in Lucan, who wrote his Pharsalia at the age of 19; of Congreve, of Chatterton; but the Physiologist and the Philosopher would equally desire instances of intellect preserved in advanced age. Is any one recorded more remarkable than that of Fontenelle? What great work was ever written after the age of 70? Yet this observation, if correct in science and literature, would not apply to the fine arts. Read the age of Titian, M. Angelo, and other painters in Vasari. Is the mixture of mental and mechanical employments more favourable to health? Quære. P. 75. "He will not talk, Sir; so his learning does no good, and his wit, if he has it, gives no pleasure. Out of all his boasted stores, I never heard him force but one word, and that word was Richard." It is well known that this anecdote relates to Dr. John Taylor, the editor of Demosthenes. He was a very retired and laborious scholar. His "Elements of Civil Law" is a very learned work; and though it has not much wit in it, it abounds with so much curious and interesting information, as to make it a very delightful performance. See some verses by Taylor in Nichols's Select Poems, vol. v. pp. 154-172. Bell's Fugitive Poetry, vol. xvIII. p. 27; and Brydges's Restituta, vol. 1v. pp. 404-407. A pamphlet was published in 1738," Remarks upon Dr. Warburton's Preface, in answer to the uncommon Liberties taken by him with respect to Dr. Taylor, Chancellor of Lincoln." The indefatigable Mr. Nichols collected, at Dr. Parr's suggestion, some fugitive Pieces of Taylor's, and published them in 8vo, in 1819. Most of Dr. Taylor's classical books were interleaved, and filled with collations, notes, &c. Dr. Parr considered his Latin style to be sometimes incorrect, as he introduced Anglicisms, and sometimes a violation of the Latin idioms. He particularly (said the doctor) used to blunder about ' ut.' So did Toup and other illustrious scholars. We know no Latinity by an English scholar superior to Lowth's, though Sir George Baker's is excellent. Dr. Copleston's " Prælectiones" is a work of the greatest merit, and should be in the hands of all students and scholars. He is indeed πολύνους καὶ πολυμαθής. P. 88. Mr. Croker has done justice in his note to the character of Markland, who was a most ingenious and profound scholar. The language quoted from the Quarterly Review, which speaks of his respectable portion of judgment, does not do him justice; nor is Mr. J. H. Markland's phrase of his devoting himself to COLLATING the Classics,' the one that was most appropriate. Certainly, when Markland was editing an author, he collated the MSS. he could obtain; but as he did not live a collegiate life, nor in the reach of rich public libraries, he could not collate, except in particular cases. But he did spend his life in correcting and elucidating the Classics; and hardly an author escaped his diligence and attention, from Homer to Manetho, and from Ennius down to Salvian and Mart. Capella. We possess at least thirty volumes of classic authors (among which is his own copy of Statii Sylvæ) from his library, all of them filled with the marks of his laborious learning; among which his Cicero and his Clem. Alexandrinus are peculiarly valuable. Reüke, whenever he mentions him, calls him the Reverend Mr. Markland! We shall now indulge our readers with a Poem by this eminent scholar. * How does Mr. Croker translate the following couplet in Taylor's Alcaic Ode:Densare gaudens agmina lurida Luces adustis incubuit notis ? TO THE COUNTESS OF WARWICK, IN DEFENCE OF MR. ADDISON, AGAINST THE When soft expressions covert malice hide, In mazy wonder we astonish'd stand, Perceive the stroke, but miss the emittent hand. Amongst the adverse ranks a javelin threw; O, Pope forbear henceforth to vex the Muse, And you by lessening, will his fame increase. We suppose Mr. Croker knows who 'W. H. Armigero' is, to whom Markland dedicates his treatise ' De Græcorum Quintâ Declinatione," &c. It was a Mr. Hall, of whom we believe “melius est silere." For the last twenty years of his life Markland lodged with a widow, Mrs. Rose, at Milton Court, near Dorking; not a very good place for collations. There is a mezzotint engraving of him, with a flowing Ramillies, and frogs on his laced coat, as if he was going to Court. Burman calls him—" Vir ingenio et eruditione florens" (see Claudian, p. 188) and G. Wakefield says"Marklandus doctissime atque ingeniosissime semper, et admodum feliciter persæpe suum munus administravit." And Toup Emend. in Suidam, pt. i. p. 71, "Marklandus solum in hujusmodi rebus nasum, atque oculos habens." This is a truer character than that in the Quarterly just quoted. It is most probable, as Mr. Croker says, that Johnson respected Markland, but he knew little or nothing of the merit of his writings, as Johnson's reading did not extend to minute verbal criticisms in Latin,-certainly not in Greek. Does his namesake and descendant know that of the illustrious and orthodox Jeremiah, who, he says, devoted himself to illustrating the Scriptures, it was insinuated that he dropped Socinianism into some of his emendations. This, however, was false, and gave him pain. The MS. remarks of Bentley on Markland's Epistola Critica," and on his Emendations of Horace, may be seen in Class. Journal, March 1818, p. 13, de Marklando Critico. See Heinrich Expl. Horat. Proem. Kiliæ, 1808, and Koppiersii Observ. Philologicus, pp. 90, 132. 