Johnson's Lives of the Poets Volume I Part 3

He is now in her own house! and we have neither seen her nor heard of her anywhere else since the play began. But now let us hear Syphax:--

"'What hinders, then, but that you find her out, And hurry her away by manly force?'

But what does old Syphax mean by finding her out? They talk as if she were as hard to be found as a hare in a frosty morning.

"'SEMP. But how to gain admission?'

Oh! she is found out then, it seems.

"'But how to gain admission? for access Is giv'n to none but Juba and her brothers.'

But, raillery apart, why access to Juba? For he was owned and received as a lover neither by the father nor by the daughter. Well, but let that pa.s.s. Syphax puts Semp.r.o.nius out of pain immediately; and, being a Numidian, abounding in wiles, supplies him with a stratagem for admission that, I believe, is a nonpareil.

"'SYPH. Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's guards; The doors will open when Numidia's prince Seems to appear before them.'

"Semp.r.o.nius is, it seems, to pa.s.s for Juba in full day at Cato's house, where they were both so very well known, by having Juba's dress and his guards; as if one of the Marshals of France could pa.s.s for the Duke of Bavaria at noonday, at Versailles, by having his dress and liveries. But how does Syphax pretend to help Semp.r.o.nius to young Juba's dress?

Does he serve him in a double capacity, as general and master of his wardrobe? But why Juba's guards? For the devil of any guards has Juba appeared with yet. Well, though this is a mighty politic invention, yet, methinks, they might have done without it: for, since the advice that Syphax gave to Semp.r.o.nius was

"'To hurry her away by manly force,'

in my opinion the shortest and likeliest way of coming at the lady was by demolishing, instead of putting on an impertinent disguise to circ.u.mvent two or three slaves. But Semp.r.o.nius, it seems, is of another opinion. He extols to the skies the invention of old Syphax:--

"'SEMP. Heavens! what a thought was there!'

"Now, I appeal to the reader if I have not been as good as my word. Did I not tell him that I would lay before him a very wise scene?

"But now let us lay before the reader that part of the scenery of the fourth act which may show the absurdities which the author has run into, through the indiscreet observance of the unity of place. I do not remember that Aristotle has said anything expressly concerning the unity of place. 'Tis true, implicitly he has said enough in the rules which he has laid down for the chorus. For by making the chorus an essential part of tragedy, and by bringing it on the stage immediately after the opening of the scene, and retaining it there till the very catastrophe, he has so determined and fixed the place of action that it was impossible for an author on the Grecian stage to break through that unity. I am of opinion that if a modern tragic poet can preserve the amity of place, without destroying the probability of the incidents, 'tis always best for him to do it; because by the preservation of that unity, as we have taken notice above, he adds grace and clearness and comeliness to the representation. But since there are no express rules about it, and we are under no compulsion to keep it, since we have no chorus as the Grecian poet had; if it cannot be preserved without rendering the greater part of the incidents unreasonable and absurd, and perhaps sometimes monstrous, 'tis certainly better to break it.

"Now comes bully Semp.r.o.nius, comically accoutred and equipped with his Numidian dress and his Numidian guards. Let the reader attend to him with all his ears, for the words of the wise are precious:--

"'SEMP. The deer is lodged; I've tracked her to her covert.'

"Now I would fain know why this deer is said to be lodged, since we have not heard one word since the play began of her being at all out of harbour: and if we consider the discourse with which she and Lucia begin the act, we have reason to believe that they had hardly been talking of such matters in the street. However, to pleasure Semp.r.o.nius, let us suppose, for once, that the deer is lodged:--

"'The deer is lodged; I've tracked her to her covert.'

"If he had seen her in the open field, what occasion had he to track her when he had so many Numidian dogs at his heels, which, with one halloo, he might have set upon her haunches? If he did not see her in the open field, how could he possibly track her? If he had seen her in the street, why did he not set upon her in the street, since through the street she must be carried at last? Now here, instead of having his thoughts upon his business, and upon the present danger; instead of meditating and contriving how he shall pa.s.s with his mistress through the southern gate, where her brother Marcus is upon the guard, and where he would certainly prove an impediment to him (which is the Roman word for the BAGGAGE); instead of doing this, Semp.r.o.nius is entertaining himself with whimsies:--

"'Semp. How will the young Numidian rave to see His mistress lost! If aught could glad my soul Beyond th' enjoyment of so bright a prize, 'Twould be to torture that young, gay barbarian.

