288 Literature in France. [A.D. 1778. presence of women'.' RAMSAY. 'Literature is upon the growth, it is in its spring in France. Here it is rather passéc."' JOHNSON. Literature was in France long before we had it. Paris was the second city for the revival of letters: Italy had it first, to be sure. What have we done for literature, equal to what was done by the Stephani and others in France? Our literature came to us through France. Caxton printed only two books, Chaucer and Gower, that were not translations from the French; and Chaucer, we know, took much from the Italians. No, Sir, if literature be in its spring in France, it is a second spring; it is after a winter. We are now before the French in literature2; but we had it long after them. In England, any man who wears a sword and a powdered wig is ashamed to be illiterate'. I believe it is not so in France. Yet there is, probably, a great deal of learning in France, because they have such a number of religious establishments; so many men who have nothing else to do but to study. I do not know this; but I take it upon the common principles of chance. Where there are many shooters, some will hit.' We talked of old age'. Johnson (now in his seventieth year,) said, 'It is a man's own fault, it is from want of use, 'Gibbon could have illustrated this subject, for not long before he had at Paris been introduced,' he said, 'to the best company of both sexes, to the foreign ministers of all nations, and to the first names and characters of France.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 227. He says of an earlier visit:- Alone, in a morning visit, I commonly found the artists and authors of Paris less vain and more reasonable than in the circles of their equals, with whom they mingle in the houses of the rich.' Ib. p. 162. Horace Walpole wrote of the Parisians in 1765, (Letters, iv. 436):-'Their gaiety is not greater than their delicacy— but I will not expatiate. [He had just described the grossness of the talk of women of the first rank.] Several of the women are agreeable, and some of the men; but the latter are in general vain and ignorant. The savans-I beg their pardon, the philosophes-are insupportable, superficial, overbearing, and fanatic.' 2 See post, under Aug. 29, 1783, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 14. See post, April 28, 1783. See ante, p. 217, 218. Aetat. 69.] Old age. 289 if his mind grows torpid in old age.' The Bishop asked, if an old man does not lose faster than he gets. JOHNSON. ‘I think not, my Lord, if he exerts himself.' One of the company rashly observed, that he thought it was happy for an old man that insensibility comes upon him. JOHNSON: (with a noble elevation and disdain,) No, Sir, I should never be happy by being less rational.' BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH. 'Your wish then, Sir, is ynpáσkew didaσкóμevos'.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, my Lord.' His Lordship mentioned a charitable establishment in Wales, where people were maintained, and supplied with every thing, upon the condition of their contributing the weekly produce of their labour; and he said, they grew quite torpid for want of property. JOHNSON. They have no object for hope. Their condition cannot be better. It is rowing without a port.' One of the company asked him the meaning of the expression in Juvenal, unius lacerta. JOHNSON. I think it ciear enough; as much ground as one may have a chance to find a lizard upon." Commentators have differed as to the exact meaning of the expression by which the Poet intended to enforce the sentiment contained in the passage where these words occur. It is enough that they mean to denote even a very small possession, provided it be a man's own: 'Est aliquid quocunque loco quocunque recessu, This season there was a whimsical fashion in the news papers of applying Shakspeare's words to describe living persons well known in the world; which was done under the title of Modern Characters from Shakspeare; many of which 1 * γηράσκω δ ̓ αἰεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος. 'I grow in learning as I grow in years.' Plutarch, Solon, ch. 31. 'Tis somewhat to be lord of some small ground In which a lizard may at least turn round.' III.-19 Dryden, Juvenal, iii. 230. were 290 Garagantua. [A.D. 1778. were admirably adapted. The fancy took so much, that they were afterwards collected into a pamphlet'. Somebody said to Johnson, across the table, that he had not been in those characters. 'Yes (said he) I have. I should have been sorry to be left out.' He then repeated what had been applied to him, 'I must borrow GARAGANTUA'S mouth'.' Miss Reynolds not perceiving at once the meaning of this, he was obliged to explain it to her, which had something of an aukward and ludicrous effect. Why, Madam, it has a reference to me, as using big words, which require the mouth of a giant to pronounce them. Garagantua is the name of a giant in Rabelais.' BOSWELL. But, Sir, there is another amongst them for you: "He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for his power to thunder"."" No, Sir, JOHNSON. There is nothing marked in that. Garagantua is the best.' Notwithstanding this ease and good humour, when I, a little while afterwards, repeated his sarcasm on Kenrick', which was received with applause, he asked, Who said that?' and on my suddenly answering, Garagantua, he looked serious, which was a sufficient indication that he did not wish it to be kept up. When we went to the drawing-room there was a rich assemblage. Besides the company who had been at dinner, there were Mr. Garrick, Mr. Harris of Salisbury, Dr. Percy, Dr. Burney, Honourable Mrs. Cholmondeley, Miss Hannah More, &c. &c. 1 Modern characters from Shakespeare. Alphabetically arranged. A New Edition. London, 1778. It is not a pamphlet but a duodeSome of the lines are very grossly applied. cimo of 88 pages. 