sion of what they called their literary property, (as by the custom of the trade it was considered to be,) resolved upon publishing a rival edition, which should have the advantages of an ostensible and competent editor, of a more correct text, and of including several authors, whose works, being still copyright by law, could not be printed unless with the consent of those publishers in whom that right was vested. Dr. Johnson, as holding deservedly the highest rank among his contemporaries, was the person whom they solicited to undertake the task, and to write the lives of the poets. And they, also, like Bell, proposed to commence with Chaucer, and include all the English poets down to their own tine. The selection, however, was made not by the editor, but by the booksellers; and they were directed in it by no other criterion than that of public opinion, as evinced in the demand for certain books; the poet whose works were not called for was dead to them. Departing, therefore, on that consideration, from their first intention, instead of commencing their collection with Chaucer, they began with Cowley. Bell's comprised only three earlier writers, Chaucer, Spenser, and Donne: and it is not to the honor of our country that his collection, which was a mere bookseller's affair, and on which no care or attention was bestowed, should still contain the only convenient and most complete edition of the works of the great father of English poetry. When Cowper first looked into Johnson's collection, some of the writers therein included, seemed in his opinion to have but a very disputable right among the classics. "I am quite at a loss," said he, "when I see them in such company, to conjecture what is Dr. Johnson's idea or definition of classical merit. But if he inserts the poems of some who can hardly be said to deserve such an honor, the purchaser may comfort himself with the hope that he will edition of a book that has passed under the author's own eye, every new edition will introduce new corruptions into the text, and of the very worst kind, by the careless substitution of words which, without making nonsense of the passage, alter its meaning, or destroy its beauty. exclude none that do." 34 Johnson himself was only responsible for the insertion of Blackmore's Creation, Pomfret, Yalden, and Watts. Cowper also would have given Watts a place there, deeming him, "if I am," he says, "a judge of verse, a man of true poetical ability; careless indeed for the most part, and inattentive to those niceties which constitute elegance of expression, but frequently sublime in his conceptions, and masterly in his execution: "35 -higher praise than that busy-minded and benevolent good man is entitled to as a poet. The Creation, too, he would have admitted, for he thought that Blackmore shone in that work, "though he had written," he said, "more absurdities in verse than any writer of our country.' This is not the judgment which he would have pronounced if he had read all or any of Sir Richard's epics; for they are uniformly grave and dull, and it is rarely that a ray of absurdity enlivens them. For Pomfret,the wonder is not that Johnson introduced, but that the bookseller should have overlooked one who would at that time certainly have been elected by universal suffrage to a seat in the assembly of poets. Yalden was indebted for it to the editor's special grace. 99 36 The perusal of Johnson's Lives left an uncomfortable impression upon Cowper. "It is a melancholy observation," he says, "which it is impossible not to make, after having run through this series, that where there were such shining talents, there should be so little virtue. These luminaries of our country seem to have been kindled into a brighter blaze than others, only that their spots might be more noticed: so much can nature do for our intellectual part, and so little for our moral! I know not but one might search these volumes with a candle, as the prophet says, to find a man, and not find one, unless, perhaps, Arbuthnot were he." 37 "In all the number I observe but one man (a poet of no great fame, of whom I did not know that he existed till I found him there) whose mind 34 To Mr. Unwin, May 26, 1779. 36 Ibid. seems to have had the slightest tincture of religion; and he was hardly in his senses. His name was Collins. He sunk into a state of melancholy, and died young. Not long before his death, he was found, at his lodgings in Islington, by his biographer, with the New Testament in his hand. He said to Johnson, 'I have but one book; but it is the best.' Of him, therefore, there are some hopes. But from the lives of all the rest, there is but one inference to be drawn that poets are a very worthless, wicked set of people." 