and Corneille', as they both had, though in a different degree, the lights of a latter age. It is not so just between the Greek dramatick writers and Shakspeare. It may be replied to what is said by one of the remarkers on Shakspeare, that though Darius's shade' had prescience, it does not necessarily follow that he had all past particulars revealed to him.' 'Spanish plays, being widely and improbably farcical, would please children here, as children are entertained with stories full of prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause them to be so readily startled at deviations from the natural course of life'. The machinery of the Pagans is uninteresting to us': when a Goddess appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the Grecian tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer approach to Nature is intended. Yet there are Somebody was praising Corneille one day in opposition to Shakespeare. "Corneille is to Shakespeare," replied Mr. Johnson, "as a clipped hedge is to a forest."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 59. 2 Johnson, it is clear, discusses here Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakespeare. She compared Shakespeare first with Corneille, and then with Æschylus. In contrasting the ghost in Hamlet with the shade of Darius in The Persians, she says:-' The phantom, who was to appear ignorant of what was past, that the Athenian ear might be soothed and flattered with the detail of their victory at Salamis, is allowed, for the same reason, such prescience as to foretell their future triumph at Platæa' (p. 161). ''Caution is required in everything which is laid before youth, to secure them from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruus combinations of images. In the romances formerly written, every transaction and sentiment was so remote from all that passes among men, that the reader was in very little danger of making any applications to himself."' The Rambler, No. 4. Johnson says of Pope's Ode for St. Cecilia's Day :-The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow can be found.' Works, viii. 328. Of Gray's Progress of Poetry, he says:'The second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a school-boy to his common-places.' Ib. p. 484. good 20 The abuse of the talent of ridicule. [A.D. 1780. good reasons for reading romances; as-the fertility of invention, the beauty of style and expression, the curiosity of seeing with what kind of performances the age and country in which they were written was delighted: for it is to be apprehended, that at the time when very wild improbable tales were well received, the people were in a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as has been explained.' 'It is evident enough that no one who writes now can use the Pagan deities and mythology; the only machinery, therefore, seems that of ministering spirits, the ghosts of the departed, witches', and fairies, though these latter, as the vulgar superstition concerning them (which, while in its force, infected at least the imagination of those that' had more advantage in education, though their reason set them free from it,) is every day wearing out, seem likely to be of little further assistance in the machinery of poetry. As I recollect, Hammond introduces a hag or witch into one of his love elegies, where the effect is unmeaning and disgusting'.' 'The man who uses his talent of ridicule in creating or grossly exaggerating the instances he gives, who imputes absurdities that did not happen, or when a man was a li tle ridiculous describes him as having been very much so, abuses his talents greatly. The great use of delineating absurdities is, that we may know how far human folly can go; the account, therefore, ought of absolute necessity to be faithful. A certain character (naming the person) as to the general cast of it, is well described by Garrick, but a great deal of the phraseology he uses in it, is quite his own, 1 See ante, ii. 204. 2 'A Wizard-Dame, the Lover's ancient friend, And winged lightnings stop in mid career, &c.' In Boswell's Hebrides (Sept. 29), he said, 'Hammond's Love Elegies were poor things.' particularly Aetat. 71.] Ancient hospitality. 21 particularly in the proverbial comparisons, "obstinate as a pig," &c., but I don't know whether it might not be true of Lord -', that from a too great eagerness of praise and popularity, and a politeness carried to a ridiculous excess, he was likely, after asserting a thing in general, to give it up again in parts. For instance, if he had said Reynolds was the first of painters, he was capable enough of giving up, as objections might happen to be severally made, first his outline, then the grace in form, then the colouring, -and lastly, to have owned that he was such a mannerist, that the disposition of his pictures was all alike.' 'For hospitality, as formerly practised, there is no longer the same reason; heretofore the poorer people were more numerous, and from want of commerce, their means of getting a livelihood more difficult; therefore the supporting them was an act of great benevolence; now that the poor can find maintenance for themselves, and their labour is wanted, a general undiscerning hospitality tends to ill, by withdrawing them from their work to idleness and drunkenness. Then, formerly rents were received in kind, so that there was a great abundance of provisions in possession of the owners of the lands, which, since the plenty of money afforded by commerce, is no longer the case.' 