Samuel johnson, john mullan the lives of the poets a selection oxford worlds classics 2009

o x f o r d wo r l d ’ s c la s s i c s THE LIVES OF THE POETS Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 in Lichfield, Staffordshire The son of an impecunious bookseller, he experienced poverty throughout the first part of his life, and, in spite of his formidable mental endowments, was able to attend Pembroke College, Oxford, for only a year After moving to London in 1737, he earned his living by miscellaneous journalism for many years, until his Rambler essays and the first historical dictionary of the English language brought him fame A government pension of £300 a year relieved him from necessity, and in the later part of his life he came to be regarded as the greatest literary figure of his time in England Among his most noted works are his poem ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’, his periodical essays, his moral tale Rasselas, his edition of Shakespeare’s plays, and The Lives of the Poets He died in 1784 and was buried in Westminster Abbey Roger Lonsdale, formerly Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College His publications include The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse (1984) and Eighteenth-Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology (1989) His four-volume edition of The Lives of the Poets appeared in 2006 John Mullan is Professor of English at University College London His publications include How Novels Work (2006), Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature (2007), and editions of Daniel Defoe A broadcaster and literary journalist, he writes a weekly column on fiction for the Guardian newspaper o x f o r d wo r l d ’ s c la s s i c s For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf, T S Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy, and politics Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS SAMUEL JOHNSON The Lives of the Poets A Selection Text edited by ROGER LONSDALE Selected with an Introduction and Notes by JOHN MULLAN Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Johnson text ß Roger Lonsdale 2006 Editorial material ß John Mullan 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 2009 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Data available Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd., St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–922674–0 10 CONTENTS Introduction vii Note on the Text xxx Select Bibliography xxxi A Chronology of Samuel Johnson xxxiii THE LIVES OF THE POETS Advertisement Cowley Milton 54 Rochester 115 Dryden 121 Congreve 218 Gay 229 Savage 238 Swift 318 Pope 347 Gray 452 Appendix 462 Explanatory Notes 464 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets; with Critical Observations on Their Works (to use its eventual full title) was the last major work that Samuel Johnson undertook Its title page might have led unwary readers to expect that the nation’s greatest man of letters was providing a celebratory survey of its literary culture For by the 1770s genteel readers and book purchasers had begun to revere what we now call ‘English Literature’ During the eighteenth century it had gradually become possible to speak of Shakespeare and Milton in terms that had once been reserved for Homer and Virgil English could be as good a language for poetry as Greek or Latin In his two greatest undertakings, his Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and his edition of the plays of Shakespeare (1765), Johnson had himself made a major contribution to establishing a national literary culture His Dictionary, in some ways his greatest work of literary criticism, had illustrated his minutely subdivided definitions of words with thousands of extracts from what he thought the best of English poetry, drama, and prose The language was now illuminated by its literature His edition of Shakespeare had played a major role in establishing Shakespeare as the equal of any ‘ancient’, and the central figure in a canon of vernacular writing Johnson had himself proclaimed, in the Preface to his Dictionary, that ‘the chief glory of every people arises from its authors’.1 No one could have done more than him to honour his country’s literature Yet Johnson’s Lives of the Poets is intrigued by everything inglorious about the life of writing A contemporary reviewer complained that ‘the general tendency of Dr Johnson’s work is rather to diminish than to exalt our writers’, sounding as if the Great Cham had performed less than his patriotic duty.2 The complaint was not without reason The Lives is still provoking and frequently funny because it is so unenchanted about the writers whose lives and writings it describes There is nothing supercilious, however, in Johnson, Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language, in Samuel Johnson, The Major Works, ed Donald Greene (Oxford, 1984), 327 See Samuel Johnson, The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, ed Roger Lonsdale (Oxford, 2006) (hereafter Lonsdale), iv 537 viii Introduction Johnson’s observation of his authors’ failings In a Rambler essay he noted how disappointment was the likely reflex of any admiring reader who discovered something of the life of the writer ‘Those whom the appearance of virtue, or the evidence of genius, have tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer in whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity.’3 But Johnson’s conclusion is not cynical The life does not belie the work, even if it fails to match it There are good reasons why ‘a man writes much better than he lives’ Johnson wrote this from experience In the Lives of the Poets he looks back down more than