Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/477

 Johnson's Life and Genius.

��It remains to give a review of Johnson's works ; and this, it is imagined, will not be unwelcome to the reader.

Like Milton and Addison, he seems to have been fond of his Latin poetry x. Those compositions shew that he was an early scholar ; but his verses have not the graceful ease that gave so much suavity to the poems of Addison. The translation of the Messiah labours under two disadvantages; it is first to be compared with Pope's inimitable performance 2, and afterwards with the Pollio of Virgil. It may appear trifling to remark, that he has made the letter <?, in the word Virgo, long and short in the same line ; VIRGO, VlRGO PARIT 3. But the translation has great merit, and some admirable lines 4. In the odes there

��His hair ill cut, his robe that

aukward flows, Or his large shoes, to raillery

expose The man you love ; yet is he not

possess'd Of virtues, with which very few

are blest ?

While underneath this rude un couth disguise A genius of extensive knowledge

lies.'

Francis's Horace, Book i.'Sat. 3. 1. 29. 'On the frame of Johnson's por trait, Mr. Beauclerk had inscribed,

" Ingenium ingens

Inculto latet hoc sub corpore" After Mr. Beauclerk's death, when it became Mr. Langton's property, he made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said complacently, " It was kind in you to take it off; " and then after a short pause added, " and not unkind in him to put it on." ' Life, iv. 180.

1 His versibus indicari ac velut pingi Virgilium tradit vetus inter- pres.' Delphine Horace.

1 * Milton was at this time [in his student days] eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, by annexing the dates to his first com

��positions .... seems to commend the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of posterity.' Works, vii. 67. 'Addison's Latin compo sitions seem to have had much of his fondness.' Ib. p. 421.

3 Ante, p. 362.

Pope is reported to have said : ' The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.' Hawkins,

P- 13-

3 Works, i. 155, 1. 10.

4 * This translation has been praised and magnified beyond its merits. In it are many hard and unclassical expressions, a great want of harmony, and many unequal and un-virgilian lines. I was once present at a dis pute on this subject betwixt a person of great political talents, and a scholar who had spent his life among the Greek and Roman classics. Both were intimate friends of Johnson. The former, after many objections had been made to this translation by the latter, quoted a line which he thought equal to any he ever had read :

" juncique tremit variabilis

umbra. The Scholar (Pedant if you will)

is

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