8vo. We have now done, and fall back into rỳ Octov σwπýν: only adding, that Jeremiah was very fond of his rubber of whist in the evening, as were Dean Vincent, Dr. S. Parr, and other good men and true. P. 116. "ALL pleasure preconceived and preconcerted ends in disappointment. But disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue."-Whether such a sentence as this was extracted to do honour to Johnson's fame as a logician and a moralist we cannot say :of which the major proposition is false, the minor obscure, and the conclusion irrelevant. We believe that some of the highest and best pleasure is that which is preconcerted. We deny that disappointment is as good as success in its pertinent and appropriate sense; i. e. as pleasurable. And we dismiss the reasons given; because pleasure and disappointment relate to the will and the feelings, and not to the intellect. Who is the editor of this part? P. 135. "Johnson's account of Lord Lyttelton's envy to Shenstone for his improvements in his grounds," &c. This is a specimen of Sir John Hawkins's style, hardly to be excelled by Boswell himself. We do not believe the accusation against Lord Lyttelton. The grounds at the Leasowes were of a character so different from Hagley Park, as not to fall` within the scope of rivalry-their beauties were of a different order.* And see Shenstone's Letters, where he describes the visits of the Lytteltons and their friends with pleasure, and particularly letter cix. Jan. 4, 1763, where he calls the Leasowes the little Amoret,' and Hagley the stately Sacharissa. The following inscription is on an urn in a garden at Edgbaston, mourning the destruction of the poet's grounds. AH MUSE PERFIDÆ, AH! NAIADES DRYADESQUE, G. SHENSTONE. The account of the Leasowes, which may be seen in Shenstone's Works, was written by Dr. Percy, who had never seen them. We question whether the term "ferme ornée" was not first used by Shenstone. The frontispiece to the second volume of Dodsley's edition of Shenstone, 1773, 3 vols., beats in absurdity most things of the kind. Shenstone is standing in an open mountainous country, in a sort of surplice or night-shirt, over part of which hangs a sort of hood of bearskin. He has sandals peaked and slashed, and tied with thongs. He is playing a kind of instrument, uniting the piano and harp, supported by dolphins, and ending with Daphno on the top, stretching her arms like wheatsheaves. Apollo, stark naked, is approaching and putting a crown of laurel on his head; while a gigantic * Shenstone returned thanks to God, among other causes of gratitude, "for that there is an intermediate hill interrupting my view of a nobleman's seat, whose ill obtained superiority I cannot bear to recollect." Was this seat Hagley?-See his Works, vol. 11. p. 21. GENT. MAG. VOL. VII. 30 kingfisher, as big as both the god and the poet, is looking on. In his copy of Prior's Poems Shenstone writes-" Prior's Chloe was a facetious, cheer ful, gay old woman, that used to laugh with a profusion of good humour, until she was almost ready to die, at the conceit of her being a poet's flame; and Prior, we may be sure, was equally delighted at the excellence of her understanding." Shenstone's Latin Rural Inscriptions are neat and elegant, and are unrivalled, but not always correct in Latinity. P. 142. He thought Jortin's Life of Erasmus a dull book." And so it is, though the subject of it was one that would have afforded, more than most, entertainment and instruction; and both Erasmus and Jortin were men of wit and humour. Coleridge gives the real reason of the failure. "Every scholar well read in the writings of Erasmus and his contemporaries must have discovered that Jortin has neither collected sufficient nor the best materials for his work; and perhaps for that very cause he grew weary of his task, before he had made a full use of the scanty materials which he had collected."-See The Friend, vol. 1. 226; and also Horace Walpole's Letters to Lord Hertford, pp. 250-252. P. 143. "When I was a young man I translated Addison's Latin poem on the Battle of the Pygmies and the Cranes, and must plead guilty to the following couplet : 'Down from the guardian boughs the nests they flung, And kill'd the yet unanimated young.'" This was not the only line Johnson wrote, which contained what he calls a poetic bull. We once heard in a common room in the University, two 'very learned professors, the leading men of the day, contend most fiercely for and against the propriety of the line, And sell for gold, what gold could never buy. To us, we confess, who were bystanders, this battle of the bulls seemed of little use; for, if a poetical passage can evolve its own meaning, as this surely can, it is of little consequence what is the verbal construction. The words buy and sell are here used in a popular and metaphorical sense, and demand of course a proper latitude of signification. P. 143. The note on Hammond,' we are afraid, shews how little the Annotator is acquainted with the character or the writings of that illustrious man, to call him a voluminous writer, and his best known work his Paraphrase of the Old Testament!!! Is it to this that our Taylors, Barrows, Hookers, and Hammonds are coming? and is this he who, par excellence, was called-" the Divine Hammond.". We are afraid Mr. Murray's commentators are more acquainted with French Novels than English Divines. Let us, in happy contrast with this note, give our readers a taste of the style of