a century of English poetry, but he is also looking back through his own ‘life of writing’, ruefully cataloguing the occupational self-delusions of authors It often seems from his condensed biographies that a writer is the best human exemplum: authorship focuses the most essential human aspirations and vanities Perhaps this is especially true of poets, who supposedly aspire higher than all other writers, and many of whom hanker after a vindication of which they must always be uncertain: the admiration of posterity All the authors whose lives Johnson narrated were dead In most cases, their literary achievements had begun to shrink; in some cases they had already been forgotten To bring back to life their ambitions and endeavours was to witness in close-up the vanity of human wishes As Johnson says in ‘Pope’, ‘let no man dream of influence beyond his life’ (p 406): even the most famous and successful of poets cannot know his posthumous fate When he wrote this, Pope was still the most widely admired poet of the century and a proper subject for a high-minded critic But Johnson’s biographical format allowed him to make Pope a kind of psychological case study, an extreme example of the ‘voracity of fame’ (p 378) His picture of the poet as a man who ‘pleased himself with being important and formidable, and gratified sometimes his pride, and sometimes his resentment’ is, we might say, hardly sympathetic (p 399) Yet it is not just disapproving These are the inevitable self-consolations of an author As the greatest author of the age, it was natural that Pope’s vanities be the most powerful and his self-delusions the most elaborate Johnson skewers his affectations: his faked ‘contempt of his own poetry’, his pretended ‘insensibility to censure and criticism’, and Rambler, no 14, (5 May 1750) Introduction ix the ‘gloomy indignation’ with which he looked on ‘the world’ (p 413) He declares, with a confidence that a modern biographer would never hazard, that these attitudes were certainly ‘counterfeited’ This is not because Johnson has particular counter-evidence to offer, but simply because he is sure he understands the psychology of a writer who was so hungry for the regard of his readers Johnson’s ‘Pope’ is the culmination of his Lives, the last one he wrote In Johnson’s version, Pope was, as Byron would disapprovingly put it, ‘all author’, his every gesture a contribution to his imagined reputation.4 We hear how the 16-year-old Pope, performing his poetic tricks for superannuated men of letters like William Wycherley, was already learning to behave like a poet—adopting the poet’s disdain for the mere critic ‘It is pleasant to remark how soon Pope learned the cant of an author, and began to treat criticks with contempt, though he had yet suffered nothing from them’ (p 351) But authorial self-regard is inevitably masochistic Johnson preserved the memorable anecdote of Pope’s self-torment as a satirist who claimed to relish his enmities Handed one of Colly Cibber’s pamphlets against him, he supposedly declared, ‘These things are my diversion’—but those who watched as he read it saw ‘his features writhen with anguish’ (p 403) The greater the writer, the more tender the sense of self So, elsewhere in the Lives, we find Dryden, his ‘supremacy of reputation’ on the London stage apparently threatened by Settle’s absurd Empress of Morocco, drawn in to a contest of abuse that Johnson explicates in wondering detail (pp 126-31) Dryden is of course foolish to give critics and rivals ‘the power of vexing him’ But it is an occupational folly ‘He is always angry at some past, or afraid of some future censure’ (p 144) This is what being an author, especially a successful author, is like At the opening of his life of Savage, Johnson talks of the ‘mournful narratives’ of ‘the heroes of literary history’ (p 238) The Lives of the Poets are ‘mournful narratives’ in a double sense They chronicle ‘the miseries of the learned’, the thwarted ambitions and the gnawing doubts of even the best writers They also speak for Johnson’s own particular melancholy—his mournful sensitivity to human disappointment The reader of Richard Savage’s life will know that its mournfulness is inextricable from its humour Savage’s talents are unappreciated and See Byron, Beppo: A Venetian Story, st 75, l 593 Explanatory Notes 509 332 The great acquisition without change: William Wood (1671–1730), a Wolverhampton ironmaster, obtained, via George I’s mistress the Duchess of Munster, a patent to supply coinage worth over £100,000 for use in Ireland The brass content was low, and the imposition of the coinage without regulation of its quality, or any consultation, alienated Irish opinion one Whitshed, then Chief Justice: William Whitshed (c.1656–1727), Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland He tried Edward Waters, the printer of one of The Drapier’s Letters 333 Lord Carteret the Fourth Letter: John Carteret, Earl Granville (1690– 1763), arrived in Dublin as Lord Lieutenant in October 1724 He was an acquaintance of Swift’s By the time that he arrived the Drapier’s identity was public knowledge Carteret himself shared the knowledge (his secretary, Thomas Tickell, identified Swift in his correspondence) Yet, despite the huge reward being offered, Swift was never officially identified as the author It was the printer, Harding, who was arrested, on Carteret’s orders, and who subsequently died in prison 334 Archbishop Boulter: Hugh Boulter (1672–1742), Archbishop of Armagh and Lord Justice of Ireland Boulter (along with Carteret) had advised the government to withdraw Wood’s coinage, which they did the king’s death: George I died 11 June 1727 335 Mrs Barber: Mary Barber (c.1685–1755), the wife of a Dublin woollen draper Barber was an acquaintance of Lord Carteret, through whom she became known to Swift, who was impressed by her poetry Swift supported the subscription to her Poems (1734) Despite Johnson’s imputations, there is no reason to doubt his assertions that the signature on the letter to Queen Caroline was indeed forged, and that he knew nothing of it Mrs Howard Mrs Masham: Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk (c.1688–1767), was a mistress of George II, though her influence over the King seems to have been negligible She cultivated the company of leading writers, including Pope and Gay Abigail Masham (1670?