'Hospitality to strangers and foreigners in our country is now almost at an end, since, from the increase of them that come to us, there have been a sufficient number of people that have found an interest in providing inns and proper accommodations, which is in general a more expedient method for the entertainment of travellers. Where the travellers and strangers are few, more of that hospitality subsists, as it has not been worth while to provide places of accommodation. In Ireland there is still hospitality to strangers, in some degree; in Hungary and Poland probably more.' Colman, in a note on his translation of Terence, talking of Shakspeare's learning, asks, “What says Farmer to this? 1 Perhaps Lord Corke and Orrery. See ante, ini. 208. CROKER. What 22 THE OLD MAN'S WISH. [A.D. 1780. What says Johnson'?" Upon this he observed, "Sir, let Farmer answer for himself: I never engaged in this controversy. I always said, Shakspeare had Latin enough to grammaticise his English'."" 'A clergyman, whom he characterised as one who loved to say little oddities, was affecting one day, at a Bishop's table, a sort of slyness and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if part of The Old Man's Wish, a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a verse bordering on licentiousness. Johnson rebuked him in the finest manner, by first shewing him that he did not know the passage he was aiming at, and thus humbling him: "Sir, that is not the song: it is thus." And he gave it right. Then looking stedfastly on him, "Sir, there is a part of that song which I should wish to exemplify in my own life : "May I govern my passions with absolute sway!"' ' 1 Colman assumed that Johnson had maintained that Shakespeare was totally ignorant of the learned languages. He then quotes a line to prove that the author of The Taming of the Shrew had at least read Ovid;' and continues:—' And what does Dr. Johnson say on this occasion? Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer say on this occasion? Nothing.' Colman's Terence, ii. 390. For Farmer, see ante, iii. 45. 24 'It is most likely that Shakespeare had learned Latin sufficiently to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy perusal of the Roman authors.' Johnson's Works, V. 129. The style of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed, and obscure.' Ib. p. 135. 3 'May I govern my passion with an absolute sway, And grow wiser and better, as my strength wears away, The Old Man's Wish was sung to Sir Roger de Coverley by 'the fair one,' after the collation in which she ate a couple of chickens, and drank a full bottle of wine. The Spectator, No. 410. What signifies our wishing?' wrote Dr. Franklin. I have sung that wishing song a thousand times when I was young, and now find at four-score that the three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout and the stone and hot being, yet master of al my passions.' Franklin's Memoirs, iii. 185. 'Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal of Greek, he answered, "I doubt, Sir, he was unoculus inter cæcos'." 'He used frequently to observe, that men might be very eminent in a profession, without our perceiving any particular power of mind in them in conversation. "It seems strange, (said he,) that a man should see so far to the right, who sees so short a way to the left. Burke is the only man whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which he has in the world. Take up whatever topick you please, he is ready to meet you'."' A gentleman, by no means deficient in literature, having discovered less acquaintance with one of the Classicks than Johnson expected, when the gentleman left the room, he observed, "You see, now, how little any body reads." Mr. Langton happening to mention his having read a good deal in Clenardus's Greek Grammar, "Why, Sir, (said he,) who is there in this town who knows any thing of Clenardus but you and I?" And upon Mr. Langton's mentioning that he had taken the pains to learn by heart the Epistle of St. Basil, which is given in that Grammar as a praxis, “Sir, (said he,) I never made such an effort to attain Greek3."' 1 He uses the same image in The Life of Milton (Works, vii. 104): He might still be a giant among the pigmies, the one-eyed monarch of the blind.' Cumberland (Memoirs, i. 39) says that Bentley, hearing it maintained that Barnes spoke Greek almost like his mother tongue, replied:—Yes, I do believe that Barnes had as much Greek and understood it about as well as an Athenian blacksmith.' See ante, iii. 322. A passage in Wooll's Life of Dr. Warton (i. 313) shews that Barnes attempted to prove that Homer and Solomon were one and the same man. But I. D'Israeli says that it was reported that Barnes, not having money enough to publish his edition of Homer, 'wrote a poem, the design of which is to prove that Solomon was the author of the Iliad, to interest his wife, who had some property, to lend her aid towards the publication of so divine a work.' Calamities of Authors, i. 250. 2 The first time Suard saw Burke, who was at Reynolds's, Johnson touched him on the shoulder and said, “Le grand Burke."' Boswelliana, p. 299. See ante, ii. 515. 3 Miss Hawkins (Memoirs, i. 279, 288) says that Langton told her father that he meant to give his six daughters such a knowledge of 'Of |