But hark! what noise? Death to my hopes! 'tis he, 'Tis Juba's self! There is but one way left!

He must be murdered, and a pa.s.sage cut Through those his guards.'

"Pray, what are 'those guards'? I thought at present that Juba's guards had been Semp.r.o.nius's tools, and had been dangling after his heels.

"But now let us sum up all these absurdities together. Semp.r.o.nius goes at noon-day, in Juba's clothes and with Juba's guards, to Cato's palace, in order to pa.s.s for Juba, in a place where they were both so very well known: he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he threatens them:--

"'Hah! dastards, do you tremble?

Or act like men; or, by yon azure heav'n!'--

"But the guards still remaining restive, Semp.r.o.nius himself attacks Juba, while each of the guards is representing Mr. Spectator's sign of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Semp.r.o.nius's threats. Juba kills Semp.r.o.nius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries them in triumph away to Cato. Now I would fain know if any part of Mr. Bayes's tragedy is so full of absurdity as this?

"Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in. The question is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of swords in the governor's hall? Where was the governor himself? Where were his guards?

Where were his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the governor of a place of war, was enough to alarm the whole garrison: and yet, for almost half an hour after Semp.r.o.nius was killed, we find none of those appear who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise of swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman:--

"'Luc. Sure 'twas the clash of swords! my troubled heart Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows, It throbs with fear, and aches at every sound!'

And immediately her old whimsy returns upon her:--

"O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake-- I die away with horror at the thought.'

"She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats but it must be for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well, upon this they spy the body of Semp.r.o.nius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it seems, takes him for Juba; for, says she,

"'The face is m.u.f.fled up within the garment.'

"Now, how a man could fight, and fall, with his face m.u.f.fled up in his garment, is, I think, a little hard to conceive! Besides, Juba, before he killed him, knew him to be Semp.r.o.nius. It was not by his garment that he knew this; it was by his face, then: his face therefore was not m.u.f.fled. Upon seeing this man with his m.u.f.fled face, Marcia falls a-raving; and, owning her pa.s.sion for the supposed defunct, begins to make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters listening, I suppose on tip-toe; for I cannot imagine how any one can enter listening in any other posture. I would fain know how it came to pa.s.s that, during all this time, he had sent n.o.body--no, not so much as a candle-snuffer--to take away the dead body of Semp.r.o.nius. Well, but let us regard him listening. Having left his apprehension behind him, he, at first, applies what Marcia says to Semp.r.o.nius; but finding at last, with much ado, that he himself is the happy man, he quits his eaves-dropping, and discovers himself just time enough to prevent his being cuckolded by a dead man, of whom the moment before he had appeared so jealous, and greedily intercepts the bliss which was fondly designed for one who could not be the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how comes Juba to listen here, who had not listened before throughout the play? Or how comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who listens, when love and treason were so often talked in so public a place as a hall? I am afraid the author was driven upon all these absurdities only to introduce this miserable mistake of Marcia, which, after all, is much below the dignity of tragedy; as anything is which is the effect or result of trick.

"But let us come to the scenery of the fifth act. Cato appears first upon the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture; in his hand Plato's Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul; a drawn sword on the table by him. Now let us consider the place in which this sight is presented to us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose that any one should place himself in this posture, in the midst of one of our halls in London; that he should appear solus, in a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand Plato's Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard Lintot: I desire the reader to consider whether such a person as this would pa.s.s with them who beheld him for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a general, or some whimsical person who fancied himself all these? and whether the people who belonged to the family would think that such a person had a design upon their midriffs or his own?

"In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that he should be angry with his son for intruding there; then that he should leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to expire, purely to show his good breeding, and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his bedchamber; all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible, impossible."

Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it, perhaps "too much horse-play in his railleries;" but if his jests are coa.r.s.e, his arguments are strong. Yet, as we love better to be pleased than to be taught, Cato is read, and the critic is neglected. Flushed with consciousness of these detections of absurdity in the conduct, he afterwards attacked the sentiments of Cato; but he then amused himself with petty cavils and minute objections.

Of Addison's smaller poems no particular mention is necessary; they have little that can employ or require a critic. The parallel of the princes and G.o.ds in his verses to Kneller is often happy, but is too well known to be quoted. His translations, so far as I compared them, want the exactness of a scholar. That he understood his authors, cannot be doubted; but his versions will not teach others to understand them, being too licentiously paraphrastical. They are, however, for the most part, smooth and easy; and, what is the first excellence of a translator, such as may be read with pleasure by those who do not know the originals. His poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence. He has sometimes a striking line, or a shining paragraph; but in the whole he is warm rather than fervid, and shows more dexterity than strength. He was, however, one of our earliest examples of correctness. The versification which he had learned from Dryden he debased rather than refined. His rhymes are often dissonant; in his Georgic he admits broken lines. He uses both triplets and Alexandrines, but triplets more frequently in his translation than his other works.

The mere structure of verses seems never to have engaged much of his care. But his lines are very smooth in Rosamond, and too smooth in Cato.

Addison is now to be considered as a critic: a name which the present generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism is condemned as tentative or experimental rather than scientific; and he is considered as deciding by taste rather than by principles.

It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of others to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects but by the lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote as he would think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his instructions were such as the characters of his readers made proper. That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity, by gentle and unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he therefore presented knowledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and austere, but accessible and familiar. When he showed them their defects, he showed them likewise that they might be easily supplied. His attempt succeeded; inquiry was awakened, and comprehension expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and from this time to our own life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged.

Dryden had, not many years before, scattered criticism over his prefaces with very little parsimony; but though he sometimes condescended to be somewhat familiar, his manner was in general too scholastic for those who had yet their rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to understand their master. His observations were framed rather for those that were learning to write than for those that read only to talk.

An instructor like Addison was now wanting, whose remarks, being superficial, might be easily understood, and being just, might prepare the mind for more attainments. Had he presented "Paradise Lost" to the public with all the pomp of system and severity of science, the criticism would perhaps have been admired, and the poem still have been neglected; but by the blandishments of gentleness and facility he has made Milton an universal favourite, with whom readers of every cla.s.s think it necessary to be pleased. He descended now and then to lower disquisitions: and by a serious display of the beauties of "Chevy Chase"

exposed himself to the ridicule of Wagstaff, who bestowed a like pompous character on Tom Thumb; and to the contempt of Dennis, who, considering the fundamental position of his criticism, that "Chevy Chase" pleases, and ought to please, because it is natural, observes; "that there is a way of deviating from nature, by bombast or tumour, which soars above nature, and enlarges images beyond their real bulk; by affectation, which forsakes nature in quest of something unsuitable; and by imbecility, which degrades nature by faintness and diminution, by obscuring its appearances, and weakening its effects." In "Chevy Chase"

there is not much of either bombast or affectation; but there is chill and lifeless imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a manner that shall make less impression on the mind.

Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found specimens of criticism sufficiently subtle and refined: let them peruse likewise his Essays on Wit, and on the Pleasures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions inherent in the mind of man with skill and elegance, such as his contemners will not easily attain.

As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand perhaps the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never "o'ersteps the modesty of nature," nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion nor amaze by aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so much original, that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.

As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastic or superst.i.tious: he appears neither weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his morality is neither dangerously lax nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth is shown sometimes as the phantom of a vision; sometimes appears half-veiled in an allegory; sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy; and sometimes steps forth in the confidence of reason. She wears a thousand dresses, and in all is pleasing.

"Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet."

His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to s.n.a.t.c.h a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.

It was apparently his princ.i.p.al endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble and he did not wish to be energetic; he is never rapid and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude nor affected brevity; his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coa.r.s.e, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.