–1734) was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne who became her confidante and adviser two sick friends cannot live together: adapted from a letter from Swift to Pope, 12 Oct 1727 assurance double sure: Macbeth, iv i 83 336 In some Life of Swift: ‘Biographical Anecdotes of Dean Swift’ by John Lyon (1710–90), included in Philip Nichols’s Supplement to Dr Swift’s Works (1779) Lyon might have been supposed to write with authority Swift had been his patron when he was a young clergyman, and he had 510 Explanatory Notes been appointed a minor canon at St Patrick’s In 1740 he had moved into the deanery to serve as Swift’s secretary He inherited a number of Swift’s papers Dr Sheridan: Thomas Sheridan (1687–1738), a clergyman and schoolmaster, and friend of Swift He impressed Swift with his learning and gave him lessons in Greek but if not have parted: from a letter from Swift to Pope, 12 Oct 1727 337 In a short poem contempt: the poem was ‘On the Words—Brother Protestants and Fellow Christians’ (1733) It mocked Irish MP Richard Bettesworth (c.1689–1741) 339 Mrs Whiteway: from the mid-1730s Martha Whiteway (1690–1768), Swift’s widowed cousin, helped look after him was his debtor: see Verses on the Death of Dr Swift, l 483 341 rather with than harmonious: from Hawkesworth, i 39 he could only preach pamphlets: from Delany, Observations, 41–2 342 a story a specimen: Spence, i 53–4 See note to p 3, above 345 Dr Delany in these terms: Johnson quotes from the conclusion to Delany’s Observations, 289–91 346 proper words in proper places: from Swift’s A Letter to a Young Gentleman (1720) POPE 347 gentle blood: Johnson is quoting Pope himself, in his Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, l 388 The rest of the paragraph is based on Pope’s own biographical note to l 381 of the same poem Mr Tyers Mrs Racket: Thomas Tyers (1724/5–87) was joint proprietor of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which his father had made famous, and a friend of Johnson His Historical Rhapsody on Mr Pope (1781) was a collection of biographical vignettes of Pope Johnson added this information to his Lives in 1783 Mrs Magdalen Racket was Pope’s half-sister, his father’s daughter by a previous marriage the little Nightingale: Pope was apparently so called by the dramatist Thomas Southerne Johnson found the story in Owen Ruffhead’s Life of Alexander Pope (1769), one of his main sources for his life of the poet Taverner, a Romish priest: ‘Edward Taverner’ was the alias of the priest John Banister, who became master of a Roman Catholic school at Twyford, Hampshire, which Pope briefly attended Explanatory Notes 511 Ogylby’s Ovid: John Ogilby (1600–76) published, among many translations, versions of both Homer’s Iliad (1660) and Odyssey (1665) For Sandys’s Ovid, see note to p 146, above 348 he lisp’d in numbers: see Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, l 128 the bees swarmed about his mouth: there are several sources for this story that Pindar was set on the course of poetry when, as a boy, a swarm of bees found him asleep in the fields and fed him with honey the Revolution: the Glorious Revolution of 1688 Tully’s Offices: Tully is the writer better known as Cicero 349 the Thebais: Statius’ Thebaid 350 Sir William Trumbal: Sir William Trumbull (1639–1716) had been a diplomat and government official, rising to become a secretary of state in the 1690s He retired from politics to his home at Easthampstead, near where Pope was living at Binfield, in Windsor Forest, and came to cultivate the young poet 351 Wycherley: William Wycherley (1641–1716) was a former Restoration dramatist, notorious for his comedies of the 1670s such as The Country Wife Pope met him in 1705 and pursued the acquaintance The two men met frequently afterwards and took up a correspondence Pope helped Wycherley revise his poems for publication, though the older writer appears to have resented the young man’s suggestions as to necessary revisions Dennis: see note to p 264, above Dennis, ever Pope’s antagonist, claimed that Wycherley’s admiring poem ‘To my friend Mr Pope, on his Pastorals’, published in Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies, vi (1709), had been written by Pope himself Mr Cromwell: Henry Cromwell (1659–1728) was a poet and translator who became a friend and correspondent of the young Pope Mrs Thomas to Curll: the author Elizabeth Thomas (1675–1731) met Pope through Henry Cromwell Cromwell gave her some letters between himself and Pope Years later, in severe financial difficulties, she sold these to Edmund Curll (1675–1747), a notoriously unscrupulous bookseller, who published them in Miscellanea (1726) In revenge, Pope savagely satirized both Thomas and Curll in The Dunciad Walsh: William Walsh (1662–1708) was an MP and poet who had been one of Dryden’s circle at Will’s Coffee House Pope stayed at his Worcestershire home and Walsh commented on and suggested revisions to his early pastorals Pope subsequently celebrated him as ‘the Muse’s Judge and Friend’ in his An Essay on Criticism, l 729 