the older biographers-" It will be below (says the writer of the Life of Hammond) the greatness of the person, as well as of his loss, to celebrate his death in womanish complaints, or indeed by any verbal application his worth is not to be described by any words besides his own; nor can any thing beseem his memory but what is sacred and eternal as these writings are. May his just fame from them and from his virtue be precious to succeeding times, grow up and flourish still; and when that character, engraved in brass, shall disappear, as if they had been writ in water; when elegies, committed to the trust of marble, shall be illegible, or whispered accents; when pyramids, dissolved in dust, shall want themselves a monument to evidence that they were once so much as ruins; let that remain a known and classic history, describing him in his full portraiture among the best of subjects, of friends, of scholars, and of men."-So much for this roluminous writer ! P. 149. "Colman never produced a luckier thing than his first Ode in imitation of Gray: a considerable part of it may be numbered among those felicities which no man has twice attained."-Colman told Dr. J. Warton" that he repented of this burlesque." Our taste differs so widely in respect to these odes, from that of Dr. Johnson, that we could never read them through. We shall close this portion of our remarks with Colman's "Sketch of Dr. Johnson in Chiaro-Oscuro," which we do not find in these Johnsoniana.* A SKETCH OF DR. JOHNSON. "Dr. Johnson is certainly a genius, but of a particular stamp. He is an excellent classical scholar;† perhaps one of the best Latinists in Europe. He has combined in himself two talents which seldom meet; he is both a good English and Latin poet. Had his inclination led him to mix with the fashionable world, where he was warmly invited, and had he been a nearer inspector of the follies and vices of high life, he would certainly have been called, by the election of the best critics, to the poetical chair, where Pope sate without a rival to his death, and then the laurel, like the kingdom of Macedonia, at the death of Alexander, was divided among many. It must be owned that Dr. Johnson's two Satires in imitation of Juvenal, are among the best titles that have been produced for the poetical inheritance. Indeed, his morals and manners are so ill suited with loose opinions and thoughtless dissipation, that it is no wonder he was soon disgusted with what he saw and heard, and which he so well painted and felt in his London. His second Satire, the tenth of Juvenal, though written with great force and energy, yet seems more the fruit of study and observation. His sagacity is wonderful, though near-sighted; he can discourse and describe with great humour the nice discriminations and almost imper. ceptible touches of the various characters of both sexes. His mind's eye' has a keenness and certainty that seldom misses the mark; and did his pen convey his discoveries in characteristic language, he would be equal to the best writers-but here he fails. In his Ramblers and Idlers, whenever he introduces characters, their actions, deportment, and thoughts have a most accurate and minute resemblance to nature, but they all talk one language, and that language is Dr. Johnson's. Words are the vehicles of our thoughts, as coaches are of our persons. § The state equipage should not be drawn forth but on solemn occasions. His peculiarity of diction has given the public a suspicion, that he could not succeed in Dramatic composition. His tragedy of Irene is a work of just and great sentiment, of poetical though not dramatic language, fine imagery, and the os magna Sonaturum; but the very soul of tragedy, pathos, is wanting, and without that, though we may admire, our hearts will sleep in our bosoms. Dr. Johnson has wit, however, and a strong imagination, which are often exerted with great effect in conversation. I will give, in few words, the best advice I can to your readers. Let them admire and study his strength of argument, richness of imagery, and variety of sentiment, without being dazzled with the splendour of his diction. Let them listen with attention and delight to his entertaining and improving conversation, without imitating his dress and manner. The simplex munditiis of Horace may perhaps, for the first time, be as properly applied to the dress of the mind as of the body; the best taste will ever be shewn where ease, elegance, and simplicity are combined. London Packet, Dec. 22, 1775. CHIARO OSCURO. We do not possess Mr. Croker's edition of Boswell, and are unable to say whether he has inserted this character in his volumes. † Johnson was not an excellent classical scholar, nor one of the best Latinists in Europe; at a time when Wyttenbach, Ruhnken, Valcknaer, Scheller, &c. were alive: nor was he a good Latin poet. He knew the grammatical structure of the Latin language with correctness; but was not acquainted with the critical niceties and elegancies of it; and thus his Latinity is not devoid of Anglicisms. In his epitaph on Thrale-literas elegantes, would be much better than literarum elegantiam.' We should rather say, that the laurel was not divided at Pope's death, but withered away, and a new shoot came up afterwards to adorn the brows of Collins, Gray, and Akenside. § Words are more than the vehicle of our thoughts-they are our thoughts themelves; but a man's carriage is not his person. |