SAMUEL JOHNSON.

[SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield on the 18th of Sept. 1709. The first of his noteworthy poems, London, was published in 1738, at a period of his life when he was in great poverty, and for the copyright of the poem he only obtained ten guineas. It appeared on the same morning as Pope's Satire, 1738,' and surpassed the latter in popularity. In 1747 he wrote his celebrated Prologue for the opening of Drury Lane Theatre. At this theatre was exhibited in 1749 his tragedy of Irene, which, though acted for thirteen nights, failed to secure the public favour. The Vanity of Human Wishes was published earlier in the same year with a view to excite an interest in the author of the play. These were his last important poetical works. He wrote however three Prologues: one to Comus in 1750, when that play was acted for the benefit of Milton's granddaughter; another to Goldsmith's Good-natured Man in 1769; and a third to the revived Word to the Wise in 1777. He died on the 13th of Dec. 1784.]

Johnson may be said to occupy the central place in that highly characteristic school of didactic poetry which was originated by Pope and completed by Goldsmith. The essence of Pope's didactic compositions is personal satire. It is true that he specially prides himself on being the champion of virtue and the great promoter of moral truth. But the virtue which he had invariably before his imagination was his own, and throughout his Imitations of Horace morality is always exalted in the person of the poet, and always seems to be endangered by the wicked virulence of his private enemies. In consequence of their intense personality, Pope's didactic poems fail in point of poetical design. In the Essay on Man the subject-matter is Bolingbroke's rather than Pope's, and the conduct of the argument is extraordinarily confused; while in the Moral Essays and Satires, what really pleases is the beauty of detail, the terse epigrams, the brilliant images, and above all the matchless portraiture of particular characters. The great beauty of Goldsmith's poems, on the other

hand, lies in the justness of their design, the relation of the means to the end, and of the parts to the whole. He relies hardly at all on personal interest for his effects; but he is perhaps the most persuasive of all didactic poets, from the extraordinary art which he possesses of enlisting simple and universal feelings in behalf of the moral principle which he seeks to establish.

Johnson unites in his own style many of the opposite excellences exhibited by his predecessor and his friend. It was impossible that the bias of his strong character should be altogether concealed in his verse, and London in particular appears to have been largely inspired by personal motives like those which suggested to Pope his Imitations of Horace. But the different genius of the two poets is seen in the selection of their respective originals. Pope was struck by the many superficial points of resemblance between himself and the lively egotistical Horace, and seized eagerly on the opportunity of presenting his own virtues, friendships, and enmities to the public under a transparent veil of imitation. Johnson, on the contrary, who, as an unknown writer, could not hope to interest the public in his personal concerns, chose a general theme, and imitated the satirist whose denunciations of Roman vice offered, in many respects, an apt parallel to the manners of his own age. London is marked by genuine public spirit; at the same time we see quite as much of the man as of the moralist in the poet's characteristic allusions to the penalties of poverty, his antipathy to the Whigs, and his dislike of foreigners. The story that 'Thales' was meant for Savage, and that the occasion of the poem was the departure of the latter from London after his trial, is confuted by dates, but we may be sure that the poem gives us a real representation of Johnson's feelings as a struggling author and a political partisan.

The Vanity of Human Wishes marks a calmer and more prosperous epoch in the poet's life, and its philosophical generalising spirit is an anticipation of Goldsmith's Traveller. Johnson was now relieved from the immediate pressure of want; and in his second Imitation he takes a wider survey of mankind; he suppresses all personal satire, and fetches the illustrations of his argument from distant times. The style of this poem is also completely different from that of London: in the latter he is ardent, animated, and colloquial, while in the Vanity of Human Wishes he speaks with the gravity of a moralist, making his periods swelling and sonorous, balancing his verses against each

other, and equalling Pope himself in the condensation of his language. Nevertheless, the whole spirit of the composition, though professedly an imitation, is highly characteristic of the man: we see in it the melancholy gloom that darkened all his view of human existence, while at the same time the noble lines of the conclusion recall the language of those touching fragments of prayer which Boswell discovered among his papers and has preserved in his Life.

His Prologues are of the highest excellence; indeed it may be confidently affirmed that he is the best writer of prologues in the language. No man was ever so well qualified to strike that just mean between respectfulness and authority which such addresses to the public require. His sound critical power and elevated feeling are well exemplified in the Prologue spoken at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre; and there is true greatness of spirit in his Prologue to Comus, in which he claims the liberality of the audience for Milton's granddaughter as a tardy redress for the injustice shown by the nation to the genius of the poet himself. His admirable independence of character is perhaps even better seen in the Prologue to A Word to the Wise, a play which at its first exhibition was damned in consequence of political prejudices against the author, but was revived after his death. Nothing can be better than the dignity with which Johnson, in this address, while recognising the judicial authority of the audience, indirectly reproves them for their previous disregard of the laws of humanity by which all their verdicts ought to be determined.

W. J. COURTHOPE

THALES' REASONS FOR LEAVING LONDON.

[From London.]

A transient calm the happy scenes bestow
And for a moment lull the sense of woe.
At length awaking, with contemptuous frown
Indignant Thales eyes the neighb'ring town.

Since worth, he cries, in these degenerate days
Wants even the cheap reward of empty praise;
In those cursed walls, devote to vice and gain,
Since unrewarded science toils in vain;
Since hope but soothes to double my distress,
And every moment leaves my little less;
While yet my steady steps no staff sustains,
And life still vigorous revels in my veins;
Grant me, kind Heaven, to find some happier place,
Where honesty and sense are no disgrace;
Some pleasing bank where verdant osiers play,
Some peaceful vale with Nature's paintings gay;
Where once the harass'd Briton found repose,

live here, for

And safe in poverty defied his foes;
Some secret cell, ye powers indulgent give,
Let
has learned to live.
Here let those reign, whom pensions can incite
To vote a patriot black, a courtier white;
Explain their country's dear-bought rights away
And plead for pirates in the face of day;
With slavish tenets taint our poisoned youth
And lend a lie the confidence of truth.

Ah! what avails it that, from slavery far,
I drew the breath of life in English air,
Was early taught a Briton's right to prize,
And lisp the tale of Henry's victories;
If the gulled conqueror receives the chain,
And flattery prevails when arms are vain?

By numbers here from shame or censure free, All crimes are safe but hated poverty.

This, only this, the rigid law pursues,

This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.
The sober trader at a tatter'd cloak

Wakes from his dream and labours for a joke ;
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze
And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways.

Of all the griefs that harass the distressed,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest ;
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.
Has Heaven reserv'd in pity to the poor,
No pathless waste or undiscovered shore?
No secret island in the boundless main ?
No peaceful desert yet unclaimed by Spain ?
Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore
And bear oppression's insolence no more.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed;

But here more slow where all are slaves to gold,
Where looks are merchandise and smiles are sold,
Where, won by bribes, by flatteries implored,
The groom retails the favours of his lord.

THE RISE AND FALL OF WOLSEY.

[From The Vanity of Human Wishes.]

In full-flown dignity see Wolsey stand, Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand :

To him the church, the realm, their powers consign,

Through him the rays of regal bounty shine,

Turned by his nod the stream of honour flows,

His smile alone security bestows :

Still to new heights his restless wishes tower,
Claim leads to claim and power advances power;
Till conquest unresisted ceased to please,
And rights submitted left him none to seize :