512 Explanatory Notes 352 Tonson’s Miscellany: the bookseller Jacob Tonson published several anthologies of new work by contemporary poets The miscellany of 1709 in which Pope first published his poetry was Tonson’s sixth such collection 353 ‘‘who magnanimity’’: a version of a passage from Dennis’s Reflections Critical and Satyrical, upon An Essay upon Criticism (1711): see The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed E N Hooker, vols (Baltimore, 1939–43), i 396–7 There are at strife: An Essay on Criticism, ll 80–2 terms too elegant to be forgotten: Dennis, Works, i 404 354 the passage: Pope silently conceded Dennis’s point by revising these lines See An Essay on Criticism, ll 500–3 ‘‘For his acquaintance understanding’’: Dennis, Works, i 416–17 355 Dr Warburton by the author: William Warburton (1689–1779) was a clergyman and ambitious man of letters who wrote an elaborate commentary on Pope’s Essay He would later become known to the poet after defending in print the Christian orthodoxy of Pope’s Essay on Man See note to p 391, below The translations were by Anthony Hamilton (1644/5?–1719), John Robethon (d 1722), and Jean-Franc¸ois Du Bellay Du Resnel (1692–1761) It is possible inferred: Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593–7), ii i Mr Ruffhead: see note to p 347, above 356 Mr Caryl: Pope’s friend and correspondent was John Caryll (1667–1736), one of a circle of genteel Roman Catholic acquaintances near his then home in Windsor Forest Caryll encouraged Pope’s poetic ambitions and provided the poet with the story on which The Rape of the Lock is based Johnson confuses him with his uncle, also called John Caryll (1625–1711), whose heir he was 357 Sir George Brown: Sir George Browne (d 1730) apparently spoke in a blustering manner, which is suitably parodied in the poem at Paris her family: in 1775 Johnson travelled for the first time to France and in Paris met Mrs Fermor, abbess of an English convent and niece of the Arabella Fermor who was the original of Pope’s Belinda in The Rape of the Lock merum sal: ‘pure wit’, from Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, iv 1162 Berkeley: the philosopher and clergyman George Berkeley (1685–1753) 358 the Peace: the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended the War of the Spanish Succession Explanatory Notes 513 Lord Lansdowne: George Granville, Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735), was a leading Tory politician during the reign of Queen Anne As a minor poet and dramatist he is included in Johnson’s Lives 359 Cato: Joseph Addison’s 1713 tragedy Cato was widely admired when it was first staged It owed its notoriety partly to the fact that both Whigs and Tories appropriated its story of the virtuous Roman republican who commits suicide rather than submit to the tyrannical Caesar It was a great commercial as well as critical success to revenge Dennis: Dennis published his Remarks upon Cato, a critique of Addison’s tragedy, in 1713 Pope’s response was a mock-dialogue in which Dennis raves about the play to his nurse a Letter to him: this letter addressed to Addison and dated 20 July 1713 was in fact fabricated by Pope from an actual letter that he had written to Caryll the year before This year Pope: see note to p 230, above Jervas: the portrait painter Charles Jervas (1675–1739) Amongst the subjects of his portraits were Pope’s intimate friends Martha and Theresa Blount, and Jonathan Swift Pope wrote an ‘Epistle to Mr Jervas’ in 1716 Lord Mansfield: William Murray, Earl of Mansfield (1705–93), was a judge and politician who had been a friend of Pope’s as a young man in the 1730s The portrait remains in the possession of Mansfield’s descendants Betterton: for Betterton see note to p 77, above 360 Fenton: see note to p 54, above 361 Bernard Lintot: the leading bookseller Bernard Lintot (1675–1736) was a rival of Jacob Tonson and, like him, specialized in poetry and translation The first version of Pope’s The Rape of the Lock was published in one of his miscellanies He paid generously for Pope’s Iliad but, despite being undercut by piracies, still made a substantial profit from the work He and Pope later quarrelled over the latter’s Odyssey translation 363 If more help was wanting Ogylby: Johnson refers to translations of Homer by Helius Eobanus Hessus (1540) (into Latin), the Abbe´ de la Valterie (1681), and Anne Lefebvre Dacier (1711) (both into French prose), and George Chapman (1616), Thomas Hobbes (1676), and John Ogilby (1660–5), all into English Eustathius: Eustathius (c.1110–1198) was archbishop of Thessalonika and a celebrated annotator of Homer Broome: William Broome (1689–1745) was a poet and translator who was introduced to Pope in 1714 He was employed by Pope to extract 514 Explanatory Notes annotations from the writings of Eustathius He would later translate eight books of Pope’s version of the Odyssey 364 Thirlby Jortin: Styan Thirlby (1691–1753), a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, recommended John Jortin (1698–1770) to Pope Thirlby was Jortin’s tutor Jortin translated Eustathius’ commentary on Homer for Pope’s use in his notes to the Iliad, though the two men never met The terms mercantile: Johnson refers to a letter from Fenton to Pope in September 1718 Parnell: the Irish-born Thomas Parnell (1679–1718) was a poet and essayist, an associate of Swift, and a member of the Scriblerus Club He assisted Pope with his translation of Homer, staying at Binfield and later at Bath with him in 1714 His ‘Essay on the life, writings and learning of Homer’ was included in Pope’s Iliad 365 Mr Craggs: James Craggs, the younger (1686–1721), a prominent Whig politician, who became secretary of state in 1718 