38 The opinion thus severely expressed was as inconsiderately formed as it is uncharitable. In proof of it, he alleged that Dryden was a sycophant to the public taste, sinning against his feelings, lewd in his writings, though chaste in his conversation; that Pope was vain and petulant, painfully sensible of censure, and yet restless in provocation; that Addison stooped to mean artifices in hopes of injuring the reputation of his friend; and that Savage was a profligate scoundrel. Now it is true, that nothing is known of Savage but what is bad; and yet he who was remembered with so much affection by so good a man as Johnson, could not have been without some redeeming qualities. And if Cowper had not been under the immediate influence of dark and morbid views, he would have called to mind that there is nothing injurious to morality in any of Dryden's living works (his comedies have happily been long defunct); that Pope was intentionally, as well as professedly, a moral poet; and that Addison might be truly said to have left "no line, which, dying, he could wish to blot!" They had their failings as all men have, but those failings are more conspicuous in their biography than they were in their lives; the general tenor of which, if not blameless, (for of whom can that be said?) deserved and obtained, in a high degree, the esteem and respect of those to whom they were best known. But what he thus said, was an effusion of splenetic feeling in some gloomy hour, not the result of reflection, nor in accord with his disposition. He did not call to mind how many of those writers, whose 3 To Mr. Newton, March 19, 1784. lives Johnson has recorded, were men of irreproachable conversation, who departed in the faith and fear of the Lord; and he himself has said, not less piously than charitably, "that the mercy which can forgive iniquity, will never be severe to mark our frailties." 39 That he should never before have heard of Collins, shows how little Collins had been heard of in his lifetime; and that Cowper, in his knowledge of contemporary literature, was now awakening, as it were, from a sleep of twenty years. In the course of those years Collins's Ödes, which were utterly neglected on their first appearance, had obtained their due estimation. It will never be forgotten in the history of English poetry, that with a generous, and a just, though impatient sense of indignation, Collins, as soon as his means enabled him, repaid the publisher the price which he had received for their copyright, indemnified him for his loss in the adventure, and committed the remainder, which was by far the greater part of the impression, to the flames. But it should also be remembered, that in the course of one generation these poems, without any adventitious aid to bring them into notice, were acknowledged to be the best of their kind in the language. Silently and imperceptibly they had risen by their own buoyancy, and their power was felt by every reader who had any true poetic feeling.40 But if Collins was a name unknown till then to Cowper, Churchill was still with him "the great Churchill," though that reputation, which had risen like a meteor, seemed to have passed away like one. Collins had been neglected during his life; a more cruel neglect was Churchill's portion after his death. Only a day before that event took place, he made his will, wherein it is mournful to observe there is not the slightest expression of religious faith or hope. He said in it, "I desire my dear friend, John Wilkes, Esq., to 39 To Lady Hesketh, Oct. 10, 1765. 40 Johnson, though he seems to have loved and respected Collins, never betrayed his want of that feeling more than when he summed up the criticism on his writings, by saying, that "as men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives little pleasure.' collect and publish my works, with the remarks and explanations he has prepared, and any others he thinks proper to make." There can be no doubt that Wilkes, who was with him during his illness, engaged to undertake this office, nor that he intended to perform it; for though he could feign friendship when he sought to make any one his dupe, his affections where he felt it were sincere and warm. "As to the province our dear Churchill has allotted me,” he says in one of his letters, "I will do it to the best of my poor abilities. My life shall be dedicated to it."41 In another, written a fortnight after his friend's death, he writes, "I am better, but cannot get any continued sleep. The idea of Churchill is ever before my eyes. A pleasing melancholy will, perhaps, succeed in time, and then I shall be fit for something. As I am, there is not a more useless animal in the world. My mind turns much on my dear friend's request about his works. I desire to live, first, to show my gratitude to my friends, then my detestation of our enemies!" 42" I begin to recover from the late cruel blow, but I believe I shall never get quite over it.” 43. "You know in what a restless state a man's spirits must be, who does not sleep. Churchill is still before my eyes.' "44 Some The promised edition was to be worthy of his deceased friend, and of himself. "He would never," he said, "risk any crudities with the public. No man who has any reputation was ever written out of it, but by himself." 45 months afterward, telling his daughter how closely he was employed upon his friend's works, he said, "You see how much I have at heart to show the world how I loved Churchill, and what influence those I loved, even when gone from us, retain over me." "The loss of Churchill," he said, "he should always think the most cruel of all the afflictions he had suffered, and he would soon convince mankind that he knew how to value such superior genius and merit." 46 His first intention was to print the work at Lausanne, and Voltaire, whom he visited at this time, offered him the assistance of his printers. Giving up this plan, he 41 To Mr. Cotes, Nov. 11, 1764. 43 Nov. 26. 42 Nov. 19. |