a perfect writer is not to be expected, because genius decays as judgment increases; that the great art is the art of blotting ;5 and that, according to the rule of Horace, every piece should be kept nine years." 1 In what follows Johnson puts into Minim's mouth opinions gathered from these writers. In the following notes I have traced his course wherever I could, and have shown also in one or two cases Johnson's own opinions subsequently expressed. 2 "First follow nature, and your judgment frame 3 "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, -Ib., 1. 253. 4 "Thus in the soul while memory prevails, -Ib., 1. 56. 5 "Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, 6 "And drop at last, but in unwilling ears, This saving counsel, 'keep your piece nine years.'” His Of the great authors he now began to display the characters, laying down as an universal position, that all had beauties and defects. opinion was, that Shakespear, committing himself wholly to the impulse of nature, wanted that correctness which learning would have given him ;1 and that Jonson, trusting to learning, did not sufficiently cast his eye on nature. He blamed the stanza of Spenser, and could not bear the hexameters of Sidney.3 Denham and Waller he held the first reformers of English numbers; and thought that if Waller could have obtained the strength of Denham, or Denham the sweetness of Waller, there had been nothing wanting to 1 "fluent Shakespeare scarce effaced a line." -Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epis. ii. 1, 279. "To move, to raise, to ravish every heart, With Shakespeare's nature, or with Jonson's art." -Pope, The Dunciad, ii. 223. 2 "Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part; -Collins, Epistle to Hanmer, 1. 55. "Then Jonson came, instructed from the school -Johnson's Prologue at the Opening of Drury 3 "Spenser himself affects the obsolete, And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet." -Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epis. ii., i. 97. 4 "Our numbers were in their nonage till Waller and Denham appeared."-Dryden, Preface to the Fables. "Denham is deservedly considered as one of the fathers of English poetry. 'Denham and Waller,' says Prior, 'improved our versification, and Dryden perfected it.'"-Johnson's Works vii. 60. |