The Duke of Buckingham: see note to p 115, above descended from Museum: Johnson was able to borrow the manuscripts of Pope’s Iliad translations during the composition of the Lives Dr Matthew Maty (1718–76) was librarian of the British Museum David Mallet (1701/2–65) was a friend of Pope and was Bolingbroke’s literary executor 366 From the first their variations: in 1780 the Homer manuscripts were sent to the Thrales’ home at Streatham where Johnson transcribed them 372 Garth: Sir Samuel Garth (1660/1–1719) was a renowned physician and also a poet, author of the mock-heroic account of a conflict between physicians and apothecaries, The Dispensary (1699) Despite his Whig allegiances he had been a friend of Dryden and was an early mentor to Pope 373 ‘‘I am obliged yours &c.’’: Johnson derived Pope’s letter from Spence It is in fact dated December 1714 374 nothing but knowledge: Iliad, ii 486 375 Kennet: White Kennett (1660–1728) was an historian and clergyman, eventually bishop of Peterborough He was a dedicated Whig 376 Tickell: see note to p 230, above Maynwaring: see note to p 219, above 377 quincunx: a pattern of trees arranged in a group of five, with four occupying the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth its centre 378 Burnet: Thomas Burnet (1694–1753) was eventually a judge As a young man he published Homerides (1715), a satire on Pope subtitled A letter to Explanatory Notes 515 Mr Pope, occasion’d by his intended translation of Homer; by Sir Iliad Doggrel It was written with his friend and literary collaborator George Duckett It earned both of them a place in The Dunciad Ducket: George Duckett (1684–1732), author and Whig MP, collaborated with Thomas Burnet (see note above) 378 the South Sea: see note to p 247, above 379 Tonson: i.e Jacob Tonson the younger (1682–1735), who approached Alexander Pope to compose a new edition of Shakespeare’s plays Theobald a haughty character: for Theobald, see note to p 96, above Theobald’s Shakespeare Restored, or, A specimen of the many errors as well committed, as unamended, by Mr Pope in his late edition of this poet (1726) attacked Pope’s 1725 edition of Shakespeare for its sloppy textual scholarship 380 Bishop Atterbury: Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester (1663–1732), was accused of Jacobite conspiracy and tried for treason before the House of Lords in 1723 Pope testified on his behalf He was found guilty and sentenced to banishment On the continent he joined the court of the Old Pretender, the self-styled James III 381 Spence: see note to p 169, above His Essay on Pope’s Odyssey (1726) won for its author Pope’s friendship Burnet’s importance in his own History: Pope and Gay were satirizing the manner of Gilbert Burnet’s History of his Own Time (1724, 1734), which is often accused of overstating the author’s own historical significance Mr Fortescue: William Fortescue (1687–1749), a future judge, met Pope through his friend John Gay and became a member of the Scriblerus Club 382 Ralph: James Ralph (1705?–62) attacked Pope in his blank verse satire Sawney, an Heroic Poem Occasion’d by the Dunciad (1728) This earned him a place in the second edition of The Dunciad 383 a Dedication Savage: see note to p 263, above 385 pious passion friendship: Dunciad, iii 176 Aaron Hill: see note to p 250, above Cleland: William Cleland (1673/4–1741), a friend of Pope’s A letter written by Pope, but signed William Cleland (dated 22 December 1728 from St James’s), was prefixed to the enlarged edition of The Dunciad the Duke of Chandos: James Brydges, Duke of Chandos (1673–1744), became massively wealthy after acting as paymaster to the British forces during the War of the Spanish Succession He was an ambitious patron of the arts, particularly music He bought an estate at Cannons at 516 Explanatory Notes Edgware, north of London, which he improved and adorned in ostentatious fashion 386 There is nothing favour: see Juvenal, Satires, iv 70–1 387 Lintot, the son of Bernard: Henry Lintot (1703–58) was son of the famous bookseller Bernard Lintot and himself became a bookseller He bought the copyright to The Dunciad when it became available 388 Mr Allen: Ralph Allen (1693–1764) made himself wealthy through the innovative operation of postal services Once established, he became a notable philanthropist James Worsdale: the portrait painter James Worsdale (c.1692–1767) began as Sir Godfrey Kneller’s apprentice and had considerable success as a painter of royalty and of society figures He also had a dramatic career, acting in London and Dublin theatres 389 Howel indeed or friend: Johnson refers to James Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, vols (1645–55) (see note to p 65, above); Daniel George Morhoff, De Ratione Conscribendarum Epistolarum Libellus (1716); Robert Loveday, Letters, Domestick and Forrein (1659); George Herbert’s letters in Izaak Walton’s Life (1670); and Sir John Suckling’s Last Remains (1659) 390 A mighty maze plan: Pope, An Essay on Man, i And spite spite: ibid 293 391 the doctrine from Bolingbroke: Bolingbroke was a deist (see note to p 165, below) and privately scornful of Christian faith Though a Roman Catholic, Pope had written a poem that was interpreted by some as being deistic It was first turned paragraph: Johnson refers to E´tienne de Silhouette, Essai sur l’homme (1736), and J F Du B Du Resnel, Les Principes de la morale (1737) The religious implications of the Essay on Man were analysed in a hostile fashion by the Swiss theologian Jean Pierre de Crousaz (1663–1750) in his Examen de l’Essai de M Pope sur l’homme (1737) He identified the poem’s doctrine with the writings of the deistic German philosopher Leibniz William Warburton won Pope’s