2 As You Like it, act iii. sc. 2. The giant's name is Gargantua, not Garagantua. In Modern Characters (p. 47), the next line also is given : 'Tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size.' The lines that Boswell next quotes are not given. 3 Coriolanus, act iii. sc. I. 4 See vol. i. p. 576. BOSWELL. After 291 After wandering about in a kind of pleasing distraction for some time, I got into a corner, with Johnson, Garrick, and Harris. GARRICK: (to Harris.) Pray, Sir, have you read Potter's Eschylus?' HARRIS. 'Yes; and think it pretty.' GARRICK. (to Johnson.) And what think you, Sir, of it?' JOHNSON. I thought what I read of it verbiage': but upon Mr. Harris's recommendation, I will read a play. (To Mr. Harris.) Don't prescribe two.' Mr. Harris suggested one, I do not remember which. JOHNSON. 'We must try its effect as an English poem; that is the way to judge of the merit of a translation. Translations are, in general, for people who cannot read the original.' I mentioned the vulgar saying, that Pope's Homer was not a good representation of the original. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is the greatest work of the kind that has ever been produced'.' BosWELL. The truth is, it is impossible perfectly to translate poetry'. In a different language it may be the same tune, but it has not the same tone. Homer plays it on a bassoon; Pope on a flagelet.' HARRIS. 'I think Heroick poetry is best in blank 1 See ante, ii. 271, where Johnson charges Robertson with verbiage. This word is not in his Dictionary. * Pope, meeting Bentley at dinner, addressed him thus:- Dr. Bentley, I ordered my bookseller to send you your books. I hope you received them.' Bentley, who had purposely avoided saying anything about Homer, pretended not to understand him, and asked, ‘Books! books! what books?' My Homer,' replied Pope, which you did me the honour to subscribe for.'-'Oh,' said Bentley, 'ay, now I recollect -your translation:—it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer.' Johnson's Works, viii. 336, note. It is certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen; and its publication must therefore be considered as one of the great events in the annals of Learning.' Ib. p. 256. There would never,' said Gray, 'be another translation of the same poem equal to it.' Gray's Works, ed. 1858, v. 37. Cowper however says, that he and a friend 'compared Pope's translation throughout with the original. They were not long in discovering that there is hardly the thing in the world of which Pope was so utterly destitute as a taste for Homer.' Southey's Cowper, i. 106. 'Boswell here repeats what he had heard from Johnson, ante, p. 42. 292 Rhyme essential to English poetry. [A.D. 1778. verse; yet it appears that rhyme is essential to English poetry, from our deficiency in metrical quantities. In my opinion, the chief excellence of our language is numerous prose.' JOHNSON. Sir William Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose'. Before his time they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind whether a sentence ended with an important word or an insignificant word, or with what part of speech it was concluded.' Mr. Langton, who now had joined us, commended Clarendon. JOHNSON. He is objected to for his parentheses, his involved clauses, and his want of harmony. But he is supported by his matter. It is, indeed, owing to a plethory of matter that his style is so faulty'. Every substance, (smiling to Mr. Harris',) has so many accidents.-To be distinct, we must talk analytically. If we analyse language, we must speak of it grammatically; if we analyse argument, we must Hume, in and proThe first 1 Swift, in his Preface to Temple's Letters, says :- It is generally believed that this author has advanced our English tongue to as great a perfection as it can well bear.' Temple's Works, i. 226. his Essay Of Civil Liberty, wrote in 1742: The elegance priety of style have been very much neglected among us. polite prose we have was writ by a man who is still alive (Swift). As to Sprat, Locke, and even Temple, they knew too little of the rules of art to be esteemed elegant writers.' Mackintosh says (Life, ii. 205) :— 'Swift represents Temple as having brought English style to perfection. Hume, I think, mentions him; but of late he is not often spoken of as one of the reformers of our style-this, however, he certainly was. The structure of his style is perfectly modern.' Johnson said that he had partly formed his style upon Temple's; ante, i. 253. In the last Rambler, speaking of what he had himself done for our language, he says:- Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence.' 2 Clarendon's diction is neither exact in itself, nor suited to the purpose of history. It is the effusion of a mind crowded with ideas, and desirous of imparting them; and therefore always accumulating words, and involving one clause and sentence in another.' The Rambler, No. 122. 3 Johnson's addressing himself with a smile to Mr. Harris is explained by a reference to what Boswell said (ante, p. 278) of Harris's analytic method in his Hermes. speak |