Lives of the English Poets : Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope. Samuel Johnson

fauns forsake the woods, the nymphs the grove,

      And round the plain in sad distractions rove:

      In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear,

      And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair.

      With their sharp nails, themselves the satyrs wound,

      And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground.

      Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak,

      Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke

      See Pales weeping too in wild despair,

      And to the piercing winds her bosses bare.

      And see yon fading myrtle, where appears

      The Queen of Love, all bathed in flowing tears;

      See how she wrings her hands, and beats her breast,

      And tears her useless girdle from her waist:

      Hear the sad murmurs of her sighing doves!

      For grief they sigh, forgetful of their loves.”

      And many years after he gave no proof that time had improved his wisdom or his wit, for, on the death of the Marquis of Blandford, this was his song:—

      “And now the winds, which had so long been still,

      Began the swelling air with sighs to fill;

      The water-nymphs, who motionless remained

      Like images of ice, while she complained,

      Now loosed their streams; as when descending rains

      Roll the steep torrents headlong o’er the plains.

      The prone creation who so long had gazed

      Charmed with her cries, and at her griefs amazed,

      Began to roar and howl with horrid yell,

      Dismal to hear, and terrible to tell!

      Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around,

      And echo multiplied each mournful sound.”

      In both these funeral poems, when he has yelled out many syllables of senseless dolour, he dismisses his reader with senseless consolation.  From the grave of Pastora rises a light that forms a star, and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas from every tear sprung up a violet.  But William is his hero, and of William he will sing:—

      “The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait around,

      And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying sound.”

      It cannot but be proper to show what they shall have to catch and carry:—

      “’Twas now, when flowery lawns the prospect made,

      And flowing brooks beneath a forest shade,

      A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd,

      Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepared

      Their arméd heads for light, by fate of war to prove

      The victor worthy of the fair one’s love;

      Unthought presage of what met next my view;

      For soon the shady scene withdrew.

      And now, for woods, and fields, and springing flowers,

      Behold a town arise, bulwarked with walls and lofty towers;

      Two rival armies all the plain o’erspread,

      Each in battalia ranged, and shining arms arrayed

      With eagle eyes beholding both from far,

      Namur, the price and mistress of the war.”

      The “Birth of the Muse” is a miserable fiction.  One good line it has which was borrowed from Dryden.  The concluding verses are these:—

      “This said, no more remained.  The ethereal host

      Again impatient crowd the crystal coast.

      The father now, within his spacious hands,

      Encompassed all the mingled mass of seas and lands;

      And, having heaved aloft the ponderous sphere,

      He launched the world to float in ambient air.”

      Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella Hunt seems to be the best; his Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, however, had some lines which Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own.  His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphrastical, and the additions which he makes are of little value.  He sometimes retains what were more properly omitted, as when he talks of vervain and gums to propitiate Venus.

      Of his Translations, the “Satire of Juvenal” was written very early, and may therefore be forgiven, though it had not the massiness and vigour of the original.  In all his versions strength and sprightliness are wanting; his “Hymn to Venus,” from Homer, is perhaps the best.  His lines are weakened with expletives, and his rhymes are frequently imperfect.  His petty poems are seldom worth the cost of criticism; sometimes the thoughts are false and sometimes common.  In his verses on Lady Gethin, the latter part is in imitation of Dryden’s ode on Mrs. Killigrew; and “Doris,” that has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, has indeed some lively stanzas, but the expression might be mended, and the most striking part of the character had been already shown in “Love for Love.”  His “Art of Pleasing” is founded on a vulgar, but perhaps impracticable principle, and the staleness of the sense is not concealed by any novelty of illustration or elegance of diction.  This tissue of poetry, from which he seems to have hoped a lasting name, is totally neglected, and known only as it is appended to his plays.

      While comedy or while tragedy is regarded, his plays are likely to be read; but, except what relates to the stage, I know not that he has ever written a stanza that is sung, or a couplet that is quoted.  The general character of his “Miscellanies” is that they show little wit and little virtue.  Yet to him it must be confessed that we are indebted for the connection of a national error, and for the cure of our Pindaric madness.  He first taught the English writers that Pindar’s odes were regular; and though certainly he had not the lire requisite for the higher species of lyric poetry, he has shown us that enthusiasm has its rules, and that in mere confusion there is neither grace nor greatness.

      BLACKMORE

      Sir Richard Blackmore is one of those men whose writings have attracted much notice, but of whose life and manners very little has been communicated, and whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends.  He was the son of Robert Blackmore, of Corsham in Wiltshire, styled by Wood Gentleman, and supposed to have been an attorney, having been for some time educated in a country school, he was at thirteen sent to Westminster, and in 1668 was entered at Edmund Hall in Oxford, where he took the degree of MA. June 8, 1676, and resided thirteen years, a much longer time than is usual to spend at the university, and which he seems to have passed with very little attention to the business of the place; for, in his poems, the ancient names of nations or places, which he often introduces, are pronounced by chance.  He afterwards travelled.  At Padua he was made doctor of physic, and, after having wandered about a year and a half on the Continent, returned home.

      In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, a humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been once a schoolmaster is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life.

      When he first engaged in the study of physic, he inquired, as he says, of Dr. Sydenham, what authors he should read and was directed by Sydenham to “Don Quixote”: “which” said he, “is a very good book; I read it still.”  The perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous to men of eminence to give way to merriment; the idle and