friendship by defending the theology of the Essay on Man in a Vindication published in 1740 392 oderint dum metuant: Suetonius’s judgement on Caligula in De Vita Caesarum, iv xxx (‘he was content to be hated as long as he was feared’) Concanen: Matthew Concanen (1701–49) had been a friend and collaborator of William Warburton, who might even have contributed to his anonymous attack on Pope, A Supplement to the Profound (1728) Concanen was probably also the editor of A Complete Collection (1728), Explanatory Notes 517 a republication of satirical replies to the Pope–Swift Miscellanies He is duly mocked in The Dunciad Concanen was also a friend of Pope’s foe Lewis Theobald Pope appears to have remained ignorant of Warburton’s early involvement with both men 393 Mr R.: Jacob Robinson, bookseller and publisher of History of the Works of the Learned It was in this periodical that parts of Warburton’s defence of Pope’s Essay on Man first appeared 394 Mr Hooke: the translator and historian Nathaniel Hooke (d 1763) He was a Roman Catholic and Pope became one of his patrons It was Hooke who brought a priest to Pope’s deathbed Mr Murray: William Murray, later Earl of Mansfield See note to p 359, above Dobson: William Dobson, who had published a Latin translation of Prior’s Solomon (1734–6) He completed his translation only of the first two epistles of the poem among the great: see Pope’s Imitations of Horace, Satire II i, l 133 ‘The great’ are those with worldly power, officially scorned by any self-respecting satirist Mr Southcot: the Roman Catholic priest Thomas Southcott (1670–1748) 395 refusing the visits of a Queen: see Swift’s poem A Libel on Doctor Delany, ll 73–4 the praise Ross: see An Epistle to Bathurst, ll 249–80, where Pope gives an admiring vignette of the philanthropic John Kyrle (1634–1724), sometimes known as ‘the Man of Ross’ Kyrle lived in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, and Pope found out about him from Jacob Tonson, who had a house nearby at Ledbury Pope did not know Kyrle personally Mr Victor: author and theatre manager Benjamin Victor (d 1778) 396 Martha Blount: Pope met Martha Blount (1690–1763) and her elder sister Teresa when he was about 20, and Martha in particular remained his close friend for the rest of his life There were contemporary rumours that she was his mistress, and there has been much biographical speculation since, but there is no good evidence of this She belonged to a genteel but impecunious Roman Catholic family living near Pope when he was in Binfield Pope addressed to Martha his satirical Epistle to a Lady (1735) 397 Vice too high: see Pope’s Imitations of Horace, Satire II i, ll 59–60 the Dutchess of Marlborough: the character of Atossa in the Epistle to a Lady was widely believed to be based on Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, (1660–1744), widow of the Whig hero, the Duke of Marlborough, and, during the reign of Queen Anne, a powerful courtier in her own right 518 Explanatory Notes the Duke of Shrewsbury: Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury (1660–1718) The point is that the suggestion must have been made to Pope years before it was taken up derived Esprit: Johnson refers to Boileau’s ‘E´pitre X’ (‘A mes vers’) 398 Who but were he?: An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, ll 213–14 Lord Hervey: John, Lord Hervey (1696–1743), was a leading Whig politician and courtier He was a confidant of Walpole He quarrelled with his former friend and fellow Whig politician William Pultney and, after an exchange of insults in pamphlets, the two men duelled with swords in Green Park, London, each wounding the other He won the enmity of Pope partly for political reasons, but more because, with Pope’s former intimate Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, he viciously satirized the poet in Verses Address’d to the Imitator of Horace (1733) Hard as obscure: Verses Address’d to the Imitator of Horace (1733), l 20 399 low-born Allen: see note to p 388, above Allen’s Cornish father had been either a labourer or an innkeeper, perhaps both one of the Foxes: the politician Henry Fox (1705–74) About this time his publisher: the satirist Paul Whitehead (1710–74) was summoned before the House of Lords because of a contemptuous reference to Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of Salisbury, in his anti-Walpolean satire Manners (1739) 400 the History of Mr Oufle: Laurent Bordelon’s The History of the Ridiculous Extravagances of Mr Oufle (1711) A small selection undertaking: Johnson refers to Anthologia (1684), a collection of Latin verse by Italian poets which was thought to be edited by Francis Atterbury (see note to p 380, above) 401 I never have offended him: see Cibber’s autobiographical Apology for his Life (1740), 22–3 402 a pamphlet: A Letter from Mr Cibber, to Mr Pope (1742) 403 Osborne: the bookseller Thomas Osborne (1704–67) In the early 1740s Johnson himself had famously quarrelled with Osborne, who was employing him on the Harleian catalogue After Osborne abused him for timewasting, Johnson felled him with a folio volume another pamphlet: Cibber wrote several more pamphlets; this one is Another Occasional Letter from Mr Cibber to Mr Pope (1744) I have heard Mr Richardson: since Jonathan Richardson (see note to p 77, above) was born in 1694 this cannot have been a boyhood memory as here implied However, Johnson did certainly talk to Richardson about his memories of Pope, whom Johnson himself never encountered Explanatory Notes 519 404 Dr Thomson: Dr Thomas Thompson (d 1763) was a well-known quack Lord Marchmont: the source for this story was Pope’s friend Hugh Hume Campbell, Earl of Marchmont (1708–94) Boswell organized a meeting between him and Johnson in May 1779, at which Johnson heard Marchmont’s recollections of the poet 406 the Bishop of Gloucester: William Warburton (see note to p 355, above) reserved for the next age: see Pope’s Imitations of Horace, Satire II i, ll 59–60 The Patriot King: Bolingbroke’s Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism (1749) Mallet: see note to p 365, above 407 He brought benefactions: Johnson follows Ruffhead’s account, but Pope’s reference to Ralph Allen in his will was not as Johnson describes his account of the Little Club: Pope’s account is in the Guardian, nos 91 and 92 (1713) 408 a long disease: from Pope’s Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, l 132 C’est que enfant: Johnson had used the lines before in a letter to Hesther Thrale of July 1780 They have various sources: see Lonsdale, iv 305 n 259 nodded in company: see Pope’s Imitations of Horace, Satire II i, l 13 409 Hannibal a ring: Juvenal, Satires, x 164–6 Having been betrayed to the Romans, Hannibal took poison which he had concealed in a ring He hardly drank tea without a stratagem: one of Johnson’s best-known bon mots in the Lives is in fact adapted from a line by Edward Young in his Love of Fame, vi 190 he plaid turnips: from Lord Marchmont, see note to p 404, above 410 When an objection put together: Pope had composed a Latin inscription for Shakespeare’s monument, which was criticized by Samuel Patrick (1684–1748), editor of a Latin dictionary The Latin quotation is from Virgil’s Aeneid, ii 204 (‘I shudder as I mention it’) and is a joke about the occupation of dictionary-making that Johnson shared with Patrick Lady Mary Wortley: see note to p 252, above 411 his Highness’s dog: ‘I am his Highness’ Dog at Kew;|Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you?’ Lord Bathurst: Allen, Earl Bathurst (1684–1775), was a Tory politician who cultivated literary men, including Pope Pope addressed one of his Moral Essays, ‘On the Use of Riches’, to Bathurst 520 Explanatory Notes Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke: two of Pope’s Moral Essays were addressed respectively to Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham (1675– 1749), owner of the house and landscaped gardens at Stowe, and Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington (1694–1753), architectural connoisseur and literary patron Bolingbroke was the addressee of Pope’s Essay on Man 414 a fool to Fame: Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, l 127 415 Of his vain desire in his retreat: Pope satirized the classical scholar Richard Bentley in The Dunciad (1743), iv 199–274 For Bentley, see note to p 32, above 421 Zephyrs in silence: see Pastorals, ‘Winter’, ll 49–50 The design The Park: Johnson refers to Denham’s Cooper’s Hill (1642) and Waller’s A Poem on St James’s Park (1661) 422 the original vision of Chaucer: i.e Chaucer’s The House of Fame the Pollio: Virgil’s ‘Eclogue IV’ 423 Pindar is said solutis: in his Odes, iv ii 11–12 Horace describes Pindar as writing ‘in measures free from rule’ as Mr Cobb an impudent one: Samuel Cobb (1675–1713), who published several Pindaric odes, was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, when Bentley was Master there 424 what Perrault long tail: from Charles Perrault, Paralle`le des anciens et des modernes (1693), ii 41 425 the sound the sense: An Essay on Criticism, l 365 With many the ground: Pope’s Odyssey, xi 735–8 Though Brome translated Book xi, Pope wrote or approved these lines 426 When Ajax the main: An Essay on Criticism, ll 370–3 Waller was energy divine: Imitations of Horace, Epistle II i, ll 267–9 427 to laugh at sex: from Pope’s prefactory dedication to Arabella Fermor the Lutrin: Boileau’s anticlerical satire Le Lutrin (1674) 428 curiosa felicitas: Petronius, Satyricon, 118 (‘studied felicity’) the learned author of Pope: Joseph Warton (1722–1800), whose An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756) was an influential reconsideration (and diminution) of Pope’s status 429 Anguillara’s Ovid: Giovanni Anguillara’s 1584 translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into Italian Salvini: Antonio Salvini’s Italian version of the Iliad appeared in 1723 Explanatory Notes 521 Germanicus: the Roman general Nero Claudius Germanicus (15 bc–ad 19), like Cicero, translated Aratus’ Phaenomena the plays of Terence Menander: all but two of the Latin plays of Terence were adapted from Greek plays by Menander 430 necessitas quod cogit defendit: Seneca Rhetor, Controversiae, ix iv Johnson provides his own translation 431 impune Telephus: Juvenal, Satires, i 4–5 The lines refer to having had to watch a tedious tragedy about the mythological Telephus: ‘Shall I have no revenge on one who has taken up the whole day with an interminable Telephus?’ 432 Moore: James Moore Smythe (1702–34), mocked in The Dunciad, ii 35–50 and 109–20 Leibnitian: see note to p 391, above 433 from infinite is wise: An Essay on Man, i 17–32, 207–58, and ii 294 434 Boileau’s Satire: Boileau, Satire x 435 Musick poetry: Dryden, Preface to Tyrannick Love 436 Lo, where of snows: Dunciad, iii 87–8 Watts: Isaac Watts, The Improvement of the Mind (1741), 357–8 Hall’s Satires: see note to p 204, above 437 The following letter Mr Jodrell: Pope’s letter to Ralph Bridges dated April 1708 was owned by the Earl of Hardwicke (1720–90) and was obtained for Johnson by the dramatist Richard Jodrell (1745–1831) Hobbes: see note to p 363, above 439 The Criticism the Life: what follows is Johnson’s ‘Dissertation on the Epitaphs Written by Pope’, which was first published in Christopher Smart’s Universal Visiter (May 1756), pp 207–19, and reprinted in a revised version in the collected edition of the Idler (1767), ii 287–324 Charles Earl of Dorset : see note to p 152, above 442 the Hon Simon Harcourt : Simon Harcourt (1684–1720), Tory MP and occasional Jacobite 444 Mr Rowe : see note to p 142, above Mrs Corbet : Elizabeth Corbett (d 1725), daughter of Sir Uvedale Corbett 445 the Hon Robert Digby Lord Digby : Robert Digby was a friend and correspondent of Pope’s who died in 1726 His sister Mary died in 1729 522 Explanatory Notes 446 Sir Godfrey Kneller : Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723) was the leading portrait painter of his age 447 General Henry Withers : Withers (1651?–1729) had a long military career, ending with service under Marlborough throughout the War of the Spanish Succession 450 Quem fatetur: ‘Isaac Newton, whose immortality is witnessed by Time, Nature and the Heavens, whose mortality is confessed by this marble’ Edmund , Duke of Buckingham : the third son of Pope’s friend the Duke of Buckingham, see note to p 115, above to Rochester 451 Ludovici sepulchrum: Ariosto, ‘Ludovicii Aerosti Epit.’, ll 1–11 ‘The bones of Ludovico Ariosto are buried under this marble, or under this earth, or under whatever pleases his kind heir, or a kinder friend, or a traveller happening upon him more fittingly; for he could not know the future, nor did his empty corpse matter enough to him to make him prepare an urn while he was alive; but while still alive he prepared these lines he wished to be inscribed on his tomb, if he should ever have such a tomb.’ GRAY 452 Dr George: Dr William George (1697–1756), later provost of King’s College, Cambridge Mr Horace Walpole: Horace Walpole (1717–97) was the son of Sir Robert Walpole and later to be a noted author, connoisseur, and letter writer 453 Mr West: Richard West (c.1691–1726) was a close friend of Gray at Eton and a minor poet He is included in Johnson’s Lives Mr Mason: William Mason (1725–97) became a lifelong friend of Gray and would eventually be his literary executor After Gray’s death he published The Poems of Mr Gray, to which are Prefixed Memoirs of his Life and Writings (1775) (hereafter Mason), which helped establish Gray’s reputation Though he claimed a low opinion of Mason’s admiring memoir, Johnson is often reliant on it for facts lady Cobham: Anne Temple, Viscountess Cobham, was the widow of Lord Cobham, to whom Pope had addressed a poetic epistle She lived in the Manor House at Stoke Poges, in Buckinghamshire, where Gray often visited his uncle and aunt 454 Mr Bentley: Richard Bentley (1708–82) was an associate of Walpole who helped to model his ‘Gothic’ house at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham At Walpole’s behest, he produced illustrations for the first collection of Gray’s poems, Designs by Mr R Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr T Gray (1753) Explanatory Notes 523 Warburton: see note to p 355, above Mr Whitehead: William Whitehead (1715–85), a playwright as well as a poet two odes much ingenuity: these parodies of Gray’s vatic style were written by George Colman (1732–94) and Robert Lloyd (1733–64) When the Professor James Lowther: Gray’s self-description is taken from Mason He applied to the prime minister, John Stuart, Earl of Bute (1713–92), but the post was given to Lawrence Brockett (1724–68), the tutor of Bute’s son-in-law 455 Dr Beattie: James Beattie (1735–1803) was a poet and Professor of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen University When Gray met him he had published Original Poems and Translations (1760), which included translations of Virgil’s eclogues as well as two Pindaric odes modelled on Gray’s own He would later become best known for his long narrative poem The Minstrel (1771 and 1774) the duke of Grafton: Augustus Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton (1735– 1811), was prime minister and Chancellor of Cambridge University His character believe it true: William Temple (1739–96) was a friend of Boswell who had known Gray in Cambridge Temple sent this account to Boswell, who published it without authorization 456 His short account insert: Gray’s comments are taken from Mason, pp 263–4 Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671– 1713), was the author of Characteristicks (1711), a collection of essays and dialogues on philosophy and aesthetics It was widely read in the eighteenth century and influenced some poets, notably James Thomson Shaftesbury was a deist, believing that the only necessary religious belief could be inferred by the observation and admiration of Nature Johnson believed that his influence was pernicious 458 honey redolent of Spring: in Dryden’s ‘Of the Pythagorean Philosophy’, l 110 O Diva Antium: Horace, Odes, i xxxv (‘Goddess, who rule over lovely Antium’) 459 third ternary: the final part of a three-part poetic unit Algarotti: the Italian polymath Francesco Algarotti (1712–64) made the comparison with Horace’s Odes, i xv in a letter quoted in Mason, ii 83 Incredulus odi: Horace, Ars Poetica, i 188 (‘I disbelieve and therefore detest’) epodes: the epode is the last part of a Pindaric ode, after the strophe and antistrophe ... prose The language was now illuminated by its literature His edition of Shakespeare had played a major role in establishing Shakespeare as the equal of any ‘ancient’, and the central figure in a canon... true of poets, who supposedly aspire higher than all other writers, and many of whom hanker after a vindication of which they must always be uncertain: the admiration of posterity All the authors... of Johnson’s complete Lives, now available separately from the sets of the English Poets and given the title The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets Johnson was always happy to associate